circles

Gerbil, gerbil, on the run
in your wheel, that looks like fun.
You must be in awesome shape.
Are you trying to escape?

Is that why you dug a hole?
Where'd you get that vaulting pole?
That looks like my grappling hook.
Give me back that rope you took.

Tell me what that ladder's for.
Why's that hacksaw on the floor?
Are those cable cutters...
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i like my body when it is with your
By E.E. Cummings

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and...
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A Noiseless Patient Spider
By Walt Whitman

A noiseless, patient spider,
I markd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Markd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launchd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling themever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,seeking the spheres,...
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EVENSONG
By Alexis Orgera


For light doth seize my brain

With frantic pain.

William Blake





In the uncut gray

of pulled blinds youve become

something else



the bedrooms dirty secret

in a darkness bath, you and not you.



The galvanized metal dissolver of faith,

a half-life of afghan and dust mote.



No one peels away the pain

of two sickles in one eye, one blind...
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Oblivion
By Jessie Fauset


From the French of Massillon Coicou (Haiti)


I hope when I am dead that I shall lie
In some deserted graveI cannot tell you why,
But I should like to sleep in some neglected spot
Unknown to every one, by every one forgot.

There lying I should taste with my dead breath
The utter lack of life, the fullest sense of...
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Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali

In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called
because...
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Like a White Stone
By Anna Akhmatova

Like a white stone deep in a draw-well lying,
As hard and clear, a memory lies in me.
I cannot strive nor have I heart for striving:
It is such pain and yet such ecstasy.

It seems to me that someone looking closely
Into my eyes would see it, patent, pale.
And, seeing, would grow sadder and more...
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The Lady Unknown
By Alexander Blok

Of evenings hangs above the restaurant
A humid, wild and heavy air.
The Springtide spirit, brooding, pestilent,
Commands the drunken outcries there.

Far off, above the alleys mustiness,
Where bored gray summerhouses lie,
The bakers sign swings gold through dustiness,
And loud and shrill the children cry.

Beyond the city stroll the exquisites,
At every dusk and all the...
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Into Crimson Dark
By Alexander Blok

Into crimson dark thou goest,
Thy vast orbits mock the eye.
Small the echo that thou throwest,
Far, I hear thy footfalls die.

Art thou near?too far for greeting?
Lost in topless altitudes?
Shall I wait a sudden meeting
Where sonorous stillness broods?

In the solitude resounding
Distant footsteps echo free.
Is it thou who flamest, bounding
Circles of...
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Night Was Done
By Mikhail Kuzmin

Night was done. We rose and after
Washing, dressing,kissed with laughter,
After all the sweet night knows.
Lilac breakfast cups were clinking
While we sat like brothers drinking
Tea,and kept our dominoes.

And our dominoes smiled greeting,
And our eyes avoided meeting
With our dumb lips secrecy.
Faust we sang, we played, denying
Nights strange memories, strangely dying,
As...
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The Pendulum
By Yurgis Baltrushaitis

When the dumb darkness most heavily clings,
Rhythmic and ruthless my pendulum swings.
Rustily creaking or whining dismay,
Urging each tarrying moment away.

Longing, it seems, for the days that are fled,
Down ancient stairways resounds someones tread.
Heavy the footfall on flagstones unlit,
Lower and lower and down to the pit.

Praying, it seems, for a long-vanished shore,
Dumbly...
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Saying Your Names
by Richard Siken

Chemical names, bird names, names of fire
and flight and snow, baby names, paint names,
delicate names like bones in the body,
Rumplestiltskin names that are always changing,
names that no ones ever able to figure out.
Names of spells and names of hexes, names
cursed quietly under the breath, or called out
loudly to fill the yard, calling...
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