I'm Nobody by Emily Dickenson

It's been some time since I posted a poem.

But today I came across this poem at this site. And the poem somehow felt very close to my heart.


I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you — Nobody — Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know!

How dreary — to be — Somebody!
How public — like a Frog –
To tell one’s name — the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Poetry in Motion

I've written so many posts here on the Poetry in Motion initiative in the New York Subway, I think it's high time I put a link to it as well!

So, here it is....

Let Me Stop by Jeremy Davis

I'm packing up to leave. And as usual, over time you tend to collect a lot of junk, especially in terms of paper. I was clearing all the slips, bills and reciepts out, when I came across this small slip of paper where I had jotted down this poem from one of the subway "Poetry in Motion" entries.

I wish this po’m to oblige her, kindly,
but I shouldn’t sign my name to these words–
I should just keep admiring her qui’tly
’cause I can’t write like her beauty deserves:

my pen’s too slight to boldly show her face,
on a page too dim and pale to be kind
reflecting her eyes, shined ’neath arched brows’ lace,
easily recalled as paired polished rhyme–

by that light a bird takes flight from finger,
whistles o’er her river and limber streams,
palms aflutter o’er standing waves in her
that softly through their curvy banks careen

but I’ll bid the bird hide and stop whistling
so she won’t catch it, annoyed at list’ning.

Spinning a Penny by Piet Hein

Came across this post on an interesting blog by Amit called Anything Else. Interesting posts, mostly techie. The poem was great. Incidentally, I liked his retitling of it, so I'll keep it the same! (The original name is A Psychological Tip)

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.

No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're Hoping.

The poem is by Piet Hein, a Danish poet and scientist. His poems are known as "Grooks"!

Googled him and came across Piet Hein's Home Page. Interesting reading!

A Leaf by Maj Bronislaw

A leaf, one of the last, parts from a maple branch:
it is spinning in the transparent air of October, falls
on a heap of others, stops, fades. No one
admired its entrancing struggle with the wind,
followed its flight, no one will distinguish it now
as it lies among the other leaves, no one saw what I did. I am
the only one.

(Yup, it sounds like the poetry version of "Raindrops on the window")

Excerpt from "To his Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell

As we grow older, we start asking the same questions. What have I done? What should I do? My past was the best.

And other thoughts, about the slow realisation that life is not something which extends forward to infinity. It's a fixed time period! The scary thought is, all of a sudden you think, where am I on this time scale? You get to realise that you've already spent a number of years alive! Somehow, when you're young you really don't put to much thought into all this!!

Anyway, came across a nice poem, which was uplifting. It says that time would be better spent if instead of looking back we looked forward. The poem is by Andrew Marvell and this part is just a small bit, but which for me, gives me more points to ponder!


But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.



And then I came across Oscal Wilde. Trust him to put in the last word with his irrepressible wit!

"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young."

A Question by Robert Frost

And finally, he asked me a question...

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.


I think that question kind of laid everything to rest! I said bye to Frosty and the bookshop.

I had some living to do. Suddenly I realise that thinking also happens in time, and thinking about life too much makes me miss living it!!! So let me go live some, then I'll think about it some more...