I think about this often.

I do not belong here.

Invictus by William Ernst Henley

When I was younger I clung to it’s message of perseverance. It ended up being the first poem that I ever memorized.

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

Dolce et Decorum est - Wilfred Owen. A grim, anti-war masterpiece written by a soldier fighting in the trenches in WW1

Ozymandias - Percy Shelley. A reminder of human transience and hubris

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas. Helps me to endure when things seem bleak or hopeless.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44049/a-man-said-to-the-universe

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

Written in like the 1890s. So straight forward. Feels modern.

Subh Milis (Sweet jam). It’s a short and powerful Irish poem reminding parents to be kind to their kids.

English translation below. Can’t seem to get the formatting correct on mobile…

Bhí subh milis ar bháscrann an doras

ach mhúch mé an corraí

ionaim a d’éirigh

mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá

a bheadh an bháscrann glan

agus an lámh beag – ar iarraidh…”

There was jam on the door handle

But I quelled the anger

That rose inside me

Because I thought of the day

That the handle would be clean

And the little hand - longed for

It’s not DNS,
There’s no way it’s DNS,
It was DNS

Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.

I really like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. I first encountered it as a result of reading Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently novels, but one day I saw the original in the library and just read it from start to finish. It’s fantastic, so weird, so compelling.

I also like his Kubla Khan, the imagery of the “caverns measureless to man” and the “sunless sea” have always stuck with me.

I’m partial to To make a prairie by Emily Dickinson:

To make a prairie it takes a clover 
      and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

I enjoy the simplicity. Also, there’s a great choir setting by Rudolf Escher which I really enjoy.

Ozymandias, because it’s one of the very few I’ve read, and I liked it.

This Bread I Break by Dylan Thomas

It’s a short, beautiful poem that laments man’s destructive relationship with nature.

A Supermarket in California by Ginsberg. Idk why it just always has stuck with me

Teeny tiny axolotl

There is really not a lotl

Of you. Not a jot or tittle

So I’ll call you axolitl

— anon

“The View From Halfway Down” by Alison Tifel has always resonated with me:

The weak breeze whispers nothing
The water screams sublime
His feet shift, teeter-totter
Deep breath, stand back, it’s time

Toes untouch the overpass
Soon he’s water bound
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
The view from halfway down

A little wind, a summer sun
A river rich and regal
A flood of fond endorphins
Brings a calm that knows no equal

You’re flying now
You see things much more clear than from the ground
It’s all okay, it would be
Were you not now halfway down

Thrash to break from gravity
What now could slow the drop
All I’d give for toes to touch
The safety back at top

But this is it, the deed is done
Silence drowns the sound
Before I leaped I should’ve seen
The view from halfway down

I really should’ve thought about
The view from halfway down
I wish I could’ve known about
The view from halfway down

Mark Strand - Keeping things whole. It helps me deal with depression. I find it very soothing when I’m feeling down. It’s one of the few I know by heart.