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Reach
A song written by Favi F. and Nomsie T.

When I was just a child,
You were there to hold my hand
When all seemed dark and closing in
You helped me understand

Now that I am older,
I must go on my own
But oh the world is harsh at times
And I feel so alone.

How can I keep from falling?
When all around I see
A world that is crumbling
I feel it pulling me

CHORUS: By striving, reaching higher
You'll perceive what is real,
Keep climbing you won't fall
Lyk3ml hleml oyyx Xrwa

Those lessons that I once learned,
I now keep close to me
To guide me through this troubled world
And continue my journey.

Hashem is always at my side
His Torah shows the way
If I climb those first few steps I'll reach-
The highest height some day.

B'derech shadam rotzeh lalaych,
molichin oso,
Though the road is uncertain,
I know on which path I'll go.

CHORUS: By striving, reaching higher
You'll perceive what is real,
Keep climbing you won't fall
Lyk3ml hleml oyyx Xrwa

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FACES
By: B.F.-Anonymous

Faces, masses of them
Whites of eyes
Shells only
Laughing lies

Chanting, dancing 
All around
Strangling, choking
Silent sound

Trapped within
Net of holes
Bodies only-
Suffering souls

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Thy Will Be Done
By: Edgar Quest
"I'll lend you for a little while a child of Mine," He said,
"For you to love while he lives, and mourn for when he's dead.
It may be six or seven years or twenty-two or three.
 But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for Me?
 He'll bring his charms to gladden you, and should his stay be brief,
 You'll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief.
 I cannot promise he will stay, since all from earth return,
 But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.
I've looked this wide world over in my search for teachers true,
 And from the throngs that crowd life's lanes, I have selected you.
 Now will you give him all your love, nor think the labor vain,
 Nor hate Me when I come to call to take him back again?
 I fancied that I heard them say, "Dear Lord, Thy will be done,
 For all the joy Thy child shall bring the risk of grief we'll run.
 We shelter him with tenderness, we'll love him while we may,
 And for the happiness we've known, forever gratefully stay.
 But should the angels call for him much sooner than we've planned,
 We'll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand.

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Birdfoot's Grampa
By: Joseph Bruchac
The Old Man
must have stopped our car
two dozen times to climb out
and gather into his hands
the small toads blinded
by our lights and leaping
The rain was falling
a mist around his white hair.
and I kept saying, 
"You can't save them all,
accept it, get in,
we've got places to go."
But, leathery hands full
of wet brown life,
knee deep in the summer
roadside grass,
he just smiled and said,
"They have places to go, too."
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Death Be Not Proud
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must 
               flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and 
             desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

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Like Water in a Desert
By: B.F. Anonymous

A myriad of ways, paths but a few
Like water in a desert I search for you
You are kind and thoughtful, but a bit confused I think
Like water in a desert, my words you must now drink
You are lost and wand'ring, from me you have strayed
Down other paths you've walked, with other toys you've played
But now its time to return, I've waited oh, so long
Like for water in a desert my desire still burns strong
Without me you are merely pieces, with me you're a whole
Like water in a desert, you need me - I'm your soul.


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Richard Cory
By: Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went downtown,
  We people on the pavement looked at him;
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
  Clean-favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
  And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
  "Good morning," and he glittered when he
   walked.

And he was rich--yes, richer that a king-----
  And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine, we thought that he was everything
  To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
  And went without the meat, and cursed the
  bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, 
  Went home and put a bullet through his head.

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Lament of the Normal Child
By: Phyllis McGinley
The school where I go is a modern school
  With numerous modern graces.
And there they cling to the modern rule
  Of "Cherish the Problem Cases!"
From nine to three
I develop Me.
  I dance when I'm feeling dancy,
Or everywhere lay on
With creaking crayon
  the colors that suit my fancy.
But when the commoner tasks are done,
  Deserted, ignored, I stand.
For the rest have complexes, everyone;
  Or a hyperactive gland.
Oh, how can I ever be reconciled
  To my hatefully normal station?
Why couldn't I be a Problem Child
  Endowed with a small fixation?
Why wasn't I trained for a Problem Child
  With an interesting Fixation?

I dread the sound of the morning bell.
  The iron has entered my soul.
I'm a square little peg who fits too well
  In a square little hole.
For seven years
In Mortimer Sears
  Has an Oedipus angle flourished;
And Jessamine Gray,
She cheats at play
  Because she is undernourished.
The teachers beam on Frederick Knipe
  With scientific gratitude,
For Fred, they claim, is a perfect type
  Of the Antisocial Attitude.
And Cuthburt Jones has his temper riled
  In a professors mention.
But I am a Perfectly Normal Child,
  So I don't get any attention.
I'm nothing at all but a Normal Child,
  So I don't get the least attention.

The other's jeer as they pass my way.
  They titter without forbearance.
"He's Perfectly Normal," they shrilly say,
"With Perfectly Normal parents."
I learn to read
With a normal speed.
  I answer when I'm commanded.
Infected antrums
Don't give me tantrums.
  I don't even write left handed.
I build with blocks when they give me blocks,
  When it's busy hour, I labor.
And I seldom delight in landing socks
  On the ear of my little neighbor.

