We've replaced grassland with parking lots ( Read more... )

yesterday was the birthday of the man who said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." His name was George Santayana. He also said "There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin are more interesting than the text. The world is one of these books." And that reminded me of a ( Read more... )

for the beginning ( Read more... )

listen to these read by billy collins http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2006/12/16/ , segment 1

Tension

“Never use the word suddenly just to
create tension.”

-Writing Fiction

Suddenly, you were planting some yellow ( Read more... )

it is difficult to compose poetry in the shower ( Read more... )

87

o by the by
has anybody seen
little you-i
who stood on a green
hill and threw
his wish at blue

with a swoop and a dar
out flew his wish
(it dived like a fish
but it climbed like a dream)
throbbing like a heart
singing like a flame

blue took it my
far beyond far
and high beyond high
bluer took it your
but bluest took it our
away beyond ( Read more... )

"Hard Rain" by Tony Hoagland

After I heard It's a Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there's nothing
we can't pluck the stinger from,

nothing we can't turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if ( Read more... )

sonnets are meant to be read,
poems to be heard,
poets to love
and hope for the return.
do not learn a poem
by reading it in solitude,
waiting for a tomorrow
that will not come.
carry it with you
in your purse or shirt pocket
to the doctor when you are ill,
to the orchard in winter.
read it to your love
in a quiet moment
from a crumpled scrap,
more sincere for ( Read more... )

Poems by Louis Jenkins

Starfish

It seems like starfish don't do anything, but actually they move along at a rate of about 60 feet per hour.  A starfish will eat anything that moves slower than it does, which excludes a number of dishes from its diet.  A statfish is all arms and appetite; it has no brain.  Yet in spite of this, time-lapse ( Read more... )

riding lesson by henry taylor
I learned two things
from an early riding teacher.
He held a nervous filly
in one hand and gestured
with the other, saying "Listen.
Keep one leg on one side,
the other leg on the other side,
and your mind in the middle."

He turned and ( Read more... )