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Dani Oct 2018
"A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!APsalmof_Life

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;—

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
This spoke to me so much so, that I had to bring it here for others.
Kelly Rose Jan 2015
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time; -

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.


My favorite poem
1/1/2015
Marian Mar 2013
At the door on summer evenings
Sat the little Hiawatha;
Heard the whispering pine-trees,
Heard the lapping of the water,
Sounds of music, words of wonder;
"Minne-wawa!" said the pine-trees,
"Mudway-aushka!" said the water.
Saw the fire fly, Wah-wah-taysee,
Flitting through the dusk of evening,
With the twinkle of its candle
Lighting up the brakes and bushes,
And he sang the song of children,
Sang the song Nokomis taught him:
"Wah-wah-taysee, little firefly,
Little, flitting, white-fire insect,
Little, dancing, white-fire creature,
Light me with your little candle,
Ere upon my bed I lay me,
Ere in sleep I close my eyelids!"

*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
onlylovepoetry Aug 2016
The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
       Lie on the landscape green,
       With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
       Had dropt her silver bow
       Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
       When, sleeping in the grove,
       He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian’s kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
       Her voice, nor sound betrays
       Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,—the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—
       In silence and alone
       To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep,
Are Life’s oblivion, the soul’s sleep,
       And kisses the closed eyes
       Of him, who slumbering lies.

O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes!
O, drooping souls, whose destinies
       Are fraught with fear and pain,
       Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
       But some heart, though unknown,
       Responds unto his own.

Responds,—as if with unseen wings,
A breath from heaven had touched its strings
       And whispers, in its song,
      “Where hast though stayed so long!”
nobody does it better...
Don Bouchard Oct 2020
“Haunted Houses” (1858)
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table, than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,–

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
In honor of this "spooky" season, I bring before you one of Longfellow's excellent poems. I am now thinking of writing my own "ghosts" poem about our family home in Montana. Whenever I go there, I can hear and see my long gone family members. Each place on the old farmstead carries memories. Perhaps you, too, have such recollections that haunt you in sweet or for bitter memory.
I’m reading a book of poetry
it's nine hundred pages long,
penned by a man of many dreams
whose words are historical songs.

I remember reading those words
when we studied him back in school,
the class was "American Lit"
masters of the "poets pool".

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
whose work has endured the years,
ole "Wordy Wadsworth” he was named
by the men who were his peers.

His writings contain many musings
spanning the centuries of time,
my favorite story of all
a narrative poem, "Evangeline".

This particular poem, a masterpiece
blending talent, knowledge, and heart,
containing pathos, love, and history
t’was recounting the “Cajun” start.

Numerous stories he's told
using plenty more words, or few,
tales wringing either hard, or soft
embellished with wondrous hues.

Spellbound, in awe of his words
I'm carried away on the wings,
of thoughts, dreams and fantasies
to where his poetic muse springs.
~
This was written one night after one of my many time of reading "Evangeline".
it’s such a beautiful story and touches my heart so deep, I have never been
able to get through it without crying my eyes out.
SøułSurvivør Aug 2017
"Though the mills
Of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience
He stands waiting,
With exactness grinds He all."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Mill

The grueling weight
of happenstance,
A millstone for to grind,
It deflates the ego
And shows us
Where we're blind,
It renders flesh a ruin
Obliterates the mind,
We leave our idols desolate
Leave the ties that bind.

Under painful hardship
We release the very things
Which put us in the circumstance
And caused the suffering
We leave behind our craving
For wealth and diamond rings
Everything exalted
All exalted above God...

That means
EVERYTHING

Whatever you adore
On this temporal earth
Whatever gives you pleasure
In which you find worth

These very things will shackle you!
You'll find out they're not free.
They are just the Golden Calf
Of base idolatry.

But the millstone slowly purges
Turning hour by hour
Turning the wheat kernels
Into useful flour.

