Two Pictures - a poem I didn't write

I didn't write this poem, but I was struck by it. I don't know if the story is true or not, and I imagine it's not. But I like the moral of the story. Enjoy!


Two Pictures
by unknown

Two Pictures hung on the dingy wall
Of a grand old Florentine hall —

One of a child of beauty rare,
With a cherub face and golden hair,
The lovely look of whose radiant eyes
Filled the soul with thoughts of Paradise.

The other was a visage vile
Marked with the lines of lust and guile,
A loathsome being, whose features fell
Brought to the soul weird thoughts of hell.

Side by side in their frames of gold,
Dingy and dusty and cracked and old,
This is the solemn tale they told:

A youthful painter found one day,
In the streets of Rome, a child at play,
And, moved by the beauty it bore,
The heavenly look that its features wore,
On a canvas, radiant and grand,
He painted its face with a master hand.

Year after year on his wall it hung;
'Twas ever joyful and always young-
Driving away all thoughts of gloom
While the painter toiled in his dingy room.

Like an angel of light it met his gaze,
Bringing him dreams of his boyhood days,
Filling his soul with a sense of praise.

His raven ringlets grew thin and gray,
His young ambition all passed away;
Yet he looked for years in many a place,
To find a contrast to that sweet face.

Through haunts of vice in the night he stayed
To find some ruin that crime had made.
At last in a prison cell he caught
A glimpse of the hideous fiend he sought.

On a canvas weird and wild but grand,
He painted the face with a master hand.
His task was done; 'twas a work sublime —
An angel of joy and a fiend of crime —
A lesson of life from the wrecks of time.

O Crime: with ruin thy road is strewn;
The brightest beauty the world has known
Thy power has wasted, till in the mind
No trace of its presence is left behind.

The loathsome wretch in the dungeon low,
With a face of a fiend and a look of woe,
Ruined by revels of crime and sin,
A pitiful wreck of what might have been,
Hated and shunned, and without a home,
Was the child that played in the streets of Rome.

Bedtime Poem

Bedtime Poem

She wiggles to and off, around the bed,
Then on his lap she sits, always bouncing,
While he reads the idea she made up in his head
On the magnadoodle nothing-into-something.

She’s tired, but not, and bounds into bed:
Tuck me in, my light on. Go to sleep!
She always wants something, no, wait, nothing.
A spanking. She cries, then lays down her head.

Asleep, she dreams of something-from-nothing,
While a mom and dad chuckle, then sleep.

All My Poetry

All My Poetry

He inspired all my poetry
A gift he gave so easily
By making me unhappy:
A debt I won’t repay.

Boxes - a poem

Boxes

She waited by the stairs,
Her boxes never moving.
Alone they sat, and so did she.

A house of piles and junk
She’d saved from years of living.
She vows to someday clean them out.

Her someday comes. And clean
they did. All boxes empty
Except for one: A lone casket.

His Greatest Disappointment - a short poem

His Greatest Disappointment

I never was so disappointing when
I had my choices made for me. I see
(now that I look): he thinks my greatest sin
Is letting down him without letting down me.

His Mother - a poem

I write awkward and unfinished poetry. First-draft style.

His Mother

He wiggles and squirms and coos with delight
And copies all that he can within sight.
Bigger tomorrow he’ll be, and do more
Soon he’ll be eighteen and walk out our door.

For now he’s our baby and always I know
He’ll stay my sweet baby until and although
He’ll have to choose a life all his own.

Mother I am and his mother I’ll be
I know he could never forget me
(I am the field from which he was sewn).

To the One I Left - a poem

To the One I Left
by Tamra Thacker
Sept. 15, 2004

The one I left, he left
For someone else. A girl
With long brown hair and curls
And curves I never had.

It shouldn’t be so hard
When I’m the one who left
Him first. But he’s the first
Love lost that found a love.

I didn’t even love him.

And now I find myself
In life with him I love
And kids that I adore.
I have no regrets.

The one I left I lost
Because he left. And I
Can count the cost of me
And owning the life I love.

Rob Thacker's Tomorrow Poem

Oh, the silly poems I wrote. But I loved to write them! (this part written Nov. 2008)

ROB THACKER’S TOMORROW POEM
2/2/01

If I told you something really great about you,
Would you believe me?
Like, Rob Thacker’s a hottie.
or Rob Thacker’s the best husband in the world.
or Rob Thacker come become the best doctor anyone’s ever known.
or Rob Thacker could become a great leader.
Or, how about if I definitively asserted these things you could become.
Not in a pushy, if-you-don’t-become-these-things-I-won’t-love-you way.
But in a see-my-vision-for-you way.
Like, Rob Thacker has the potential, drive and destiny
to become the best doctor anyone’s ever known,
and not only CAN BECOME, but WILL BECOME
who he should become, because somehow, who he
will become is already WHO HE IS.
And Rob Thacker will become a great leader in so many
areas because, for one, he already is a good leader,
and two, he is destined to become one of the best
leaders ever, not because we make these things up,
but because we feel these things very deeply and
understand them (these future states or qualities) as
truth.
If I told you these, would you believe me?
I think you would, or at least you could,
Because you feel it as deeply as I do.
Sometimes I wonder when that vision of yours
is Cloudy.
I would love to hand you mine.
(Not that yours is bad.)
But I guess I would rather that
You perfect your own.
And maybe we could share it.
And get there together.
Because that would be fun.