"Like a Rose" by Kathryn Miller (2006)

Like a rose we have loved, 
Let the blossoms grow, Let the love be spent, And let the time slip, But ah it’s time again, To say good bye, ‘Cause once in a while tend to things die, Nothing is left but memories, Which is fine for me, But when those fade away, What’s left of today, Just like the rose they melt away, Time moves on and on, While new roses grow for life is meant to go on, Until one just never dies, And all is justified, Even those two little petals, That started the rose, You and Me. 

"Beyond Fluorescence" by Julianne Buchsbaum (2005)

Soon this place will go strange on us in the white afterglow 
of electrical storms, the skin of winter,

in the Dammerung of a power outage, I dream
of downed wires and the picked locks of neighbors'

homes and all the houses on the street where I live,
the bars on windows, the sense of threat and death,

because when slag glows on the outskirts of town,
it burns all the hands that come near it, all the eyes,

wildflowers, all things that fire hurts are hurt by it,
even insects lose their wings and float down flooded

ditches. Soon there will be no one but strangers to take
our place because somewhere at the end of this place

is another place where animals materialize by the highway,
where no one will know why you went when you left

that morning with no license or address, your face already
roughened by the moon, umber leaves, with a madness

for anonymity, at the edge of a hint of a garden, no laws
to follow, gleaming, towards the Northern horse latitudes,

past the cattlebrown of cornfields, beyond fluorescence
and leather, beginning to renounce what you had stolen,

leaving alluvial deposits of land to fence and feathergrass,
forgetting fires that burned, glass that broke in your hand.

"Sisyphus" by A.E. Stallings (2004)

It is good to work
the dumb, obsessive
muscles. Exertion draws
the mind from hope
to a more tangible object.
To live

is to relive.
This can only work
when there is an object
to push, cursive and recursive,
up the hill, when you hope
this draws

to no close as day withdraws,
but will replay in dreams. You live
in hope
of dream-work,
its regressive,

Awake, abject,
the conscious mind draws
into a ball; the Elusive
tongues it like the pit of an olive.
The quirk
of hope

in recurrent nightmares is the hope
at last to be the object
of the murderer's handiwork,
when he draws
the knife to relieve
the stutter, to make passive

the massive
machinery of hope,
the broken record of alive.
Why object?
The luck of all the draws
is the weight of stone.

"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou (2003)

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. 

"Writing in the Afterlife" by Billy Collins (2002)

I imagined the atmosphere would be clear,
shot with pristine light,
not this sulphurous haze,
the air ionized as before a thunderstorm.

Many have pictured a river here,
but no one mentioned all the boats,
their benches crowded with naked passengers,
each bent over a writing tablet.

I knew I would not always be a child
with a model train and a model tunnel,
and I knew I would not live forever,
jumping all day through the hoop of myself.

I had heard about the journey to the other side
and the clink of the final coin
in the metal purse of the man holding the oar
but how could anyone have guessed

that as soon as we arrived
we would be asked to describe this place
and to include as much detail as possible -
not just the water, he insists,

rather the oily, fathomless, rat-happy water,
not simply the shackles, but the rusty,
iron, ankle-shredding shackles -
and that our next assignment would be

to jot down, off the tops of our heads,
our thoughts and feelings about being dead,
not really an assignment,
the man rotating the oar keeps telling us -

think of it more as an exercise, he groans,
think of writing as a process,
a never-ending, infernal process,
and now the boats have become jammed together,

bow against stern, stern locked to bow,
and not a thing is moving, only our diligent pens.

"If I Knew" (2001)

If I knew it would be the last time

That I'd see you fall asleep,

I would tuck you in more tightly

And pray the Lord, your soul to keep.

If I knew it would be the last time

That I see you walk out the door,

I would give you a hug and kiss

And call you back for one more.

If I knew it would be the last time

I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise,

I would video tape each action and word,

So I could play them back day after day.

If I knew it would be the last time,

I could spare an extra minute

To stop and say "I love you,"

Instead of assuming you would KNOW I do.

If I knew it would be the last time

I would be there to share your day,

Well I'm sure you'll have so many more,

So I can let just this one slip away.

For surely there's always tomorrow

To make up for an oversight,

And we always get a second chance

To make everything just right.

There will always be another day

To say "I love you,"

And certainly there's another chance

To say our "Anything I can do?"

But just in case I might be wrong,

And today is all I get,

I'd like to say how much I love you

And I hope we never forget.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone,

Young or old alike,

And today may be the last chance

You get to hold your loved one tight.

So if you're waiting for tomorrow,

Why not do it today?

For if tomorrow never comes,

You'll surely regret the day,

That you didn't take that extra time

For a smile, a hug, or a kiss

And you were too busy to grant someone,

What turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today,

And whisper in their ear,

Tell them how much you love them

And that you'll always hold them dear

Take time to say "I'm sorry,"

"Please forgive me," "Thank you," or "It's okay."

And if tomorrow never comes,

You'll have no regrets about today.

"Once I Loved A Polish Boy" (2000)

Once I loved a Polish boy:
no matter here or there,
his lineage was pure
and his aunt and uncle,
no less Polish, lived next door.
That round Slavic face,
the alcoholic stories,
allergy to polkas, photo
of tiny shoulders drooping
behind a grown-up accordion.
He told me about moss
and wild horses, willow trees;
about flowers, and the hot name
of summer that follows
the chilly Polish spring.
He made of me a maiden
in a costume of red and white.
Oh, and none of that is true,
I made it all up, almost:
I just saw a movie once
and thought, wouldn't it be nice.