Dolce et Decorum est - Wilfred Owen. A grim, anti-war masterpiece written by a soldier fighting in the trenches in WW1

Ozymandias - Percy Shelley. A reminder of human transience and hubris

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas. Helps me to endure when things seem bleak or hopeless.

Subh Milis (Sweet jam). It’s a short and powerful Irish poem reminding parents to be kind to their kids.

English translation below. Can’t seem to get the formatting correct on mobile…

Bhí subh milis ar bháscrann an doras

ach mhúch mé an corraí

ionaim a d’éirigh

mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá

a bheadh an bháscrann glan

agus an lámh beag – ar iarraidh…”

There was jam on the door handle

But I quelled the anger

That rose inside me

Because I thought of the day

That the handle would be clean

And the little hand - longed for

It’s not DNS,
There’s no way it’s DNS,
It was DNS

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44049/a-man-said-to-the-universe

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

Written in like the 1890s. So straight forward. Feels modern.

Invictus by William Ernst Henley

When I was younger I clung to it’s message of perseverance. It ended up being the first poem that I ever memorized.

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.

I think about this often.

I do not belong here.