Zoo by Harry Graham

For years I led a dreary life!

The days passed slowly, one by one;

I fed the ducks, reproved my wife,

Played Handel's Largo on the fife,

Or gave the dog a run.

I neither realised nor knew

The pleasures of a private Zoo.

I never loved a dear gazelle,

To glad me with its soft black eye,

Nor ever to my lot it fell

To know a penguin really well,

Till, early last July,

I bought a small menagerie,

And oh! the difference to me!

Now, when my spouse, perverse or cold,

Induces an attack of dumps,

I feel encouraged and consoled

When in their manege I behold

My camels' greater humps;

I fly from dear mama-in-law

To Kate, my talkative macaw.

When statesmen's speeches are disgraced

By vulgar insults which denote

A lamentable lack of taste,

I seek my monkey-house in haste

To find an antidote;

I turn for manners to the lair

Of Bosco, my performing bear.

Those " lions " whom we fête and feed,

Heroes of sword or brush or pen,

Are they more dignified, indeed,

Than creatures of that nobler breed

Which decorate my den?

The more my fellow-men I view,

The more I love my private Zoo!

Invictus - William Ernest 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 strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

In the Morning, Before Anything Bad Happens by Molly Brodak

 

The sky is open
all the way.

Workers upright on the line
like spokes.

I know there is a river somewhere,
lit, fragrant, golden mist, all that,

whose irrepressible birds
can’t believe their luck this morning
and every morning.

I let them riot
in my mind a few minutes more
before the news comes.

How to Not Be a Perfectionist by Molly Brodak

People are vivid
and small
and don’t live
very long—

Blackout Poetry - Unknown Author

 

Prayer for Uninteresting Times by Brian Bilston

Send me a slow news day,

a quiet, subdued day,
in which nothing much happens of note,
save for the passing of time,
the consumption of wine,
and a re-run of Murder, She Wrote.

Grant me a no news day,
a spare-me-your-views day,
in which nothing much happens at all,
except a few hours together
some regional weather,
a day we can barely recall.

 

How We Disappear by Alessandra Olanow

 
I am in the store touching things.
Linen napkins, a blue bowl.
The world is on fire and I am choosing 
between two kinds of soap.

Everyone here is doing this, filling carts 
with small comforts while somewhere a child 
goes to bed hungry, while the earth heats,
while men make decisions about who gets to live.

I know what this is, this careful arranging
while everything collapses.
This is how we survive.
And also how we disappear.