The final Sunday Mix in celebration of American Poetry Month has the theme Voices.

There is a voice inside of you
that whispers all day long,
‘I feel that this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.’
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
or wise man can decide
what’s right for you – just listen to
the voice that speaks inside.

Shel Silverstein – 1930 – 1999 – Chicago, Illinois    

NOW I make a leaf of Voices–for I have found nothing mightier than
they are,
And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place.

O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall
follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere
around the globe.

All waits for the right voices;
Where is the practis’d and perfect organ? Where is the develop’d
Soul?
For I see every word utter’d thence, has deeper, sweeter, new sounds,
impossible on less terms.

I see brains and lips closed–tympans and temples unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose,
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies
slumbering, forever ready, in all words.

WALT  WHITMAN (1819 – 1892)

Each small gleam was a voice,
A lantern voice —
In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.
A chorus of colours came over the water;
The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered,
No pines crooned on the hills,
The blue night was elsewhere a silence,
When the chorus of colours came over the water,
Little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.

Small glowing pebbles
Thrown on the dark plane of evening
Sing good ballads of God
And eternity, with soul’s rest.
Little priests, little holy fathers,
None can doubt the truth of your hymning,
When the marvellous chorus comes over the water,
Songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.

STEPHEN CRANE – (1871 – 1900)

ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS