/ So begin, child, with one at hand, this weedish / angel of boggy shade, "clergyman's friend," his cure / for hoarseness; splay its serrate wings / into service as a seal of royal entitlement. / In quadrants, set barberry, privet, vetch, / and in pride of place a spray of... James Richardson http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14381 I take Saturday's unpopulated trains, / sitting at uncontagious distances, / change at junctions of low body count, in off hours, / and on national holidays especially, shun stadia / and other zones of efficient kill ratio, / since there is no safety anymore in numbers. / I wear the dull colors of nesting birds, / invest... Laurie Zimmerman http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14380 Here I am in the yard / standing at the edge of the garden— / this used to be yarrow / tangling the stalks of black-eyed Susan / and the purple fizzed Joe-Pye weed, / and this, pink-cupped mallow, / over there a profusion of wild geranium / I would pull to relocate all summer. / Here I am... Bruce Weigl http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14378 i / There are certain pathways he must follow when he goes into my brain, / or else something catastrophic might happen he said. He said / any kind of bleeding in the brain is not good and should be avoided. / I think he was talking to himself. Meantime, my waiting brain said / Love yourself; love your pain... Michael Blumenthal http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14376 It's such a relief to see the woman you love walk out the door / some nights, for it's ten o'clock and you need your eight hours / of sleep, and one glass of wine has been more than enough / and, as for lust—well, you can live without it most days and... Malcolm de Chazal / translated from the French by Karina Borowicz & Ben Admussen http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14374 27 / When / a rock / dies / it has / no need / to bury itself away. / 53 / Every object / that falls / blesses itself. / 119 / The hand / became / a nest / to catch / the bird. / 144 / The utensils being washed / held a conversation. / 169 / The flight / of birds / seized by fright / has the air / of swimming. / 170... Cleopatra Mathis http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14373 It's not easy living here, waiting to be charmed / by the first little scribble of green. Even in May / the crows want to own the place, and the heron, old bent thing, / spends hours looking like graying bark, / part of a dead trunk lying over opaque water. / She strikes the... Kim Addonizio http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14372 The gods are rinsing their just-boiled pasta / in a colander, which is why / it is humid and fitfully raining / down here in the steel sink of mortal life. / Sometimes you can smell the truffle oil / and hear the ambrosia being knocked back, / sometimes you catch a drift / of laughter in... Jennifer Grotz http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14371 Have you ever watched a cigarette released from a driver's fingers / swim through the night air and disintegrate in tiny embers? / Invisible by day, fire's little shards, its quiet dissemination. / That's how, one hot afternoon, no one noticed when / something desperate made the boy devise the strategy / to siphon gas... Carl Dennis http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14370 It isn't dependable as a guide when it flows / From a grudge against the body, but consider / How helpful it proved in prompting the god / Who revealed himself to the prophet Amos / To gag when he sniffed the savor rising / From temple altars. The smoke of sacrifice / Stank in his... Randall Mann http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14367 There's a certain sadness to this body of water / adjacent to the runway, its reeds and weeds, / handful of ducks, the water color / manmade. A still life. And still / life's a cold exercise in looking back, / back to Florida, craning my neck / like a sandhill crane in Alachua Basin. / As... Patrick Warner http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14366 i. / Rip the flex from the electric clock, / braid bare wire ends to the steel sieve's rim, / and plop it like a helmet on your skull. / Now reach and plug the three-pin in. / The shyest creatures come out to play: / wild lynx, mink and whiskered otter; / wrist-thick trout that tremble and... Richard Jackson http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14365 It's because the earth continues to wobble on its axis / that we continue to stumble down the streets of the heart. / It's because of the loneliness of the first cell trying to swim / through its primordial pool that we are filled with a kind of / galactic fear. For example: one... Brigit Pegeen Kelly http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14364 div style="max-width:425px;text-align:justify"> / The sun came up, the birds whistled, the honeysuckle bloomed—the honeysuckle bloomed with such unbounded fervor it obliterated the far-off cries ... but maybe we should have paid heed to how the swarming gold brought on a kind of delirium, as if the gold were not innumerable blooms commingling,... Christian Wiman http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14362 _Brachest_, she called it, gentling grease / over blanching yolks with an expertise / honed from three decades of dawns / at the Longhorn Diner in Loraine, / where even the oldest in the old men’s booth / swore as if it were scripture truth / they’d never had a breakfast better, / rapping a glass sharply to get her / attention when it went sorrowing / so... Robert Dana http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14360 Snow sealing off the high passes and the wind howling. / Snow plastering pine, fir, and spruce. /                                                          Capping the river rocks. / Stubborn... Ishai Barnoy http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14359 Then I was told to watch