I sit on the steps alone.
Why couldn't I be a Problem Child
  With a Case to call my own?
Why wasn't I born a Problem Child?
  With a complex of my own?
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The Children's Hour
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,
  When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
  That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear the chamber above me
  The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened
  And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
  Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra
  And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence;
  Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
  To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
  A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
  They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
  O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
  They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour my with kisses,
  Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
  In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
  Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
  Is not a match for you at all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
  And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
  In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
  Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
  And moulder in dust away!
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To My Grown-Up Son
By: Alice E. Chase

My hands were busy throughout the day,
I didn't have much time to play
The little games you asked me to,
I didn't have much time for you.
I'd wash your clothes, I'd sew and cook,
But when you'd bring your picture book
And ask me, please, to share your fun,
I'd say, "A little later, Son."
I'd tuck you in all safe at night.
And hear your prayers, turn out the light.
Then tiptoe softly to the door,
I wish I'd stayed a minute more,
For life is short, and years ruch past.
A little boy grows up so fast.
No longer is he at your side,
His precious secret to confide.
The picture books are put away,
There are no children's games to play,
No goodnight kiss, no prayers to hear,
That all belongs to yesteryear.
My hands once busy, now lie still
The days are long and hard to fill.
I wish I might go back and do
The little things you asked me to.

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To an Athlete Dying Young
By: A.E. Houseman

  The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
  Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
  Townsman of a stiller town.

  Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
  And early though the laurel grows
  It wishers quicker than the rose.

   Eyes the shady night has shut
     Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
   After earth has stopped the ears:

 Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honors out,
   Runners whom reknown outran
And the name died before the man.

  So set, before the echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
    And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge cup.

  And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
    and fine unwithered on its curls
    The garland briefer than a girl's.

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There Is No Word For Goodbye
By: Mary TallMountain

Sokoya, I said, looking through
        the net of wrinkles into
        wise black pools
        of her eyes.

What do you say in Athabaskan 
        when you leave each other?
        What is the word
        for goodbye?

A shade of feeling rippled
        the wind-tanned skin.
        Ah, nothing, she said,
        watching the river flash.

She looked at me close
        We just say Tlaa. That means,
        See you.
        We never leave each other.
        When does your mouth 
        say goodbye to your heart?

She touched me light
        as a bluebell.
        You forgot when you leave us,
        You're so small then
        We don't use that word.

We always think you're coming back,
        but if you don't,
        we'll see you someplace else.
        You understand,
                There is no word for goodbye.

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Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
By: William Wordsworth

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Or five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain springs
With a soft inland murmur.  Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs
That on a secluded scene impresss 
Thoughts of more deep seclusion and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Mid groves and copses.  Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms, 
Green to teh very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.
                             These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration--feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure, such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.  Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened--that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on--
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
                             If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft--
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart--
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again;
While here I stand, not only with the sense 
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills, when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led- more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The courser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.  ---I cannot paint 
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite, a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.  ---That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures.  Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense.  For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing often times
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.  And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Or elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in hte mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.  Therefore am I still 
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear--both what they half creat, 
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
                        Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay;
For thou are with me here upon the banks 
Of this fair river; thou my dearest friend,
My dear, dear friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of they wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear sister! and this prayer I make, 
Knowing that nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind tha tis within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.  Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 
They memory be as a dwelling place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence--wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshiper of nature, hither came
Unwearied in the service-rather say
With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for they sake!
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CLEAR-ITY
By: Naomi Taub

The droplets splatter on the windshield
Blurring my vision.
I cannot see clearly,
Yet, I know there is a car in front of me

The child wipes his tired eyes
He has bleary vision.
He cannot see me clearly,
Yet, his arms are open wide for me

It is dark outside
the hard, black night.
I cannot see clearly,
Yet, I find the door to the house

I struggle through the hardships of life
not seeing an end in sight.
I cannot see G-d clearly,
Yet, do I know that He is there for me?
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Things Would Be Different
By: B.F. - Anonymous 

If I could return to the place
Before I had hands and face
If I could return up high
Before Body, brain or eye...

Things would be different.

I wouldn't end up here
From fire I wouldn't fear.
If I could return once more
To the place where souls are stored...

Things would be different.

The second time around
I wouldn't be found
Reading model magazines
Hanging out in jeans.

Listening to radio trash
Looking for parties to crash
Drinking and swearing
Non-responsibility bearing.

If you would take me back
I'd happily run and pack
If I had one more chance
At life's confusing dance...

Things would be different.

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This is a sonnet my best friend wrote for english class. 

The window! O, it does rob thee of us
Thy voice fades, nature summons mine own eyes
They gaze, penetrating the obvious
Ripping apart superficial, they size
Up the view.  Look! Ivy upon that wall!
Materialism with Nature blends;
Birds flock together, one alone shall fall;
Droplets splash, each a means and not an end
For, from them form a river vast and wide;
Thou, my teacher art calling to my mind
The lessons that I have learned must reside
In memory, for thou hath pulled the blind.
Teacher, thou deceive thyself in thinking,
It be not thy lessons, I am drinking.

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Dulce Et Decorum Est
     -Wilfred Owen 

     Bent double, like old beggars under sacks 
     Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
     Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs
     And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
     Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
     But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
     Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
     Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

     Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling,
     Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
     But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
     And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
     Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
     As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
     In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
     He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

     If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
     Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
     And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
     His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
     If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
     Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
     Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
     Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,---
     my friend, you would not tell with such high zest
     To children ardent for some desperate glory,
     The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
     Pro patria mori.
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When I Was One-and-Twenty
     - A.E. Housman 

     When I was one-and-twenty
          I heard a wise man say,
     "Give crowns and pounds and guineas
          But not your heart away;
     Give pearls away and rubies
          But keep your fancy free."
     But I was one-and-twenty,
          No use to talk to me.

     When I was one-and-twenty
          I heard him say again,
     "The heart out of the bosom
          Was never given in vain;
     "Tis paid with sighs a plenty
          And sold for endless rue."
     And I am two-and-twenty,
          And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
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 This page is continually under construction.  
If you know of any more poems that you think I would like, 
please email me.  Thanks!!!