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Best Poems Written by Harris Tobias

Below are the all-time best Harris Tobias poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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8 Haikus

8 Haikus


Hands folded in my lap
like dying birds
I wave and they fly again

Feet tap like nervous hens
pecking for crumbs
I have nothing to feed them

My heart pounds like the neighbor
on the wall
I cannot wish it away

I try to write about beauty
Black marks on paper
That is the truth

The Republican’s convention—
misguided visions of the future

The summer’s end
some early leaves are falling
Trying to beat the rush

The delegates cheer in funny hats
Their loud garments can raise the dead

Indian Summer
I can still swim but i swim
with yellow leaves

Copyright © Harris Tobias | Year Posted 2009



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Better Angels

Better Angels


The better angels of our nature
The higher aspects of our hearts
The deeper yearnings of our beings
The true summation of our parts

It is to this that I aspire
It is to this my soul assumes
To the highest but no higher
Only what a man presumes

Only where the best have been
Only where the saints have trod
To be less would would be a sin
To be more would be a god

Copyright © Harris Tobias | Year Posted 2009

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The Ballad of Clan Mac Aroon

THE BALLAD OF CLAN MAC AROON

 Listen ye now to a story
 The history of Clan Mac Aroon
 Tis a tale to set brave hearts a tremble
 And cause many a faint heart to swoon

 The English were thick in the Highlands
 Each with a sword neath his goon
 They were searching the moor and the heather
 For the King's diamond crusted spitoon
 But they needn't ah looked any further
 Twas in the hands of the Clans Mac Aroon

 The fight that ensued was ferocious
 With many a fine lad laid doon
 And though the bagpipes were playin atrocious
 It made the British just wonna gae hoom
 They were stubborn and bent on destruction
 And they fought to the last Mac Aroon

 When the dust and the smoke had all settled
 And the battle was over and doon
 There was naught but a pile of rubble
 Where the Mac Aroon castle had boon
 But the English went home empty handed
 For although the battle they woon
 They never more saw the King's cuspidor
 Nor slew they the last Mac Aroon

 So we sing and we drink our proud fellows
 Whose brave sons were laid in their tomb
 For they fought and they died
 On the wide Firth of Clyde
 just to spit in an English spitoon
 The gloroius Clan Mac Aroon

Copyright © Harris Tobias | Year Posted 2009

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Monkey Shines

MONKEY SHINES
				
				
If people were like bonobos
Or so at least the story goes
We'd all live peacefully in trees
Eating fruit and picking fleas
But humans, filled with genes recessive,
Have evolved much more aggressive
Behaving more like chimpanzees
Driving rivals to their knees
Our aggression knows no bounds
In the air or on the ground
And if you think we're not that simian
Just ask any Palestinian
Bombs and bullets on their heads
Drive them from their Arab beds
You see them on the evening news
Firing rockets at the Jews
Just another struggle sadly
A case of monkey's behaving badly

Copyright © Harris Tobias | Year Posted 2009


Book: Shattered Sighs