WHAT I ACHE FOR …
Oriah, Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, fade it or fix it, I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty everyday, and if you can source your life on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the moon. It doesn’t interest me where you live or how much money you have. I want to know I you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know it you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Little Tin God
By: Don Henley
The new age is dawning on fewer than expected
Business as usual, that’s how the headlines read
As some shaky modern saviors have now been resurrected
In all this excitement, well, you may have been misled.
People want a miracle. They say, “Oh, Lord, can’t you see us
Trying to make a living down here to keep the children fed.”
But from little dark motel rooms, to Six Flags Over Jesus
How have the mighty fallen now, or so their Bible says.
(Chorus)
But you don’t have to pray to a little tin god
Step out of the way for a little tin god
You might feel the wreath, feel the wrath
But you never have to get down on your knees
You never have to holler please, please.
No, you never have to get down on your knees for a little tin god
The cowboy’s name was Jingle and he heard that there was trouble
So, in a blaze of glory, he rode out of the West.
No one was ever certain, what it was that he was saying
But they loved it when he told them, they were better than the rest.
(Repeat Chorus)
…You might hate the system, hate the judge
But you never have to get down on your knees
You don’t have to holler please, please
No, you never have to get down on your knees for a little tin god.
Down around from heaven you lead the flock to water
The man in the middle would have you think you have no other choice
But to wander in the wilderness of all the upturned faces
If you stop and listen long enough, you will hear you own small voice.
(Repeat Chorus)
Talking Bout a Revolution
By: Tracy Chapman
Don’t you know?
Talking about a revolution …
Sounds like a whisper.
Don’t you know?
Talking bout a revolution,
Sounds like a whisper.
While they’re standing in the welfare lines,
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation,
Wasting time in the unemployment line,
Sitting around waiting for a promotion.
Don’t you know?
Talking bout a revolution …
Sounds like a whisper.
When are people gonna rise up and get their share?
When are people gonna rise up and take what’s theirs?
Don’t you know you’d better run, run, run, run, run, run?
Oh, I said you’d better run, run, run, run, run, run.
Cause finally the tables are starting to turn.
Talking bout a revolution.
Yes, finally the tables are starting to turn,
Talking bout a revolution …
While they’re standing in the welfare lines,
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation,
Wasting time in the unemployment line,
Sitting around waiting for a promotion.
Don’t you know?
Talking bout a revolution …
Sounds like a whisper.
Cause finally the tables are starting to turn,
Talking bout a revolution, oh, oh, Lord.
Get It Together
By: India Aire
From: Voyage to India
One shot to your heart without breaking your skin
No one has the power to hurt you like your kin
Kept it inside didn’t tell no one else
Didn’t even want to admit it to yourself
And now your chest burns and your back aches
From 15 years of holding the pain
And now you only have yourself to blame
If you continue to live this way
(Chorus)
Get it together, you ought to heal your body
Get it together, you have to heal your heart
Whatsoever you sew you will reap
Get it together. You can fly, fly …
Dark future ahead of me, that’s what they said
I’d be starving if I ate all the lies they fed
Cause I’ve been redeemed from your anguish and pain
A miracle child, I’m floating on a cloud
Cause the words that come from your mouth you’re the first to hear
Speak words of beauty and you will be there
No matter what anybody says
What matters most is what ya think of yourself
(Repeat Chorus)
The choice is yours, no matter what it is
To choose life is to choose to forgive
You don’t have to try to hurt him, or break his pride
Just shake that weight off, and you’ll be ready to fly
One shot to your heart without breaking your skin
No one has the power to hurt you like your friends
Thought it would never change but as time moved on
That ugly duckling grew up to be a swan
And now your chest burns and your back aches
Because now the years are showing up on your face
But you’re never really happy and you’ll never be whole
Until you see the beauty in growing old.
(Repeat Chorus)
You can live or you can die
Back To The Middle
By India Aire
She is twenty five, spent over half of her life so afraid to speak her mind
And such a shame, cause oh what a brilliant mind she has
And now, that she’s been introduced to confidence
She doesn’t see that she’s bordering on arrogance.
When will she learn to come back to the middle?
He is a young black man, grew up without his father
Now it falls into his hands to protect his mother
Because if he doesn’t, well, then, who will?
His older brother, he lives in fear of everything
Especially trying to fill his father’s shoes.
Respectively, they go to extremes of masculine and feminine
Chasing dreams but they keep on falling
Cause they don’t know no balance
When will they learn to come back to the middle?
You gotta take the good with the bad and you might hit the wall
Sometimes you fly, sometimes you will fall
There ain’t no way to avoid the pain
But it’s getting burned, that’s how you will learn
To come back to the middle. Come back to the middle. Yeah.
Learning to protect yourself, now that is just a part of life.
If you let your fears keep you from flying you will never reach your height
To get to the top, you must come back to the middle
When will you learn to come back to the middle?
