5 Best Poems for Inspiration

Have writer's block?  Well here are some of my favorite poems that inspire me.

CHICAGO by Carl Sandburg

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

La Balada de la Estrella (The Ballad of the Star) Gabriela Mistral

Estrella, estoy triste.      Star, I am sad.
Tú dime si otra                Tell me if another
como mi alma viste.          soul looks like mine.
-Hay otra más triste. -              There is another more sad.

Estoy sola, estrella.         I am alone, star.
Di a mi alma si existe                If it exists, give my soul
otra como ella.                 another like her.
-Sí, dice la estrella. -       Yes, said the star.

Contempla mi llanto.                   Contemplate my weeping.
Dime si otra lleva de                 Tell me if another partakes of
lágrimas manto.      concealed tears.
-En otra hay más llanto. -           In another there is more weeping.

Di quién es la triste,                 Tell me who the sad one is,
di, quién es la sola,                              tell me, who is the one who is alone,
si la conociste.                 if you know.

-Soy yo, la que encanto, -                     It is I, the one that enchants,
soy yo, la que tengo mi luz hecha llanto.          It is I, the one that has my light made                                      into weeping.

TO SEE HIM AGAIN

by Gabriela Mistral

And shall it never be again, never? Not on nights filled

with trembling of stars, or by the pure light

of virginal dawns, or on afternoons of immolation?

Never, at the edge of any pale pathway

that borders the field, or beside any

tremulous fountain white under the moon?

Never, beneath the entangled tresses of the forest

where, calling out to him, night descended on me?

Nor in the cavern that returns my echoing outcry?

Oh, no! Just to see him again, no matter where--

in little patches of sky or in the seething vortex,

beneath placid moons or in a livid horror!

And, together with him, to be all springtimes

and all winters, entwined in one anguished knot

around his blood-stained neck!

You Foolish Men

by Sor Ina de la Cruz

You foolish men who lay the guilt on women, not seeing you're the cause of the very thing you blame; if you invite their disdain with measureless desire why wish they well behave if you incite to ill. You fight their stubbornness, then, weightily, you say it was their lightness when it was your guile. In all your crazy shows you act just like a child who plays the bogeyman of which he's then afraid. With foolish arrogance you hope to find a Thais in her you court, but a Lucretia when you've possessed her. What kind of mind is odder than his who mists a mirror and then complains that it's not clear. Their favour and disdain you hold in equal state, if they mistreat, you complain, you mock if they treat you well. No woman wins esteem of you: the most modest is ungrateful if she refuses to admit you; yet if she does, she's loose. You always are so foolish your censure is unfair; one you blame for cruelty the other for being easy. What must be her temper who offends when she's ungrateful and wearies when compliant? But with the anger and the grief that your pleasure tells good luck to her who doesn't love you and you go on and complain. Your lover's moans give wings to women's liberty: and having made them bad, you want to find them good. Who has embraced the greater blame in passion? She who, solicited, falls, or he who, fallen, pleads? Who is more to blame, though either should do wrong? She who sins for pay or he who pays to sin? Why be outraged at the guilt that is of your own doing? Have them as you make them or make them what you will. Leave off your wooing and then, with greater cause, you can blame the passion of her who comes to court? Patent is your arrogance that fights with many weapons since in promise and insistence you join world, flesh and devil.

Let America Be America Again

by Langstron Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!