The Death Of Santa Claus – Vincent Starrett

It was the night before the famous day
When that befell of which I write. The house
Was silent as the dark: nor man nor mouse
Stirred anywhere. The weary children lay
Asleep upstairs, their stockings, after play,
Were hung beside the fire, with Mama’s blouse;
While, meditating on the morrow’s grouse,
I must have dozed my errant wits away.

At any rate, I had a curious dream
In which a little whiskered gnome in red
Came down the chimney with a set of Tennyson,
And perished in the flames. One tiny scream
And he was gone like wax or melted lead….
But for some weeks thereafter we had venison.

The Divine Right Of Kings – Edgar Allan Poe

The only king by right divine
Is Ellen King, and were she mine
I’d strive for liberty no more,
But hug the glorious chains I wore.

Her bosom is an ivory throne,
Where tyrant virtue reigns alone ;
No subject vice dare interfere,
To check the power that governs here.

O! would she deign to rule my fate,
I’d worship Kings and kingly state,
And hold this maxim all life long,
The King – my King – can do no wrong.

The Dragon Of Grindly Grun – Shel Silverstein

I’m the Dragon of Grindly Grun,
I breathe fire as hot as the sun.
When a knight comes to fight
I just toast him on sight,
Like a hot crispy cinnamon bun.

When I see a fair damsel go by,
I just sigh a fiery sigh,
And she’d baked like a ‘tater-
I think of her later
With a romantic tear in my eye.

I’m the Dragon of Grindly Grun,
But my lunches aren’t very much fun,
For I like my damsels medium rare,
and they always come out well done.

Nurse No Long Grief – Mary Gilmore

Oh, could we weep,
And weeping bring relief!
But life asks more than tears
And falling leaf.

Though year by year
Tears fall and leaves are shed,
Spring bids new sap arise,
And blood run red.

Nurse no long grief
Lest the heart flower no more;
Grief builds no barns; its plough
Rusts at the door.

Admonition – Sylvia Plath

If you dissect a bird
To diagram the tongue
You’ll cut the chord
Articulating song.

If you flay a beast
To marvel at the mane
You’ll wreck the rest
From which the fur began.

If you pluck out the heart
To find what makes it move,
You’ll halt the clock
That syncopates our love.

Eden is that old-fashioned House – E Dickinson

Eden is that old-fashioned House
We dwell in every day
Without suspecting our abode
Until we drive away.

How fair on looking back, the Day
We sauntered from the Door—
Unconscious our returning,
But discover it no more.

The Wise – Countee Cullen

Dead men are wisest, for they know
How far the roots of flowers go,
How long a seed must rot to grow.

Dead men alone bear frost and rain
On throbless heart and heatless brain,
And feel no stir of joy or pain.

Dead men alone are satiate;
They sleep and dream and have no weight,
To curb their rest, of love or hate.

Strange, men should flee their company,
Or think me strange who long to be
Wrapped in their cool immunity.

The Naked and the Nude – Robert Graves

For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.

Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.

The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman’s trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.

The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometimes nude!

Magic – Shel Silverstein

Sandra’s seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblins’ gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I’ve had to make myself.

“I’ll Never Forget, I Vow” – Jose Marti

I’ll never forget, I vow,
That fall morning long ago,
When I saw a new leaf grow
Upon the old withered bow.

That dear morning when for naught,
By a stove whose flame had died,
A girl in love stood beside
An old man, and his hand sought.