id int64 160k 1.59M | url stringlengths 46 285 | author stringlengths 0 217 | title stringlengths 1 241 | body stringlengths 100 77.3k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
169,530 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/17994/los-angeles | R Marshall Terrell | Los Angeles | Los Angeles,
Son of old Spain by a farm-hand!
Dusty, scented, individual-
No other like him has been or shall be again
In the kaleidoscope of America,
That fits together into new forms
Bits of old lands and ancient cultures and old glamours.
Los Angeles,
Whose pulses beat to rhythms of jazz-
Hot-blooded, eager, ineffe... |
177,420 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/22442/retired-actress | C. F. MacIntyre | Retired Actress | This florid Rubens woman hides by day
in some estaminet and first at night
like a furred moth comes swimming to the light,
flings open the red door of the café.
Rich as an autumn sunset, with a spilth
of over-ripeness, posed on a gilt crook
(which props her up instead of Lloyd's or Cook's),
she sprays us with a speech... |
180,808 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/24183/love-story | David Cornel De Jong | Love Story |
'leil me your name, I cried to her,
gnawing her neck, but still caressing
her cheeks. Why in God's careful world
are you dead, before my love built
you a shrine with pigeons and ferns?
Nowhere is anyone who believes in
my racking remorse, not while her arms
are dangling from my bed, and my fists
are filled with her h... |
190,190 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/29011/hyphens | Donald Davie | Hyphens |
You remember Rossignano
Solvay, impossible hybrid,
Italian-Belgian? The hyphen
Was stretched to breaking.
Remember its streets, its piazzas?
The main line clove them, rammed
Through a truss of malodorous sidings
By the howling trench of the highway.
Black, smeared on the rocks
In the brilliant mornings,
Pontefract ... |
240,498 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57968/the-reliquaries | Valerie Martínez | The Reliquaries | Seaside, and the fragment of one running-
calves, ribs, green eyes into water.
There he goes. Waves. Buoying up
as into sky. And the seagulls fly,
seeing it as relief, a story. Once
they were there, two on a white blanket.
The circumference of a shadow.
Sunlight around that shadow.
The relation of two: bathers,
robed ... |
245,165 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/141807/the-innocents-at-sandy-hook | Michael Gessner | The Innocents at Sandy Hook | Nothing can reach you now, not lead or steel,
or what life itself eventually reveals.
No more studies of kindness or courtesy,
nor grace or charity, all is needless now.
All is needless now, sky, world, family
grieving for their bundles of purity,
now beyond disgrace, failure, winter streets,
or whatever attacks,... |
201,048 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/34460/repossessed | Robert W. Watson | Repossessed | ROBERT WATSON
REPOSSESSED
Hot diggety! Here they come.
The sheriff blows his siren.
Eviction notice! The bank has foreclosed.
The Ford man drives off in our Ford.
Creditors come in trucks. There goes
The stove, the color TV next, deep freeze,
Stereo, sofa, chairs, tab... |
245,169 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/141809/face | Indran Amirthanayagam | Face | Imagine half your face
rubbed out yet
you are suited up
and walking
to the office.
How will your mates
greet you?
with heavy hearts,
flowers,
rosary beads?
How shall we greet
the orphan boy,
the husband whose hand
slipped, children
and wife swept away?
How to greet
our new years
and our birthdays?
Shall we always
... |
238,026 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56639/nature-boy | Tomás Q. Morín | Nature Boy | If I had enough cages to keep all the birds
I've collected over the years then I would have
to open a shop because there's only so much room
in a two-bedroom walk-up for 48 birds,
not to mention the dancing bears and the frogs,
or the different varieties of fish, the one
species of flea, and I almost forgot the proud
d... |
167,082 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/16638/a-god-for-you | Marion Strobel | A God for You | I am making songs for you!
Soon you will be asking me
With your solemn baby stare-
Soon I'll have to answer you
When you ask me, "What is God?"
God is where you want to go
When we reach the river's head
Where the branches are too low-
And we go home instead.
God is everything that you
Have not done and want ... |
211,572 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/39745/baiting-bush-rats | Anthony Lawrence | BAITING BUSH RATS |
Native. Marsupial: six syllables suggesting an indigenous tenderness,
though, because they dwell in limited light, unseen,
they are given the names of vermin: rat, rodent, and their reputation
for disease and filth. They come for shelter, entering
the ceiling through cracks in the wall age or creepers have widened... |
206,070 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/36980/brain-of-my-heart | Gerald Stern | Brain of My Heart |
Thank God for the walnut in 1986.
Thank God for the hard green shell and the greasy center.
All you, you thirty white worms and forty green grubs,
I know what you are, burrowing like pigs,
running like moles inside your bulging rooms.
I pick up a rubber ball, it may be a walnut
gone black on the sidewalk, it may have... |
252,103 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/157092/my-father-gave-me-a-gift | Mikeas Sánchez | My Father Gave Me a Gift | When I was young
my father brought me a gift,
a yellow bird
with orange spots, a little bird that sang
right by my mouth
and taught me the names of things.
We, we, we
ore, ore, ore
wik, wik, wik.
When I was young,
a yellow bird taught me to sing in Zoque,
opened up the world to me,
showed me the universe's language.
If... |
222,376 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46746/the-apples | W. S. Di Piero | The Apples | The city budget squads have trimmed its hours.
"You can't get in, just go home why don't you."
I couldn't tell how old she was.
Chalky braids crisscrossed her head;
the trenchcoat bunched around her waist
like paper flowers, her bare legs
streaked pink.
She held a net bag, very French,
filled with cans.
It's equinox.
... |
185,500 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26622/ahab-on-his-wedding-night | John Burns | Ahab on His Wedding Night | Who is this in sea
Rising in the seaweed hymns?
The sea sings sun's music tonight love
And our ships catch reverence at their harbors.
Nantucket waits for Judith and her head.
My last whale bellied up at sundown,
Eyeing an east like flukes, and they sounding-
Clipping enormous fear. I harpooned steel
Remembering Zeus a... |
250,407 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/154689/loose-gowns-for-mackerel | John Lennox | Loose Gowns for Mackerel | One died of a canceled dream.
One died of looking into a certain fact.
One died and woke up in the act.
One died and kept his atoms intact-almost.
One died after finally hearing his own engine.
One died and became a cat's small cry.
One died in a moist glass case.
One died in the heavy roar of a highway.
One died ... |
201,068 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/34470/the-psychiatrist | Ai | The Psychiatrist |
I smashed the small black bottle
of Patou I'd given the woman,
threw the pieces on the bed
and turned my back.
I heard nothing, not even footsteps
as she left.
The room was half in shadow,
half in light
and one white mum
arced toward me
from the turquoise enamel vase,
thirty-five years ago
in Paris in 1943.
She was a ... |
199,762 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/33817/doctor-faustus-welcome-home | Daryl Hine | Doctor Faustus' Welcome Home |
What was to be our bargain? A few years
Of sorry satisfaction in return
For a retirement elsewhere
When hell became your home away from home.
You answered my advertisement, enraptured
By its otherworldly language,
Not riches nor restored virility
But an eternity of retribution.
At last the promised panacea came
In its... |
241,738 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58615/from-the-island-1860 | Tomas Tranströmer | From the Island, 1860 | I
One day as she rinsed her wash from the jetty,
the bay's cold grave rose up through her arms
and into her life.
Her tears froze into spectacles.
The island raised itself by its grass
and the herring-flag waved in the deep.
II
And the swarm of small pox caught up with him,
settled down onto his face.
He lies and s... |
228,394 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50953/prayer-for-an-irish-father | Norman Williams | Prayer for an Irish Father | On a damp June Saturday, as colorless
As cellar stone, the working classes from
Dun Laoghaire spread their picnic blankets, tins,
And soda bread along the coastal cliffs.
Two hundred feet below, the ocean knocks
Debris and timber on the rock, and near
The precipice, I watch a father swing
His daughter out, as though to... |
398,291 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/27192/in-the-beginning-56d2111f70ed5 | Daniel G. Hoffman | In the Beginning |
DANIEL G. HOFFMAN
IN THE BEGINNING
On the jetty, our fingers shading
incandescent sky and sea,
my daughter stands with me.
"Boat! Boat!" she cries, her voice
in the current of speech cascading
with recognition's joys.
"Boat!" she cries; in spindrift
bobbling sails diminish,
but Kate's a joyous spendthri... |
243,651 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/90939/on-utopia-parkway | Lawrence Joseph | On Utopia Parkway | Between Grand Central Parkway and Little Bay,
from One Hundred Sixty-Ninth and Hillside
to Union Turnpike, to work - countless days the streets
I take to work. The front yard of roses -
did I write their names down correctly? -
Zephirine, Charis, Proud Land, Drouhin, Blale.
Q31 bus, among the words I hear are
Jami... |
169,792 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/18154/after-winter | Mary Russell | After Winter | IN ORDER
AFTER WINTER
They stand there listening,
The tall trees,
Stiff to the wistful
Plucking breeze.
They are ungracious with
The shouting wind,
Concentrate on sound,
Disciplined,
Though all the earth is lifting
Lusty noise
To beat and tug at their
Implacate poise.
Better than eager rush
Thaw-water... |
238,872 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57112/the-prodigal-10 | Derek Walcott | from The Prodigal: 10 | I
The ground dove stuttered for a few steps then flew
up from his path to settle in the sun-browned
branches that were now barely twigs; in drought it coos
with its relentless valve, a tiring sound,
not like the sweet exchanges of turtles in the Song
of Solomon, or the flutes of Venus in frescoes
though all the mounds... |
224,714 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/48445/known-sound- | W. S. Merwin | Known Sound | After I can no longer see her
she says to me For a while there is all
that asking about how the body becomes
itself as it goes and what it is becoming
what is happening to it where it is going
step by step one moment at a time
and then all that falls aside like a curtain
and the body is gone with its worn questions
hol... |
182,076 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/24846/tumbando-cana | Lysander Kemp | Tumbando Caa | two poems |
TUMBANDO CARA
(Puerto Rico)
Roses are red and violets are blue and sugar
is profitable and sweet. You know the rhyme,
but taste a pinch of your sugar, mister-taste
how it tastes of human sweat. You know the word,
but this is not a golfing dew on Sunday-
Miguel Pifiero sweats all day in the cane,
tumbando c... |
171,760 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/19244/tartary | Audrey Wurdemann | Tartary | Under the shards of shattered stone
The bells are mute, nor has anyone
For centuries shaken, petal by petal,
The songs that ring through stricken metal;
Nor anyone stirred the blood poured in
When the molten bronze ran ruddy thin;
And none has called to the living voice,
And heard it, answering, rejoice.
This is the fa... |
225,060 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48653/leap-in-the-dark | Roberta Hill Whiteman | Leap In The Dark | I.
Stoplights edged the licorice street with ribbon,
neon embroidering wet sidewalks. She turned
into the driveway and leaped in the dark. A blackbird
perched on the bouncing twig of a maple, heard
her whisper, "Stranger, lover, the lost days are over.
While I walk from car to door, something inward opens
like four... |
196,982 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/32426/mouths | Glover Davis | Mouths |
I make mouths
in a bar's mirror
and watch the tulip
crush like a heart
the puffed bell of the world
or the stunned orchid.
Later, in drunkenness
in the stained depths of the mirror
the spots of light
faces or glowing fish
that flutter out of control
where the lips are winged
with persimmon
and the harbor lights
the go... |
172,196 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/19488/the-parting | Thomas Orean | The Parting | Hip turned, O white arrow _
of the roadless feet.
Stopped the mouth-
white strange knuckles
unscrew the brain,
make it a wild garden of poppies.
And the world: a wooden stallion
still bears upon its back
grinning eyes, dangling feet-
only one line effaced from it,
a dim blue chalk line
of my love's computation.
The... |
201,694 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/34785/tender-acre | Jane Shore | Tender Acre |
As you slept, the pulse
flickering on your neck like a trick of light,
I thought how, earlier, beside the sleeping shape
Adam labored the whole night to stay awake,
afraid she'd vanish in the morning with the moon.
Out of the earth sprang the planet's
blurred, unpredictable life.
The pulse of the near hill,
or was it ... |
206,568 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/37231/in-dickens-house | Donald Finkel | In Dickens' House |
In the back bedroom where Mary slipped from him
"in such a calm and gentle sleep" he hardly
knew she'd gone, the writing table (on which
he chivvied Nell with his pen to her immortal
rest) sleeps also, upright on all fours.
From his bedroom, I can hear the grumbling vans
in Doughty Street. Beyond his embattled ... |
213,116 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/40518/detroit-tomorrow | Philip Levine | Detroit, Tomorrow | Newspaper says the boy killed by someone,
don't say who. I know the mother, waking,
gets up as usual, washes her face
in cold water, and starts the coffee pot.
She stands by the window up there on floor
sixteen wondering why the street's so calm
with no cars going or coming, and then
she looks at the wall ... |
162,726 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14194/their-strange-eyes-hold-no-vision | Howard Buck | Their Strange Eyes Hold No Vision |
Their strange eyes hold no vision, as a rule;
No dizzy glory. A still look is theirs,
But rather as one subtly vacant stares,
Watching the circling magic of a pool.
Now when the morning firing becomes tame,
Out in the warming sun he tries to guess
Which battery they're after. "Let me see;
Which battery is there? whic... |
234,024 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54330/before-56d2348d3ada3 | Avis Harley | Before | The butterfly was there
before any human art was made.
Before cathedrals rose in prayer,
the butterfly was there.
Before pyramids pierced the air
or Great Wall stones were laid,
the butterfly was there.
Before any human, art was made. |
215,836 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/41880/jimmie-rogers-last-blue-yodel-1933 | David Wojahn | Jimmie Rogers' Last Blue Yodel, 1933 |
There were twelve of them before it, and they made him
something grander than a yodeling brakeman: "a star of
screen & stage"
etc., but a minor one & broke, with a ticket to a final
hemorrhage
in NYC, Victor Studios. He yodels as the crimson phlegm
lavas out to ruin his Sunday suit. They've got him propped
with pi... |
249,359 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/151766/after-birth | Devon Walker-Figueroa | After Birth | Reed, who's got one strike left before he gets
life, tells me afterbirth is what the cougars are after.
"Lambing season," he says, "plus, placenta's a delicacy
to a cat." I try to explain how
intent they were, how their intentions appeared
to involve me, but Reed won't hear
a word. My mother t... |
249,187 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/151476/the-cane-field-testifies-regarding-the-assassination-of-the-mirabal-sisters | Julian Randall | The Cane Field Testifies Regarding the Assassination of the Mirabal Sisters | Pues es possible que I have learned to fear la lluvia
All of my saddest stories have the same beginning
Entiendes? One thing falls into another I am fallen
Into all the time Men enter me like rain
Swing the moon in their hands until I'm mud
I suck their boots beg them tranquilase tranquilase
It was a... |
180,186 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/23861/snow-56d20e62a4a81 | Howard Moss | Snow | A zebra photographs this scene,
His skin is more indigenous than mine.
A slanting wind, a slanting roof
Unhinge the pinwheel of the mind:
What is left is black and white.
The lake strums beneath the ice
And covets distance in your face.
Miles of miracles converge... |
239,664 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/57527/asking-the-way | Ko Un | Asking the Way | You fools who ask what god is
should ask what life is instead.
Find a port where lemon trees bloom.
Ask about places to drink in the port.
Ask about the drinkers.
Ask about the lemon trees.
Ask and ask until nothing's left to ask.
Translated from the Korean |
182,252 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/24935/delights-of-husbandry | David Cornel De Jong | Delights of Husbandry |
Cope with getting figs from corn,
Half believe in kittens born from
Less than innocent angels, or instead,
Pray with rasping knees on the bedroom
Floor where the sand was blown from
Many a magnificent Michigan dune.
Fly the moon-eyed, shell-eared kitten
Like a magpie from sycamore to elm!
But it might land at the win... |
199,564 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/33718/afternoon | Alfred Corn | Afternoon | Or, the odds are zero, counted from here.
The past survives its population
And is unkind. Triumph no more than failure
In the longest run ever fails to fail.
Is that the argument against shuffling,
Dealing, and reshuffling these photographs?
They are not mementoes of death alone,
But of life lived variously, avatars
En... |
183,032 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/25333/variations-on-being-thirty | Reed Whittemore | Variations on Being Thirty |
1
The oven is sticky with grease,
And the latch on the broken door to the backyard is broken.
An arm to the sofa is off,
And the new phonograph needles are mixed
With the old phonograph needles.
These are most certainly signs.
The faucet drips in the sink,
And the bulb in the overhead lamp in my bedroom is out.
... |
241,448 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58468/looking-at-a-coyote | Javier Zamora | Looking at a Coyote | among thirty dusty men the only wet thing
the mouth of the coyote
is a mini zoo we are from many countries
in which there are many coyotes
500 bucks and we're off think about it
is the shortest verse of a corrido
a gila monster and a coyote are one
a gila monster and a coyote and a gringo are one
strewn bottles melt ... |
244,979 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/92921/from-summer-rain-tr-by-hoyt-rogers | Yves Bonnefoy | from Summer Rain (tr. by Hoyt Rogers) |
From SUMMER RAIN
A STONE
No more paths for us, nothing but unscythed grass.
No more ford to cross, nothing but mud.
No more well-made bed, nothing but stones
And shadows embracing through us.
Still this night is bright,
As we desired o... |
241,128 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58295/nuggets | Alan Gillis | Nuggets | Emptied, precious, querulous, frail,
a box of butter biscuits by the bedside,
dun pills in a pale plastic tray,
your grandmother lies in her tiny bones
and mumbles, mysterious, while you say nothing,
barely thirteen, blank as the day.
You were to keep an eye on her
breathing, her little bones heaving,
and your eyes sc... |
185,596 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26670/the-nameless-ocean | Donald Jenkins | The Nameless Ocean | Oregon:
All down this coast the headlands fall to the ocean,
And each is a horse, sloping its head to the water:
Great shuddering animals come to still their thirst.
O, let there be oceans, oceans, and more sparkling seas.
Nowhere is home. Desire must come to its own
Nameless ocean. And it will call, it will call:
To... |
229,740 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51885/slavery | Hannah More | Slavery | If Heaven has into being deigned to call
Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all;
Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray
To earth distribute only partial day?
Since no resisting cause from spirit flows
Thy universal presence to oppose;
No obstacles by Nature's hand impressed,
Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
Not ... |
209,862 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/38881/thirst | Thirst |
I almost wish it were me
whose house is now a pile of
saturated ash, the chimney stones
laid bare. Maybe the orange cat
who hid inside a fireplace
would emerge singed and mewling,
saying Feed me, needing
my unfurred hands to turn
the can opener, to pour water
into his baked ceramic dish.
So clean, to be houseless,
to... | |
201,820 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/34848/servants-56d218405266a | Baron Wormser | Servants |
What happened to them?
The men were drafted in the war; the women
Went to live with daughters who had flats of their own;
The young ones ran off; the old ones took world tours.
What happened to them?
They lost their faith, casually, without a fuss,
Being somewhat cynical to begin with.
The master ... |
175,080 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/21168/in-place-of-snow | Grace Baer Hollowell | In Place of Snow | IN THE PEARL
IN PLACE OF SNOW
That Greece was their
White mother -
Well do these thin small brown
Fingers know
Their own bright fleece
From snow!
From acknowledging receipt of
Snow-drop, anemone, freesia,
Hepatica and rue, five other
Small brown things -
As though from their own snow
The silver frosts ha... |
238,528 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56936/mrs-god | Joshua Corey | Mrs. God | I am not a woman, I
am a man. Made in His image.
I keep the house, a gray Cape Cod,
and broom it well. I wear a skirt to be
comfortable. I build the fire.
When my husband comes home I don't pester Him with questions.
He knows where to find His slippers and His pipe.
Out our kitchen back door I see the prophets freight-... |
181,592 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/24596/the-wanderer-56d20ee8ab502 | William Pillin | The Wanderer | In my dreams are shadows
like ashes in teeth of poplars.
Yellow swathes of rye run
like flame to horizon.
I see porcelain towers
and frozen fugues of streets
but from what land I come
I do not remember.
In my dreams I see faces
kind as a candle,
grave as autumn highway,
brutal
as a stone sneer
and one face
whose eye... |
253,813 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/160255/2-hard-2-luv-2-young-2-die | MICHAEL CHANG | 2 HARD 2 LUV 2 YOUNG 2 DIE | 1.] NUMB FUGGO STRANGER W. PRISTINE RECTUM
2.] MIND'S NARRATIVE UNKNOWABLE
3.] HAVE FEELINGS, MAKE BOOK, LIFE GREAT
4.] URS THE ONLY WORDS I NEED, I THINK I FEEL IT NOW, JUST LIKE U
5.] NOBODY READS POETRY, I REALLY SHOULDN'T ANYMORE
6.] SKIP AHEAD, LOOK WEAK, A BEATING WOULD DO US A LOT OF... |
225,260 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/48766/the-enigma | Anne Stevenson | The Enigma | Falling to sleep last night in a deep crevasse
between one rough dream and another, I seemed,
still awake, to be stranded on a stony path,
and there the familiar enigma presented itself
in the shape of a little trembling lamb.
It was lying like a pearl in the trough between
one Welsh slab and another, and it was crying... |
199,444 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/33658/in-another-city | Joseph M. Ditta | In Another City |
In another city this time.
There were arctic nights
and frozen ground
when her husband died,
and I was cold under the aurora,
when I felt my own isolation
more than the dying.
Since then others have gone.
The news comes by telephone.
"She died at 5:30 and everyone
was there."
The ground gets colder and darker.
"She... |
160,922 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/13164/as-to-truths | Richard Untermeyer | As to Truths | They always said the moon was far away,
A hundred miles or more up on the skies;
They said he never could come down to play;
They said a lot of things that sounded wise:
But they were lies.
So when they said the moon is dead
I did not even shake my head;
I only laughed because I know
It isn't... |
202,140 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/35009/it-has-been-written-tr-by-kimon-friar | Tasos Livadhitis | It Has Been Written... (Tr. by Kimon Friar) | TASOS LIVADHITIS
THE JUGGLER WITH THE ORANGES
As though you're not touching earth but are
on a large stair that supports itself on another stair,
and that one also on other, innumerable stairs
which, if you wish to give them a name, call them
ambition, arrogance, compass... |
182,834 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/25232/institution-child | Diana Witherby | Institution Child | two poems
INSTITUTION CHILD
Where is the grass-sea in flower
To wash round his sundial of years?
His time lies in stone, his light falls on tiles,
And minutes are marked down the well of a bell.
Where are the summer white waves
To crash on his driftwood.and fears?
His terror is held in striped bar and ray
And ravens ... |
221,624 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46299/a-parable-56d22622a1ac9 | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | A Parable | The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there,
And warmly debated the matter;
The Orthodox said that it came from the air,
And the Heretics said from the platter.
They argued it long and they argued it strong,
And I hear they are arguing now;
But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese,
Not one of them thou... |
223,718 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47761/last-month-56d22872cf025 | John Ashbery | Last Month | No changes of support-only
Patches of gray, here where sunlight fell.
The house seems heavier
Now that they have gone away.
In fact it emptied in record time.
When the flat table used to result
A match recedes, slowly, into the night.
The academy of the future is
Opening its doors and willing
The fruitless sun... |
230,180 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52111/the-venus-hottentot | Elizabeth Alexander | The Venus Hottentot | 1. CUVIER
Science, science, science!
Everything is beautiful
blown up beneath my glass.
Colors dazzle insect wings.
A drop of water swirls
like marble. Ordinary
crumbs become stalac... |
235,452 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55217/off-a-side-road-near-staunton | Stanley Plumly | Off A Side Road Near Staunton | Some nothing afternoon, no one anywhere,
an early autumn stillness in the air,
the kind of empty day you fill by taking in
the full size of the valley and its layers leading
slowly to the Blue Ridge, the quality of country,
if you stand here long enough, you could stay
for, step into, the way a landscape, even on a wal... |
201,736 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/34806/the-playground | Richard Moore | The Playground |
Over the playground where
ancient and wizened trees
touch odors to the air
to draw the latest bees,
children swarm on the lawn,
muss the grass with their toes...
What can they touch of dawn
-what sweetness-as it goes?
Dew, that will turn to tears
and trickle through their sleep
and through their future years,
till ... |
251,771 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/156589/song-sparrow-615db9f253261 | Bruce Willard | Song Sparrow | That summer we opened the lake cottage,
prehistoric sound of loons before us,
decades of children at our back,
familiar sound of water
under the porch eaves.
A song sparrow
hit the window
just as summer began.
You held it in your hand
bent over, unable to breathe
another year, working
your fingers
under its feathers ... |
230,608 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52363/the-clote-water-lily | William Barnes | The Clote (Water-Lily) | O zummer clote! when the brook's a-glidèn
So slow an' smooth down his zedgy bed,
Upon thy broad leaves so seäfe a-ridèn
The water's top wi' thy yollow head,
By alder sheädes, O,
An' bulrush beds, O,
Thou then dost float, goolden zummer clote!
The grey-bough'd withy's a leänèn lowly
Above t... |
248,577 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/149882/from-lisiensan-galago- | Craig Santos Perez | from Lisiensan Ga’lago | "goaam" ~
"goam" ~
"islas de las velas latinas" (of lateen sails ~
"guan" "guana" ~
"islas de los ladrones" (of the thieves ~
"guåhan" "guajan" ~
"islas m... |
174,828 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/21019/saint-swithens | Virginia Armitage McCall | Saint Swithen's |
His shadow met him at his door -
That fatal shadow on the floor.
He came and saw his shadow there
Hanging in the empty air.
He came and saw and went again .
Inside the hallways of his den.
I think it was on Saturday,
That fatal day - alack the day!
For six more weeks, for six weeks more,
Snow and frost and ice and ... |
163,330 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14539/what-do-i-care | Sara Teasdale | What Do I Care | What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?
For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire;
I am an answer, they are only a call.
What do I care-for love will be over so soon-
Let my heart have its say, and my mind stand idly by.
For my mind is proud, and str... |
238,036 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56646/the-hypno-domme-speaks-and-speaks-and-speaks | Patricia Lockwood | The Hypno-Domme Speaks, and Speaks and Speaks | I was born as a woman, I talk you to death,
or else your ear off,
or else you to sleep. What do I have, all the time
in the world, and a voice that swings brass back
and forth, you can hear it, and a focal point where
my face should be. What do I have, I have absolute
... |
1,531,198 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49263/lisa | David Hernandez | Lisa | Last night I traced with my finger
the long scar on my love's stomach
as if I was following a road on a map.
I heard the scream of tires, saw the flash
of chrome, her six-year-old body
a rag doll bleeding at the seams.
It is foolish of me to wish
I was there before it happened, to reach
back thirty years, clasp... |
199,164 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/33518/dead-elms-by-a-river | Brad Leithauser | Dead Elms by a River |
In early spring, unlike the others,
These retain their same shapes, same
Sharp angular lines, edges
Thick with splinters. Dozens
Of shallow snow-fed rivulets sift
Through old dumps of vegetation,
Down toward the river, until the sopping
Banks spill over and the elms stand
With bases under a frigid inch of water.
On a... |
165,550 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/15783/foolish-bird | Jewell Bothwell Tull | Foolish Bird | Foolish bird,
Do you think, because the rain's over
And the sun's in your eyes,
Summer's here again?
Don't you know it's October?-
Foolish bird that sings in my heart.
GRAY RIVER
|
176,590 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/22017/the-winning-of-the-west | William Stephens | The Winning of the West | TWO POEMS
THE WINNING OF THE WEST
Iam Joe Grandys: I have gone at night
under the stars until the 'early light
came faint along the hills; and I have slept
in rock arroyos, where the shadows crept
while lizards watched me sleeping in the shade.
Then, when the sun was sinking, I have made
a careful fir... |
188,256 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/28033/where-the-track-vanishes | Galway Kinnell | Where the Track Vanishes |
I
The snow revives in the apple trees;
The winter sun seeps from jonquils
Bright as goldmills on the slopes;
Le chemin montant dans les hautes herbes
Curves for the Alps and vanishes.
2
Pierre le Boiteux
-Yellow teeth
Gnashed into gum-level
Stumps, yellow
Eyes beaconing about,
A b... |
160,506 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12941/calle-memo-o-loredan | Douglas Goldring | Calle Memo O Loredan |
We were staying (that night) in a very old palace-
Very dark, very large, and sheer to the water below.
The rooms were silent and strange, and you were frightened,
Alice:
The silver lamp gave a feeble, flickering glow.
And the bed had a high dark tester, and carved black posts,
And behind our heads was a gli... |
227,726 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50526/to-alexis-in-answer-to-his-poem-against-fruition | Aphra Behn | from To Alexis In Answer to His Poem Against Fruition | Since man with that inconstancy was born,
To love the absent, and the present scorn
Why do we deck, why do we dress
For such short-lived happiness?
Why do we put attraction on,
Since either way 'tis we must be undone?
They fly if honour take our part,
Our virtue drives 'em o'er the field.
We love 'em by too much deser... |
184,316 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26005/the-pony | Jean Garrigue | The Pony |
The little pony stands upon his pride
As do we all, as do we all.
With coiling mane and glittering hide
He stumbles from the earthworn stall
His pride and vehemence his all.
What if they take it from him and he fall?
Now children pout and perch upon the wall
By which he stands to rear them 'gainst the tide
Of his brow... |
221,244 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45829/the-famous-tay-whale | Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall | The Famous Tay Whale | 'Twas in the month of December, and in the year 1883,
That a monster whale came to Dundee,
Resolved for a few days to sport and play,
And devour the small fishes in the silvery Tay.
So the monster whale did sport and play
Among the innocent little fishes in the beautiful Tay,
Until he was seen by some men one day,
And... |
244,469 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/92059/whenever-i-saw-you-i-handed-you-a-bouquet-and | Sharon Olds | Whenever I Saw You I Handed You a Bouquet, and | what about those nosegays?! If you were to return
I would give you more, for all you have given us, for
your going first. Those posies might have a
peony, a freesia, a tulip - an eye snack
and nostril snack, I could not get enough of
giving you coronation bundles, handing them
and almost bowing, tongue-tied with
respec... |
171,420 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/19052/song-at-the-rise-of-the-full-moon | Carl John Bostelmann | Song at the Rise of the Full Moon | She comes in robes of serge and silk
Above round hills half crystalline,
To flood the heavens with her milk,
To drown the dark lands with her wine.
The river rides no ripple now,
Suspended in idolatry;
The bird is silent in the bough,
The bough is silent in the tree.
Carl Fohn Bostelmann
S... |
182,492 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/25056/terms | Randall Jarrell | Terms | Poetry for September 1948
VOL. LXXII, NO. VI
TI
ER
LL Éd dd dd dd LA
ES
seven poems
TERMS
I
on™. one-legged, and one-headed,
The pensioner sits in the sun.
He is telling a story to the leaf
Of the new... |
211,810 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/39864/he-wanted-to-live-his-life-over | Robert Bly | HE WANTED TO LIVE HIS LIFE OVER |
What? You want to live your life over again?
"Well, I suppose, yes... That time in Grand Rapids. . .
My life-as I lived it-was a series of shynesses."
Being bolder-what good would that do?
"Td open my door again. I've felt abashed,
You see. Now I'd go out and say, 'All right,
I'll go with you to Alaska.' Just o... |
186,124 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26940/the-family | Kyojiro Hagiwara | The Family | KYOIIRO HAGIWARA
two poems
THE FAMILY
Out of my brother's yellow trousers, my black trousers
Comes headless money
With the smell of the black heart of the night rubbed in.
With this money we eat rice, buy stamps, pay for
laundry.
We don't know what future we have to l... |
213,954 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/40938/hide | Robin Robertson | Hide |
I have been waiting for the black deer
all my life, hidden here in the dark
corner of the wood.
I see glimpses of them, breaking cover,
swinging away
to erase themselves in the deep trees.
They are implicit there, and will move
only if I hold still.
Though in a dream I have
they stand so near I can feel them breathin... |
159,936 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12617/to-a-child-dancing-upon-the-shore | William Butler Yeats | To a Child Dancing upon the Shore |
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won.
And he, the best warrior, dead
... |
162,896 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/14290/in-the-morgue | Agnes Lee | In the Morgue | She who walked with flaming dress
And the gems of idleness,
She who counted in her troop
Young man Dream and old man Dupe,
Comes at last to lay her head
Here among the unclaimed dead.
She was weary as the sages
With the riddle of the ages,
Saying to midnight: 'Whether or no,
Half the world is builded so;"
Saying ... |
217,632 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42816/my-father-in-the-night-commanding-no | Louis Simpson | My Father in the Night Commanding No | My father in the night commanding No
Has work to do. Smoke issues from his lips;
He reads in silence.