twelve movies— / oh, any twelve—which isn't / bad advice, told / probably to make me take time off / from being so serious. / Or as if time, like this, can be so simply / gleaned into rough twelfths / to some effect, / which isn't an incorrect view, nor an imperfect... T. Zachary Cotler http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14358 Suddenly fatigued among French / women in the Roman / Empire rooms of the museum, / I fall out of circulation / on a bench. Bronze / heads, helms, a Byzantine / spoon, sixth century, engraved, / attributed to Virgil: O handsome / youth, do not believe too much / in beauty; you cannot be / beautiful without money ...... Arda Collins http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14355 It's not happiness, but something else; waiting / for the light to change; a bakery. / It's a lake. It emerges from darkness into the next day surrounded by pines. / There's a couple. / It's a living room. The upholstery is yellow and the furniture is walnut. / They used to lie down on... Mary Baron http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14354 Brow must salaam to belly / these mornings, frown, if at all / softly / sitting up in bed / finding the body / is still there /               (the small boy / at the swimming pool, touching / the collie's face above the eyes— / that's her soft frown) / If at first... Devin Johnston http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14353 what will she / now a she / trailing clouds / yet hearing our / muffled voices / all the while / from this dark / world and wide / what will she / mew or bray / as any envoy / might derive / an embryon / from animal / or amnion / from tender lamb / though tethered to / a human form / an embryon... R. T. Smith http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14351 The peacock's shriek blistering the midnight air, / the roar they always claim mimics a freight train / rounding the bend. Hurricanes south and west, / though too distant to raise concern, but I wake / to the emperor bird crying murder again, / and mother at the door all frazzle and panic / is saying,... Rita Dove http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14349 h4>Prologue of the Rambling Sort / This is a tale of light and shadow, / what we hear and the silence that follows. / Remember this as we set out / across sea and high roads, as talk turns / to gentlemen and valets, grave robbers / and tormented souls. This is a story / about music... Jody Gladding http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14347 We utter nothing / true high / among the needled / fictions we create / so many opportunities / for truth / as it happens / continually / not only up here / but also under growth / where we sink / down in bogs / filled / with resolve / nothing we utter / is true / still / we groan / gape / and push a new... Robert Polito http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14346 In a San Francisco basement apartment / There's a woman I keep hearing about, who / Claims for the last twenty years she's lived / With Bob Dylan, and wishes to write a book about it. / That might mostly be new to him—hey man, / You must be putting me on. But she sells... Caroline Knox http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14345 My sister said, / “All the elements in this painting, / Still Life with Strawberries, / appear to levitate” / (by Isaak Soreau [1604–after / 1638], / Flemish, early 1630’s / Gift of Mrs. Robert McKay / Cincinnati Art Museum) / DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE / __________________________________ / it said on the postcard of the painting. / “I’ll tell you... John Updike http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14344 The celebrated windows flamed with light / directly pouring north across the Seine; / we rustled into place. Then violins / vaunting Vivaldi's strident strength, then Brahms, / seemed to suck with their passionate sweetness, / bit by bit, the vigor from the red, / the blazing blue, so that the listening eye / saw suddenly the... Carl Phillips http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14343 It's as if the dark, which had before / just been context, gave to vulnerability / a permission, almost: fleshy saucers of / spilled cream, so many parchment fists, / unfisting; and now, in pieces, the delicate / mask of an indifference offered radically / up against what, each time, seems as / unthinkable, as unexpected, as... Hester Knibbe / translated from the Dutch by Jacquelyn Pope http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14342 The soil I’m walking over comes / from deeper: a fire had done it in, / a stewpot had suddenly popped / and its contents streamed / out wave over wave until / it reached the water, until the sea / called it a day and struck back / with a counterwave. Stony nightblack / dreambarren land where... Jack Gilbert http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14339 When we get beyond beauty and pleasure, / to the other side of the heart (but short / of the spirit), we are confused about what / to do next. It is too easy to say arriving / is enough. To pretend the music / of the mountain needs only to be heard. / That the... Susan Wheeler http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14338 The grid, west of Lincoln, Nebraska, could be / Agnes Martin's: all purplish white, / marked with hatching, Richart chocolates in / a box—some squares ribbed, some chenille, / checks close-cropped like a flat-top crew, / some wavy orbs, some purled, some knit, / some bisected by blue hypoteni, / until the white quilt bunches up in sun,... Ghassan Zaqtan / translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14337 He has to return to shut that window, / it isn't entirely clear / whether this is what he must do, / things are no longer clear / since he lost them, / and it seems a hole somewhere within him / has opened up / Filling in the cracks has exhausted him / mending the fences / wiping... Edward Nobles http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14336 Blue tarp, blue form, / synthetic but beautifully / perfect in its blue, torn / to tatters by the wind. / Wear and / tear. / The more pieces freed / from the whole, the more / the wind licks the blue / into flames. Serrated / flames, / blue fire. ... Wisława Szymborska / translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14335 I'm walking on the slope of a hill newly green. / Grass, small flowers in the grass, / just as in a children's book. / Hazy sky, already turning blue. / A view of other hills spreads out in silence. / As if there had been no Cambrians or Siluries here, / rocks growling at one... Hannah Louise Poston http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14334 Today, distracted by two kiting birds, / I thought of you, I thought of you in words. / I thought of spending afternoons with you, / undressed, sunk into pleasure. At the coo / of "pleasure" in my secret inner ear / (my back convecting, sure that you were here), / my mouth came open at... Stacey Lynn Brown http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14333 h4>II. / Down South, all it takes / to be a church are some stencils / and a van. And my childhood / was full of them: / The Episcopal litanies of Sunday school / exercises in genuflection, / the low country Southern Baptist pit / of hellfire and damnation / hemming us inside the tent / while just outside,... Barbara Maloutas http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14332 way before breakfast / way before I usually             leave for work / I call Norma                        she is east /                           this is business / I... Debra Nystrom http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14331 Like cool silk billowing, the breeze brushes my arm / and is gone; one after another, spent waves hurry over / the sand as if to offer something, then take it back; / you would laugh if you were here, at the little biplane / puttering above the sea to trail its ad, STEAMED... Lisa Martin-DeMoor http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14330 Memory at its finest lacks corroboration / —no photographs, no diaries— / nothing to pin the past on the present with, to make it stick. / Just because you've got this idea / of red fields stretching along the tertiary roads / of Saskatchewan, like blazing, contained fires— / just because somewhere in your memory / there's a rust-coloured... Jesse Lee Kercheval http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14329 div style="text-align:justify"> / To be here is to be where fruit you have never seen before grows on equally strange trees. The fruit is not, as you first thought, oranges, though it is orange in color. Nor is it a tangerine or some strangely colored apple. Then you see it in the... Lori Wilson http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14328 The firestorm comes at night /            hailing /            on a placid sleep /                        delicious wreckage of the day: /            a dresser, drawers ajar, and... Peter Campion http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14327 With its swift / flick and plummet / through the chrism / of these first hours / after the rain / spraying droplets / off its wingtips then / scissoring past / the phone lines / into the blue / distance of roofs / and freeways / how not see it as / diving past / all we slather / onto the world / diving past... Jason Gray http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14326 And what would you say if I told you the deer had spoken? /       Two animals, we were face to face in the wood / And stopped each other dead in the last light /       Of day, the cold coming down the hillside, / Descending as... Paul Otremba http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14325 The pig couldn't know it was a pig, / not because it lacked a conspicuous / preference for truffles over the few / rotten turnips set aside for the trash, / but because when I looked, there was / a thin slit of a smile across its throat, / which explained the pig's patience / with the... Peter Porter http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14324 The little fish had twinkling bright red fins, / could turn on a five-pence piece, / never needed to pretend / that artificial plants are edible / or Science is a watery god, / a fons-et-origo out of the tap. / And the big fish are looking guilty. / The morning census bides a tear / and the... David Huerta / translated from the Spanish by Mark Schafer http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14323 We already know: first we must agree / on which they are; but let us acknowledge that they exist: / they resound in all their weight and gravity / down Nevsky Prospekt, in the muttering of Raskolnikov, / and Cortázar mocks them at every opportunity, / lightens them up, musses their hair, reconciles them / with... H. L. Hix http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14322 If the Lena River courses north / farther than the Mississippi south, / draining Yablonovyy mountain snow / into the ice-laced Laptev Sea, then
/
/ somewhere her eyes' hue must have a rival. / In the geothermal prehistory / of pressure under what became Brazil, / in the igneous light sharp-sifted by / its facet-concentrated chronicle. / In something luminous... Deborah Warren http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14320 Too many of my dreams these days are boring. / I expect to drop into the pillow / and see the kind of action night is for— / a psychic workout, romance, close escapes: / Not much gets accomplished in a still-life; / nobody looks at asters as a way / to get a taste of life.... Joel Brouwer http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14319 And this shall be divided. For her / a tine to clip the bloody twine / that bound our meat, tine to pierce / the peach to its dry pit. For me / tine to pick a white hair from my teeth, / tine to hide and keep ready. When I / vanish I will leave... