Poem 001:
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 … Continue reading “Introduction to Poetry”
Contributor:
Collins, Billy
Poem
Poem 002:
The Good Life
When some people talk about moneyThey speak as if it were a mysterious loverWho went out to buy milk and neverCame back, and it makes me nostalgicFor the years I lived on coffee and bread,Hungry all the time, walking to work on paydayLike a woman journeying for waterFrom a village without a well, then livingOne … Continue reading “The Good Life”
Contributor:
Smith, Tracy K.
Poem
Poem 003:
Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation
Angels don’t come to the reservation. Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things. Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing— death. And death eats angels, I guess, because I haven’t seen an angel fly through this valley ever. Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though— he came through here one … Continue reading “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan…
Contributor:
Diaz, Natalie
Poem
Poem 004:
Question
Body my house my horse my hound what will I do when you are fallen Where will I sleep How will I ride What will I hunt Where can I go without my mount all eager and quick How will I know in thicket ahead is danger or treasure when Body my good bright dog … Continue reading “Question”
Contributor:
Swenson, May
Poem
Poem 005:
Thanks
Thanks for the tree between me & a sniper’s bullet. I don’t know what made the grass sway seconds before the Viet Cong raised his soundless rifle. Some voice always followed, telling me which foot to put down first. Thanks for deflecting the ricochet against that anarchy of dusk. I was back in San Francisco … Continue reading “Thanks”
Contributor:
Komunyakaa, Yusef
Poem
Poem 006:
How Bright It Is
April. And the air dry As the shoulders of a water buffalo. Grasshoppers scratch at the dirt, rub their wings with thin legs flaring out in front of the soldiers in low arcing flights, wings a blur. The soldiers don’t notice anymore, seeing only the wreckage of the streets, bodies draped with sheets, and the … Continue reading “How Bright It Is”
Contributor:
Turner, Brian
Poem
Poem 007:
“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?”
Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave your house or apartment. Go out into the world. It’s all right to carry a notebook but a cheap one is best, with pages the color of weak tea and on the front a kitten or a space ship. Avoid any enclosed space where more than three … Continue reading ““Do You Have Any Advice For…
Contributor:
Koertge, Ron
Poem
Poem 008:
Numbers
I like the generosity of numbers. The way, for example, they are willing to count anything or anyone: two pickles, one door to the room, eight dancers dressed as swans. I like the domesticity of addition— add two cups of milk and stir— the sense of plenty: six plums on the ground, three more falling … Continue reading “Numbers”
Contributor:
Cornish, Mary
Poem
Poem 009:
The Cord
I used to lie on the floor for hours after school with the phone cradled between my shoulder and my ear, a plate of cold rice to my left, my school books to my right. Twirling the cord between my fingers I spoke to friends who recognized the language of our realm. Throats and lungs … Continue reading “The Cord”
Contributor:
O'Sullivan, Leanne
Poem
Poem 010:
At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border
This is the field where the battle did not happen, where the unknown soldier did not die. This is the field where grass joined hands, where no monument stands, and the only heroic thing is the sky. Birds fly here without any sound, unfolding their wings across the open. No people killed—or were killed—on this … Continue reading “At the Un-National Monument Along the…
Contributor:
Stafford, William E.
Poem
Poem 011:
Can We Touch Your Hair?
at the parades, everyone wants to touch my hair. on the corner of st charles and marengo, i am cold & smashed & puffy AF when two white women try to convince me that they love my hair no they really really do they say because it is so black and thick and curly and … Continue reading “Can We Touch Your Hair?#8221;
Contributor:
Jackson, Skye
Poem
Poem 012:
The Bat
By day the bat is cousin to the mouse. He likes the attic of an aging house. His fingers make a hat about his head. His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead. He loops in crazy figures half the night Among the trees that face the corner light. But when he brushes … Continue reading “The Bat”
Contributor:
Roethke, Theodore
Poem
Poem 013:
Did I Miss Anything?
Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here we sat with our hands folded on our desks in silence, for the full two hours Everything. I gave an exam worth 40 percent of the grade for this term and assigned some reading due today on which I’m about to hand out a quiz worth 50 percent … Continue reading “Did I Miss Anything?#8221;
Contributor:
Wayman, Tom
Poem
Poem 014:
Neglect
Is the scent of apple boughs smoking in the woodstove what I will remember of the Red Delicious I brought down, ashamed that I could not convince its limbs to render fruit? Too much neglect will do that, skew the sap’s passage, blacken leaves, dry the bark and heart. I should have lopped the dead … Continue reading “Neglect”
Contributor:
Smith, R. T.
Poem
Poem 015:
The Poet
Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbook May speak much but makes little sense Cannot give clear verbal instructions Does not understand what he reads Does not understand what he hears Cannot handle “yes-no” questions Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs Has difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc. Cannot tell a story … Continue reading “The Poet”
Contributor:
Wayman, Tom
Poem
Poem 016:
Radio
No radio in car No radio on board No radio Already stolen Absolutely no radio! Radio broken Alarm is set To go off No radio No money No radio no valuables No radio or valuables in car or trunk No radio Stolen 3X No radio Empty trunk Empty glove compartment Honest In car Nothing of … Continue reading “Radio”
Contributor:
Blossom, Laurel
Poem
Poem 017:
Bad Day
Not every day is a good day for the elfin tailor. Some days the stolen cloth reveals what it was made for: a handsome weskit or the jerkin of an elfin sailor. Other days the tailor sees a jacket in his mind and sets about to find the fabric. But some days neither the idea … Continue reading “Bad Day”
Contributor:
Ryan, Kay
Poem
Poem 018:
The Farewell
They say the ice will hold so there I go, forced to believe them by my act of trusting people, stepping out on it, and naturally it gaps open and I, forced to carry on coolly by my act of being imperturbable, slide erectly into the water wearing my captain’s helmet, waving to the shore … Continue reading “The Farewell”
Contributor:
Field, Edward
Poem
Poem 019:
The Partial Explanation
Seems like a long time Since the waiter took my order. Grimy little luncheonette, The snow falling outside. Seems like it has grown darker Since I last heard the kitchen door Behind my back Since I last noticed Anyone pass on the street. A glass of ice-water Keeps me company At this table I chose … Continue reading “The Partial Explanation”
Contributor:
Simic, Charles
Poem
Poem 020:
Wife
I’m not yet comfortable with the word, its short clean woosh that sounds like life. At dinner last night my single girls said in admonition, It’s not wife-approved about a friend’s upcoming trip. Their eyes rolled up and over and out their pretty young heads. Wife, why does it sound like a job? I want … Continue reading “Wife”
Contributor:
Limón, Ada
Poem
Poem 021:
Wheels
My brother kept in a frame on the wall pictures of every motorcycle, car, truck: in his rusted out Impala convertible wearing his cap and gown waving in his yellow Barracuda with a girl leaning into him waving on his Honda 350 waving on his Honda 750 with the boys holding a beer waving in … Continue reading “Wheels”
Contributor:
Daniels, Jim
Poem
Poem 022:
Remora, Remora
Clinging to the shark is a sucker shark, attached to which and feeding off its crumbs is one still tinier, inch or two, and on top of that one, one the size of a nick of gauze; smaller and smaller (moron, idiot, imbecile, nincompoop) until on top of that is the last, a microdot sucker … Continue reading “Remora, Remora”
Contributor:
Lux, Thomas
Poem
Poem 023:
Tour
Near a shrine in Japan he’d swept the path and then placed camellia blossoms there. Or—we had no way of knowing—he’d swept the path between fallen camellias. —Carol Snow
Contributor:
Snow, Carol
Poem
Poem 024:
After Us
I don’t know if we’re in the beginning or in the final stage. —Tomas Tranströmer Rain is falling through the roof. And all that prospered under the sun, the books that opened in the morning and closed at night, and all day turned their pages to the light; the sketches of boats and strong forearms … Continue reading “After Us”
Contributor:
Wanek, Connie
Poem
Poem 025:
Domestic Work, 1937
All week she’s cleaned someone else’s house, stared down her own face in the shine of copper— bottomed pots, polished wood, toilets she’d pull the lid to—that look saying Let’s make a change, girl. But Sunday mornings are hers— church clothes starched and hanging, a record spinning on the console, the whole house dancing. She … Continue reading “Domestic Work, 1937”
Contributor:
Trethewey, Natasha
Poem
Poem 026:
Before She Died
When I look at the sky now, I look at it for you. As if with enough attention, I could take it in for you. With all the leaves gone almost from the trees, I did not walk briskly through the field. Late today with my dog Wool, I lay down in the upper field, … Continue reading “Before She Died”
Contributor:
Chase, Karen
Poem
Poem 027:
Poetry
In the same way that the mindless diamond keeps one spark of the planet’s early fires trapped forever in its net of ice, it’s not love’s later heat that poetry holds, but the atom of the love that drew it forth from the silence: so if the bright coal of his love begins to smoulder, … Continue reading “Poetry”
Contributor:
Paterson, Don
Poem
Poem 028:
American Cheese
At department parties, I eat cheeses my parents never heard of—gooey pale cheeses speaking garbled tongues. I have acquired a taste, yes, and that’s okay, I tell myself. I grew up in a house shaded by the factory’s clank and clamor. A house built like a square of sixty-four American Singles, the ones my mother … Continue reading “American Cheese”
Contributor:
Daniels, Jim
Poem
Poem 029:
Advice from the Experts
I lay down in the empty street and parked My feet against the gutter’s curb while from The building above a bunch of gawkers perched Along its ledges urged me don’t, don’t jump. —Bill Knott
Contributor:
Knott, Bill
Poem
Poem 030:
One Morning
Looking for distinctive stones, I found the dead otter rotting by the tideline, and carried all day the scent of this savage valediction. That headlong high sound the oystercatcher makes came echoing through the rocky cove where a cormorant was feeding and submarining in the bay and a heron rose off a boulder where he’d … Continue reading “One Morning”
Contributor:
Grennan, Eamon
Poem
Poem 031:
Walking Home
Everything dies, I said. How had that started? A tree? The winter? Not me, she said. And I said, Oh yeah? And she said, I’m reincarnating. Ha, she said, See you in a few thousand years! Why years, I wondered, why not minutes? Days? She found that so funny—Ha Ha—doubled over— Years, she said, confidently. … Continue reading “Walking Home”
Contributor:
Howe, Marie
Poem
Poem 032:
Rabbits and Fire
Everything’s been said But one last thing about the desert, And it’s awful: During brush fires in the Sonoran desert, Brush fires that happen before the monsoon and in the great, Deep, wide, and smothering heat of the hottest months, The longest months, The hypnotic, immeasurable lulls of August and July— During these summer fires, … Continue reading “Rabbits and Fire”
Contributor:
Ríos, Alberto
Poem
Poem 033:
The Meadow
Half the day lost, staring at this window. I wanted to know just one true thing about the soul, but I left thinking for thought, and now— two inches of snow have fallen over the meadow. Where did I go, how long was I out looking for you?, who would never leave me, my withness, … Continue reading “The Meadow”
Contributor:
Johnson, Kate Knapp
Poem
Poem 034:
The Summer I Was Sixteen
The turquoise pool rose up to meet us, its slide a silver afterthought down which we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles. We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy. Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated, we … Continue reading “The Summer I Was Sixteen”
Contributor:
Connolly, Geraldine
Poem
Poem 035:
Hand Shadows
My father put his hands in the white light of the lantern, and his palms became a horse that flicked its ears and bucked; an alligator feigning sleep along the canvas wall leapt up and snapped its jaws in silhouette, or else a swan would turn its perfect neck and drop a fingered beak toward … Continue reading “Hand Shadows”
Contributor:
Cornish, Mary
Poem
Poem 036:
El Florida Room
Not a study or a den, but El Florida as my mother called it, a pretty name for the room with the prettiest view of the lipstick-red hibiscus puckered up against the windows, the tepid breeze laden with the brown-sugar scent of loquats drifting in from the yard. Not a sunroom, but where the sun … Continue reading “El Florida Room”
Contributor:
Blanco, Richard
Poem
Poem 037:
She Didn’t Mean to Do It
Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad. She didn’t mean to do it. Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs, go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces, but no more. Certain thrills knock you flat on your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade and they … Continue reading “She Didn’t Mean to Do It”
Contributor:
Fried, Daisy
Poem
Poem 038:
Cartoon Physics, part 1
Children under, say, ten, shouldn’t know that the universe is ever-expanding, inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies swallowed by galaxies, whole solar systems collapsing, all of it acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning the rules of cartoon animation, that if a man draws a door on a rock only he can … Continue reading “Cartoon Physics, part 1”
Contributor:
Flynn, Nick
Poem
Poem 039:
Snow
Walking through a field with my little brother Seth I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow. For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground. He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer. Then … Continue reading “Snow”
Contributor:
Berman, David
Poem
Poem 040:
Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter
It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted. The only things moving are swirls of snow. As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron. There is a privacy I love in this snowy night. Driving around, I will waste more time. —Robert Bly
Contributor:
Bly, Robert
Poem
Poem 041:
Halloween
The butcher knife goes in, first, at the top And carves out the round stemmed lid, The hole of which allows the hand to go In to pull the gooey mess inside, out— The walls scooped clean with a spoon. A grim design decided on, that afternoon, The eyes are the first to go, Isosceles … Continue reading “Halloween”
Contributor:
Hammond, Mac
Poem
Poem 042:
The Poetry of Bad Weather
Someone had propped a skateboard by the door of the classroom, to make quick his escape, come the bell. For it was February in Florida, the air of instruction thick with tanning butter. Why, my students wondered, did the great dead poets all live north of us? Was there nothing to do all winter there … Continue reading “The Poetry of Bad Weather”
Contributor:
Greger, Debora
Poem
Poem 043:
The Green One Over There
My half-brother had dark sad eyes, wheaten hair and the same gorgeous skin his mother had. He was cute and smart and innately kind, unlike me at his age, according to our father. Five years younger than me, Tim attracted all the love my father had frozen in his heart when I was growing up. … Continue reading “The Green One Over There”
Contributor:
Kapovich, Katia
Poem
Poem 044:
A Man I Knew
has a condo a maid who comes every other week kids who won’t are on the dresser they float forever like a boat —Margaret Levine
Contributor:
Levine, Margaret
Poem
Poem 045:
Nights
There’s nothing that I really want: The stars tonight are rich and cold Above my house that vaguely broods Upon a path soon lost in dark. My dinner plate is chipped all round (It tells me that I’ve changed a lot); My glass is cracked all down one side (It shows there is a path … Continue reading “Nights”
Contributor:
Hart, Kevin
Poem
Poem 046:
Grammar
Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend, smiles like a big cat and says that she’s a conjugated verb. She’s been doing the direct object with a second person pronoun named Phil, and when she walks into the room, everybody turns: some kind of light is coming from her head. Even the geraniums look … Continue reading “Grammar”
Contributor:
Hoagland, Tony
Poem
Poem 047:
Fault
In the airport bar, I tell my mother not to worry. No one ever tripped and fell into the San Andreas Fault. But as she dabs at her dry eyes, I remember those old movies where the earth does open. There’s always one blonde entomologist, four deceitful explorers, and a pilot who’s good-looking but not … Continue reading “Fault”
Contributor:
Koertge, Ron
Poem
Poem 048:
Thanks For Remembering Us
The flowers sent here by mistake, signed with a name that no one knew, are turning bad. What shall we do? Our neighbor says they’re not for her, and no one has a birthday near. We should thank someone for the blunder. Is one of us having an affair? At first we laugh, and then … Continue reading “Thanks For Remembering Us”
Contributor:
Gioia, Dana
Poem
Poem 049:
Because You Left Me a Handful of Daffodils
I suddenly thought of Brenda Hatfield, queen of the 5th grade, Concord Elementary. A very thin, shy girl, almost as tall as Audrey Hepburn, but blond. She wore a dress based upon the principle of the daffodil: puffed sleeves, inflated bodice, profusion of frills along the shoulder blades and hemline. A dress based upon the … Continue reading “Because You Left Me a Handful…
Contributor:
Garland, Max
Poem
Poem 050:
Otherwise
I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have … Continue reading “Otherwise”
Contributor:
Kenyon, Jane
Poem
Poem 051:
A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth
She’s been in this world for over a year, and in this world not everything’s been examined and taken in hand. The subject of today’s investigation is things that don’t move by themselves. They need to be helped along, shoved, shifted, taken from their place and relocated. They don’t all want to go, e.g., the … Continue reading “A Little Girl Tugs at the…
Contributor:
Szymborska, Wisława
Poem
Poem 052:
Love Poem With Toast
Some of what we do, we do to make things happen, the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc, the car to start. The rest of what we do, we do trying to keep something from doing something, the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting, the truth from getting out. With yes … Continue reading “Love Poem With Toast”
Contributor:
Williams, Miller
Poem
Poem 053:
The Blue Bowl
Like primitives we buried the cat with his bowl. Bare-handed we scraped sand and gravel back into the hole. They fell with a hiss and thud on his side, on his long red fur, the white feathers between his toes, and his long, not to say aquiline, nose. We stood and brushed each other off. … Continue reading “The Blue Bowl”
Contributor:
Kenyon, Jane
Poem
Poem 054:
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 racket of … Continue reading “Song”
Contributor:
Grennan, Eamon
Poem
Poem 055:
Biscuit
The dog has cleaned his bowl and his reward is a biscuit, which I put in his mouth like a priest offering the host. I can’t bear that trusting face! He asks for bread, expects bread, and I in my power might have given him a stone. —Jane Kenyon
Contributor:
Kenyon, Jane
Poem
Poem 056:
Red Wing
Here’s where they make the good work shoes in the long brick buildings beside the road. Shoes whose stitched, crepe-wedge soles and full-grain, oil-resistant leathers bless tiny bones in the ankles and feet, shoes of carpenters balanced on roof beams, electricians, farmers, iron workers, welders— cuffs frayed with sparks from the torch. At shift’s end … Continue reading “Red Wing”
Contributor:
Millar, Joseph
Poem
Poem 057:
White-Eyes
In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees where the wind-bird with its white eyes shoves and pushes among the branches. Like any of us he wants to go to sleep, but he’s restless— he has an idea, and slowly it unfolds from under his beating wings as long as he … Continue reading “White-Eyes”
Contributor:
Oliver, Mary
Poem
Poem 058:
To Help the Monkey Cross the River,
which he must cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts, to help him I sit with my rifle on a platform high in a tree, same side of the river as the hungry monkey. How does this assist him? When he swims for it I look first upriver: predators move faster with the current than … Continue reading “To Help the Monkey Cross the…
Contributor:
Lux, Thomas
Poem
Poem 059:
Lesson
It was 1963 or 4, summer, and my father was driving our family from Ft. Hood to North Carolina in our 56 Buick. We’d been hearing about Klan attacks, and we knew Mississippi to be more dangerous than usual. Dark lay hanging from the trees the way moss did, and when it moaned light against … Continue reading “Lesson”
Contributor:
Hamer, Forrest
Poem
Poem 060:
Football
I take the snap from the center, fake to the right, fade back… I’ve got protection. I’ve got a receiver open downfield… What the hell is this? This isn’t a football, it’s a shoe, a man’s brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same skin, but not the same, a thing made … Continue reading “Football”
Contributor:
Jenkins, Louis
Poem
Poem 061:
Sister Cat
Cat stands at the fridge, Cries loudly for milk. But I’ve filled her bowl. Wild cat, I say, Sister, Look, you have milk. I clink my fingernail Against the rim. Milk. With down and liver, A word I know she hears. Her sad miaow. She runs To me. She dips In her whiskers but Doesn’t … Continue reading “Sister Cat”
Contributor:
Mayes, Frances
Poem
Poem 062:
The Bagel
I stopped to pick up the bagel rolling away in the wind, annoyed with myself for having dropped it as if it were a portent. Faster and faster it rolled, with me running after it bent low, gritting my teeth, and I found myself doubled over and rolling down the street head over heels, one … Continue reading “The Bagel”
Contributor:
Ignatow, David
Poem
Poem 063:
Making a Fist
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico, I felt the life sliding out of me, a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear. I was seven, I lay in the car watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass. My stomach was a melon split wide inside my … Continue reading “Making a Fist”
Contributor:
Nye, Naomi Shihab
Poem
Poem 064:
For My Daughter
When I die choose a star and name it after me that you may know I have not abandoned or forgotten you. You were such a star to me, following you through birth and childhood, my hand in your hand. When I die choose a star and name it after me so that I may … Continue reading “For My Daughter”
Contributor:
Ignatow, David
Poem
Poem 065:
I’ve Been Known
to spread it on thick to shoot off my mouth to get it off my chest to tell him where to get off to stay put to face the music to cut a shine to go under to sell myself short to play myself down to paint the town to fork over to shell out … Continue reading “I’ve Been Known”
Contributor:
Duhamel, Denise
Poem
Poem 066:
The Moon
After writing poems all day, I go off to see the moon in the pines. Far in the woods I sit down against a pine. The moon has her porches turned to face the light, But the deep part of her house is in the darkness. —Robert Bly
Contributor:
Bly, Robert
Poem
Poem 067:
Eddie Priest’s Barbershop & Notary
Closed Mondays is music is men off early from work is waiting for the chance at the chair while the eagle claws holes in your pockets keeping time by the turning of rusty fans steel flowers with cold breezes is having nothing better to do than guess at the years of hair matted beneath the … Continue reading “Eddie Priest’s Barbershop & Notary”
Contributor:
Young, Kevin
Poem
Poem 068:
Bringing My Son to the Police Station to be Fingerprinted
My lemon-colored whisper-weight blouse with keyhole closure and sweetheart neckline is tucked into a pastel silhouette skirt with side-slit vents and triplicate pleats when I realize in the sunlight through the windshield that the cool yellow of this blouse clashes with the buttermilk heather in my skirt which makes me slightly queasy however the periwinkle … Continue reading “Bringing My Son to the Police…
Contributor:
Shy, Shoshauna
Poem
Poem 069:
The Space Heater
On the then-below-zero day, it was on, near the patients’ chair, the old heater kept by the analyst’s couch, at the end, like the infant’s headstone that was added near the foot of my father’s grave. And it was hot, with the almost laughing satire of a fire’s heat, the little coils like hairs in … Continue reading “The Space Heater”
Contributor:
Olds, Sharon
Poem
Poem 070:
Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?
Don’t fill up on bread I say absent-mindedly The servings here are huge My son, whose hair may be receding a bit, says Did you really just say that to me? What he doesn’t know is that when we’re walking together, when we get to the curb I sometimes start to reach for his hand … Continue reading “Sentimental Moment or Why Did the…
Contributor:
Hershon, Robert
Poem
Poem 071:
Smoking
I like the cool and heft of it, dull metal on the palm, And the click, the hiss, the spark fuming into flame, Boldface of fire, the rage and sway of it, raw blue at the base And a slope of gold, a touch to the packed tobacco, the tip Turned red as a warning … Continue reading “Smoking”
Contributor:
Glaser, Elton
Poem
Poem 072:
Gratitude to Old Teachers
When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake, We place our feet where they have never been. We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy. Who is down there but our old teachers? Water that once could take no human weight— We were students then—holds up our feet, And goes on ahead of … Continue reading “Gratitude to Old Teachers”
Contributor:
Bly, Robert
Poem
Poem 073:
Love Song
Love comes hungry to anyone’s hand. I found the newborn sparrow next to the tumbled nest on the grass. Bravely opening its beak. Cats circled, squirrels. I tried to set the nest right but the wild birds had fled. The knot of pin feathers sat in my hand and spoke. Just because I’ve raised it … Continue reading “Love Song”
Contributor:
Muske-Dukes, Carol
Poem
Poem 074:
The Revolt of the Turtles
On gray forgetful mornings like this sea turtles would gather in the shallow waters of the Gulf to discuss issues of self-presentation and related concerns like, If there were a God would he have a hard shell and a retractable head, and whether speed on land was of any importance to a good swimmer. They … Continue reading “The Revolt of the Turtles”
Contributor:
Dunn, Stephen
Poem
Poem 075:
To a Daughter Leaving Home
When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels, my own mouth rounding in surprise when you pulled ahead down the curved path of the park, I kept waiting for the thud of your crash as I sprinted to catch up, while … Continue reading “To a Daughter Leaving Home”
Contributor:
Pastan, Linda
Poem
Poem 076:
June 11
It’s my birthday I’ve got an empty stomach and the desire to be lazy in the hammock and maybe go for a cool swim on a hot day with the trombone in Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” in my head and then to break for lunch a corned-beef sandwich and Pepsi with plenty … Continue reading “June 11”
Contributor:
Lehman, David
Poem
Poem 077:
A Birthday Candle
Thirty today, I saw The trees flare briefly like The candles on a cake, As the sun went down the sky, A momentary flash, Yet there was time to wish —Donald Justice
Contributor:
Justice, Donald
Poem
Poem 078:
Doing Without
‘s an interesting custom, involving such in- visible items as the food that’s not on the table, the clothes that are not on the back the radio whose music is silence. Doing without is a great protector of reputations since all places one cannot go are fabulous, and only the rare and enlightened plowman in … Continue reading “Doing Without”
Contributor:
Ray, David
Poem
Poem 079:
Birthday
An old mortality, These evening doorways into rooms, this door from the kitchen and there’s the yard the grass not cut and filled with sweetness and in the thorn the summer wounding the sun. And locked in the shade the dove calling down. The glare’s a little blinding still but only for the moment of … Continue reading “Birthday”
Contributor:
Plumly, Stanley
Poem
Poem 080:
Reckless Poem
Today again I am hardly myself. It happens over and over. It is heaven-sent. It flows through me like the blue wave. Green leaves—you may believe this or not— have once or twice emerged from the tips of my fingers somewhere deep in the woods, in the reckless seizure of spring. Though, of course, I … Continue reading “Reckless Poem”
Contributor:
Oliver, Mary
Poem
Poem 081:
After Years
Today, from a distance, I saw you walking away, and without a sound the glittering face of a glacier slid into the sea. An ancient oak fell in the Cumberlands, holding only a handful of leaves, and an old woman scattering corn to her chickens looked up for an instant. At the other side of … Continue reading “After Years”
Contributor:
Kooser, Ted
Poem
Poem 082:
Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
At sixteen, I worked after high school hours at a printing plant that manufactured legal pads: Yellow paper stacked seven feet high and leaning as I slipped cardboard between the pages, then brushed red glue up and down the stack. No gloves: fingertips required for the perfection of paper, smoothing the exact rectangle. Sluggish by … Continue reading “Who Burns for the Perfection of…
Contributor:
Espada, Martín
Poem
Poem 083:
Turtle
Who would be a turtle who could help it? A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, She can ill afford the chances she must take In rowing toward the grasses that she eats. Her track is graceless, like dragging A packing-case places, and almost any slope Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical, She’s … Continue reading “Turtle”
Contributor:
Ryan, Kay
Poem
Poem 084:
Knowledge
My philosopher friend is explaining again that the bottle of well-chilled beer in my hand might not be a bottle of beer, that the trickle of bottle-sweat cooling in my palm might not be wet, might not be cool, that in fact it’s impossible ever to know if I’m holding a bottle at all. I … Continue reading “Knowledge”
Contributor:
Memmer, Philip
Poem
Poem 085:
Fight
That is the difference between me and you. You pack an umbrella, #30 sun goo And a red flannel shirt. That’s not what I do. I put the top down as soon as we arrive. The temperature’s trying to pass fifty-five. I’m freezing but at least I’m alive. Nothing on earth can diminish my glee. … Continue reading “Fight”
Contributor:
Blossom, Laurel
Poem
Poem 086:
Sure
I miss my brother sure he drank Robitussin washed down with beer sure he smoked dope & shot heroin & went to prison for selling to an undercover cop & sure he robbed the town’s only hot dog stand, Gino’s like I overheard while I laid on my bed staring up at the stars under … Continue reading “Sure”
Contributor:
Tribbia, Arlene
Poem
Poem 087:
The Distances
This house, pitched now The dark wide stretch Of plains and ocean To these hills over The night-filled river, Billows with night, Swells with the rooms Of sleeping children, pulls Slowly from this bed, Slowly returns, pulls and holds, Is held where we Lock all distances! Ah, how the distances Spiral from that Secrecy: Room, … Continue reading “The Distances”
Contributor:
Rago, Henry W.
Poem
Poem 088:
How To Tell Your Mother There Will Be No Grandkids In Her Future
Don’t enter conversations about generations. Use the art of misdirection. Tell her the rain is falling. Tell her today you saw a cardinal, her favorite bird, and it was feeding its young seeds. No. Better not mention the young. Tell her, instead, the garden is coming in thick this spring, and the tulips have multiplied, … Continue reading “How To Tell Your Mother There…
Contributor:
Sukrungruang, Ira
Poem
Poem 089:
On the Psychological Effect of Living with Houseplants
Not long ago I found myself in conversation with a group of people about the effect of living with houseplants. They were proselytising the health benefits and comparing Instagram shots on their phones, where everyone aspired to the same sparse white living room decorated with pops of green. I confessed however, that I couldn’t keep … Continue reading “On the Psychological Effect of Living…
Contributor:
Bishop, Stephanie
Poem
Poem 090:
A New Poet
Finding a new poet is like finding a new wildflower out in the woods. You don’t see its name in the flower books, and nobody you tell believes in its odd color or the way its leaves grow in splayed rows down the whole length of the page. In fact the very page smells of … Continue reading “A New Poet”
Contributor:
Pastan, Linda
Poem
Poem 091:
Timely Enumerations Concerning Sri Lanka
Those are the central mountains, the surrounding plains, the coasts of mangrove, lagoon, river delta. This is the temple compound where the rite will begin this morning exactly at the hour of Buddha’s enlightenment. A muttering rises from the roadway where already, the curfew lifted, the prawn sellers are out. That is a tea estate, … Continue reading “Timely Enumerations Concerning Sri Lanka”
Contributor:
Rice, Oliver
Poem
Poem 092:
Birth Day
For Alexandra, born May 17, 1999 Armored in red, her voice commands every corner. Bells gong on squares, in steeples, answering the prayers. Bright tulips crown the boulevards. Pulled from the womb she imitates that mythic kick from some god’s head. She roars, and we are conquered. Her legs, set free, combat the air. Naked … Continue reading “Birth Day”
Contributor:
Paschen, Elise
Poem
Poem 093:
Do You Love Me?
She’s twelve and she’s asking the dog, who does, but who speaks in tongues, whose feints and gyrations are themselves parts of speech. They’re on the back porch and I don’t really mean to be taking this in but once I’ve heard I can’t stop listening. Again and again she asks, and the good dog … Continue reading “Do You Love Me?#8221;
Contributor:
Wrigley, Robert
Poem
Poem 094:
Slumnight
TV gunning down the hours serves as sheriff in a room where one yawn triggers off another, sends time scuffling into night. Wars slugged out on vacant lots sign an armistice with sleep. Turned to a wall, the children dream and the moon pulls up in a squad car. —Colette Inez
Contributor:
Inez, Colette
Poem
Poem 095:
The Halls
Five more books in a box to be carried out to the car; your office door closes behind you and at that moment you turn invisible—not even a ghost in that hall from the hall’s point of view. If the halls don’t know you, the halls and the rooms of the buildings where you worked … Continue reading “The Halls”
Contributor:
Halliday, Mark
Poem
Poem 096:
Second Estrangement
Please raise your hand, whomever else of you has been a child, lost, in a market or a mall, without knowing it at first, following a stranger, accidentally thinking he is yours, your family or parent, even grabbing for his hands, even calling the word you said then for “Father,” only to see the face … Continue reading “Second Estrangement”
Contributor:
Girmay, Aracelis
Poem
Poem 097:
The Hymn of a Fat Woman
All of the saints starved themselves. Not a single fat one. The words “deity” and “diet” must have come from the same Latin root. Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones or shards of stained glass or Christ carved on his cross. Hard as pew seats. Brittle as hair shirts. Women made from bone, … Continue reading “The Hymn of a Fat Woman”
Contributor:
Huff, Joyce
Poem
Poem 098:
My Father’s Hats
Sunday mornings I would reach high into his dark closet while standing on a chair and tiptoeing reach higher, touching, sometimes fumbling the soft crowns and imagine I was in a forest, wind hymning through pines, where the musky scent of rain clinging to damp earth was his scent I loved, lingering on bands, leather, … Continue reading “My Father’s Hats”
Contributor:
Irwin, Mark
Poem
Poem 099:
Exotic Treats
Especially on long drives through the country, you like to tell that story about your old girlfriend whose parrot was killed one afternoon by a raccoon who stole in through the pet door. It was horrible, you say. Feathers everywhere. Are you laughing? Stop laughing. She really loved that bird. —Laura McKee
Contributor:
McKee, Laura
Poem
Poem 100:
Loud Music
My stepdaughter and I circle round and round. You see, I like the music loud, the speakers throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so each bass note is like a hand smacking the gut. But my stepdaughter disagrees. She is four and likes the music … Continue reading “Loud Music”
Contributor:
Dobyns, Stephen
Poem
Poem 101:
Some Clouds
Now that I’ve unplugged the phone, no one can reach me— At least for this one afternoon they will have to get by without my advice or opinion. Now nobody else is going to call & ask in a tentative voice if I haven’t yet heard that she’s dead, that woman I once loved— nothing … Continue reading “Some Clouds”
Contributor:
Kowit, Steve
Poem
Poem 102:
When Death Comes
When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox; when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, … Continue reading “When Death Comes”
Contributor:
Oliver, Mary
Poem
Poem 103:
Decades
With me, it wasn’t a yellow cab but an orange streetcar going 40 mph on a hillside through the woods and everything shaking and rattling and through a short tunnel slightly lit by dim blue lights a seat for the conductor, a kind of throne I sometimes sat on and that makes two things gone … Continue reading “Decades”
Contributor:
Stern, Gerald
Poem
Poem 104:
To Stammering
Where did you come from, lamentable quality? Before I had a life you were about to ruin my life. The mystery of this stays with me. “Don’t brood about things,” my elders said. I hadn’t any other experience of enemies from inside. They were all from outside—big boys Who cursed me and hit me; motorists; … Continue reading “To Stammering”
Contributor:
Koch, Kenneth
Poem
Poem 105:
Today
Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas! You really are beautiful! Pearls, harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all the stuff they’ve always talked about still makes a poem a surprise! These things are with us every day even on beachheads and biers. They do have meaning. They’re strong as rocks. —Frank O’Hara
Contributor:
O’hara, Frank
Poem
Poem 106:
The Grammar Lesson
A noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does. An adjective is what describes the noun. In “The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz” of and with are prepositions. The’s an article, a can’s a noun, a noun’s a thing. A verb’s the thing it does. A can can roll—or not. What … Continue reading “The Grammar Lesson”
Contributor:
Kowit, Steve
Poem
Poem 107:
Blind
It’s okay if the world goes with Venetian; Who cares what Italians don’t see?— Or with Man’s Bluff (a temporary problem Healed by shrieks and cheating)—or with date: Three hours of squirming repaid by laughs for years. But when an old woman, already deaf, Wakes from a night of headaches, and the dark Won’t disappear-when … Continue reading “Blind”
Contributor:
Webb, Charles Harper
Poem
Poem 108:
In the Well
My father cinched the rope, a noose around my waist, and lowered me into the darkness. I could taste my fear. It tasted first of dark, then earth, then rot. I swung and struck my head and at that moment got another then: then blood, which spiked my mouth with iron. Hand over hand, my … Continue reading “In the Well”
Contributor:
Hudgins, Andrew
Poem
Poem 109:
Fast Break
In Memory of Dennis Turner, 1946-1984 A hook shot kisses the rim and hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop, and for once our gangly starting center boxes out his man and times his jump perfectly, gathering the orange leather from the air like a cherished possession and spinning around to throw a strike to the … Continue reading “Fast Break”
Contributor:
Hirsch, Edward
Poem
Poem 110:
On a Cape May Warbler Who Flew Against My Window
She’s stopped in her southern tracks Brought haply to this hard knock When she shoots from the tall spruce And snaps her neck on the glass. From the fall grass I gather her And give her to my silent children Who give her a decent burial Under the dogwood in the garden. They lay their … Continue reading “On a Cape May Warbler Who…
Contributor:
Grennan, Eamon
Poem
Poem 111:
The Kitchen Shears Speak
This division must end. Again I’m forced to amputate the chicken’s limb; slit the joint, clip the heart, snip wing from back, strip fat from flesh, separate everything from itself. I’m used, thrown down by unknown hands, by cowards who can’t bear to do the constant severing. Open and close! Open and close. I work … Continue reading “The Kitchen Shears Speak”
Contributor:
Balk, Christianne
Poem
Poem 112:
Slow Children at Play
All the quick children have gone inside, called by their mothers to hurry-up-wash-your-hands honey-dinner’s-getting-cold, just-wait-till-your-father-gets-home- and only the slow children out on the lawns, marking off paths between fireflies, making soft little sounds with their mouths, ohs, that glow and go out and glow. And their slow mothers flickering, pale in the dusk, watching them … Continue reading “Slow Children at Play”
Contributor:
Woloch, Cecilia
Poem
Poem 113:
Lift Your Right Arm
Lift your right arm, she said. I lifted my right arm. Lift your left arm, she said. I lifted my left arm. Both of my arms were up. Put down your right arm, she said. I put it down. Put down your left arm, she said. I did. Lift your right arm, she said. I … Continue reading “Lift Your Right Arm”
Contributor:
Cherches, Peter
Poem
Poem 114:
Machines
Dearest, note how these two are alike: This harpsicord pavane by Purcell And the racer’s twelve-speed bike. The machinery of grace is always simple. This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected To another of concentric gears, Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected, Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers. And in the playing, Purcell’s … Continue reading “Machines”
Contributor:
Donaghy, Michael
Poem
Poem 115:
The Death of Santa Claus
He’s had the chest pains for weeks, but doctors don’t make house calls to the North Pole, he’s let his Blue Cross lapse, blood tests make him faint, hospital gown always flap open, waiting rooms upset his stomach, and it’s only indigestion anyway, he thinks, until, feeding the reindeer, he feels as if a monster … Continue reading “The Death of Santa Claus”
Contributor:
Webb, Charles Harper
Poem
Poem 116:
Cat Scat
I am watching Cleo listening, our cat listening to Mozart’s Magic Flute. What can she be hearing? What can the air carry into her ears like that, her ears swivelling like radio dishes that are tuned to all the noise of the world, flat and sharp, high and low, a scramble of this and that … Continue reading “Cat Scat”
Contributor:
Grennan, Eamon
Poem
Poem 117:
Ladies and Gentlemen in Outer Space
Here is my philosophy: Everything changes (the word “everything” has just changed as the word “change” has: it now means “no change”) so quickly that it literally surpasses my belief, charges right past it like some of the giant ideas in this area. I had no beginning and I shall have no end: the beam … Continue reading “Ladies and Gentlemen in Outer Space”
Contributor:
Padgett, Ron
Poem
Poem 118:
Notice
This evening, the sturdy Levi’s I wore every day for over a year & which seemed to the end in perfect condition, suddenly tore. How or why I don’t know, but there it was: a big rip at the crotch. A month ago my friend Nick walked off a racquetball court, showered, got into his … Continue reading “Notice”
Contributor:
Kowit, Steve
Poem
Poem 119:
The Courtesy of the Blind
The poet reads his lines to the blind. He hadn’t guessed that it would be so hard. His voice trembles. His hands shake. He senses that every sentence is put to the test of darkness. He must muddle through alone, without colors or lights. A treacherous endeavor for his poems’ stars, dawns, rainbows, clouds, their … Continue reading “The Courtesy of the Blind”
Contributor:
Szymborska, Wisława
Poem
Poem 120:
The Swan at Edgewater Park
Isn’t one of your prissy richpeoples’ swans Wouldn’t be at home on some pristine pond Chooses the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers, condoms in its tidal fringe Prefers to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck into the body of a Great Lake, Swilling whatever it is swans swill, Chardonnay of algae with bouquet of crud, … Continue reading “The Swan at Edgewater Park”
Contributor:
Schwartz, Ruth L.
Poem
Poem 121:
The Hand
The teacher asks a question. You know the answer, you suspect you are the only one in the classroom who knows the answer, because the person in question is yourself, and on that you are the greatest living authority, but you don’t raise your hand. You raise the top of your desk and take out … Continue reading “The Hand”
Contributor:
Ruefle, Mary
Poem
Poem 122:
Soccer Moms
They remember Gene Chandler topping the charts with “Duke of Earl” when the boys were set on taking the milk bar’s one banquette and winning their hearts, Mavis and Merle, as it seemed their hearts might be first to yield, hearts before minds. Time for stilettos. Time for spivs with shivs. The time of day … Continue reading “Soccer Moms”
Contributor:
Muldoon, Paul
Poem
Poem 123:
Coffee in the Afternoon
It was afternoon tea, with tea foods spread out Like in the books, except that it was coffee. She made a tin pot of cowboy coffee, from memory, That’s what we used to call it, she said, cowboy coffee. The grounds she pinched up in her hands, not a spoon, And the fire on the … Continue reading “Coffee in the Afternoon”
Contributor:
Ríos, Alberto
Poem
Poem 124:
Morning
Salt shining behind its glass cylinder. Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum. The cat stretching her black body from the pillow. The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind gesture. Then laps the bowl clean. Then wants to go out into the world where she leaps lightly and for no … Continue reading “Morning”
Contributor:
Oliver, Mary
Poem
Poem 125:
Animals
I think the death of domestic animals mark the sea changes in our lives. Think how things were, when things were different. There was an animal then, a dog or a cat, not the one you have now, another one. Think when things were different before that. There was another one then. You had almost … Continue reading “Animals”
Contributor:
Williams, Miller
Poem
Poem 126:
God Says Yes To Me
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic and she said yes I asked her if it was okay to be short and she said it sure is I asked her if I could wear nail polish or not wear nail polish and she said honey she calls me that sometimes she said … Continue reading “God Says Yes To Me”
Contributor:
Haught, Kaylin
Poem
Poem 127:
Hate Poem
I hate you truly. Truly I do. Everything about me hates everything about you. The flick of my wrist hates you. The way I hold my pencil hates you. The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped in the jaws of a moray eel hates you. Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates … Continue reading “Hate Poem”
Contributor:
Sheehan, Julie
Poem
Poem 128:
An Apology
Forgive me for backing over and smashing your red wheelbarrow. It was raining and the rear wiper does not work on my new plum-colored SUV. I am also sorry about the white chickens. —F.J. Bergmann
Contributor:
Bergmann, F.J.
Poem
Poem 129:
Bedecked
Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy store rings he clusters four jewels to each finger. He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star choker, the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock. Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says sticker earrings look … Continue reading “Bedecked”
Contributor:
Redel, Victoria
Poem
Poem 130:
A Toast to the Baltimore Oriole
Here’s to your good looks and the neat way you shit with a brisk bob like a curtsey, easy as song. Here’s to your song, which, though “neither rhythmical nor musical” (The Birds of Canada), relieves me of all speech and never deals with what is past, or passing, or to come. And, as a … Continue reading “A Toast to the Baltimore Oriole”
Contributor:
McKay, Don
Poem
Poem 131:
I Ask My Mother to Sing
She begins, and my grandmother joins her. Mother and daughter sing like young girls. If my father were alive, he would play his accordion and sway like a boat. I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace, nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the … Continue reading “I Ask My Mother to Sing”
Contributor:
Lee, Li-Young
Poem
Poem 132:
Leaving the Island
We roll up the rugs and strip the beds by rote, Summer expires as it has done before. The ferry is no simple pleasure boat Nor are we simply cargo, though we’ll float Alongside heavy trucks—their stink and roar. We roll up rugs and strip the beds by rote. This bit of land whose lines … Continue reading “Leaving the Island”
Contributor:
Pastan, Linda
Poem
Poem 133:
The Summer Day
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean— the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— who is … Continue reading “The Summer Day”
Contributor:
Oliver, Mary
Poem
Poem 134:
Ode to Dirt
Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you, I thought that you were only the background for the leading characters—the plants and animals and human animals. It’s as if I had loved only the stars and not the sky which gave them space in which to shine. Subtle, various, sensitive, you are the skin of … Continue reading “Ode to Dirt”
Contributor:
Olds, Sharon
Poem
Poem 135:
Video Blues
My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy, and likes to rent her movies, for a treat. It makes some evenings harder to enjoy. The list of actresses who might employ him as their slave is too long to repeat. (My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard, Paulette Goddard, coy Jean Arthur … Continue reading “Video Blues”
Contributor:
Salter, Mary Jo
Poem
Poem 136:
We Lived Happily During the War
And when they bombed other people’s houses, we protested but not enough, we opposed them but not enough. I was in my bed, around my bed America was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house. I took a chair outside and watched the sun. In the sixth month of a disastrous reign in … Continue reading “We Lived Happily During the War”
Contributor:
Kaminsky, Ilya
Poem
Poem 137:
Morning Swim
Into my empty head there come a cotton beach, a dock wherefrom I set out, oily and nude through mist, in chilly solitude. There was no line, no roof or floor to tell the water from the air. Night fog thick as terry cloth closed me in its fuzzy growth. I hung my bathrobe on … Continue reading “Morning Swim”
Contributor:
Kumin, Maxine
Poem
Poem 138:
This Moment
A neighbourhood. At dusk. Things are getting ready to happen out of sight. Stars and moths. And rinds slanting around fruit. But not yet. One tree is black. One window is yellow as butter. A woman leans down to catch a child who has run into her arms this moment. Stars rise. Moths flutter. Apples … Continue reading “This Moment”
Contributor:
Boland, Eavan
Poem
Poem 139:
How Many Times
No matter how many times I try I can’t stop my father from walking into my sister’s room and I can’t see any better, leaning from here to look in his eyes. It’s dark in the hall and everyone’s sleeping. This is the past where everything is perfect already and nothing changes, where the water … Continue reading “How Many Times”
Contributor:
Howe, Marie
Poem
Poem 140:
The Dead
At night the dead come down to the river to drink. They unburden themselves of their fears, their worries for us. They take out the old photographs. They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures, which are cracked and yellow. Some dead find their way to our houses. They go up to … Continue reading “The Dead”
Contributor:
Mitchell, Susan
Poem
Poem 141:
The End and the Beginning
After every war someone has to clean up. Things won’t straighten themselves up, after all. Someone has to push the rubble to the side of the road, so the corpse-filled wagons can pass. Someone has to get mired in scum and ashes, sofa springs, splintered glass, and bloody rags. Someone has to drag in a … Continue reading “The End and the Beginning”
Contributor:
Szymborska, Wisława
Poem
Poem 142:
Tinnitus
—at the library The loneliness of a rank of six public pay phones moves me today almost to tears, and I wonder, dropping in my quarters, if you will allow this odd nostalgic impulse toward anachronism to go through. That is, if you will answer this morning’s call from an unknown number, or let it, … Continue reading “Tinnitus”
Contributor:
Wrigley, Robert
Poem
Poem 143:
The secretary chant
My hips are a desk. From my ears hang chains of paper clips. Rubber bands form my hair. My breasts are wells of mimeograph ink. My feet bear casters. Buzz. Click. My head is a badly organized file. My head is a switchboard where crossed lines crackle. My head is a wastebasket of worn ideas. … Continue reading “The secretary chant”
Contributor:
Piercy, Marge
Poem
Poem 144:
Family Photo Around Xmas Tree
Dad’s left arm reaches across Mom’s back and even across Dottie’s, his daughter’s, and just touches with his fingertips his son Rusty’s shoulder. Dottie’s ten, Rusty eight, though small for his age and his left eye a little lazy. The tree thick with foil and lights, lit candles, and a mantel hung with monogrammed socks. … Continue reading “Family Photo Around Xmas Tree”
Contributor:
Lux, Thomas
Poem
Poem 145:
Proof of Life
Those small cuts and infections on my hands from splinters and thorns that show I have been working out of doors this week. The maddening peculiar purgatory of Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band playing “Against the Wind” continuously for three days inside my head until on the fourth day it finally stops. The … Continue reading “Proof of Life”
Contributor:
Hoagland, Tony
Poem
Poem 146:
Blue Willow
A pond will deepen toward the center like a plate we traced its shallow rim my mother steering my inner tube past the rushes where I looked for Moses we said it was a trip around the world in China we wove through curtains of willow that tickled our necks let’s do that again and … Continue reading “Blue Willow”
Contributor:
Gladding, Jody
Poem
Poem 147:
Tuesday 9:00 AM
A man standing at the bus stop reading the newspaper is on fire Flames are peeking out from beneath his collar and cuffs His shoes have begun to melt The woman next to him wants to mention it to him that he is burning but she is drowning Water is everywhere in her mouth and … Continue reading “Tuesday 9:00 AM”
Contributor:
Butson, Denver
Poem
Poem 148:
Happiness
There’s just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust at your feet having squandered a fortune far away. And how can you not forgive? You make a feast in honor of what was lost, and take from its place the finest garment, which … Continue reading “Happiness”
Contributor:
Kenyon, Jane
Poem
Poem 149:
Dress Rehearsal
Every summer they drain the reservoir and I am always astonished to find so many shopping carts in its sloping crater. And I wonder by what human endeavor they were brought out here, far from the supermarket, far from anywhere a shopping cart would be useful, like a herd of deer in want of water. … Continue reading “Dress Rehearsal”
Contributor:
Kreitler, Brandon
Poem
Poem 150:
96 Vandam
I am going to carry my bed into New York City tonight complete with dangling sheets and ripped blankets; I am going to push it across three dark highways or coast along under 600,000 faint stars. I want to have it with me so I don’t have to beg for too much shelter from my … Continue reading “96 Vandam”
Contributor:
Stern, Gerald
Poem
Poem 151:
My Moral Life
Two years hence. When I’m ready. After one more set of poems about my beautiful confusion. After I’ve read Anna Karenina and Don Quixote and the first volume at least of Proust and one big novel by Thomas Mann— say three years. Three years hence: after I’ve written an essay about the word “enough” and … Continue reading “My Moral Life”
Contributor:
Halliday, Mark
Poem
Poem 152:
It Took All My Energy
It took all my energy to want you and the rest of me to go after you and then one day I knew that I had you. I was standing at the sink rinsing dust from a bunch of grapes. All my energy had been spent pursuing you and then I had you and then … Continue reading “It Took All My Energy”
Contributor:
Wallace, Tony
Poem
Poem 153:
Once upon a Time There Was a Man
Once upon a time there was, there was a man Who lived inside me wearing this cold armour, The kind of knight of whom the ladies could be proud And send with favours through unlikely forests To fight infidels and other knights and ordinary dragons. Once upon a time he galloped over deep green moats … Continue reading “Once upon a Time There Was…
Contributor:
Hammond, Mac
Poem
Poem 154:
Aunties
There’s a way a woman will not relinquish her pocketbook even pulled onstage, or called up to the pulpit— there’s a way only your Auntie can make it taste right— rice & gravy is a meal if my late Great Aunt Toota makes it— Aunts cook like there’s no tomorrow & they’re right. Too hot … Continue reading “Aunties”
Contributor:
Young, Kevin
Poem
Poem 155:
A Walk in Kensington Gardens
Solitude is where writers chatter best a soothing static— the ambulatory, admit it, happy ticking over like this afternoon in the sweet green cold London spring I watch a tall grey heron stomping down its reed nest that’s sprouting everywhere like garden-sheared hair and all my living and all my dead run up my arms … Continue reading “A Walk in Kensington Gardens”
Contributor:
Porter, Dorothy
Poem
Poem 156:
Dandelion
My science teacher said there are no monographs on the dandelion. Unlike the Venus fly-trap or Calopogon pulchellus, it is not a plant worthy of scrutiny. It goes on television between the poison squirt bottles, during commercial breakaways from Ricki Lake. But that’s how life parachutes to my home. Home, where they make you do … Continue reading “Dandelion”
Contributor:
Lechevsky, Julie
Poem
Poem 157:
Ox Cart Man
In October of the year, he counts potatoes dug from the brown field, counting the seed, counting the cellar’s portion out, and bags the rest on the cart’s floor. He packs wool sheared in April, honey in combs, linen, leather tanned from deerhide, and vinegar in a barrel hooped by hand at the forge’s fire. … Continue reading “Ox Cart Man”
Contributor:
Hall, Donald
Poem
Poem 158:
Forgotten Planet
I ask my daughter to name the planets. “Venus …Mars …and Plunis!” she says. When I was six or seven my father woke me in the middle of the night. We went down to the playground and lay on our backs on the concrete looking up for the meteors the tv said would shower. I … Continue reading “Forgotten Planet”
Contributor:
