4:02 p. m

Related poetry:

1. The New Poetry Handbook 1 If a man understands a poem, he shall have troubles. 2 If a man lives with a poem, he shall die lonely. 3 If a man lives with two poems, he shall be unfaithful to one. 4 If a man conceives of a poem, he shall have one less child. 5 If a man […]...
2. The Routine Things Around The House When Mother died I thought: now I’ll have a death poem. That was unforgivable. Yet I’ve since forgiven myself As sons are able to do Who’ve been loved by their mothers. I stared into the coffin Knowing how long she’d live, How many lifetimes there are In the sweet revisions of memory. It’s hard to […]...
3. Easter, 1916 I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe […]...
4. Cornish Lullaby Out on the mountain over the town, All night long, all night long, The trolls go up and the trolls go down, Bearing their packs and crooning a song; And this is the song the hill-folk croon, As they trudge in the light of the misty moon, This is ever their dolorous tune: “Gold, gold! […]...
5. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
6. Modern Love XIV: What Soul Would Bargain What soul would bargain for a cure that brings Contempt the nobler agony to kill? Rather let me bear on the bitter ill, And strike this rusty bosom with new stings! It seems there is another veering fit Since on a gold-haired lady’s eyeballs pure, I looked with little prospect of a cure, The while […]...
7. A Minute She plucked a blossom fair to see; Upon my coat I let her pin it; And thus we stood beneath the tree A minute. She turned her smiling face to me; I saw a roguish sweetness in it; I kissed her once;-it took, maybe, A minute. The time was paltry, you’ll agree; It took but […]...
8. The Epic Stars The heroic stars spending themselves, Coining their very flesh into bullets for the lost battle, They must burn out at length like used candles; And Mother Night will weep in her triumph, taking home her heroes. There is the stuff for an epic poem This magnificent raid at the heart of darkness, this lost battle […]...
9. Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem And hold it up to the light Like a color slide Or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem And watch him probe his way out, Or walk inside the poem’s room And feel the walls for a light switch. I […]...
10. The Abnormal Is Not Courage The Poles rode out from Warsaw against the German Tanks on horses. Rode knowing, in sunlight, with sabers, A magnitude of beauty that allows me no peace. And yet this poem would lessen that day. Question The bravery. Say it’s not courage. Call it a passion. Would say courage isn’t that. Not at its best. […]...
11. Without Looking Either at my friend’s daughter’s Sixteen-year-old body dumped On the morgue slab, T-shirt Stuck fast to one ripped Breast I identified quick, and then Got out of there Or at the old gentleman With tubes in the living room, spittle Stained in his wispy Beard, out of The corner of my eye I hardly Notice […]...
12. Larry Levis My poem would eat nothing. I tried giving it water But it said no, Worrying me. Day after day, I held it up to the llight, Turning it over, But it only pressed its lips More tightly together. It grew sullen, like a toad Through with being teased. I offered it money, My clothes, my […]...
13. Poem This poem is not addressed to you. You may come into it briefly, But no one will find you here, no one. You will have changed before the poem will. Even while you sit there, unmovable, You have begun to vanish. And it does no matter. The poem will go on without you. It has […]...
14. The Two-Sided Man Much I owe to the Lands that grew More to the Lives that fed But most to Allah Who gave me two Separate sides to my head. Much I reflect on the Good and the True In the Faiths beneath the sun, But most to Allah Who gave me two Sides to my head, not […]...
15. Vain Gratuities Never was there a man much uglier In eyes of other women, or more grim: “The Lord has filled her chalice to the brim, So let us pray she’s a philosopher,” They said; and there was more they said of her Deeming it, after twenty years with him, No wonder that she kept her figure […]...
16. Alone With Everybody the flesh covers the bone And they put a mind In there and Sometimes a soul, And the women break Vases against the walls And the men drink too Much And nobody finds the One But keep Looking Crawling in and out Of beds. Flesh covers The bone and the Flesh searches For more than […]...
17. Testimony Regarding a Ghost THE ROSES slanted crimson sobs On the night sky hair of the women, And the long light-fingered men Spoke to the dark-haired women, “Nothing lovelier, nothing lovelier.” How could he sit there among us all Guzzling blood into his guts, Goblets, mugs, buckets- Leaning, toppling, laughing With a slobber on his mouth, A smear of […]...
18. Fairyland If people came to know where my king’s palace is, it would vanish Into the air. The walls are of white silver and the roof of shining gold. The queen lives in a palace with seven courtyards, and she Wears a jewel that cost all the wealth of seven kingdoms. But let me tell you, […]...
19. Ars Poetica A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit, Dumb As old medallions to the thumb, Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds. * A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs, Leaving, as […]...
20. Glass Words of a poem should be glass But glass so simple-subtle its shape Is nothing but the shape of what it holds. A glass spun for itself is empty, Brittle, at best Venetian trinket. Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence. Words should be looked through, should be windows. The best word were invisible. […]...
