"libby" poems
Shucking peas on the back steps
Maureen and I watch her Mum,
My Aunt Grace,
Arguing with Aunt Edna
In the kitchen
The narrow kitchen
Of number 84 Truro Road
As they whip a Sunday lunch into shape
A test match drones on the radio
The aroma of mint on new spuds teases.
It’s a modest roast
Served in the tiny parlor
To nine of us!
Eating elbow to elbow
With yellow handled knives and forks
Down to the bare porcelain
Waiting for the apple pie
with Libby’s.
That crust, with sugar sprinkles
Is a lifetime goal for me!
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 5:01 PM UTC
Up from the ground did its trunk shoot,
Anchored deep by its twisted roots,
Spreading out its branches went,
Bending down with their leaf and flowered blossom scent.
Its old rugged bark clothed its wood,
There for 250 years the old tree stood,
Near the path walking way,
Where the local people would walk each day.
Down upon the old tree seen,
Against its bark the sunlight would gleam,
Except in its notches and crevice marks,
That covered portions of its bark.
How its branches in the wind did sway,
As some of its blossoms upon the breeze did sail away,
When at that moment heard the tree,
The voice of the wind softly speak.
Have you ever seen such beauty as she?
Whistled the wind to the Cherry Tree,
See the beautiful maiden below…
Wrapped in thou blossoms that you have grown?
Tell me tree… is it not so…
That thou blossom beauty comes and goes?
Yet among you is a blossom I do see,
That loses not its enchanted beauty.
The tree looked upon Libby then said to the air…
Indeed - beautiful is the maiden standing there,
Oh yes… she has bloomed into a special piece,
A truly molded masterpiece.
And it is true… her beauty stays,
Not carried off by you the wind… or damaged by the hot sun rays,
Her beauty that she does maintain,
Is neither damaged by the insects nor washed away by the rain.
How I do wish… said the cherry tree,
That this one blossom would stay with me,
Yet sadly the tree said… “I Know
Like all the other blossoms… this one too must go.”
For a gentle breeze shall come along…
And sweep her off her feet… carrying her along,
For such a beautiful blossom… with a precious heart display,
Is bound to be picked… and carried away.
For beauty such as hers… is rarely seen,
It comes but once in a lifetime… as it always seems to be,
Then the tree asked the wind… “What’s the name of the blossom that grows?
The one that we speak of… that stands below?”
Then the wind gazing down,
At the blossom standing on the ground,
Then said softly to the cherry tree…
“They call this blossom… Liberata Marinilli.”
Jun 18, 2016
Jun 18, 2016 at 9:50 AM UTC
Throughout our childhood, our grandmother would turn to us,
in her yellow-lit kitchen, brandishing a rubber spatula or meat
tenderizer to warn us against falling to temptation. She’d witnessed
too many good people disappear into what she called
a consumption of the soul,
and as my cousins licked sugary batter off their spoons,
no one could have known that one day the candy-coating
would melt from their eyes to see their mother
for what she had done the last six years that now showed in her trembling hands, glossed vision, and a temperament that splashed into anger, flowed into melancholy as easily as she had found herself downing bleary bubbles at the brim of a precipiced fountain.
She was promised her very own message in a bottle, and this keep-sake
manifested in cousin Libby’s dreams, floating down a wine river
that gushed from the slashes in her mother’s wrists. Somehow I knew
these nightmares were born from warm and heady “sleep well”s
mumbled from across the darkest of rooms which held so many glass
ghouls with names and strengths so real, they even scared
my grandmother into silence as she stirred the pecan pie for Easter dinner. She offered to let me lick the spoon clean, but I simply
asked for straight sugar instead.
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 8:40 PM UTC
Tell me,
Tell me how,
Tell me how I’m selfish,
Tell me how I’m selfish for planning my ending.
Explain to me how, though you can see the ropes tied to my limbs,
and you can feel the itch of my scream in your ears,
and ignore it,
that I am selfish.
“They took their own life”
As if it’s a surprise.
They finally retrieved the ultimate prize.
The right to their own life.
