Black History Month

In January...
There they are making history.
In February...
There they are making history.
In March...
There they are making history.
In April...
There they are making history.
In May...
There they are making history.
In June...
There they are making history.
In July...
There they are making history.
In August...
There they are making history.
In September...
There they are making history.
In October...
There they are making history.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Crubside Prophet

im just a curbside prophet
with my hand in my pocket
and im waiting for my rocket to come
im just a curbside prophet
with my hand in my pocket
and im waiting for my rocket
ysee it started way back in nyc
when i stole my first rhyme from the m.i.c.
at a west end avenue at 63
the beginning of a leap year, february, 96
with a guitar picked up in the mix
i committed to the licks like a nickel back of tricks
well look at me now
look at me now
look at me now, now, now, now
i'm just a curbside prophet
with my hand in my pocket
and i'm waiting for my rocket to come
i'm just a curbside prophet
with my hand in my pocket

[...] Read more

song performed by Jason Mraz
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Ballad Of Hard-Luck Henry

Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims, and every one a blank;
That's followed every fool stampede, and seen the rise and fall
Of camps where men got gold in chunks and he got none at all;
That's prospected a bit of ground and sold it for a song
To see it yield a fortune to some fool that came along;
That's sunk a dozen bed-rock holes, and not a speck in sight,
Yet sees them take a million from the claims to left and right?
Now aren't things like that enough to drive a man to booze?
But Hard-Luck Smith was hoodoo-proof--he knew the way to lose.

'Twas in the fall of nineteen four--leap-year I've heard them say--
When Hard-Luck came to Hunker Creek and took a hillside lay.
And lo! as if to make amends for all the futile past,
Late in the year he struck it rich, the real pay-streak at last.
The riffles of his sluicing-box were choked with speckled earth,
And night and day he worked that lay for all that he was worth.
And when in chill December's gloom his lucky lease expired,
He found that he had made a stake as big as he desired.

[...] Read more

poem by Robert William Service
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Octopus; Lifestyle & Lifelong Supermarket!

Oh! The miraculous skyscraper
Consolidate three hundred and sixtyfive stories
And they're going to build another floor
For commemoration of the leap year!
Beside the massive parking lot
I chained my precious tumbledown bicycle
And the pet dog chihuahua to a tree.
My beloved's bit nervous and she asked;
' Do they accept our food stamps? '
'Why not? ' I replied.
'Darling I use the stairs and you go on escalator.'
'Are you mad? It's not good for your heart.'
'Don't worry they sell rubber hearts here
And it's easily could be prevented from bad cholesterol.
The new experimental sugar, salt and some other unsoluble granules
Harmful to the health.'
Bread forever and no expiry date and we can store for our next wedding anniversary!
Artificial meat like jelly and thank God they minimized slaughtering
But some they don't like as no blood to be seen over there.
Candymoss attached to fourteen carrot gold sticks

[...] Read more

poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Just Waitin

Recorded by hank williams, sr.
Words and music by hank williams, sr. and bob gazzaway
The [g] old maids waitin for leap year to come
The crooners just waitin to [c] sing
The [d7] old cows standin by the bull durham sign
Just a-waitin for the grass to turn [g] green.
The [g] bar-flys waitin for an easy mark
n the hitch-hikers waitin for a [c] ride
The [d7] life-termers waitin for a prison break
The beachcombers waitin for the [g] ride.
Farmers daughters waitin for the salesman
To take her into town
The city slickers waitin for the country boy
To lay all his money down.
You know evrything comes to a standstill
Nothin seems to make a turn
Worm must be waitin for the early bird
I guess the early birds waitin for the worm.
Nobody wants to do nothin
Just waitin to get a finger in the pie

[...] Read more

song performed by Hank Williams
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Too Deep That It Sits Untouched!

Too deep that it sits untouched!
Just inches below the surface...
If an itch was scratched!
And under their feet.
But leap years away,
From those caught up...
In divisions.

And visions growing within them dim...
When the slightest 'light' enclosed inside,
Is trapped!
To allow an ignorance flourished to set in!
Beginning a diminishing,
Swiftly!
Blowing a blind dust to addict and attract,
Until a rusting holds them back!

And that which is considered too deep to touch...
Fades,
Into familiar charading masquerades.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Is that spring going to come?

