Aren't koala bears cute????!!!

I discovered a new poet today that I really like. His name is John Rybicki. I'm going to post some of his amazing poetry here, for your enjoyment! :D

The Earth Is Not Quiet

For Calvin Galazin

Even leaves are rattling
out of hearts. I gravel skid
and dive over my handlebars.
I know what the leaves are:

one formed from the heart of
the priest lifting this skinny boy
like some host five feet off
the altar and hanging him

from the pin in Christ's feet;
one shaped from the heart of
the German man on the line at
Dodge Truck, seventy-one years

old and he's still stretching
Cinderella's slipper
over 487 brake pedals each day,
fire and floating metal carriages

and sweat blown back around him
as if gathering in a twirling midnight
dress; another leaf for the nurse,
her fingers hollow as bone flutes

and she's piping them all night
beside her boy's oxygen tent;
another leaf for the father, who,
three hours earlier, slammed the rolling

hospital bed through doctors to find
a wall socket that would give
his blue boy oxygen. The boy
diving over his handlebars

because maybe this time the leaf
is the father's heart falling.


Here's a link to another one of his poems that I like maybe even more. :) AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL

I realized today that I need to be more sensitive to the failures of people. I know when I fail, I feel so vulnerable and completely unprotected and sensitive. I feel like all I want to do is hide. I realized that I don't like being in a situation where I'm the one with most failure. But I think this teaches me how to behave when someone else is in the situation of the most failure. How can I be sensitive, and not prideful and not flaunt any qualities I deem as more successful? Sometimes (maybe most of the time) I have a low self-esteem. I don't believe in myself. Honestly, I don't think I'm good at much of anything. But I am amazed at others who are able to achieve so much. I can't even imagine being in the life of a person like that. But I wonder if it's better; maybe it's not. Why do people strive so much to achieve *fill in the blank*? Is life really just a series of ropes and ladders that you climb to see how far you can get? Are relationships there to just boost the level of your identity? It seems like that's the way it is sometimes.

I don't deal well with competition. I don't deal well with competition at all. I just want to get along with everybody and have everybody support everybody. And I just don't want to appear that way because that is just another ploy to climbing the ropes. To know the polite words, to act like a caring person, just so you're safe and technically equal a nice person--all the outer calculations add up, but inside what are you? What's the point of being labeled such a nice person, when you're not actually accomplishing anything? The truly kind person looks and sees deeply. The truly kind person sees deeply and responds to the person/situation at the root, not the surface. The socially accepted formalities of politeness mean nothing if the root issue is ignored.

25

Also...this is really fun.

I dare you.