A Poem a Day

April is National Poetry Month and Red Skies is publishing a poem a day, everyday.  Send us one of your poems, or a poem that has moved you by another author.   Our email address is: redskies@salemstate.edu.  Mail it from your SSU account and include your year of graduation.  To get us started here is a poem April Rain by Langston Hughes.

April Rain By Langston Hughes Let the rain kiss you Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops Let the rain sing you a lullaby The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk The rain makes running pools in the gutter The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night And I love the rain.

Hope is the thing with feathers

by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me

White Birches

by Jennifer Martelli .....when the Erinyes were about to put Orestes out of his mind, they appeared to him black, but once he had bitten off his finger they appeared to be white.... It is a pleasure to walk through the gem-tone theme of my neighborhood streets: Emerald, Sapphire, and my own, Ruby. One home has a small forest of white birch trees, straight with bark fragile as rolling papers, and there is peace in that spot every season, no matter what: the color never changes and the house is quiet like someone inside was dancing and stopped. There’s a small strip of stores at the top of the street--a package store, a deli, a bank. The end of my tiny trek could be in any one of those shops--the end of yours, too, if you’ve already fallen, if the decision has been made, you could fill a tote bag with whiskey or candy or rope for a noose, money, you could gamble. The walk back home past the white birch forest is best: my tote’s still full and even though I see my shoes move, they don’t make a sound.

Unwriting

by Franz Wright

The universe is mostly made of thought,

a few weirdly simple equations

known and still unknown.

 Sentient beings are numberless

and I promise to save them,

when you are old and I am a story.

It is all contained

in a few words

written and unwritten.

Winter, thank God. I will wander

from room to room, window to window

a fictional person gazing at fictional skies.

4 am Kaleidoscope

by Taylor Ke 4 am, somber and freezing she stumbles over snow clumps carelessly discarded by another nor'easter her mother stretching her goodbyes leaning against a little red ford she watches, anxious hug the dog, turn off the heat, lock the door I was growing impatient exhaustion welled up brimming at eyelids, waning and waxing with the moon drifting for a while, shifting in my seat flittering eyes when the sun lulled on mine and suddenly, something beautiful dulled vision washed away by sacramento, emerald in the distance, cerulean mountains rose above chalked up road and rubble as our little car looped around highways and received the morning commute slight snow caps on withered pine whispered spring clouds that dipped into the ground clustered blending into a motley dream and the sun that hardly hit my face now danced in the crevices of broken bits of sky lighting up every third car we drove by tk

 The Sick Rose

by William Blake

O rose, thou are sick:

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy;

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

The Flea

by John Donne

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deny'st me is;

It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know'st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;

And this, alas! is more than we could do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea, more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,

And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to that self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?

Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou

Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.

'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;

Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,

Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy. ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Valentine for Valentina By Susannah Geary ‘18 I don’t like cheesy things, or sickeningly sweet things. So why do I love these things when I look at you. It’s like I’m hypnotized by your eyeliner wings. You came out coy but a fire within. You were speaking in Spanish and English so effortlessly. You had the most elegant stones all over your skin. They underestimated your skill. Maybe that’s why I love you. You proved yourself always ready to kill. Why did I cry when I saw you in that white dress? My jaw hurts from smiling now. Look what you’ve done my mind’s just a mess.

Mending Wall

by Robert Frost Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

To His Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

       But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

       Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Anabel Lee

by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Here again...

by Taylor Ke summer bits of burnt patio charcoaled my shorts palms grasped around pink leash while dark eyes dart past me wetting themselves through dewy grass and tugging at my helm elated, I run against gentle greenery until heavy breeze settles on the slight dip of my neck and between my thighs panting as my heart simmers searching for those dark eyes to lead them home soon I’ll be thirty

Sonnet 18 By Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A Musical Instrument Elizabeth Barrett Browning What was he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river? Spreading ruin and scattering ban, Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, And breaking the golden lilies afloat With the dragon-fly on the river. He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, From the deep cool bed of the river: The limpid water turbidly ran, And the broken lilies a-dying lay, And the dragon-fly had fled away, Ere he brought it out of the river. High on the shore sat the great god Pan While turbidly flowed the river; And hacked and hewed as a great god can, With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed To prove it fresh from the river. He cut it short, did the great god Pan, (How tall it stood in the river!) Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, Steadily from the outside ring, And notched the poor dry empty thing In holes, as he sat by the river. ‘This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan (Laughed while he sat by the river), ‘The only way, since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed.' Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, He blew in power by the river. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! Piercing sweet by the river! Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! The sun on the hill forgot to die, And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly Came back to dream on the river. Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, To laugh as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man: The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,— For the reed which grows nevermore again As a reed with the reeds in the river.

Still I Rise By Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Parent’s Pantoum By Carolyn Kizer Where did these enormous children come from, More ladylike than we have ever been? Some of ours look older than we feel. How did they appear in their long dresses More ladylike than we have ever been? But they moan about their aging more than we do, In their fragile heels and long black dresses. They say they admire our youthful spontaneity. They moan about their aging more than we do, A somber group--why don’t they brighten up? Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity They beg us to be dignified like them As they ignore our pleas to brighten up. Someday perhaps we’ll capture their attention Then we won’t try to be dignified like them Nor they to be so gently patronizing. Someday perhaps we’ll capture their attention. Don’t they know that we’re supposed to be the stars? Instead they are so gently patronizing. It makes us feel like children--second-childish? Perhaps we’re too accustomed to be stars. The famous flowers glowing in the garden, So now we pout like children. Second-childish? Quaint fragments of forgotten history? Our daughters stroll together in the garden, Chatting of news we’ve chosen to ignore, Pausing to toss us morsels of their history, Not questions to which only we know answers. Eyes closed to news we’ve chosen to ignore, We’d rather excavate old memories, Disdaining age, ignoring pain, avoiding mirrors. Why do they never listen to our stories? Because they hate to excavate old memories They don’t believe our stories have an end. They don’t ask questions because they dread the answers. They don’t see that we’ve become their mirrors, We offspring of our enormous children.  

 When

by Susannah Geary you’ll be gone soon. you’re drifting away. her eyesight is failing. she won’t have to see you this way.ten years five years tomorrow you’re holding on.20 years 30 years 5 years will the tunnel shut for good?you keep fighting lost another 20 pounds but it’s not good. can she feel your bones?

The Tyger

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 water’d 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?