Dorph, Doug
Poem
Poem 159:
Loyal
They gave him an overdose of anesthetic, and its fog shut down his heart in seconds. I tried to hold him, but he was somewhere else. For so much of love one of the principals is missing, it’s no wonder we confuse love with longing. Oh I was thick with both. I wanted my dog … Continue reading “Loyal”
Contributor:
Matthews, William
Poem
Poem 160:
Something
The minute the doctor says colon cancer you hardly hear anything else. He says other things, something about something. Tests need to be done, but with the symptoms and family something, excess weight, something about smoking, all of that together means something something something something, his voice a dumb hum like the sound of surf … Continue reading “Something”
Contributor:
Valvis, James
Poem
Poem 161:
Gone
The little house grows quiet now she’s gone from it— so he’ll set small orange embers of montbretia in a vase before the bedroom mirror although its petals can behold no more than themselves in the cold truth-telling glass. —Eamon Grennan
Contributor:
Grennan, Eamon
Poem
Poem 162:
Herd Of Buffalo Crossing The Missouri On Ice
If dragonflies can mate atop the surface tension of water, surely these tons of bison can mince across the river, their fur peeling in strips like old wallpaper, their huge eyes adjusting to how far they can see when there’s no big or little bluestem, no Indian grass nor prairie cord grass to plod through. … Continue reading “Herd Of Buffalo Crossing The Missouri…
Contributor:
Matthews, William
Poem
Poem 163:
Mentor
For Robert FrancisHad I known, only known when I lived so near, I’d have gone, gladly gone foregoing my fear of the wholly grown and the nearly great. But I learned alone, so I learned too late. —Timothy Murphy
Contributor:
Murphy, Timothy
Poem
Poem 164:
Unconditional Day
At 13 they brought me on television to tell of my first love under the bleachers. I thought it was the real thing. And the country shared it the way they share candy on Halloween, when I could dress up in anything as anyone, and strangers would open their doors, bending kindly to ask, Who … Continue reading “Unconditional Day”
Contributor:
Lechevsky, Julie
Poem
Poem 165:
The Rider
A boy told me if he roller-skated fast enough his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him, the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion. What I wonder tonight pedaling hard down King William Street is if it translates to bicycles. A victory! To leave your loneliness panting behind you on some … Continue reading “The Rider”
Contributor:
Nye, Naomi Shihab
Poem
Poem 166:
Kyrie
At times my life suddenly opens its eyes in the dark. A feeling of masses of people pushing blindly through the streets, excitedly, toward some miracle, while I remain here and no one sees me. It is like the child who falls asleep in terror listening to the heavy thumps of his heart. For a … Continue reading “Kyrie”
Contributor:
Tranströmer, Tomas
Poem
Poem 167:
The Last Wolf
The last wolf hurried toward me through the ruined city and I heard his baying echoes down the steep smashed warrens of Montgomery Street and past the ruby-crowned highrises left standing their lighted elevators useless Passing the flicking red and green of traffic signals baying his way eastward in the mystery of his wild loping … Continue reading “The Last Wolf”
Contributor:
TallMountain, Mary
Poem
Poem 168:
Gee, You’re So Beautiful That It’s Starting to Rain
Oh, Marcia, I want your long blonde beauty to be taught in high school, so kids will learn that God lives like music in the skin and sounds like a sunshine harpsichord. I want high school report cards to look like this: Playing with Gentle Glass Things A Computer Magic A Writing Letters to Those … Continue reading “Gee, You’re So Beautiful That It’s…
Contributor:
Brautigan, Richard
Poem
Poem 169:
Shakespearean Sonnet
With a first line taken from the tv listings A man is haunted by his father’s ghost. Boy meets girl while feuding families fight. A Scottish king is murdered by his host. Two couples get lost on a summer night. A hunchback murders all who block his way. A ruler’s rivals plot against his life. … Continue reading “Shakespearean Sonnet”
Contributor:
Gwynn, R. S.
Poem
Poem 170:
Summer in a Small Town
When the men leave me, they leave me in a beautiful place. It is always late summer. When I think of them now, I think of the place. And being happy alone afterwards. This time it’s Clinton, New York. I swim in the public pool at six when the other people have gone home. The … Continue reading “Summer in a Small Town”
Contributor:
Gregg, Linda
Poem
Poem 171:
Entrance
Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight, Out of the room that lets you feel secure. Infinity is open to your sight. Whoever you are. With eyes that have forgotten how to see From viewing things already too well-known, Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree And put it in the heavens: … Continue reading “Entrance”
Contributor:
Gioia, Dana
Poem
Poem 172:
How to Listen
I am going to cock my head tonight like a dog in front of McGlinchy’s Tavern on Locust; I am going to stand beside the man who works all day combing his thatch of gray hair corkscrewed in every direction. I am going to pay attention to our lives unraveling between the forks of his … Continue reading “How to Listen”
Contributor:
Jackson, Major
Poem
Poem 173:
Immortality
In Sleeping Beauty’s castle the clock strikes one hundred years and the girl in the tower returns to the world. So do the servants in the kitchen, who don’t even rub their eyes. The cook’s right hand, lifted an exact century ago, completes its downward arc to the kitchen boy’s left ear; the boy’s tensed … Continue reading “Immortality”
Contributor:
Mueller, Lisel
Poem
Poem 174:
Our Other Sister
for Ellen The cruelest thing I did to my younger sister wasn’t shooting a homemade blowdart into her knee, where it dangled for a breathless second before dropping off, but telling her we had another, older sister who’d gone away. What my motives were I can’t recall: a whim, or was it some need of … Continue reading “Our Other Sister”
Contributor:
Harrison, Jeffrey
Poem
Poem 175:
Gretel
A woman is born to this: sift, measure, mix, roll thin. She learns the dough until it folds into her skin and there is no difference. Much later she tries to lose it. Makes bets with herself and wins enough to keep trying. One day she begins that long walk in unfamiliar woods. She means … Continue reading “Gretel”
Contributor:
Hollander, Andrea
Poem
Poem 176:
How to Change a Frog Into a Prince
Start with the underwear. Sit him down. Hopping on one leg may stir unpleasant memories. If he gets his tights on, even backwards, praise him. Fingers, formerly webbed, struggle over buttons. Arms and legs, lengthened out of proportion, wait, as you do, for the rest of him to catch up. This body, so recently reformed, … Continue reading “How to Change a Frog Into…
Contributor:
Denise, Anna
Poem
Poem 177:
Eagle Plain
The American eagle is not aware he is the American eagle. He is never tempted to look modest. When orators advertise the American eagle’s virtues, the American eagle is not listening. This is his virtue. He is somewhere else, he is mountains away but even if he were near he would never make an audience. … Continue reading “Eagle Plain”
Contributor:
Francis, Robert
Poem
Poem 178:
End of April
Under a cherry tree I found a robin’s egg, broken, but not shattered. I had been thinking of you, and was kneeling in the grass among fallen blossoms when I saw it: a blue scrap, a delicate toy, as light as confetti It didn’t seem real, but nature will do such things from time to … Continue reading “End of April”
Contributor:
Levin, Phillis
Poem
Poem 179:
Bike Ride with Older Boys
The one I didn’t go on. I was thirteen, and they were older. I’d met them at the public pool. I must have given them my number. I’m sure I’d given them my number, knowing the girl I was. . . It was summer. My afternoons were made of time and vinyl. My mother worked, … Continue reading “Bike Ride with Older Boys”
Contributor:
Kasischke, Laura
Poem
Poem 180:
Break
We put the puzzle together piece by piece, loving how one curved notch fits so sweetly with another. A yellow smudge becomes the brush of a broom, and two blue arms fill in the last of the sky. We patch together porch swings and autumn trees, matching gold to gold. We hold the eyes of … Continue reading “Break”
