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Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

– William Ernest Henley

Source: Family Friend Poems

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Thoughts after dark

Subdued by drugs and booze

And dreamless sleep

Thoughts soon forgotten

 

– Katie Rose Waechter 

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The sweetest thing I’ve ever seen

A breathing sunflower blossoming in front of me

With blue grey eyes where the ocean meets the sky

And a perfect smile that money can’t buy

Your laughter is love in its purest form

Your life brings light to any rainstorm

You are the sun and moon sublime

A beautiful, kleine Madeline

– Katie Rose Waechter

This poem is dedicated to my little, beautiful niece, Madeline Alina Rojas

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I have no money

When we were kids, money was a thing of the future

Or the past, whichever came first

Dollars spent on candy and other things that don’t last

But gives so much joy in the moments of childhood,

How it goes by so fast

And moments are lost to memories

Which are, in turn, lost to time

Because how can I possibly remember all those moments

When time goes by so fast

Or slow, depending on your age

While kids count the seconds to their next adventure

I can barely count the hours in a day

But wonder all the same how much time disappears

With nothing to show for it

All my plans and dreams of success

Are still so far away

But I remain stuck

Like a kid in quick sand

I scream and fight while time sinks me further

Knowing I will turn it around, but still sinking down

Under bills and bad relationships, and

Sitting 15 hours a day

I wish I was a kid again

At least I could run around

– Katie Rose Waechter 

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Crash into my world

Light up my night

Send me to the stars

Let me go in flight

Watch me fly away

Never to return

For the skies are where I’m going

And you are stuck on earth

– Katie Rose Waechter 

---

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

– Billy Collins

Source: Poem Hunter

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If I were young as once I was,

and dreams and death more distant then,

I wouldn’t split my soul in two,

and keep half in the world of men,

So half of me would stay at home,

and strive for Faërie in vain,

While all the while my soul would stroll

up narrow path, down crooked lane,

And there would meet a fairy lass

and smile and bow with kisses three,

She’d pluck wild eagles from the air

and nail me to a lightning tree

And if my heart would run from her

or flee from her, be gone from her,

She’d wrap it in a nest of stars

and then she’d take it on with her

Until one day she’d tire of it,

all bored with it and done with it.

She’d leave it by a burning brook,

and off brown boys would run with it.

They’d take it and have fun with it

and stretch it long and cruel and thin,

They’d slice it into four and then

they’d string with it a violin.

And every day and every night

they’d play upon my heart a song

So plaintive and so wild and strange

that all who heard it danced along

And sang and whirled and sank and trod

and skipped and slipped and reeled and rolled

Until, with eyes as bright as coals,

they’d crumble into wheels of gold  . . . .

But I am young no longer now,

for sixty years my heart’s been gone

To play its dreadful music there,

beyond the valley of the sun.

I watch with envious eyes and mind,

the single–souled, who dare not feel

The wind that blows beyond the moon,

who do not hear the Fairy Reel.

If you don’t hear the Fairy Reel,

they will not pause to steal your breath.

When I was young I was a fool.

So wrap me up in dreams and death.

– Neil Gaiman

Source: Endicott Studios

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Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

– Mary Elizabeth Frye

Source: Be Happy Zone