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Young Writers Society


The Poem of the Week



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Wed Aug 23, 2017 4:47 am
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alliyah says...



"Fall, leaves, fall"
by Emily Bronte

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Points: 147270
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Thu Aug 31, 2017 1:19 pm
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alliyah says...



Gale Force Winds
by Marge Piercy

This day seems at odds with itself.
The sun ignites every shiny
rhododendron leaf, pounds
on the roof, but trees are bending
on themselves in the onslaught of wind.

The sky is a medium blue without
a wisp of cloud. Where does the wind
come from? A storm out to sea
too far to push in rain? Something
unseen but keenly felt as the wind

scours my face, pushes my body
backwards, sidewards, burns my eyes.
A lightbulb flickers. Papers dash by.
A branch breaks off with a loud crack.
Dust ghosts dance on the bare earth.

I have felt like this day, on edge
and restless, discontent without obvious
reason, biting at myself, a dog
with an itch. It is so hard to guess
what wild wind disturbs my mind.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Sat Sep 09, 2017 4:37 pm
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alliyah says...



"While Love is Unfashionable"
By Alice Walker


While love is unfashionable
let us live
unfashionably.
Seeing the world
a complex ball
in small hands;
love our blackest garment.
Let us be poor
in all but truth, and courage
handed down
by the old
spirits.
Let us be intimate with
ancestral ghosts
and music
of the undead.

While love is dangerous
let us walk bareheaded
beside the Great River.
Let us gather blossoms
under fire.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Thu Sep 14, 2017 2:34 am
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alliyah says...



"Praying"
by Mary Oliver


It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 147270
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Wed Sep 20, 2017 6:14 pm
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alliyah says...



"The Autumn"
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning


Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them --
The summer flowers depart --
Sit still -- as all transform'd to stone,
Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, --
Their presence may be o'er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh'd our mind,
Shall come -- as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind -- view not the woods;
Look out o'er vale and hill-
In spring, the sky encircled them --
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn's scathe -- come winter's cold --
Come change -- and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne'er be desolate.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 147270
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Thu Sep 28, 2017 12:51 am
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alliyah says...



"Words are Birds"
by Francisco X. Alarcon


words
are birds
that arrive
with books
and spring

they
love
clouds
the wind
and trees

some words
are messengers
that come
from far away
from distant lands

for them
there are
no borders
only stars
moon and sun

some words
are familiar
like canaries
others are exotic
like the quetzal bird

some can stand
the cold
others migrate
with the sun
to the south

some words
die
caged—
they're difficult
to translate

and others
build nests
have chicks
warm them
feed them

teach them
how to fly
and one day
they go away
in flocks

the letters
on this page
are the prints
they leave
by the sea
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Sun Oct 01, 2017 5:37 pm
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alliyah says...



I know it hasn't been a week, but there are too many good autumnal poems to share. Also feel free to post your own favorite poem next week if you're reading this!

"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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1227 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Sat Oct 07, 2017 7:28 pm
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alliyah says...



I'll put this one under a spoiler because the descriptions may be a little intense for some readers, note the poem is about the death of birds so don't read if you like to avoid reading about such things. I do think it is a powerful poem though.

"He said I wrote about death," by Kim Dower

Spoiler! :

and I didn’t mean to, this was not
my intent. I meant to say how I loved
the birds, how watching them lift off
the branches, hearing their song
helps me get through the gray morning.
When I wrote about how they crash
into the small dark places that only birds
can fit through, layers of night sky, pipes
through drains, how I’ve seen them splayed
across gutters, piles of feathers stuck
together by dried blood, how once my car
ran over a sparrow, though I swerved,
the road was narrow, the bird not quick
enough, dragged it under my tire as I drove
to forget, bird disappearing part by part,
beak, slender feet, fretful, hot,
I did not mean to write about death,
but rather how when something dies
we remember who we love, and we
die a little too, we who are still breathing,
we who still have the energy to survive.

you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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1227 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:40 pm
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alliyah says...



Another week, another poem! This one's short, but catchy with the rhyming. Enjoy!

"The Falling Star"
by Sara Teasdale

I saw a star slide down the sky,
Blinding the north as it went by,
Too burning and too quick to hold,
Too lovely to be bought or sold,
Good only to make wishes on
And then forever to be gone.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Points: 1883
Reviews: 806
Thu Oct 19, 2017 1:41 am
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Aley says...



The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
  





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Sat Oct 28, 2017 2:56 am
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alliyah says...



This Room
by John Ashbery

The room I entered was a dream of this room.
Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.
The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.
Something shimmers, something is hushed up.

We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Fri Nov 03, 2017 2:50 am
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alliyah says...



Don't Go Far Off
by Pablo Neruda

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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1227 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:12 am
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alliyah says...



The Shepherd
by William Blake

How sweet is the shepherd's sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

For he hears the lambs' innocent call,
And he hears the ewes' tender reply;
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their shepherd is nigh.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Fri Nov 17, 2017 6:49 pm
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alliyah says...



On The Persistence of The Letter as a Form
by Paul Guest
Dear murderous world, dear gawking heart,
I never wrote back to you, not one word

wrenched itself free of my fog-draped mind
to dab in ink the day's dull catalog

of ruin. Take back the ten-speed bike
which bent like a child's cheap toy

beneath me. Accept as your own
the guitar that was smashed over my brother,

who writes now from jail in Savannah,
who I cannot begin to answer. Here

is the beloved pet who died at my feet
and there, outside my window,

is where my mother buried it in a coffin
meant for a newborn. Upon

my family, raw and vigilant, visit numbness.
Of numbness I know enough.

And to you I've now written too much,
dear cloud of thalidomide,

dear spoon trembling at the mouth,
dear marble-eyed doll never answering back.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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1227 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 147270
Reviews: 1227
Mon Nov 27, 2017 5:14 am
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alliyah says...



New Lines for Fortune Cookies
by James Masao Mitsui


You have been smiling across the table at your date
with a sesame seed stuck in your teeth.

You will gain sophistication, become accepted by Reader’s
Digest, and retire in Puyallup.

In your next life you will be a teacher
and no one will ever call you by your first name.

After your next vacation you will come home
and discover that your neighbors have redecorated
in the style of Iowa trailer court.

If you feel like you’re getting old,
secretly plant zucchini in your neighbor’s flowerbeds.

Avoid people who iron their sheets
or roll their socks & underwear.

Painting and poetry and music will show us where we should
be going, not the senate or tv news.

The next thermos bottle you see will actually
be a listening device made in Korea.

All the people in this restaurant
are glad that they are not you.
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  








cron
"In my contact with people I find that, as a rule, it is only the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls -- with the great outside world."
— Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery