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. 

Loss and Gain - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

When I compare

What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. 

Flowers by Wendy Cope

 
Some men never think of it.
You did. You’d come along
And say you’d nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts –
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But, look, the flowers you nearly brought
Have lasted all this while.