Meaningful poetry

A thanks to Will Powers for posting this. I had to post it too.

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And soft delicate wiles.

And it grew both night and day
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine
And he knew that it was mine.

William Blake

The Sweet Potato Queens

One of my clients was kind enough to leave a copy of The Sweet Potato Queen's Field Guide to Men for me to read last time I house-sat. The book had me laughing out loud. Here is a thought provoking introduction:

Love gone bad is at least interesting, if only in a macabre sort of way. It's surely not boring. Love gone blah is simply death--slow, torturous, and ultimately longed-for death. When you're mired in a lifeless, life-stifling, life-smothering relationship, you start to take it for granted. Life sucks, always did, always will, and so you're just hunkered down, enduring this relationship. As far as I know, nobody is handing out prizes, tangible or otherwise, for endurance of life its ownself. In my experience, if you ignore your life, it will pretty much ignore you right back. I reckon the universe figures why should it bother sending you anything else if you haven't got any more gumption than that.

Prizes are handed out in a continuous stream, however, to folks commited to living. When you finally wake up and look around, you realize that your life has been so bad for so long, it's no longer even painful to you. And when you get yourself up on your hind legs and take action, you'll not only wonder how you stood your misery for so long, but you will ask that all important question, why? Why did you bear that burden for so long when apparently you were wearing the Ruby Slippers the whole time? It doesn't really matter too much why--as long as you start clicking those heels together and devote a fair amount of time each day to grinning and looking around you.