21. Title divine is mine! Title divine is mine! The Wife without the Sign! Acute Degree conferred on me Empress of Calvary! Royal all but the Crown! Betrothed without the swoon God sends us Women When you hold Garnet to Garnet Gold to Gold Born Bridalled Shrouded In a Day Tri Victory “My Husband” women say Stroking the Melody Is […]...
22. Prologue 1/ The taste of a poem Is in the relishing Sweet, sour or bitter Cold, lukewarm or hot The test of a poem Is in the nourishing Undying, fleeting or naught Its effect in the heart 2/ Here are the lines That got stuck in the jam On their way to your heart Possibly the […]...
23. The Ancient Speech A Gaelic bard they praise who in fourteen adjectives Named the one indivisible soul of his glen; For what are the bens and the glens but manifold qualities, Immeasurable complexities of soul? What are these isles but a song sung by island voices? The herdsman sings ancestral memories And the song makes the singer wise, […]...
24. The Poem Cat Sometimes the poem Doesn’t want to come; It hides from the poet Like a playful cat Who has run Under the house & lurks among slugs, Roots, spiders’ eyes, Ledge so long out of the sun That it is dank With the breath of the Troll King. Sometimes the poem Darts away Like a coy […]...
25. Baby's Way If baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment. It is not for nothing that he does not leave us. He loves to rest his head on mother’s bosom, and cannot ever Bear to lose sight of her. Baby know all manner of wise words, though few on earth can Understand […]...
26. The Three Kings Three Kings came riding from far away, Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar; Three Wise Men out of the East were they, And they travelled by night and they slept by day, For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star. The star was so beautiful, large, and clear, That all the other stars of the sky […]...
27. Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing The light along the hills in the morning Comes down slowly, naming the trees White, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate. Notice what this poem is not doing. A house, a house, a barn, the old Quarry, where the river shrugs How much of this place is yours? Notice what this poem is […]...
28. Year's End for Audre Lorde and Sonny Wainwright Twice in my quickly disappearing forties Someone called while someone I loved and I were Making love to tell me another woman had died of cancer. Seven years apart, and two different lovers: Underneath the numbers, how lives are braided, How those women’s death and lives, lived and died, […]...
29. For the Fallen With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres, There is music in the midst of desolation […]...
30. Personality Musings of a Police Reporter in the Identification Bureau YOU have loved forty women, but you have only one thumb. You have led a hundred secret lives, but you mark only One thumb. You go round the world and fight in a thousand wars and Win all the world’s honors, but when you come back […]...
31. The Refugees In the shabby train no seat is vacant. The child in the ripped mask Sprawls undisturbed in the waste Of the smashed compartment. Is their calm extravagant? They had faces and lives like you. What was it they possessed That they were willing to trade for this? The dried blood sparkles along the mask Of […]...
32. EPIPHANIAS THE three holy kings with their star’s bright ray, They eat and they drink, but had rather not pay; They like to eat and drink away, They eat and drink, but had rather not pay. The three holy kings have all come here, In number not four, but three they appear; And if a fourth […]...
33. The Oldest Drama “It fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And. . . he sat on her knees till noon, And then died. And she went up, and laid […]...
34. Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry Relax. This won’t last long. Or if it does, or if the lines Make you sleepy or bored, Give in to sleep, turn on The T. V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand Such things. Its feelings Cannot be hurt. They exist Somewhere in the poet, And I am far away. Pick […]...
35. Inspiration How often have I started out With no thought in my noodle, And wandered here and there about, Where fancy bade me toddle; Till feeling faunlike in my glee I’ve voiced some gay distiches, Returning joyfully to tea, A poem in my britches. A-squatting on a thymy slope With vast of sky about me, I’ve […]...
36. The Philosophers I think, therefore I am, said a man whose mother quickly Hit him on the head, saying, I hit my son on the head, Therefore I am. No no, you’ve got it all wrong, cried the man. So she hit him on the head again and cried, therefore I am. You’re not, not that way; […]...
37. The Veils of Maya MOTHER, with whom our lives should be, Not hatred keeps our lives apart: Charmed by some lesser glow in thee, Our hearts beat not within thy heart. Beauty, the face, the touch, the eyes, Prophets of thee, allure our sight From that unfathomed deep where lies Thine ancient loveliness and light. Self-found at last, the […]...
38. A Creed I HOLD that when a person dies His soul returns again to earth; Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise Another mother gives him birth. With sturdier limbs and brighter brain The old soul takes the road again. Such is my own belief and trust; This hand, this hand that holds the pen, Has many a hundred […]...
39. Song At her Junior High School graduation, She sings alone In front of the lot of us Her voice soprano, surprising, Almost a woman’s. It is The Our Father in French, The new language Making her strange, out there, Fully fledged and Ready for anything. Sitting Together her separated Mother and father we can Hear the […]...
40. Richard Cory Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good-morning,” and he glittered when he […]...