THE LAST TEXT
I love dance because I truly believe it is poetry in motion. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for dancers. Please watch this powerful video where dancers bring to life a very real threat to our safety every time we get in a car. These young dancers put to motion what words do to warn us. Keep in mind that texting and driving are as deadly as being drunk or high while trying to drive. BE SAFE!
In light of yesterday’s tragedy let’s pause and reflect: Terrorism is not random, it is meant for an intended and specific target. Fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real. So let us not bow down to their imposition; instead let’s face them with our faith….
One Word
Things go’round and ’round
What was, is now,yesterday’s funk-
And now it’s back to revisit.
The wise man said:
“The sun sees nothing new.”
The wise man said:
“The Word written today,
will one day save the dead.”
‘Round and ’round it all goes
A single drop of blood shed
Washes the world clean
And saves all who were dead.
-Eva Santiago Copyright 2013
Púrpura
Haze of purple on my curtains
Dancing,swaying on my window
Side to side, Back and forth
Of this I am quite certain:
Cool breezes blow in from the north,
Of this I am quite certain:
Heat’s a comin’ by the fourth.
Hazy purple hues of grape,
I lazily drift away
to a time when things weren’t better
and I was ok ‘cuz I didn’t know better.
Hazy purple grape and lilac
I’m now in a better place
Hazy purple, grape and lavender
Lookin’ in the mirror I see my face
This is a place of surrender
My memories no one can replace.
-Eva Santiago COPYRIGHT 2013
MASQUERADE BALL
A man with everything
Always lacks some one
Don’t let ’em fool ya
People who brag about being some one-
Are usually no one
People who think themselves poor
Are actually quite rich
People who think they’ve arrived
Usually have a gazillion miles to go
People who think they shine
Are actually a galore of bore
People who think they’re hot
Are truly not
People who think too much
Do the thinking of the ones who don’t
People who think they are blind,
can actually see..if they so choose to.
People who claim they can’t hear-
Hear more than they let on
People who think themselves puny-
are usually the hidden giants among us.
People who think they’ve nothing to say-
Are the ones you wish would stay
People who think themselves mighty
Should see themselves first as lowly
People who think themselves dull
Are actually great beacons of light,
leading ships into harbor
that have lost all their sight.
People who think themselves wise
Are usually the ones who fall for all their lies
Don’t judge a book by its cover?
Yeah, don’t be too quick to judge a man
Sit still in his presence
Soon you’ll see his true lover.
EVA SANTIAGO copyright 2013
Salad Anniversary -A book about Haiku
Your left hand,
exploring my fingers one by one-
maybe this is love
Secretly I try on your jacket,
drinking in your smell,
and strike a pose like James Dean
Remembering your joke,
I giggle out loud
In the middles of a crowd
Ring after ring tell me you’re out-
I listen fondly,
Grateful for any clue
Admonished to stop writing of romance-
What’s poetry, then?
Just another way to get a man?
-Machi Tawara copyright 1989
POET QUOTES
“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.”
Pablo Neruda
“A dream deferred is a dream denied.”
Langston Hughes
“Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
Edgar Allan Poe
“Words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality”
Edgar Allan Poe
“Be of love (a little) more careful than of anything.”
E E cummings
“Happy are those who dare courageously to defend what they love.”
Ovid
“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
Robert Frost
Loony Limericks
Submitted By: Noam Kuzar
There once was an old man of Esser,
Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser,
It at last grew so small
He knew nothing at all,
And now he’s a college professor.
Submitted By: Noam Kuzar
There once was a lady, Ilene,
Who liver on distilled kerosene,
But she started absorbin’
A new hydrocarbon
and since then she’d never benzene
Submitted By: Noam Kuzar
There once was a lady from Hyde,
Who ate a green apple and died,
While her lover lamented,
The apple fermented,
and made cider inside her inside.
Submitted By: Bob
There was a young lady one fall
Who wore a newspaper dress to a ball.
The dress caught fire
And burned her entire
Front page, sporting section and all.
Submitted By: Gabrielle H
There was an old man of Philly,
Who was hooked on the movie Free Willy.
He quit his job at the jail,
for a dolphin and whale,
And so was the life of Wee Willy.
Submitted By: LORNA
A mouse in her room woke Miss Doud
Who was frightened and screamed very loud
Then a happy thought hit her
To scare off the critter
She sat up in bed and just meowed
Submitted By: LORNA
There once was a old man from Norway –
who cussed as he sat in a doorway-
the door smacked him flat-
and he yelled “what was that”?
that disgruntled old man from Norway!
Submitted By: Roger Morris
There was a fat turkey named Sam,
Who gobbled whenever he ran.
He came out of the bush,
Presenting his tush,
And was shot up the arse by a man.
Submitted By: Pat Bents
There once was a kid named Darren
Who’s room was surprisingly barren
He had no toys
Like all normal boys
But he did believe in sharing
Submitted By: Roger Morris
There was a young lady from Niger,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
After the ride
She was inside,
And the smile was on the face of the tiger.
Submitted By: Pat Bents
There once was a guy named Matt
Who had an overly large cat
When it chased a mouse
It shook the whole house
So Matt got rid of the cat.
Submitted By: Pat Bents
There once was a consumer named Phil
Who really wanted to kill
A sly young vendor
Who mad him a big spender
And gave him a very large bill.
Submitted By: Deirdre Kinney
There once was a poet named Dan,
Who’s poetry never would scan.
When told this was so,
He said, “Yes, I know”
“It’s because I try to put every possible syllable into the very last line that I can” !!
Submitted By: Papa Johnny
There was an announcer named Herschel
Whose habits became controversial,
Because when out wooing
Whatever he was doing
At ten he’d insert his commercial.
http://home.earthlink.net/~kristenaa/nice/
A Competition Asked for a 2 line Rhyme with the most romantic first line but least romantic second line:
This is the winning poem.
My darling,my lover,my beautiful wife
Marrying you screwed up my life.
I see your face when I am dreaming
That’s why I always wake up screaming
Kind,intelligent,loving and hot
This describes everything you are not.
I thought that I could love no other—
That Is until I met your brother.
Roses are red,violets are blue,sugar is sweet and so are you
But those roses are wiliting,the violets are dead, the sugar bowl’s empty and so is your head.
I want to feel your sweet embrace
But don’t take that paper bag off your face.
I love your smile, your face and your eyes—
Damn, I’m good at telling lies!
My love,you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?
My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except maybe,”Go to hell”
What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts tequila, one part lime
http://www.indiabroadband.net/jokes-humor/19660-funniest-poem-ever.html
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.”
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don’t have her. To feel that I’ve lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else’s. She will be someone else’s. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
Today’s poem comes from my 12 year old daughter. She has taken an interest in song writing . This is a song she performed at a local coffee house recently. She also submitted this piece at a local teen poetry contest and she came in as a finalist.
You’re Not Alone
She paints a pretty picture
But this story has a twist-
Her paintbrush is razor,
And the canvas is her wrist.
Her mother died a year ago,
Depressed and alone.
She wants to die
Bitter and cold.
She dances in the moonlight,
She’s the black swan of the night-
She leaps, prances, twirls, and dances
But she cannot stop the fight.
Your skin isn’t paper, so don’t cut it,
Life isn’t a movie so don’t end it.
Your face is so pretty, why do you hide it?
You have a beautiful soul, but you want to kill it.
Just know you’re not alone.
Stay strong
You are living one big lie
But in the end you will be alright.
by Raquel Brincat copyright 2012
Eva Santiago 