When March was sleeping, two other
Gentlemen began rather
A heated argument. The 1st
Was April, the 2nd, of course,
Was May. So, April and May
Were both crying that the main
Month of spring was… Guess which one, but
Although March was in the hut
(Number 2, there’re four huts all
In all) , you should choose April or
May. April said, “It’s my time when
Snow-drops begin to bloom, and
Everyone can feel spring’s come.”
“Ha-ha! ” laughed May and added, “Some
Snowstorm, and no one can
See your tiny snow-drops. When
I rule nature, all the trees are
In blossom and bushes too! ”
“But
Unless I melted snow, they

[...] Read more

poem by Konstantin Ananin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Menologium. (Preface To The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles)

CHRIST WAS BORN, KING OF GLORY
in midwinter, mighty prince,
eternal, almighty, on the eighth day,
Healer, called, heaven's ward;
so at the same time singing praises
countless folk begin the year,
for the awaited time comes to town,
the first month, famous January.
Five nights later the Lord's baptism,
and eternal God's epiphany comes;
the twelve-days' time to blessed men known,
by us in Britain called Twelfthnight.
Four weeks later February falls,
Sol-month brighter settles in town,
a month minus two days;
so February's way was reckoned by the wise,
One night more is Mary's mass,
the King's mother; for on that day Christ,
the child of the Ruler, she revealed in the temple.
After five nights winter was fared,

[...] Read more

poem by Anonymous Olde English
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Koan Catalogue

A new catalogue has arrived. It sells everything in even numbers
from hampers to visors to worry stones. Da-Ren moves
his thumb across the face of the angel carved into his jadeite piece.
That was a birthday present from the curator with the cellist.
Da-Ren wrote him a masnavi in return, about a mythic river
that had dried up into a periglacial lake. It’s now retrofitted,
a parking lot, where the maroon and mango-yellow Volvo resides.
“It comes in other colours, ” Da-Ren recalls the other cellist saying,
afraid the chess master wouldn’t like the brown-tinged green.
But Da-Ren sees the tree of life in it like a forest in India
and all the bloodstone it can afford, the martyrs within forgotten.
“Take this Caravaggio and follow the splash zone, ” Da-Ren says.
“Reach the foot of the water-logged mountain in Montenegro,
and there, a box poem at page bottom, left and right of centre.”

Author's Note:

This poem's earlier version was one installment within a chapbook sequence chosen by Mary Jo Bang as one of six finalists in the Noemi Press Poetry Chapbook Award. The poem is the premise of a hand-sewn 'Da-Ren' Kelu, a soft sculpture created by plush artist Nana Pong of Roomism. 'Da-Ren' Kelu was given its own micro e-chapbook at Roomism with its own backstory: 'This fruitarian microbat lives in the Tree of Life, and only leaves its roost on the first full moon of every leap year. Little more is known of this mythical-mystical bat. On its last sighting, tourists said it now has the tree emblazoned on its tiny lips, in criss-crossing band-aids, as if to offer an eternal apology for its self-imposed seclusion. Sometimes, it manages to speak. When that happens, the utterance sounds something like 'différance' in soft and cooing echoes.' Other limited edition items based on the character including a pouch, badge, and handmade silver chain have been created, to be exhibited at Fab Fibe Show 2009, an exhibition that brings together showpieces of fabric and paper artists from around the world.

[...] Read more

poem by Desmond Kon Zhicheng Mingdé
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Don Juan: Canto The Fourteenth

If from great nature's or our own abyss
Of thought we could but snatch a certainty,
Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss--
But then 'twould spoil much good philosophy.
One system eats another up, and this
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny;
For when his pious consort gave him stones
In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.

But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast,
And eats her parents, albeit the digestion
Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast,
After due search, your faith to any question?
Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast
You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.
Nothing more true than not to trust your senses;
And yet what are your other evidences?

For me, I know nought; nothing I deny,
Admit, reject, contemn; and what know you,

[...] Read more

poem by Byron
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Canto the Fourteenth

I
If from great nature's or our own abyss
Of thought we could but snatch a certainty,
Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss --
But then 't would spoil much good philosophy.
One system eats another up, and this
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny;
For when his pious consort gave him stones
In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.

II
But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast,
And eats her parents, albeit the digestion
Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast,
After due search, your faith to any question?
Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast
You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.
Nothing more true than not to trust your senses;
And yet what are your other evidences?

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!