A life spent on somebody else,
as I often restrict myself,
“I can’t leave, there’s too many people relying on me.”
Explain to me how YOU are selfless,
when day after day,
at any opportunity you remind me that I made a MISTAKE.
How dare I try to abandon YOU?
Was my mistake ever trying in the first place,
or not having tried hard enough?
How is it that a right to my life that doesn't belong to me,
negates my right to a death,
the only thing, that will ever be recognised as my own.
“Here lies, Libby Preston, a girl who felt the need to take her own life.”
I apologise for my ‘wrong-doing.’
I apologise that I took control of what should have been, mine.
I apologise that you can’t think past what you feel inside your head.
I apologise that you can’t accept mine.
I apologise for the fact that the human race feels it has the
right to end the life of another living creature,
but do not have the right to do what they would like with
their own.
A death can rattle the planet.
It will cause upset, naturally.
However- emotions fade.
Reality does not.
We can dive into irrelevance,
I will decide not to live a life taped to the sole of somebody else’s shoe,
I will decide to live for me, and to die for me.
Lecture me about consideration, go on,
I dare you.
Hypocrite.
I’m ‘selfish’ for wanting a right to my life.
You’re ‘selfless’ for stopping me.
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 7:38 PM UTC
.
Oh how it is… that when I dream,
You’re captured there within,
For it is the same… of every dream,
Your looming shadow has always been.
The echo of the sweetest voice,
Rises up each time… in the dreams I knew,
Uttered out from an angelic voice… a song,
A song that comes from you.
I search each night within those dreams,
To find and capture you… and not to let you go,
Yet you slip through my fingers like lucent mist,
To be seen… but not to hold.
How dear Libby… you haunt my dreams,
And my heart you also stole,
That it would not in the slightest… be shocking to me,
If you also harboured my very soul.
How it is that you own me…. Libby my love,
That reality I wish weren’t even true,
For it is in my dreams that I am free to hold on to thee,
And have a dance with you.
And when I see you now my love,
Though as beautiful as you seem,
Reality pulls me back into life,
With only the memories of a dream.
Yet I know deep… deep down,
And right from the very start,
That reality is not so bad,
Because in reality… I own your heart.
Jul 7, 2016
Jul 7, 2016 at 8:24 PM UTC
161 to 180 of 3251 Poets
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Margaret Kaufman
Photo, Brownie Troop, St. Louis, 1949
Deborah Warren
Marginalia
Regan Huff
Occurrence on Washburn Avenue
Anne Marie Macari
From the Plane
Gerald Fleming
There are no poems by this poet on our website.
Sebastian Matthews
Barbershop Quartet, East Village Grille
Charles Harper Webb
The Animals are Leaving
Zozan Hawez
Self-Portrait
Jose Angel Araguz
Gloves
Russell Libby (1956–2012)
Applied Geometry
Robert Haight
How Is It That the Snow
Early October Snow
Dan Lechay
Ghost Villanelle
James P. Lenfestey
Daughter
Robert Hedin (b. 1949)
The Old Liberators
My Mother's Hats
John Maloney
After Work
Kaelum Poulson
The Crow
Stuart Kestenbaum
Prayer for the Dead
Emmett Tenorio Melendez
My name came from . . .
Gary Dop
Father, Child, Water
On Swearing
Berwyn Moore
Driving to Camp Lend-A-Hand
«78910»
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 9:01 PM UTC
I can say many things,
Be them false or true,
But I… would never lie,
When it is all about you.
I can say that you are beautiful,
And it would be true,
If you do not believe me…
Look into a mirror,
Its reflection is always true.
You have the sweetest brown eyes…
This you had been told,
Your parents had been so right…
When they described the windows to your soul.
I can say that you are so kind,
And this many will confess,
You love to help those who you see,
Are equal to all the rest.
You have by far the sweetest smile,
That I had ever seen,
Just you go ahead and smile in the mirror,
And you will surely know what I mean.
But out of all your beauty,
What I loved most… from the start,
Had been your souls pure image,
Found hidden within your heart.
And this may sound quirky,
Yet Libby… it is so true,
I fell in love with that image,
The image of that beautiful you.
And I will tell the world,
Many times over too,
That I had found perfection,
For I had found it hidden in you.
And if some say to me… dear Joey,
No one ls perfect… can’t you see?
I shall say they never met you my dear…
My dear Liberata Maria Marinilli.
Oh, I know there is another,
With greater beauty than thee,
But I refer to only those created,
And you’re the most beautiful… Liberata Marinilli.
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 3:28 PM UTC
I have not yet climbed to the summit,
But I know the weight of the pack
Shifting from hip to hip, focusing
On one step, then another, then
Another. Counting them off
In tens, leaning into the exhale,
And knowing my lungs
Will respond in kind.
Even if every part of my body aches
And the peak stays out of reach,
I am cognizant of the tiniest line
Of pink on the distant horizon,
And the slow, slow graduation
Of light. My chest flutters, my heart
Too big for my body now because up
Here, up here, it feels like as close
To heaven as I could be. Even now
The mountaineering atheists trail behind,
Lost in their sad short-sightedness
That this could be anything less than divine.
Oh you, daybreak on mountain peak,
How could I do anything now
Except trust the unfolding of things?
Libby Wagner
Copyright 2013. All rights reserved.
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 7:55 AM UTC
.
I write the words - across in lines,
Describing... how I feel, what I hear and what I see,
All that to... my heart does bind,
Of the sights, the colours - then sounds... and especially of thee.
The words - I scribe... in my hand...
They are... sometimes many and sometimes few,
But there is not enough - perfect words - to be written...
That can ever - truly scribe - the uniqueness of you.
When I write - I have no doubt... the ink will surely fade,
For the words - I have wrote… are sure to never stay,
Yet as I said - of all the words... that I could ever write,
The most beautiful ones - of them all… are left blank in white.
For the best words - that I share... which you my love can’t see,
Are all the words - that are found... in the space between,
Though that space - between each word... is so white and small,
It is in that space - my dear love… the words speak most of all.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I regret That I still think about you Libby Marinilli, your too beautiful and captivating to forget.
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 8:22 PM UTC
Dear world,
If you're reading this, know that I'm alive.
Life is too hard and it hurts too much.
So I accept your challenge and I will live.
And love.
And hate.
And smile.
And breathe.
My family loves me and Libby is angelic.
There's not a day goes by when I'm not
Living for them and I adore it.
So I praise chance or fate or god or whatever runs this ****
Because they gave me this chance to feel
-grace
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 5:04 AM UTC
I never saw you when you were alive
Not really alive anyways
With flushed cheeks and smiling eyes
But I think how you must've done well
As I watch your daughter stroke your hair
Like its the finest silk she'll ever know..
It seems I never got to hear your voice
Not your real voice anyways
I spoke to you like thunder
Hovered over the hospital bed
And you pattered back like an on and off rain
Uncertain of where it might land
Libby,
That's what everyone calls you
Well Libby,
I so wish we could've met under different conditions
I imagine you're wishing for much more
But this is it
Here you are
Sitting at the stoplight
And green isn't coming
I never did see fear in your eyes
But it could've been buried
As you looked to your family
And saw how fear had furrowed into them
Like watching your parents walk away
On the first pre-school drop off
(We all wanted to cling)
But it's your turn to be dropped off now
And the territory is unfamiliar
Once, you bathed and diapered children
Who now do the same for you
Just know, Libby, you are still dignified
And though we don't think this future will come until it's breathing down our neck
We wouldn't talk about this future without sarcasm
It is a future a majority of us will endure
It's funny how
We tread lightly on the word death as though it is hot coals beneath our feet
As though death could be separate from life
Or you and I could escape it
Libby, I'm sorry to tell you
There is no yin without the yang
The tables don't stop turning
Till the world does
But you live on
In the ritual pre-schooler drop off's
Of the generations you created
And even the ones who never got to see you alive
Will carry a part of your heart inside
Jul 29, 2016
Jul 29, 2016 at 7:09 PM UTC
I love you son
from the bottom of my heart
This I have done
from the very start
From the day you were born
you turned my world
upside down
A little ball of energy
always running round
Your lashes long
Your eyes so blue
Your hair golden ringlets
How could I not
love you
Sometimes you'd walk
round with a blanket
over your head
And I would read you stories
when I tucked you into bed
There were also
tantrums
and
naughtiness
that comes when you are young
And on some of these occasions
you got a smack on your
***
Then one day
we became a family of 5
Where we lived was wonderful
it made you feel alive
You kids could
swim
camp
even climb the old oak tree
Occasionally you'd fall
and get a scrape or two
on your knee
We'd spend hours walking
at The Roleypools
That's all our favourite place
It really was a wonderful sight
to see the smiles
on your face
We also did star gazing
through the binoculars
at the moon
You kids grew up so fast
the time past to soon
One day I came home
to find a young lady
sitting
on the lounge room chair
So shy and so quiet
you'd hardly know that she was there
Slowly she's opened up to us
and come out of her shell
Be coming part of our family
this she has done well
Our son at Araluen
proposed down on one knee
She graciously excepted
her face glowing with glee
Now they live in a place
of their own
walking distance from the sea
Happily just the two of them
and their pussycat
Libby
Jan 27, 2018
Jan 27, 2018 at 11:13 PM UTC
He was her only Rose,
and you might think it unkind
for Rose to have left Libby
so close to Valentine’s.
Still, Libby couldn’t hold him.
He felt that it was time,
for he knew in Libby’s cold embrace
So many men had died.
For Libby was a prison,
drafty, crowded and a hole.
A hundred Union men escaped
in a break daring and bold.
Under cover of the darkness
They broke for Union lines.
Like blacks escaping slavery
Polaris was their guide
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC
L ife
I s
B ut
B eautifully
Y ou
Life is But Beautifully You... Libby Marinilli
Jun 22, 2016
Jun 22, 2016 at 10:34 PM UTC
It was like high school
The three friends who anxiously watched
The dates as they went down
Did they like each other?
Was there any awkwardness?
How about a first kiss?
Savannah set them up
Jenna and Anna conspired
Watching the developments
As if they were voting returns
Yes, Libby and Sayan matched
Cheered on by their fans
The proposal was a topper
For he handed her a Dunkin’ Donuts bag
At the end of the New York Marathon
In which he ran (fit dude!)
And hurriedly got down on one knee
When she became suspicious
As to why Jenna was hiding in the bushes with a camera
This is is a romcom in real life
Aug 18, 2022
Aug 18, 2022 at 10:20 PM UTC
It is true one mind sees bloodsport in the heavens
and cringes in dread of feeling
kindly, like if that were me, what would I do but die?
nada, right, pass on
thank y'mam, feeling kinda woozy, ever after
seeing
2020 on TV…
Google the violence, ohshitnoknowknow we all know
enough evil to know it don't work like on TV, ever
after one burn, you know, fire works, every time,
to destroy at the touch
thunder, such a holy sound in the desert summer moment
on earth, around the middle,
not too cold in the winter
makes too hot to work in the summer, just
fine.
That's right. Life is like that, if you live in the right state of mind.
Back to the Future, once more, it is
always on or in the library,
ask libby, who in the whole world
before
my generation… we who did not get
stuck wishing we would die
before we got old…
who among us now is we the people minded?
Post war knower bubblers expand
until we pop like matured
pods of what people can be if we live this long.
Trouble your own house, inherit the wind,
as part of the meek inheritance agreement accepted
with the weather.
Earthlings all, hear ye, severe storms are part of the deal.
Free ticts to ever after on Bucky Fuller's spaceship,
Sagan's pale blue dot,
live to tell
we learned no lie may be belived and be survived.
We first saw earth from the moon.
More boomers blew minds beyond their
own imaginings, back then,
listen in radioman's
morphic broadcasts
from Khai Vinh,
the fishnet factory,
legendary - now ifier loosed for the attention paid
do you hear what I hear?
did we know the meaning in happy Sisyphus,
or did we find it known and tag along?
Like a rolling stone.