And so I am refined
As I surely must
Put to naught my flesh
Make powder all my lusts
For I am as ashes

for I am as dust.*


SS  (C) 8/23/2017
I have troubles right now. God is putting me through the mill. I'm now almost completely bedridden. My father is in great pain and suffering. My mom is extremely upset due to all this. The entire family is in turmoil. We are ALL affected.

I'm not saying my problems are any worse than yours. We each have a cross to bear. It's simply how we HANDLE IT that matters! Are we going to get bitter? Or BETTER?!!!

I've been feeling very sorry for myself. And, due to my reaction to the stress, I hurt a friend. I can't tell you how badly this shook me! I (self-righteously) thought I was far beyond this sort of behavior! But the pressure grinds & shows us our idols & faults. I've decided to let go of a LOT of besetting iniquity. And it's HARD.

I haven't been on site much. I just want to pray and read my Bible. Study. This will help me heal. Please forgive my absence. I appreciate your support and understanding. I include all of you in my prayers...


♡ Catherine
ConnectHook Sep 2015
On the box of Midwest Butter,
in the verdant dairy pastures,
sat the smiling Indian maiden,
daughter of her tribe, the maiden.
Holding forth a golden offering;
from the box her yellow treasure
for the yet unbuttered buyer.
Gently her sweet knees protruded
from her humble beaded buckskin,
from her beaded buckskin garment
each supported by a letter;
full twin globes upon an altar.
As mammalians, when they’re nursing
seek the rounded gifts of nature
while their hands, abreast and lifted
grasping, find the source of plenty,
swallow fast that milky manna
swallow down that flowing liquid
with a smile upon their features,
so my soul rejoiced to meet her
in the grasslands of a daydream
in the pastures of my daydream,
holding forth divine recurrence:
gift within a gift forever
churning, and imploding inwards
infinite, receding backwards
into endless Indian maidens
spreading myth upon my table
on my toast upon my table
till her tribe returns in glory…

*(etc, etc...  with apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
buy some butter - QUICK !

https://connecthook.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/land-o-lakes/

Iraira Cedillo Mar 2014
121 to 140 of 3251 Poets
«5678»Viewsshow detailshide detailsSort by  
Michael Fried

There are no poems by this poet on our website.
Julia de Burgos

There are no poems by this poet on our website.
Keith Waldrop (b. 1932)

Shipwreck in Haven, Part Four
“Majesty”
Susan Hahn

Anthem
Alice Lyons

Developers
The Boom and After the Boom
Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
Kazim Ali (b. 1971)

Ramadan
Speech
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

Aftermath
Hymn to the Night
Sharon Olds (b. 1942)

I Could Not Tell
Chamber Thicket
Billy Collins (b. 1941)

Silence
Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire the Length and Clarity of Their Titles
Corina Copp

There are no poems by this poet on our website.
Dorothea Grossman (1937–2012)

I have to tell you
For Allen Ginsberg
Bridget Lowe

There are no poems by this poet on our website.
Diane Burns

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Beth Brant

There are no poems by this poet on our website.
Terrance Hayes (b. 1971)

Stick Elegy
Cocktails with Orpheus
Ann Taylor (1782–1866)

The Baby's Dance
The Cut
Chrystos

There are no poems by this poet on our website.
Amit Majmudar (b. 1979)

The Miscarriage
Instructions to an Artisan
Linda Rodriguez

There are no poems by this poet on our website.
«5678»
Hilda Dec 2012
What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
   And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
   Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
   Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
   And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
   In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
   Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
   Learn to labor and to wait.

*~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807—1882~
December 20, 2012
SøułSurvivør Nov 2015
though the mills of God grind slowly
yet they grind exceeding small
though with patience
he stands waiting
with exactness grinds he all.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


for the wicked there's comeuppance
yes, for plagiarist and troll
it may not be in present tense
but evil has its toll

for the greedy human tyrant
for the fat politico
the rich are as a vagrant
trudging through the snow

******, Pol ***, Stalin
Napoleon's Waterloo
in disgrace and fallen
into hell's external stew

the world is a millstone
it grinds fine, or so it's said
born here crying and alone
finally we're dead

don't envy the deceiver
or those who perpetrate
they'll be the receiver
meet poetic Fate

God has a sense of humor
those who blot society
may end up with a tumor
in the end will not be free

those who think they're "first"?
pity the poor fools
they're actually cursed
to be the *devil's
tools

there's no skating through this life
they will all be doomed
the scepter is a poison knife
the coffer is a TOMB.


