RULES FOR BUILDING A LABYRINTH Like swimming, don't dig by yourself. Make certain you start in the same direction as your buddy. Don't show off. It's not how much dirt you lift, but where you let it slip off the shovel. Check for blisters. Even when you're finished digging for the day, keep your shovel near: In a moment of weakness, you may need to share an urgent secret: the hole you almost fell into, the whisper that lured you to its edge. Bill Mohr






Birthday
I've been banned from having birthdaysA new rule has been madeSigned ,sealed and deliveredBy the local Fire Brigade!They say that all those candlesWould create such a blazeThey'd have to come and put it outAnd stay around for days !
So, I guess I'll have to partyWithout the birthday cake,Perhaps I'll light one candleJust for old time's sake ,Those firemen ! So fit and strong,Such handsome looking men -Whose birthday is it ,anyway ?Let's light them all again !
Margaret Glendenning




Viking Blood
It is greatly to my liking,To be a lusty Viking;Yes, that's the only life for me.Not for me just peaceful trading,But pillaging and raidingAnd a life on the rolling sea.
We'll attack some peaceful villageWhere we'll rape and burn and pillage,And return with wenches, gold and loot.Though my actions are deplorableI'm really quite adorableFor I'm just a simple Viking brute.
So come and join my partyLive a life that's gay and hearty,A rover's life that's fun and fancy free.Enjoy a life that's thrillingWith lots of raids and killingYes, it's a Viking life for me.
Larry Webster


Facing It

by Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.




Bagram, Afghanistan, 2002

by Marvin Bell

The interrogation celebrated spikes and cuffs,
the inky blue that invades a blackened eye,
the eyeball that bulges like a radish,
that incarnadine only blood can create.
They asked the young taxi driver questions
he could not answer, and they beat his legs
until he could no longer kneel on their command.
They chained him by the wrists to the ceiling.
They may have admired the human form then,
stretched out, for the soldiers were also athletes
trained to shout in unison and be buddies.
By the time his legs had stiffened, a blood clot
was already tracing a vein into his heart.
They said he was dead when they cut him down,
but he was dead the day they arrested him.
Are they feeding the prisoners gravel now?
To make them skillful orators as they confess?
Here stands Demosthenes in the military court,
unable to form the words “my country.” What
shall we do, we who are at war but are asked
to pretend we are not? Do we need another
naive apologist to crown us with clichés
that would turn the grass brown above a grave?
They called the carcass Mr. Dilawar. They
believed he was innocent. Their orders were
to step on the necks of the prisoners, to
break their will, to make them say something
in a sleep-deprived delirium of fractures,
rising to the occasion, or, like Mr. Dilawar,
leaving his few possessions and his body.







My Name Is
Old glory
I am the flag of the United States of America.Howard schnauber
I fly atop the world's tallest buildings.I stand watch in America's halls of justice.I stand side by side with the Maple Leaf on the worlds longest undefended border.I fly majestically over institutions of learning.I stand guard with power in the world.Look up and see me.I stand for peace, honor, truth and justice.I stand for freedom.I am confident.I am arrogant.I am proud.When I am flown with my fellow banners, my head is a little higher, my colors a little truer.I bow to no one! I am recognized all over the world.I am honored - I am saluted.I am loved - I am revered.I am respected -- and I am feared.I have fought in every battle of every war for more then 200 years. I was flown at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Shiloh and Appomattox. I was there at San Juan Hill, the trenches of France, in the Argonne Forest, Anzio, Rome and the beaches of Normandy, Guam, Okinawa, Korea and KheSan, Saigon Vietnam.Know me,I was there.
I led my troops, I was dirty, battle worn and tired, but my soldiers cheered me, And I was proud.I have been burned, torn and trampled on the streets of countries I have helped set free. It does not hurt, for I am invincible.I have been soiled upon, burned, torn and trampled on the streets of my country. And when it's by those whom I've served in battle -- it hurts.But I shall overcome -- for I am strong.I have slipped the bonds of Earth and stood watch over the uncharted frontiers of space from my vantage point on the moon.I have borne silent witness to allof America's finest hours.But my finest hours are yet to come.When I am torn into strips and used as bandages for my wounded comrades on the battlefield,When I am flown at half-mast to honor my soldiers,Or when I lie in the trembling arms of a grieving parent at the grave of their fallen son or daughter,I am proud.MY NAME IS OLD GLORY LONG MAY I WAVE.



Where the Sidewalk Ends



There is a place where the sidewalk endsAnd before the street begins,And there the grass grows soft and white,And there the sun burns crimson bright,And there the moon-bird rests from his flightTo cool in the peppermint wind.Let us leave this place where the smoke blows blackAnd the dark street winds and bends.Past the pits where the asphalt flowers growWe shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,And watch where the chalk-white arrows goTo the place where the sidewalk ends.Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,For the children, they mark, and the children, they knowThe place where the sidewalk ends. Shel Silverstein





Fear Poem
I realize that I've been running from myself.
I'm running out of breathI can't believe its so hard to breathMy hearts pounding in my chest As I wonder if IT found meI hide under the covers and pretend I'm invisibleThen I turn around and IT is still thereI scream and pray IT would just go awayI'm running and running but IT isRight behind me I've been running from this thing for 5 years nowI stop running and decide to face my fearsOnce and for allAs I stand face to face to what has caused meSo much misery and painI stopI look deeper and deeper into IT's eyesThan I realize that IT is me.
Kindall Perez


Rhythm Poem
I felt creative while listening to music
Music
Can we find any life without the music around us, there would be no life, no love, no happiness.There is music for everyone, not just for the rich. IN life everything is music, the beating of my heart,the typing of this keyboard.Why would someone take that away.music is such a beautiful thing. Let music into our life with open arms. And let music guide us too our future. Adam

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda
I want you to knowone thing.You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs up to your lips to seek me,ah my love, ah my own,in me all that fire is repeated,in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,my love feeds on your love, beloved,and as long as you live it will be in your armswithout leaving mine