Side - Angela Rose

I never thought we’d disagree
on anatomy or chemistry.
That was until you made the mistake
of choosing that cold, sparkly fake.

How could you join the vampire side?
When werewolves are best, it can’t be denied!
Team Edward or Team Jacob you had to select.
But you chose wrong and now our friendship’s wrecked.

Until you are ready to rescind your poor choice,
I will not abide the grating sound of your voice.
I miss you dear friend, of that I won’t lie.
But I’ve chosen Team Jacob, so this is goodbye.

Introduction to Poetry - Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem   
and hold it up to the light   
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem   
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room   
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski   
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope   
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose   
to find out what it really means.

(love song, with two goldfish) by Grace Chua

(He's a drifter, always
floating around her, has
nowhere else to go. He wishes
she would sing, not much, just the scales;
or take some notice,
give him the fish eye.)

(Bounded by round walls
she makes fish eyes
and kissy lips at him, darts
behind pebbles, swallows
his charms hook, line and sinker)

(He's bowled over. He would
take her to the ocean, they could
count the waves. There,
in the submarine silence, they would share
their deepest secrets. Dive for pearls
like stars.)

(But her love's since
gone belly-up. His heart sinks
like a fish. He drinks
like a stone. Drowns those sorrows,
stares emptily through glass.)

(the reason, she said
she wanted)
(and he could not give)
a life
beyond the
(bowl)

Dreamland by Christina Rossetti

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.

Untitled by Gwee Li Sui

Mother, mother
The kids in school
Call me kiasu,
But all I am
I got it from you.

You bought for me
Big uniforms
A size too soon
And until them
I look cartoon.

Primary Two,
You bought textbooks
For Secondary Three,
I'll get A then;
Now I get Dee.

Then you got me
Tuition for Maths,
Language and Science,
Music and Sports,
And Omniscience.

Recess, you packed
Gain-weight tabets,
Vitamin pills.
They call me Hospital Nostrils.

Mother,mother
The kids in school
Call me kiasu,
But that's not me-
I guess it's you.

Roses by George Eilot

You love the roses - so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

My Nose by Gabriel Liebermann

I never chose my nose to be,
a statement of longevity.
Its grandeur lies within its size,
and the way it looms between my eyes;
and the way it leads me from meal to meal.
Some wonder if the bulbous thing
is mine. And is it really real?

From my childhood days I wore it,
like a crown my mom adored it.
My father who had a big one too,
said son, its something to get used to;
and if children taunt you, dont forget,
there are bigger things you will regret,
and your nose will grow much bigger yet.

So big in fact that when I sneeze,
the trees around me lose their leaves.
It precedes me into any room,
but it has always made the ladies swoon.
People often say to I,
smaller noses we have seen,
on elephants and rhinoceri!

Me and my nose are stuck together,
weather for worse or maybe better.
It gives my face a regal look;
and helps turn pages in this book.
And when they put me in a basket,
tell the one that builds my casket:
to cut a hole on top so I,
can smell the flowers when I die...

The Furthest Distance in the world. (By Rabindranath Tagore?)

The furthest distance in the world
Is not between life and death
But when I stand in front of you
Yet you don't know that I love you.

The furthest distance in the world
Is not when I stand in front of you
Yet you can't see my love
But when undoubtedly knowing the love from both
Yet cannot
Be together.

The furthest distance in the world
Is not being apart while being in love
But when plainly can not resist the yearning
Yet pretending You have never been in my heart.

The furthest distance in the world
Is not
But using one's indifferent heart
To dig an uncrossable river
For the one who loves you.

The Panther by Rainer Maria Rilke.Translation by Steven Rendall

His gaze has grown weary of sweeping the bars
And has ceased to hold anything at all. 
For him it's as though there were a thousand bars
And behind those thousand bars no world.

The lithe pacing on strong, padded paws
Turning in the tiniest of circles
Is like a dance of power round a center
In which a great benumbed will stands. 

Only the pupil's curtain sometimes rises
Soundlessly.  Then an image enters,
Traverses the tensed stillness of the limbs,
And in the heart comes to its end. 

Emily Dickinson- I'm Nobody! Who are you?

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you- Nobody- Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise- you know~

How deary- to be- Somebody!
How public- like a frog-
To tell one's name- the livelong June-
To an admiring Bog!

William Wordsworth- We Are Seven

A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
-- Her beauty made me glad.

Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?
How many? Seven in all, she said,
And wondering looked at me.

And where are they? I pray you tell.
She answered, Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother.

You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven! -- I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be.

Then did the little Maid reply,
Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.

You run about, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five.

Their graves are green, they may be seen,
The little Maid replied,
"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,
And they are side by side.

"My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.

"And often after sunset, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

"The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

"So in the churchyard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.

And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side.

How many are you then, said I,
If they two are in heaven?
Quick was the little Maid's reply,
O Master! we are seven.

But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, Nay, we are seven!"

---

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"