SoulSurvivor
(C) 11/23/2015
"Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord.
I will repay."

---
onlylovepoetry Aug 2016
"Love...
It comes,—the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—
       In silence and alone
       To seek the elected one."* Wadsworth Longfellow

<>

forgive me, Henry,
for tampering with thy perfect,
these words provoke
a restless, hard earned, smouldering and enflaming,
imperfected, unasked, unsought,
yearning

to explain, share, complete, abbreviate, lengthen and explicate,
my version, my coloration,
my coronation,*
from the end of ceaseless, repetitive waves of wanting
completion

forty years in the desert,
four hundred year in ******* in Egyptian exile,
boul
der chained, uphill climber,
amazes me even now, how
did I desire to breathe,
arose to contemplate, perplexed,
why was I placed on this star,
skin branded dissatisfied, a human being,
unratified, unconstituted

just another love song, just another poem,
certainly no better, and surely worse,
than the  thousands of thousands that preceded,
and the thousand more that will come by
nightfall

surrender - I cannot surpass
what lies below

acknowledge respectfully,
the luckless, the loveless

despair can dissipate, as hard to believe,
as hard as the unendurable, I counsel not
hard patience,
instead,

awake forever impatient, irresolutely
hardy and ravenous,
for what will come your way,
when I cannot say,
but this I know,
you are an elected, selected one, and

It comes,—the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—
       In silence and alone
       To seek the elected one


8:21am Aug. 27, 2016

<>
Endymion (by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
       Lie on the landscape green,
       With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
       Had dropt her silver bow
       Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
       When, sleeping in the grove,
       He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian’s kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
       Her voice, nor sound betrays
       Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,—the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—
       In silence and alone
       To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep,
Are Life’s oblivion, the soul’s sleep,
       And kisses the closed eyes
       Of him, who slumbering lies.

O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes!
O, drooping souls, whose destinies
       Are fraught with fear and pain,
       Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
       But some heart, though unknown,
       Responds unto his own.

Responds,—as if with unseen wings,
A breath from heaven had touched its strings
       And whispers, in its song,
      “Where hast though stayed so long!”
Paula Swanson Oct 2010
Tonight is for reflection.
Not the kind found in a mirror.  
Which of course I have none.  Mores the pity.  I would love to see how splendid I look in my new shirt with French lace and ruffles.  Under my sapphire blue waist coat and buckskin riding breeches.  All I can clearly see full of, would be my boots.  The softest leather and a shine to see ones reflection in.  Sigh, But not mine.

Where was I.. Ah yes,  I was waxing philosophical.
One can never be too busy to better ones self.  Thus
my new clothes.

Let's see...reflection.  

While looking back upon my long lived life as the Prince Of Darkness.  I realize, I have been selfish.  Not
once have I invited others to my humble home.  Not once have I hosted a party.  Not once have I allowed others to witness my grandeur.  

Tonight, I vow to remedy that.  I will have a party.  One to outdo all the others which I have had the privilege to crash.  

Hmm.  Perhaps I should start a bit smaller.
A dinner party!
For the intimates of intimates.

Let me see.  Who to invite?

Reginald Wadsworth!  He's a jolly chap.  No.  He was a late night snack a few days ago.

Hortense Mayweather!  She is always in good humor and a fair conversationalist.  No.  She had the misfortune of crossing my path last month while I was woozy from battle blood loss.  A fight with a tresspasser left me a bit worse for wear.  But Hortence fixed me right up.

I've got it!  General Clayston!  He makes for such a fun curmudgeon.  Oh,  He died of old age.

Hmm........

Oh look!  The Carlstayton's are hosting a party tonight.

Looks like I will be dining out.

~Lord Kellington
WendyStarry Eyes Mar 2018
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!--
For the soul is dead that slumber,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not it's goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returned,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than two-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust in no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury it's dead!
Act,-act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up an doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Read this when I was young but reading it now takes on much more sincere meaning!!!
SøułSurvivør Mar 2022
"Though the mills
Of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience
He stands waiting,
With exactness grinds He all."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Mill

The grueling weight
of happenstance,
A millstone for to grind,
It deflates the ego
And shows us
Where we're blind,
It renders flesh a ruin
Obliterates the mind,
We leave our idols desolate
Leave the ties that bind.

Under painful hardship
We release the very things
Which put us in the circumstance
And caused the suffering
We leave behind our craving
For wealth and diamond rings
Everything exalted
All exalted above God...

That means EVERYTHING

Whatever you adore
On this temporal earth
Whatever gives you pleasure
In which you find worth

These very things will shackle you!
You'll find out they're not free.
They are just the Golden Calf
Of base idolatry.

But the millstone slowly purges
Turning hour by hour
Turning the wheat kernels
Into useful flour.

And so I am refined
As I surely must
Put to naught my flesh
Make powder all my lusts
For I am as ashes

for I am as dust.


Write of Passage aka
SoulSurvivor
8/23/2017
Dr Sam Burton Oct 2014
Sam
I am what I am
So please accept me ma'am
Remember! My name is Sam
Who likes jam
And who drove a Dodge Ram
On a dam
When there was no traffic jam

Today is Tuesday, Oct. 7, the 280th day of 2014 with 85 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.


A thought for the day:


“Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.”

Lao Tzu



Quotes for the day:



“Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.”

Alan Watts



"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."

Michael Jordan



"Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."

Ralph Waldo Emerson





Poetry


Excelsior



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said:
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!

"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!


Health and Beauty Tip


Choosing Eyeliner



Make sure the color of your eyeliner complements your eyes. Dark brown eyes benefit from plum shades. If you have lighter eyes, try navy and charcoal. Brown eyeliner works well no matter what color your eyes are!


JOKES


Taxidermist



This guy walks into a bar down in Alabama and orderes a mudslide. The bartender looks at the man and says "You're not from round here are ya?"

"No" replied the man, "I'm from Pensylvania." The bartender looks at him and syas "Well what do you do in Pensylvania?"

"I'm a taxidermist." said the man. The bartender, looking very bewildered, now asked "What in the world is a tax-e-derm-ist?" The man looked at the bar tender and said "Well, I mount dead animals."

The bartender stands back and hollers to the whole bar which is staring at him "It's okay, boys! He's one of us!"



No Ears



There was this man who was in a horrible accident, and was injured. But the only permanent damage he suffered was the amputation of both of his ears. As a result of this "unusual" handicap, he was very self-conscious about his having no ears.

Because of the accident, he received a large sum of money from the insurance company. It was always his dream to own his own business, so he decided with all this money he had, he now had the means to own a business. So he went out and purchased a small, but expanding computer firm. But he realized that he had no business knowledge at all, so he decided that he would have to hire someone to run the business.

He picked out three top candidates, and interviewed each of them.

The first interview went really well. He really liked this guy. His last question for this first candidate was "Do you notice anything unusual about me?" The guy said, "Now that you mention it, you have no ears." The man got really ups! et and threw the guy out.

The second interview went even better than the first. This candidate was much better than the first. Again, to conclude the interview, the man asked the same question again, "Do you notice anything unusual about me?"

The guy also noticed, "Yes, you have no ears." The man was really upset again, and threw this second candidate out.

Then he had the third interview. The third candidate was even better than the second, the best out of all of them. Almost certain that he wanted to hire this guy, the man once again asked, "Do you notice anything unusual about me?"

The guy replied "Yeah, I bet you are wearing contact lenses."

Surprised, the man then asked, "Wow! That's quite perceptive of you! How could you tell?"

