Weekly Poetry From Poems For Free: A Get Well Poem And More
GRACE COMES WITH A PATINA OF PAIN
Grace comes with a patina of pain.
Each creature must endure what it desires.
There are days one would not wish again,
When all one is, is wish till pain expires.
Expire it does in time, and will for you,
Lest it seem as though time will not run,
Lounging by the bed though dawn is due,
Sensing savagely you want it gone.
Oh, yes, we know that this is life, though we
Outlive both pain and joy. The will to be
Nothing wills but for the inner One.
ALTHOUGH OUR LOVE IS OVER, IT REMAINS
Although our love is over, it remains
An unfrequented garden in my heart,
Its beauty quite inseparable from pain,
A wilderness where once was willful art.
I hope a little piece of you is still
Reserved for me, a place you may not go,
But where my room, untenanted, can fill
A moment with my music, sweet and slow.
There are no wishes like a former lover's
That from the dark, repentant night must shine.
And so though we have both moved on to others,
I send you from afar this Valentine.
PRETEND THIS POEM IS ME, AND I AM WITH YOU
Pretend this poem is me, and I am with you;
I hold you in the circle of my fire.
Come into me, and time and space will vanish,
You and I alone, joined at the root.
There is a special room where I am with you;
I close the door and you are in my arms.
You become my skin, my self, my world,
Till I go back to sleep in lonely darkness.
So we defeat the miles and months between us;
We make love in our hearts if not in touch.
You are more to me in hope and passion
Than any man who brushes by my day.
THANK YOU FOR YOU: FOR WHO YOU ARE
Thank you for you: for who you are,
However far away;
And for the words you send to me,
Near mad for what you say.
Knowing simply that you're there,
Yet thinking much of me,
Opens up my happiness,
Undone for all to see.
SEVENTEEN
Seventeen is bursting with ambition.
Ecstasy comes often when one dreams.
Vested in a vague, momentous mission,
Each moment is more vital than it seems.
Now is what the future must depend on,
Though time itself seems like an endless plain.
Eventually, the note that one might end on
Even now beguiles the budding brain.
Nor will faith be so bountiful again.
PROVERBS OF STATE
1. The end of state is security: of property and person; from conquest, injury, hunger, exposure, and injustice.
2. To obtain security, citizens cede a portion of their liberty. This "social contract" is agreed to every time a citizen recognizes the legitimacy of the state.
3. States are legitimate, therefore, to the extent to which they provide security.
4. States rule through violence, either exercised or threatened. The degree of violence varies inversely with the degree of legitimacy; that is, the more security a state provides, the less violence it needs to rule.
5. States are also, and paradoxically, instruments of oppression, enforcing laws and practices that transfer wealth to the ruling class.
6. These contradictory visions of the state--as provider of security and as oppressor--are and have always been simultaneously true. The tension between them is played out in every decision, act, and pronouncement of government.
7. A state that is too oppressive loses legitimacy so completely that no amount of violence can prevent its overthrow. A state that is too just loses the support of the ruling class, which engineers a change either in policy or in government. Thus all states exist somewhere on a continuum between these two extremes. This is true regardless of their form of government.
8. The advantage of democracy is that the regular replacement of government by majority rule mitigates oppression. The disadvantage is that weak governments may fail to make citizens sufficiently secure.
9. To survive, democracy must provide enough security to make the relative weakness of a divided and restrained government worth the increase in liberty and justice. Otherwise, citizens will be willing to cede additional liberty in return for additional security, and democracy will fail.
FORTY YEARS TOGETHER YOU HAVE LOVED
Forty years together you have loved,
Opening a door to love for me.
Romantic hearts bequeath a harmony
That proves more rich than any life might prove.
Years pour like water rapidly downstream,
Yielding harvests gleaned in fields to come,
Each waiting for the heart to bring it home,
Accumulating in an undreamt dream.
Rejoice, then, in a beauty never gone,
Sustained by songs more sweet because passed on.
Grace comes with a patina of pain.
Each creature must endure what it desires.
There are days one would not wish again,
When all one is, is wish till pain expires.
Expire it does in time, and will for you,
Lest it seem as though time will not run,
Lounging by the bed though dawn is due,
Sensing savagely you want it gone.
Oh, yes, we know that this is life, though we
Outlive both pain and joy. The will to be
Nothing wills but for the inner One.
ALTHOUGH OUR LOVE IS OVER, IT REMAINS
Although our love is over, it remains
An unfrequented garden in my heart,
Its beauty quite inseparable from pain,
A wilderness where once was willful art.
I hope a little piece of you is still
Reserved for me, a place you may not go,
But where my room, untenanted, can fill
A moment with my music, sweet and slow.
There are no wishes like a former lover's
That from the dark, repentant night must shine.
And so though we have both moved on to others,
I send you from afar this Valentine.
PRETEND THIS POEM IS ME, AND I AM WITH YOU
Pretend this poem is me, and I am with you;
I hold you in the circle of my fire.
Come into me, and time and space will vanish,
You and I alone, joined at the root.
There is a special room where I am with you;
I close the door and you are in my arms.
You become my skin, my self, my world,
Till I go back to sleep in lonely darkness.
So we defeat the miles and months between us;
We make love in our hearts if not in touch.
You are more to me in hope and passion
Than any man who brushes by my day.
THANK YOU FOR YOU: FOR WHO YOU ARE
Thank you for you: for who you are,
However far away;
And for the words you send to me,
Near mad for what you say.
Knowing simply that you're there,
Yet thinking much of me,
Opens up my happiness,
Undone for all to see.
SEVENTEEN
Seventeen is bursting with ambition.
Ecstasy comes often when one dreams.
Vested in a vague, momentous mission,
Each moment is more vital than it seems.
Now is what the future must depend on,
Though time itself seems like an endless plain.
Eventually, the note that one might end on
Even now beguiles the budding brain.
Nor will faith be so bountiful again.
PROVERBS OF STATE
1. The end of state is security: of property and person; from conquest, injury, hunger, exposure, and injustice.
2. To obtain security, citizens cede a portion of their liberty. This "social contract" is agreed to every time a citizen recognizes the legitimacy of the state.
3. States are legitimate, therefore, to the extent to which they provide security.
4. States rule through violence, either exercised or threatened. The degree of violence varies inversely with the degree of legitimacy; that is, the more security a state provides, the less violence it needs to rule.
5. States are also, and paradoxically, instruments of oppression, enforcing laws and practices that transfer wealth to the ruling class.
6. These contradictory visions of the state--as provider of security and as oppressor--are and have always been simultaneously true. The tension between them is played out in every decision, act, and pronouncement of government.
7. A state that is too oppressive loses legitimacy so completely that no amount of violence can prevent its overthrow. A state that is too just loses the support of the ruling class, which engineers a change either in policy or in government. Thus all states exist somewhere on a continuum between these two extremes. This is true regardless of their form of government.
8. The advantage of democracy is that the regular replacement of government by majority rule mitigates oppression. The disadvantage is that weak governments may fail to make citizens sufficiently secure.
9. To survive, democracy must provide enough security to make the relative weakness of a divided and restrained government worth the increase in liberty and justice. Otherwise, citizens will be willing to cede additional liberty in return for additional security, and democracy will fail.
FORTY YEARS TOGETHER YOU HAVE LOVED
Forty years together you have loved,
Opening a door to love for me.
Romantic hearts bequeath a harmony
That proves more rich than any life might prove.
Years pour like water rapidly downstream,
Yielding harvests gleaned in fields to come,
Each waiting for the heart to bring it home,
Accumulating in an undreamt dream.
Rejoice, then, in a beauty never gone,
Sustained by songs more sweet because passed on.
