No Doctor’s Today, Thank You
well, today I feel euphorian,
Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetitite of a
Victorian.
Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes,
Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle
any swashes?
This is my euphorian day,
I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away.
I will tame me a caribou
And bedeck it with marabou.
I will pen me my memoirs.
Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was!
I wasn’t much of a hand for the boudoirs,
I was generally to be found where the food was.
Does anybody want any flotsam?
I’ve gotsam.
Does anybody want any jetsam?
I can getsam.
I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer,
I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer.
I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because
I am wearing moccasins,
And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins.
Kind people, don’t think me purse-proud, don’t set me down as
vainglorious,
I’m just a little euphorious.

=Ogden Nash

I saw John Lithgow recite this poem just a lil while ago on Channel 13 (PBS). On Bill Moyers Journal.

it made me laugh out loud!

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Recuerdo

WE WERE very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hilltop underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry,
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry,
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

- Edna St.Vincent Millay

Edna St.Vincent Millay

[1922]

First Fig

MY CANDLE burns at both ends;
    It will not last the night; 
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
    It gives a lovely light!

New Every Morning

Every day is a fresh beginning,

Listen my soul to the glad refrain.

And, spite of old sorrows

And older sinning,

Troubles forecasted

And possible pain,

Take heart with the day and begin again.

—Susan Coolidge

No One To Blame

The sun goes down, its crimson rays
Light up the dying day;
A startled glance I throw behind
And count my triumph shame;
No one but me to blame.

Each day my life I make or mar,
Each deed begets its kind,
Good good, bad bad, the tide once set
No one can stop or stem;
No one but me to blame.

I am my own embodied past;
Therein the plan was made;
The will, the thought, to that conform,
To that the outer frame;
No one but me to blame.

Love comes reflected back as love,
Hate breeds more fierce hate,
They mete their measures, lay on me
Through life and death their claim;
No one but me to blame.

I cast off fear and vain remorse,
I feel my Karma’s sway
I face the ghosts my deeds have raised—
Joy, sorrow, censure, fame;
No one but me to blame.

Good, bad, love, hate, and pleasure, pain
Forever linked go,
I dream of pleasure without pain,
It never, never came;
No one but me to blame.

I give up hate, I give up love,
My thirst for life is gone;
Eternal death is what I want,
Nirvanam goes life’s flame;
No one is left to blame.

One only man, one only God, one ever perfect soul,
One only sage who ever scorned the dark and dubious ways,
One only man who dared think and dared show the goal—
That death is curse, and so is life, and best when stops to be.

Om Nama Bhagavate Sambuddhaya
Om, I salute the Lord, the awakened.
—Written by Swami Vivekananda from New York, 16th May, 1895.

I Am in Need of Music

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Elizabeth Bishop

I got da disco blues
put on yore disco shoes.

I got da disco bluez
put on yer “Dis Go Shoes.”

I want to have some fun
now GO and have some fun!

I wanna hab some fun
who wanna hav sum fun?

I wanna gab and sun
I wanna grab some one
I wanna gab and sun
I wanna grab some one.

Get on your hot pink dress
Get on your cold white dress
Get on your black vel- VET!
Get on your bess- best yet!

I got dose New York Blues,
I got dose Shanghai Blues,
I got those Paris Blues,
I got da Yaffa Blues.

Moscow ya come on in-
Berlin ya come on in-
Peking ya come on in-
London ya come on in!

We got dose disco blues,
We got da Frisco News,
We got da this go whose?
We hot fah holy rose.

We got dem New Yohk bluez,
We got dem Boston bluez,
We got dem Ellay Bluez,
We got dem Dallas Bluez!

Sidney, Sidney step on da floor!
Hobart, Hobart step on da floor!
Melbourne, Melboutne step on da floor!
Outback Bush babez step on da floor!

Papua ladies come play with me
Timor ladies come play with me
Tokyo ladies come play with me
Bethel ladies come play with me!

Ya gotta keep ya body hot off da floor!
Ya gotta sweep dat hottie spot on da floor!
Ya gotta speed dat Audi back to Lahore!
Ya wanna hear dem hottiez bop off some more!

Bali ladies come to club
Bangkok ladies come to club
Homg Kong ladies come to club
Shanghai ladies come to the club!

(Note: am working on music to go with this song poem).

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

by Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

A Little Tooth
by Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It’s all

over: she’ll learn some words, she’ll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It’s dusk. Your daughter’s tall.