The guy burst out laughing and said you can't wear glasses if you don't have any ears!



The birds and the bees


A father asked his son, Little Johnny, if he knew about the birds and the bees.

"I don't want to know!" Little Johnny said, bursting into tears.

Confused, his father asked Little Johnny what was wrong.

"Oh Pop," Johnny sobbed, "For me there was no Santa Claus at age six, no Easter Bunny at seven, and no Tooth Fairy at eight. And if you're telling me now that grownups don't really have ***, I've got nothing left to believe in!"


HAVE A VERY NICE TUESDAY!
SJ Stine Sep 2010
Let's pack up your old car and head out east,
To a coast where no one knows our names.
You'll wear those dark shades and I'll dye my hair brown.
We can start over, change our names.
I've always liked Camille.
You say it's forced and contrive, but you like it for me anyway.
You'll choose Wadsworth or Earnst, just to be witty.
We can shop for our new personas at thrift stores in the towns we pass through.
We will look ragged and worn, just like the cover of your favorite book.
You always find the beauty in the rough edges, you tell me I look the most beautiful when I first wake up, or just get out of the shower.
You are a true romantic. You don't belong in this dust filled state. You be long somewhere better.
Let's pack up your old car and head out east, where you can truly be free.
“This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe….?”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline


Among
the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

We stay in a log cabin built by men displaced by the Great Depression;
Who would have said that it was not great at all.
Losing their pride, then earning it back again.

Here we stay,
Provided a place by those men of the New Deal
Those builders who poured out their labor, their time,
Their thoughts, their words among themselves;

And they, I think, must stay here, too.
Allen Wilbert Sep 2013
Famous Poets

I may not be William Blake,
all my poems are mostly fake.
I may not be Robert Burns,
I'm to young to get any positive returns.
I may not be Robert Browning,
but really is anyone counting.
I may not be Emily Dickinson,
I write for shock and for fun.
I may not be Robert Frost,
but I do have my fingers crossed.
I may not be Thomas Hardy,
my mental state is never sturdy.
I may not be James Joyce,
but really did I ever have a choice.
I may not be Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
wish I had the money to live at a bordello.
I may not be Ogden Nash,
I never have had enough cash.
I may not be Edgar Allan Poe,
but I'm a poet don't you know.
I may not be Mary Darby Robinson,
but at least I'm not a congressman.
I may not be William Shakespeare,
I love to write with not one fear.
I may not be Mark Twain,
but I do love standing in the rain,
I may not be Walt Whitman,
but at least I'm not a ship man.
I may not be William Butler Yeats,
my skills are still up for debates.
All their poems would set you free,
but now their dead, so its up to me.
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2021
“Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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how we age is both simultaneously
conscious and unconscious,
uncontrolled and uncomfortable


we never fail to recognize the mirror image, yet,
always thinking out loud in our brain that’s not me!


some remember their successes; others, do not,
perhaps they cannot recall the few, or more likely
acknowledge them as triumphs, as the scale is a
canon always in flux by time grinding us fine


we readily admit, or do not deny, the lines upon our bodies
are highway markers of journeys, yet we know not
who built these signposts, how they came to be here,
but that they ours, unique and accumulated, undeniable


Longfellow’s observation above hits me
with the  fullness of a wet washcloth;
intemperate and stinging,
but not unpleasantly so.

each of our beginnings are artful;
full of promise and worthy tales;
we think this. is normative,
the way a young life is proscribed,
meant to be enjoyed.

of course, this is not necessarily so;
indeed, the exiting is a violent decay,
unrelenting and foisted upon us and
we try, to amend it, our transient departure,
so that we remove the artifice, keep only the art,
the skilled communication of what we valued,
the things that are progeny, living or material,
those clues to whom we are, to whom it may concern, 
we were


Dec. 25, 2021
Richard Riddle Jun 2015
It took Henry Wadsworth Longfellow nearly five years to complete his famous work, " Song of Hiawatha." That's a lot of wadded up parchment paper!

