your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

This poem is spoken in Levi’s “Go Forth” ad, which is currently banned in the UK because of the London Riots.

(Source: milan-poetry.blogspot.com)

(Source: The Awl)

There’s a moment around sunrise
in the heart of the night
when you find the children sleeping
with their eyes closed real tight.

With a touch to their faces
they will turn and then sigh.
The love swells within you
and a tear falls tonight.

Not a sound to be heard,
so quiet and still,
and you bathe in the peace
of a lone whippoorwill.

Now Kitty asks for breakfast
and the family starts to rise,
unaware of secret pleasures
in the heart of the night.

As you think of your lifetime,
all the troubles and pain,
and you gaze at their faces
you know you’d do it all again.

No more tranquil abode,
like a coat to be worn,
then the time before sunrise
when the new day is born.

And it gives you the strength
to face life with new sight
‘cause your eyes are much clearer
in the heart of the night.

[Source]

I shot a man yesterday
And much to my surprise,
The strangest thing happened to me
I began to cry.

He was so young, so very young
And Fear was in his eyes,
He had left his home in Germany
And came to Holland to die.

And what about his Family
were they not praying for him?
Thank God they couldn’t see their son
And the man that had murdered him.

I knelt beside him
And held his hand—
I begged his forgiveness
Did he understand?

It was the War
And he was the enemy
If I hadn’t shot him
He would have shot me.

I saw he was dying
And I called him “Brother”
But he gasped out one word
And that word was “Mother.”

I shot a man yesterday
And much to surprise
A part of me died with Him
When Death came to close
His eyes.

[Source]

A wind sways the pines,
         And below
Not a breath of wild air;
Still as the mosses that glow
On the flooring and over the lines
Of the roots here and there.
The pine-tree drops its dead;
They are quiet, as under the sea.
Overhead, overhead
Rushes life in a race,
As the clouds the clouds chase;
         And we go,
And we drop like the fruits of the tree,
         Even we,
         Even so.

And poets would see love in the parking of a car,
love in the rear-view mirror, love in the slowing
of tires between yellow lines.
‘Stay with me in this parking lot,’ the driver
would say, ‘All my life, I have held this space
for someone like you.’

Meanwhile back at the curb,
we were waiting.


Excerpt from Crossing with the Light, Dwight Okita