When will you learn to come back to the middle (repeat)
Don’t make no mind about fallin down
Cause it’s when you’re in that valley you can see more clearly
Black Eyes/Blue Tears
Shania Twain
(Chorus)
Black eyes, I don’t need em, blue tears, give me freedom, now.
Positively, never going back, I won’t live where things are so out of whack
No more rolling with the punches, no more using or abusing
I’d rather die standing than live on my knees
Beggin please, no more black eyes, I don’t need em, blue tears, give me freedom now
Oh yeah, Black eyes are behind me, blue tears will never find me now.
Definitely found my self esteem.
Finally, I’m forever free to dream
No more crying in the corner
No excuses, no more bruises
Black eyes, I don’t need em, blue tears, give me freedom, now.
Positively, never going back, I won’t live where things are so out of whack
No more rolling with the punches, no more using or abusing
I’d rather die standing than live on my knees
Beggin please, no more black eyes, I don’t need em, blue tears, give me freedom now
Oh yeah, Black eyes are behind me, blue tears will never find me now
Will never find me now, It’s all behind me, it’ll never find me now.
Find your self esteem and be forever free to dream.
MYSELF
by Edgar a. guest
I have to live with myself and so
i want to be fit for myself to know
i want to be able as days go by
always to look myself straight in the eye
i don’t want to stand with the setting sun
and hate myself for things i have done
i don’t want to keep on a closet shelf
a lot of secrets about myself
and fool myself, as i come and go,
into thinking that nobody else will know
the kind of a man i really am
i don’t want to dress up myself in sham.
i want to go out with my head erect
i want to deserve all women’s respect
but here in the struggle for fame and pelf
i want to be able to like myself
i don’t want to look at myself and know
that i am bluster and bluff and empty show.
i can never hide myself from me
i see what others may never see
i know what others may never know
i never can fool myself, and so
whatever happens, i want to be
self-respecting and conscience free
invictus
by william e. henley
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 straight the gate
how charged with punishments the scroll
i am the master of my fate
i am the captain of my soul
if
by rudyard kipling
if you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you
if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
but make allowance for their doubting too
if you can wait and not be tired by waiting
or being lied about, don’t deal in lies
or being hated, don’t give way to hating
and yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.
if you can dream and not make dreams your master
if you can think and not make thoughts your aim
if you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two imposters just the same
if you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
or watch the things you gave your life to broken
and stoop and build them up with worn out tools
if you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss
and lose and start again at your beginnings
and never breathe a word about your loss
if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
to serve your turn long after they are gone
and so hold on when there is nothing in you
except the will, which says to them: hold on
if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
or walk with kings nor lose the common touch
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt y ou
if all men count with you, but none too much
if you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds worth of distance run
yours is the earth and everything that’s in it
and which is more, you’ll be a man, my son.
like mother, like son
by margaret j. grafflin
do you know that your soul is of my soul such a part
that you seem to be fibre and core of my heart?
none other can pain me as you can do
none other can please me or praise me as you
remember the world will be quick with its blame
if shadow or stain ever darken your name.
like mother, like son, is a saying so true
the world will judge largely the mother by you.
be yours then the task, if task it shall be,
to force the proud world to do homage to me.
be sure it will say, when its verdict you’ve won,
she reaped as she sowed. behold, this is her son.
UNWRITTEN
Natasha Bedingfield
I am unwritten
Can’t read my mind
I’m undefined
I’m just beginning
The pen’s in my hand
Ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you cannot find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
CHORUS
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else can
Speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself fin words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
I break tradition
Sometimes my tries
Are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned/ to not make mistakes
But I can’t live that way
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you cannot find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
VARIOUS POEMS“I’M TRYING TO FIND THE COURAGE TO BE TENDER IN MY LIFE – I KNOW THAT VIOLENT PEOPLE ARE WEAK PEOPLE. ONLY THE GENTLE ARE EVER REALLY STRONG.” - JAMES DEAN
Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night
A Sestina by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
WRITING A SESTINA
Writing a sestina is one of the biggest challenges in poetry, but learning how to repeat words without sounding too repetitious will help you craft a successful sestina. Whether you are trying to add the sestina to your list of accomplishments or just trying to complete a poetry class assignment, the sestina presents problems to nearly everybody. This is arguably the most complex form of poetry, but as such, it is one of the most exciting to try and master. Crafting your first (or hundredth for that matter) can be an overwhelming task, but by following the form and using a few tips, you too can add the great sestina to your list of accomplishments.
The Form
The sestina is made up of 39 lines written in iambic pentameter with six stanzas of six lines and one stanza of three lines. Rhyming is not required (and is actually rare). All of this doesn’t sound too difficult. The catch? The same six words are used at the end of each line, in a different order in each stanza, the last stanza using two words per line. Here is the order in each stanza with each number representing a word. The six words for this sestina are love, yesterday, come, tomorrow, overwhelm, and today.