riddle: June 15, 2015
wehttam Jun 2014
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Have you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air, --
Have you read it, -- the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?
How, *****, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,
With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?
The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire
With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.
But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,
With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless
To sounds that ascend from below; --
From the spirits on earth that adore,
From the souls that entreat and implore
In the fervour and passion of prayer;
From the hearts that are broken with losses,
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear.
And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.
It is but a legend, I know, --
A fable, a phantom, a show,
Of the ancient Rabbinical lore,
Yet the old mediæval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,
But haunts me and holds me the more.
When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.
And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.
Richard Grahn Apr 2017
“Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Light shimmers briefly across the stage.
I catch a glimpse of the shadows it makes.
Is there not something more to see?
I wonder just now why it happens to be that
I can’t see the stars
but I know that they’re there.
Tonight in the moonlight
they’re lost to the night.
Under the glow,
I kiss them goodbye
And walk down the path
that this warm light defines.
Dark n Beautiful Jan 2018
I leant upon the cold iron prop
On the subway flat form: suddenly,
my thought turn to this movie from the 80s
About a little boy name Alfie
Whose tongue got caught on the frozen lamp pole
During a daring rush trend:
Winter months can be so brutal

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not;
and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Winter Depression, / a seasonal S.A.D
In the mist of all this: I saw a small bird
Rumbling through the garbage looking for food
His dotted feathers caught my attention
Perhaps not all birds fly south for the winter after all:
Homeless birds seek shelter with homeless humans
Without the small outdoor wood fires:

The beautiful landscape we once admired is blanket with snow
The roar of the winds and the surging of water;
It wasn’t a pretty sight to see with my watery eyes

We cried out to our God for a little relief
But most of all we keep praying for safety
I fell on my **** trying to step over a bank of snow
Luckily I didn’t land on my face
The humiliation and the botherations of dealing,
this kind of weather year after year:

we just have to bear in mind that
Winter begins on the winter solstice and ends on the spring equinox.
The roses will bloom again, the tulips with rise again in April
And we will determine which one is the morning dew
And which one is not the icicle dripping:

......................................................­...................................
Prayer for autumn and winter days
I’ve just rediscovered this beautiful prayer from belief.net. I know it’s now winter and the title is Prayer For Autumn Days, AND I’m not crazier than usual, it is still appropria…
sparklesandangels.wordpress.com
these same grey shorts and black shirts
sit alone, undisturbed in empty vessels
with 4 to 6 books a week by great
writers, novelists and poets such as:
Carruth, Cummings, Chinaski,
Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac,
Hemingway, Thompson, Chopra,
Vonnegut, Eliot, Dostoyevsky,
Rinaldi, Nugent, Wadsworth,
Burns, Watts, Fitzgerald
Li Po, Chi, Ch'ien, etc, etc, etc.
sought for a muse and inspiration
from these omnipotent word wranglers
that fuse juicy sentence structures
so delicately, melting your soul into
ice cream soup....but other than favoring
the use of a word, I fail to find a spark
of ingenuity, only left with the greatest
power tool and the deadliest weapon to
compile my own creativity.
if I was a rugged mountaineer,
I would not need to trek to the Himalayas
or the Alps to find a mountain.
there's a plethora of peaks in my
own backyard.
if I was a cave dweller,
there's no need to go gallivanting through
the Hang So'n Do'ong to find a cave.
there's plenty of spelunking in my own
quarters from the highest ceiling down
to the lowest part of the basement.
if I was a surfer,
I don't need to travel to the
ebb of the tides.
my cranium already rides
the 100ft waves
in oceans of intoxicants.
sitting across tables from half the faltering drunks in the tri-country area, smothering
the room with incoherence feeds my
apparition. How dare their pugnacious
behavior that peeks from behind their
over-served soft shells take another
bite of the apple from the bottle of
whiskey when they can't even handle
what's already been dealt.
standing there, in front of a mirror, staring
at my misproportioned physiognomy,
looking ancient but feeling younger and
more energetic than my own kids.
contemplating my existence,
at the age of 33,
I've already felt like I've been through
so much when
I haven't even gotten started.
welcoming my untimely death to arrive,
with only one fear....
that I've only left an
innumerable amount
of monotonous
words behind me.
Trevon Haywood Oct 2016
Out of the ***** of the Air,
      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
      Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
            Silent, and soft, and slow
            Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
      Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
      In the white countenance confession,
            The troubled sky reveals
            The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
      Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
      Long in its cloudy ***** hoarded,
            Now whispered and revealed
            To wood and field.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 10/28/2016.
CharlesC Oct 2017
Relegated as a minor poet
Longfellow's Psalm
returns as memory
from a long-ago classroom..
Is it time to look again..?
Two verses may suffice..

