Her imaginary playmate was a grown-up In sea-coal satin. The flame-blue glances...
Category: Poem of the Week
Fare Well by Walter de la Mare
When I lie where shades of darkness Shall no more assail mine eyes...
Bird With Two Right Wings by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
And now our government a bird with two right wings...
Selecting A Reader by Ted Kooser
First, I would have her be beautiful, and walking carefully up on my poetry...
Eighth Air Force by Randall Jarrell
If, in an odd angle of the hutment, A puppy laps the water from a can...
Catch by Robert Francis
Catch20th Century Two boys uncoached are tossing a poem together,Overhand, underhand, backhand, sleight of hand, everyhand,Teasing with attitudes, latitudes, interludes, altitudes,High, make him fly off the ground for it, low, make him stoop,Make him scoop it up, make him as-almost-as possible miss it,Fast, let him sting from it, now, now fool him slowly,Anything, everything tricky, … Continue reading Catch by Robert Francis
A Birthday Poem by Ted Kooser
Just past dawn, the sun stands with its heavy red head...
Return by Robert Francis
This little house sows the degrees By which wood can return to trees...
Ballad of the Old Cypress by Du Fu
In front of the temple of Chu-ko Liang there is an old cypress...
Walking With Angels by Emanuel Xavier
AIDS knows the condom wrapped penetration...
Preludes by TS Eliot
The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock...
The Apparition by John Donne
When by thy scorn, O murd'ress, I am dead, And that thou think'st thee free...
The Aged Pilot Man by Mark Twain
On the Erie Canal, it was, All on a summer's day...
A bath when you’re born by Kobayashi Issa
His death poem: A bath when you're born...
On a Prospect of T’ai-shan by Du Fu
How is one to describe this king of mountains?...
Seascape With Sun And Eagle by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Seascape With Sun And Eagle Freerthan most birdsan eagle flies upover San Franciscofreer than most placessoars high upfloats and glides high upin the stillopen spaces flown from the mountainsfloated downfar over oceanwhere the sunset has beguna mirror of itself He sails high overturning and turningwhere seaplanes might turnwhere warplanes might burn He wheels about burningin … Continue reading Seascape With Sun And Eagle by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
A Singing Bird
Poet: Christina Georgina RossettiBorn: 5 December 1830, London, UKNationality: EnglishDied: 29 December 1894, London, UK Pic Rossetti was a poet who wrote romantic, devotional, and children’s poetry. She is best known for her poems ‘Goblin Market’ and ‘Remember’. Rossetti also wrote the lyrics to two well-known Christmas carols, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, set to music … Continue reading A Singing Bird
Sam Goes To It by Marriott Edgar
Sam Small had retired from the Army, In the old Duke of Wellington's time...
The Nakedness of Truth (I know it well) by Paul Eluard
Despair has no wings, Nor has love...
Why Should A Foolish Marriage Vow by John Dryden
Why should a foolish marriage vow, Which long ago was made...
Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
One grand boulevard with trees with one grand cafe in sun...
The Village Song by Sarojini Naidu
Honey, child, honey, child, whither are you going? Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing?...
Restless Night by Du Fu
As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom, Moonlight fills every corner of our...
Man And Wife by Robert Lowell
Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed; the rising sun in war paint dyes us red...
Pissing in the snow by Kobayashi Issa
Pissing in the snow Pissing in the snowoutside my door--it makes a very straight hole Kobayashi Issa Kobayashi IssaBorn: 15 June 1763, Kashiwabara, JapanNationality: JapaneseDied: 5 January 1828, Shinano Province, Japan Issa was a poet and lay Buddhist priest of the Jōdo Shinshū best known for his haiku poems and journals,. Known simply as Issa, … Continue reading Pissing in the snow by Kobayashi Issa
Unwanted by Edward Field
The poster with my picture on it Is hanging on the bulletin board in the Post Office...
The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket by Robert Lowell
(For Warren Winslow, Dead At Sea) Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and...
Likeunto by Jack Hirschman
what comes out of the cool blue of a sky-need...
Perseus by Robert Hayden
Her sleeping head with its great gelid mass of serpents torpidly astir...
Ode to Stephen Bowling Dots, Dec’d by Mark Twain
And did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die?...
That Pretty Girl by Kobayashi Issa
That Pretty Girl That pretty girl--munching and rustlingthe wrapped-up rice cake Kobayashi Issa Kobayashi IssaBorn: 15 June 1763, Kashiwabara, JapanNationality: JapaneseDied: 5 January 1828, Shinano Province, Japan Issa was a poet and lay Buddhist priest of the Jōdo Shinshū best known for his haiku poems and journals,. Known simply as Issa, meaning a Cup-of-Tea, he … Continue reading That Pretty Girl by Kobayashi Issa
I Shall Not Care by Sara Teasdale
When I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair...
Number 8 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
It was a face which darkness could kill in an instant a face as easily hurt by laughter or light...
Saints by Louise Glück
In our family, there were two saints, my aunt and my grandmother...
O Daedalus, Fly Away Home by Robert Hayden
Drifting night in the Georgia pines, coonskin drum and jubilee banjo...
Number 20 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The pennycandystore beyond the El is where I first...
Hap by Thomas Hardy
If but some vengeful god would call to me From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,...
Marksman Sam by Marriott Edgar
When Sam Small joined the regiment, 'E were no' but a raw recruit, And they marched 'im away one wint'ry day, 'Is musket course to shoot...
Rain by Du Fu
Roads not yet glistening, rain slight, Broken clouds darken after thinning away...
Life’s Tragedy by Paul Laurence Dunbar
It may be misery not to sing at all, And to go silent through the brimming day; It may be misery never to be loved, But deeper griefs than these beset the way....
Genius by Mark Twain
Genius, like gold and precious stones, is chiefly prized because of its rarity...
Magna Carta by Marriott Edgar
I'll tell of the Magna Charter As were signed at the Barons' command On Runningmead Island in t' middle of t' Thames By King John, as were known as "Lack Land."...
Queen Matilda by Marriott Edgar
Henry the first, surnamed " Beauclare," Lost his only son William at sea, So when Henry died it were hard to decide Who his heir and successor should be...
First Memory by Louise Glück
Long ago, I was wounded. I lived to revenge myself against my father, not for what he was--...
Knoxville Tennessee by Nikki Giovanni
I always like summer Best you can eat fresh corn From daddy's garden And okra And greens And cabbage...
The Knyghtes Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer
WHILOM, as olde stories tellen us, There was a duke that highte Theseus. Of Athens he was lord and governor, And in his time such a conqueror That greater was there none under the sun. Full many a riche country had he won. What with his wisdom and his chivalry, He conquer'd all the regne of Feminie....
Paper Men To Air Hopes And Fears by Robert Francis
The first speaker said Fear fire. Fear furnaces Incinerators, the city dump The faint scratch of a match...
Lady Love by Paul Eluard
She is standing on my eyelids And her hair is in my hair She has the colour of my eye She has the body of my hand...
Elegy XVIII: Love’s Progress by John Donne
Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he's one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick. Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o'erlick...
Journey Of The Magi by TS Eliot
'A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.' And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet...