April 10, 2015
[in Just-] by e.e. cummings
in Just-
spring .when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles .far .and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
April 9, 2015
The Day Winds Up the Opposite by August Wilson
Hearing her disembodied voice wash over me,
A cascade of coin and blessing,
With the delicious sounds of her waking
I thought today might be a day of blazing sun
With her hair a forest of red birds announcing themselves with song & surety
That each whisper of wind moved to mute song
& singing make a world of silence.
And then I remembered the warning
Issued by my old, tired, bedazzled heart:
The space between a man’s hand
& a woman’s hair
are filled with many passages
of tremor and trust.
This poem was selected by Lesley W. (Head of Adult Services)
April 8, 2015
To A Waterfowl by Donald Hall
Women with hats like the rear ends of pink ducks
applauded you, my poems.
These are the women whose husbands I meet on airplanes,
who close their briefcases and ask, “What are you in?”
I look in their eyes, I tell them I am in poetry,
and their eyes fill with anxiety, and with little tears.
“Oh, yeah?” they say, developing an interest in clouds.
“My wife, she likes that sort of thing? Hah-hah?
I guess maybe I’d better watch my grammar, huh?”
I leave them in airports, watching their grammar,
April 7, 2015
Behind the Curtain by D.W.
Past Poppies’ flowers, fast asleep
Red ruby slippers, shining feat
A Witch’s scorn, Scarecrows burn
Water’s flung, a wretched turn
Heart’s Desire, a House bereft
Friends took me where, I never left.
This poem was selected by Don W. (Maintenance)
April 6, 2015
Tulips by Sylvia Plath
The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.
April 5, 2015
After a Month of Rain by Linda Pastan
Everything I thought I wanted
is right here,
particularly when the sun
is making such a comeback,
and the lilac engorged
with purple has recovered
from its severe pruning,
and you will be back soon
to dispel whatever it is
that overtakes me like leaf blight,
even on a day like this. I can still
hear remnants of the rain
April 4, 2015
The Trees by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old?
No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
This poem was selected by Jeff B. (Readers’ Services)
April 3, 2015
My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
This poem was selected by Heather R. (Adult Services Librarian)
April 2, 2015
Cheerios by Billy Collins
One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.
Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios
for today, the newspaper announced
was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.
Already I could hear them whispering
behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude’s older than Cheerios
the way they used to say
Why that’s as old as the hills,
only the hills are much older than Cheerios
or any American breakfast cereal,
and more noble and enduring are the hills,
I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice.
This poem was selected by Kate K. (North Branch)
April 1, 2015
Happiness by Carl Sandburg
.This poem was selected by Russell J. (Adult Services Librarian)