The frogs are croaking and the street lamps glow.
And then my mother winds the gramophone;
The Bride of Lammermoor begins to shriek-
Or reads a story-
About a prince, a castle, and a dragon.
The moo... |
213,344 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/40632/if-feeling-isnt-in-it | John Brehm | If Feeling Isn't In It | Dogs will also lick your face if you let them.
Their bodies will shiver with happiness.
A simple walk in the park is just about
the height of contentment for them, followed
by a bowl of food, a bowl of water,
a place to curl up and sleep. Someone
to scratch them where they can't reach
and smooth their foreheads and tal... |
254,129 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/160742/im-rewatching-the-she-ra-episode-where-glimmer-gets-sick-for-the-first-time | Arianna Monet | I’m rewatching the She-Ra episode where Glimmer gets sick for the first time | and I keep mistaking the screen for a
mirror. By which I mean, I too was once
adolescent and unconquerable:
purple hair; a body unmarked by pain.
Then, the bright unholiness of onset.
She screams, glitches into crimson static.
In the right light, even pain can sparkle.
Blood cells glinting into oblivion.
Flicker of ag... |
177,002 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/22229/tillie-sage | Louise McNeill | Tillie Sage |
I
A Kane girl lives in the Sage's mansion
And a fiddle hangs on the parlor wall.
A red colt runs in the Sage's pasture
And a hound dog sleeps in the Sage's hall.
Oh, Wind blow cold from the north-blue autumn,
Oh, Wind blow hot from the brazen south,
To sculpture the lines of my golden body...
To pr... |
232,096 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53221/leviathan-56d2325279712 | George Oppen | Leviathan | Truth also is the pursuit of it:
Like happiness, and it will not stand.
Even the verse begins to eat away
In the acid. Pursuit, pursuit;
A wind moves a little,
Moving in a circle, very cold.
How shall we say?
In ordinary discourse-
We must talk now. I am no longer sure of the words,
The clockwork of the world. What... |
235,616 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55302/sick-to-death-of-the-hardpan-shoulder | Greg Glazner | Sick to death of the hardpan shoulder, | the froth of noise
the undersides of the cedars make,
the windblown dark that hints
and fails for hours at effacement-
maybe I could claim it isn't
praying, but it's asking,
at the least, begging
that these lungfuls of this blackness
eat whatever keeps on swelling
and collapsing in my chest, and be done
with it, no ... |
183,470 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/25566/the-cow | Theodore Roethke | The Cow |
There Once was a Cow with a Double Udder.
When I think of it now, I just have to Shudder!
She was too much for One, you can bet your Life:
She had to be Milked by a Man and His Wife.
|
185,696 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26721/lunar-tune | Gray Burr | Lunar Tune | The moon is mottled: dark shadows eat
Into the sockets of the skull of a world
Laid away in the blue winding-sheet.
It dwindles and sharpens to the curled
And Cheshire grin of heaven vanishing.
But the twenty-eighth day returns it, pearled
And possible as ever. Now a low-flying wing
Of silver, now rolling a leprous w... |
184,882 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26306/extra-ecclesiam | Leslie A. Fiedler | Three Poems |
I: THE SEA
Here where no madness follows
And the sea is nearly still,
I let my lust lie fallow
And milk my lowing will.
I milk my will at dawning,
I tread my grapes at noon;
I walk the beach at evening,
Paced by the hastening moon:
To find the Old Man sleeping,
Green in his jetsam hair;
To seize him 'in his shiftin... |
222,732 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46976/star-light-star-bright | Anonymous | "Star light, star bright," | Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have this wish I wish tonight. |
242,450 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/89330/worry | sam sax | Worry | is a woman
burying bread
beneath her lawn.
praying for summer
to make whole loaves
break in their plastic
shells through dirt
like so many hands.
worry is how i thumb
a groove in the stolen
jewel case in my back
pocket at tower
records, the man
puts his hands
on me & i'm cooked,
i'm crooked, red
handed, red thu... |
241,142 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58302/sound | Billy Ramsell | Sound | To render the ocean one needs a whole year
with Zoom in freezing fingers on a quarter-mile of coast.
Sound is the one true vocabulary of nature
and not the peacock-palette painters swear
he uses for his best stuff, for his daily disposable frescoes.
To render the ocean one needs a whole year
on the quayside tracking ... |
199,100 | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/33486/the-case-of-the | Mona Van Duyn | The Case of The |
MONA VAN DUYN
THE CASE OF THE
Drinking the seconal dissolved in bourbon,
stabbed in the fog, shoved into quicksand,
caught in the telescopic sight,
feeling a sudden pressure on the carotids from behind,
scalped, buried, bombed, smothered in cellophane,
"another blow and another, s... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.