In our real experience
dreams and waking
share one reality:
each are manifestations
of the finite mind
which rises within our Self
(and in astonishment
for the material-minded)
are made of our Self..

Indeed..this experience
awakens us from slumber
and at last we discover
things are not what they seem..
Our Self
not the confined self
(which our culture assigns)
is our true identity..
The Self..well..of course
is not made of dust
is not destined
for the grave...!


Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
   And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
   Was not spoken of the soul.*

For the complete poem, A Psalm of Live,
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, use
this link:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44644/a-psalm-of-life
You spend half a lifetime trying to get away
And all the time have gathered cherished
Memories hardly realizing what will be no
More-Then you fly away -burst forth on the
Journey hardly contemplating any loss. But
There comes a time you know it was your
Home- loveliest of memories and you can
Not go there again only when we visit in
Our dreams; a place most like heaven as a
Remembered sketches of a beach long ago

Long long are the memories  of our youth


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poem "My Lost Youth"
Addends, minuend, subtrahends... all Greek
to poor student long haired pencil necked freak.

****** (internal) revenue stream
plus plugged egress
equals flood of woe
torturous suffocation
of biosphere quite slow
particularly concerning one
Norwegian bachelor farmer from Oslo
amidst the bajillions of people,
one common Joe
(cur) just biden his time

pleading to acquire
much needed dough,
attorney General assistant Lynne Costello
sought out to help yours truly
(to no avail)
hoof hound himself cloven
and rent asunder courtesy
ofttimes mentioned cyber outlaws
preying upon (long in the tooth) fellow
suddenly his entire body electric
being deceived synonymous

with the plot of Iago
in my version starring
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
as none other than Othello
punch drunk as Judy
falling down laughing,
roistering, yammering hysterically
and rolling with a ****** Rockafellow,
whose role as a convincing fall guy
convincingly contradicted himself
as an above board underfellow.

Yours truly voluntarily recruited himself,
cuz he haint been rather astute
therefore welcomes
a swift kick in the derrière
courtesy squared off steel tipped boot
knocking the living daylights
predicated on lovely bonehead moment
linkedin to poppycock that did compute
as sense and sensibility
even suspicious to a deaf-mute
leary toward one extortionist

pièce de résistance, he did execute
and pulled wool over my eyes
analogous to snake charmer
playing magic (Johnson) flute
transfixing yours truly
a dunderhead lunkhead punked galoot
who in hindset could not add up
fishy (worm I going)
oh yeah... virtually nabbed
courtesy cyber bandits,
who gane nary a hoot

prying skewed logistics I impute
to wanna hang myself
courtesy suitable length of jute
tied with Gordian knute
gofundme page welcomes pledging loot
to help me (if you can)
with desired great expectation moot,
hence these lovely bones
when cremated will be transformed
into fine powder
more inert than a newt.
Qualyxian Quest Dec 2022
A little sun this afternoon
Soon to my dad's
Cycling the Baltic Sea
Best time I ever had

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Knows when the Day is Done
Fold my tents like the Arabs
See my second son

Fold my tents like the Arabs
Silent slip away
Meet her in Istanbul
Show her how I play

Meet her in Istanbul
Fly to the Carolina Inn
We talk and talk and talk and talk
Let the Wild Rumpus begin!

— The End —