'If', by Rudyard Kipling. If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Allen Ginsberg reads "Howl," (Big Table Chicago Reading, 1959) Whitman's "Song of Myself" I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy. Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes, I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it, The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? Urge and urge and urge, Always the procreant urge of the world. A child said What is the grass? One star in sight. Thy feet in mire, thine head in murk, O man, how piteous thy plight,The doubts that daunt, the ills that irk, Thou hast nor wit nor will to fight —How hope in heart, or worth in work?
No star in sight! Thy Gods proved puppets of the priest. "Truth? All's relation! " science sighed.In bondage with thy brother beast, Love tortured thee, as Love's hope diedAnd Love's faith rotted. Thy cringing carrion cowered and crawled To find itself a chance-cast clodWhose Pain was purposeless; appalled That aimless accident thus trodIts agony, that void skies sprawled On the vain sod! All souls eternally exist, Each individual, ultimatePerfect — each makes itself a mist Of mind and flesh to celebrateWith some twin mask their tender trystInsatiate. Works. Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. Casey at the Bat. Rough men - a poem.
May The Road Rise To Meet You by David Harris. Very Bad Poetry - Poems. Zen Poems and Koans. The Sea by James Reeves - Pale Moon.