One of the best parts of being a PCV is the sharing of ideas/culture not only with people in your host country, but especially with other volunteers. An AZ8 PCT put me on to this poem and I liked it so I'm sharing it with you! Below it I have also put two of my favorite poems. (If you're reading this and want to share a poem you like, put it in the comments because I'd like to read it!)
Song of the Open Road
by Walt Whitman
1
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
*To read the rest of this poem click here.
This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
La Bodega Sold Dreams
by Miguel Piñero
dreamt i was a poet
&
writin' silver sailin' songs
words
strong & powerful crashing' thru
walls of steel & concrete
erected in minds weak
&
those asleep
replacin' a hobby of paper candy
wrappin', collectin'
potent to pregnate sterile young
thoughts
i dreamt i was this poeta
words glitterin' brite & bold
strikin' a new rush for gold
in las bodegas
where our poets' words & songs
are sung
but
sunlite stealin' thru venetian
blinds
eyes hatin', workin' of time
clock
sweatin'
&
swearin'
&
slavin'
for the final dime
runnin' a maze
a token ride
perspiration insultin' poets
pride
words stoppin' on red
goin' on green
poets' dreams
endin' in a factoria as one
in a million
unseen
buyin' bodega sold dreams...
I love all of those poems! Specially the William Carlos Williams. Here is one of my favs...
ReplyDeleteA Young Woman, A Tree
Passing that fiery tree—if only she could
Be making love,
Be making poetry,
Be exploding, be speeding through the universe
Like a photon, like a shower
Of yellow blazes—
She believes if she could only overtake
The riding rhythm of things,
Of her own electrons,
Then she would be at rest
If she could forget school,
Climb the tree,
Be the tree,
Burn like that.
She doesn’t know yet, how could she
That this same need
Is going to erupt every September
And that in 40 years the idea will strike her
From no apparent source,
In a Laundromat
Between a washer and a dryer,
Like one of those electric light bulbs
Lighting up near a character’s head in a comic strip—
There in that naked and soiled place
With its detergent machines,
Its speckled fluorescent lights,
Its lint piles broomed into corners as she fumbles for quarters
And dimes, she will start to chuckle and double over
Into the plastic baskets’
Mountain of wet
Bedsheets and bulky overalls—
Old lady! She’ll grin,
beguiled at herself,
Old lady! The desire to burn is already a burning! How about that!
Alicia Ostriker
I really like that one, thanks for sharing homie!
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