Heart Touching Poetry


1.
If you were the sky and I were the sea.
If you were the sky
Then I'd be the sea
And when you shined bright
It would reflect in me.
When you're at rest
Then I am steady.
If you wanna get rough
I'm always ready.
Past closing at the bars
If you show me the stars
I'll open right up
And cast them out far.
And on the darkest night
If you won't shine a light.
Then I'm silent alongside you
Until you feel right.
We'll meet at the horizon
Where lovers will stare
And wonder with passion
Why they can't meet there.
And you'll share me a kiss
As bright as two suns.
When they meet in the middle
I'll know the days done.
And I can tell that's your way of saying to me.
Goodnight my love.
If you were the sky and I were the sea

2.
Touch me
Touch me,
it doesn't matter where
and it doesnt matter how
I need to know I'm still alive
so someone touch me now
Shake my hand and say hello
or pat me on the back
kiss me on the cheek
that I may feel this sense I lack
slap my face and pull my hair
make me bleed I just don't care
dig your nails into my skin
so I can feed this need within
I've been numb for such a time
that even pain would be sublime
so touch me, touch me now
I don't care where, I don't care how

3.

Hate Poem
Julie Sheehan
I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
     in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.
Look out! Fore! I hate you.
The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging
     from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
     hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.
A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
     symbol of how I hate you.
My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant “good morning”: hate.
You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head
     under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
     practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
     to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
     individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
     of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.

4.
hell is a lonely place
he was 65, his wife was 66, had
Alzheimer's disease.

he had cancer of the
mouth.
there were
operations, radiation
treatments
which decayed the bones in his
jaw
which then had to be
wired.

daily he put his wife in
rubber diapers
like a
baby.

unable to drive in his
condition
he had to take a taxi to
the medical
center,
had difficulty speaking,
had to
write the directions
down.

on his last visit
they informed him
there would be another
operation: a bit more
left
cheek and a bit more
tounge.

when he returned
he changed his wife's
diapers
put on the tv
dinners, watched the
evening news
then went to the bedroom, got the
gun, put it to her
temple, fired.

she fell to the
left, he sat upon the
couch
put the gun into his
mouth, pulled the
trigger.

the shots didn't arouse
the neighbors.

later
the burning tv dinners
did.

somebody arrived, pushed
the door open, saw
it.

soon
the police arrived and
went through their
routine, found
some items:

a closed savings
account and
a checkbook with a
balance of
$1.14
suicide, they
deduced.

in three weeks
there were two
new tenants:
a computer engineer
named
Ross
and his wife
Anatana
who studied
ballet.

they looked like another
upwardly mobile
pair.

5.
Fire and Ice
BY ROBERT FROST
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

6.
I Met A Genius
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.


7.
The Romantic Age   
 This one is entering her teens,  
 Ripe for sentimental scenes,  
 Has picked a gangling unripe male,  
 Sees herself in a bridal veil,  
 Presses lips and tosses head,  
 Declares she's not too young to wed,  
 Informs you pertly you forget  
 Romeo and Juliet.  
 Do not argue, do not shout;  
 Remind her how that one turned out.
 
8.

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 
On what wings dare he aspire? 
What the hand dare sieze the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art. 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
And when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain? 
In what furnace was thy brain? 
What the anvil? what dread grasp 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

When the stars threw down their spears, 
And watered heaven with their tears, 
Did he smile his work to see? 
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 


9.
Whole
Stop showing
You love me
A little at a time.

Stop saying
You care
Bit by bit.

Stop keeping
Me here
For tiny pieces of time.

Because I need
All of you
Not piece by piece.

I love
All of you
Not just some parts of you.

So love all of me
All the way
All the time.

Or let all of me go
All at once
For good.

10.

splash

the illusion is that you are simply 
reading this poem. 
the reality is that this is 
more than a 
poem. 
this is a beggar's knife. 
this is a tulip. 
this is a soldier marching 
through Madrid. 
this is you on your 
death bed. 
this is Li Po laughing 
underground. 
this is not a god-damned 
poem. 
this is a horse asleep. 
a butterfly in 
your brain. 
this is the devil's 
circus. 
you are not reading this 
on a page. 
the page is reading 
you. 
feel it? 
it's like a cobra. it's a hungry eagle circling the room. 

this is not a poem. poems are dull, 
they make you sleep. 

these words force you 
to a new 
madness. 

you have been blessed, you have been pushed into a 
blinding area of 
light. 

the elephant dreams 
with you 
now. 
the curve of space 
bends and 
laughs. 

you can die now. 
you can die now as 
people were meant to 
die: 
great, 
victorious, 
hearing the music, 
being the music, 
roaring, 
roaring, 
roaring.



11.
the crunch
too much too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody.
laughter or
tears
haters
lovers
strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks
armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.
an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.
there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock
people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.
people just are not good to each other
one on one.
the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.
we are afraid.
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners
it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.
but sometimes I think about
it.
the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.
too much
too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody
more haters than lovers.
people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.
meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.
there must be a way.
surely there must be a way that we have not yet
thought of.
who put this brain inside of me?
it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.
it will not say
"no."
12.
  On such a night as this
              When no moon lights your way to me,
                I wake, my passion blazing,
              My breast a fire raging, exploding flame
              While within me my heart chars.
                       (Tr. Earl Miner)

13.
    The flowers withered
              Their color faded away
                While meaninglessly
              I spent my days in the world
              And the long rains were falling.
                          (Tr. Donald Keene)

14.
   A thing which fades
              With no outward sign
                Is the flower
              Of the heart of man
              In this world!
                       (Tr. Arthur Waley)

15.
Though I visit him
              Ceaselessly
                In my dreams,
              The sum of all those meetings
              Is less than a single waking glimpse.
                          (Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)

16.
  In waking daylight,
              Then, oh then, it can be understood;
                But when I see you
              Shrinking from those hostile eyes
              Even in my dreams: that is misery itself.
                       (Tr. Earl Miner)

17.
In this bay
              There is no seaweed
                Doesn't he know it --
              The fisherman who persists in coming
              Until his legs grow weary?
                       (Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)

18.
   More heart-wrenching than
              To sear my body with live coals
                Against my flesh,
              Bidding farewell on Miyakoshima's shore
              As you part for the capital.
                       (Tr. Sarah M. Strong)

19.
Did he appear,
              because I fell asleep
                thinking of him?
              If only I'd known I was dreaming
              I'd never have wakened.
                       (Tr. Jane Hirshfield and Aratani Mariko)

20.
  The autumn night
              is long only in name --
                We've done no more
              than gaze at each other
              and it's already dawn.
                       (Tr. Hirshfield & Aratani)

21.
   When longing for him
              Tortures me beyond endurance,
                I reverse my robe --
              Garb of night, black as leopard-flower berries --
              And wear it inside out.
                       (Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)

22.
  Tears that but form gems on sleeves
              Must come, I think,
                From an insincere heart,
              For mine, though I seek to repress them,
              Gush forth in torrents.
                       (Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)

23.
  Yielding to a love
              That knows no limit,
                I shall go to him by night --
              For the world does not yet censure
              Those who tread the paths of dreams.
                       (Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)

24.
  This body
              grown fragile, floating,
                a reed cut from its roots...
              If a stream would ask me
              to follow, I'd go, I think.
                       (Tr. Hirshfield & Aratami)

25.
  Submit to you --
              could that be what you are saying?
                the way ripples on the water
              submit to an idling wing?
                       (Tr. Burton Watson)

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