Aug 22, 2020
Aug 22, 2020 at 5:50 PM UTC
Ugh
Lol
UghGHHAHHSBSIWNEIDNWLDVWKDBQLSBSLSHSBSOSHWODJJDKENEHENDS middle finger emoji to the world
Feb 2, 2016
Feb 2, 2016 at 5:54 AM UTC
The first time I saw you ***** out the lights
You took the blood from a kitten with ten thousand bites
I was young and did not understand
I could take it, no need to hold a hand
Sadly, little did I know
That day I only saw your shadow
The second time I saw you, I was about ten
I could not prepare myself for you, not then
Walking in your house, or rather your gateway
Quiet rooms filled with bodies painted gray
There you stood just around the corner
Keeping to yourself like an exotic foreigner
But when you took Libby from me
That is when I started to see
You were in the room with us
In fact, you were the one causing all the fuss
No one was fighting, Libby was old
Still, how could you take a woman so strong, so bold?
Here is where you crossed the line
When you took Her, you filthy swine
She had her flaws that's true
But not enough to stay with you
She was my savior, my salvation
There's not much left of someone after cremation
When my time comes to meet you in the ring
Fist to face I'll make it sting
If I could do one thing for all mankind
Killing You comes to mind
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 8:21 AM UTC
My title is “POTUS” and America’s great.
My pardoning power can change people’s fate.
I commuted the sentence of a granny in jail
Who’d been locked up for years for a busted drug sale.
I Pardoned Jack Johnson long after he’d died,
for his crime of having a white girl on the side.
Dinesh D’Souza was an interesting case;
He defied crooked Hillary -who put him in his place.
His “Get out of Jail” card I granted with glee.
Perhaps his next movie will be about me.
I pardoned a sailor who’d fallen from grace;
He worked in a Sub and took films of the place.
I forgave Joe Arpaio and relieved his distress
at having a jail cell as his forward address.
It’s True Scooter Libby was technically free;
His sentence commuted by my peer “43”.
Now Scooter’s pardoned; absolved of his crime.
It was worth it to hear liberal Democrats whine.
It’s been said that with Russians I basely connived
to secure my election to become “45”.
If Mueller should dig up some dirt on my “crime”
I’ll just pardon myself and thank him for his time.
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 8:40 AM UTC
"Hey, thanks for the cat by the way. Thing doesn't want to leave now."
"The poor thing,"
"My nieces even named it."
"I'm not trying to take care of this cat right now."
"Ha, you're kidding. Well now you're stuck with it then."
"The girls gave her a bath, but she still smells."
"Man, just bring it here and let it go. There's all kinds of strays here."
"She ate a little, but she sneezes alot and won't stop shaking."
"Most of them end up finding their way to Galva."
"There's a shelter in Storm Lake, but they're closed til Monday."
"It's like a chemical smell."
**** I don't know. I went in to grab a beer and when I came out he had this cat in his jacket."
"I'm not sure if she'll make it til Monday."
"Hey I'm stuck at work til like 3. Can you go by my place and check on the cat when you get a chance?"
"They've got so many strays that they put out bowls of anti-freeze to deal with them."
"Hey, are you awake?"
"Yeap, just haven't gotten out of bed yet. What's up kid?"
"Your cat. We gave her a bath."
"Aw, that was a nice thing to do Lib. She needed one. Thank you."
"Also, we gave her a name."
"Oh yea? What is it then?"
"Disney."
". . . you're kidding."
"Yea I was researching it earlier. It's a pretty common thing really. An awful way to go."
"I thought about just driving somewhere out of town and letting it go there."
"Well, would you bury it?"
"You know, pulling 'a Dad,' but I just couldn't do it."
"The poor thing."
"What? No way. I'd probably just, I don't know, put it in the trash or something."
"Well, it's a good thing you didn't. At least she's comfortable and not just out there in the cold, dying."
"I guess I'm not cold-hearted enough, or whatever."
"They know she's sick but I think only Libby really understands how bad it is."
"It's a good thing that you're not. Believe me, it's a good thing."
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 12:19 AM UTC