familiarity poems Archives - Best Poetry Online

There’s Comfort in Old Tales and Old Ways | Gauri Dixit

There’s comfort
In old tales
And old ways
Is that why you refuse to budge?
Is that why you refuse to change?

There’s comfort
In old tales
And old ways
Is that why you keep me caged?
I won’t fly my dear
For I too find comfort in old ways
I am caged
Without a cage
From stone age

There’s comfort
In old tales
And old ways
I will not steal you words
I will not steal your sword
I will speak if spoken to
If not I will hide my words in the blues

There’s comfort
In old tales
And old ways
You feed me stale stories
Day after day
Month after month
Year after year
And I thrive
If you suddenly change the stories
I will not survive

There’s comfort
In old tales
And old ways
I keep singing
Songs of freedom
For days
And you clap
A thunderous applause
By one man audience
Is what I am used to
I will be lost if not for you

There’s comfort
In old tales
And old ways
I taste the sunrays
Everyday
Burning my tongue
Little by little
The day the taste changes or the day the tongue burns
Will be the end of times
And the rhymes

Homebody | J.K. Durick

In all this time I haven’t traveled very far
Stayed nearby, a stone’s throw, a short ride
To everything, the landmarks of my life,
Those milestones that measure the years —

I can still get to my childhood home in ten
Minutes, maybe less if traffic isn’t too deep.
I work across the street from where I went
To grade school, went to college a short bus
Ride away, my college was across the road
From where I was born, still go to the church,
When I go, where I was baptized. I’ve been
Shopping in the same stores so long that
They’ve come to know me and never ask me
What I’m looking for, because I buy the things
I bought last week, last year, and years before.
Why, I’ve been married to the same person for
Forty years, our wedding was in my college’s
Chapel — across the road from where I was born.

These distances satisfy me, convince me that
Fate is enough. I rarely tampered, or meddled,
Or even raised my hand with a question. I am
Simply at home in the small place that I am.