The Real World is Tough: Def Poetry

This is good.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster;
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

- One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Thanks, Robert Frost – David Ray

Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought…
The future, yes, and even for the past,
that it will become something we can bear.
And I too, and my children, so I hope,
will recall as not too heavy the tug
of those albatrosses I sadly placed
upon their tender necks. Hope for the past,
yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage,
and it brings strange peace that itself passes
into past, easier to bear because
you said it, rather casually, as snow
went on falling in Vermont years ago.

Boat on a River

If there’s a boat on the
river and you and it collide,
You look for a navigator with
Rage, and finding none, move on.

But if that boat had a man
At the oar, you’d yell and
Become angry beyond compare.

What difference do you find?
Nothing really. The first boat
follows the path ordained by
Cause and effect.
The second’s oarsmen follows
The path laid out by Karma.

You can’t control either boat,
So why pretend the first is
Any different than the second?
Energy bouncing on energy
Let each go and find inner
Peace.

Lethargy

You know it’s bad
when you just want to sleep
when all your plans for the future
lay in a giant heap
on the ground, and you realize
that it would be so much easier just to close your eyes

But you choose this state
just like you choose what to put on your plate
if life isn’t exciting enough to keep your attention
how do you except to realize what life really is

if life doesn’t cut it
then what will
and why doesn’t it cut it?

aren’t you just running from the truth
the truth that is so true, it hurts
the truth that life is amazing
and that the only reason you can’t see that
is because you have so many shades over your eyes
to block the brilliance

at one point you could see, and you will see again
but until then, life will seem dull and life-less

and that’s just an illusion, a mask
that reality puts over your eyes
in order to hide

wake up!
are you paying attention!!!