My Favorite Poems


Just Think! Some day a star will gleam
upon a cold grey stone.
And trace a name with silver beam,
And lo! 'Twill be your own.

That time is coming on to meet
Your epitaphic rhyme
Your life is but a little beat
Within the heart of Time

A little blame, a little fame
A laugh lest you may moan
A little pain, a little gain
A star gleam on a stone.

Just Think by Robert Service
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

Theres gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.

Just the last verse of
The Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service
Songs of a Sourdough

Other great ones are, of course, his most famous,
The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and
The Cremation of Sam McGee.


Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music,
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen,
Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back
Between the night and morrow;
They thought she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag leaves,
Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite?
He shall find the thornies set
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.

--The Fairies by William Allingham

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
0, no! it is an ever-fix'd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

William Shakespeare Sonnet XVI, ca 1598

Dear, I to thee this diamond commend,
In which a model of thyself I send.
How just unto thy joints this circlet sitteth,
So just thy face and shape my fancy fitteth.
The touch will try this ring of purest gold,
My touch tries thee, as pure though softer mold.
That metal precious is, the stone is true,
As true, and then how much more precious you.
The gem is clear, and hath nor needs no foil,
Thy face, nay more, thy fame is free from soil.
You'll deem this dear, because from me you have it,
I deem your faith more dear, because you gave it.
This pointed diamond cuts glass and steel,
Your love's like force in my firm heart I feel.
But this, as all things else, time wastes with wearing,
Where you my jewels multiply with bearing.

Sir John Harrington
Dear, I to thee this diamond commend


Small Poems.

Stupid thing, wish they'd sell it.
Won't do what I want, just what I tell it.

Found on a sticky note attached to a computer

Long ago, the delicate tangles of his hair
covered the emptiness of my palm.

Joe vs The Volcano


'I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."
- Pablo Neruda

If I should dream no more, if I should hold no hope,
If I should walk the evening paths alone and pass unknowing every lovely thing;
If stones should learn to bloom, and wild mountains waver, wilt and fall, and scatter fine as mist;
I f seas should rise to meet the sky and quench the ancient lunar thirst and searing passions of the sun, and stars depart upon an ebbing tide of light that turns across the heavens’ span and passes always from all sight;
If I should dream no more, my heart grow cold and silent with a grief too deep for sobs,
Then shall I turn no more my thoughts to you.

-Unknown, if you know, please email me.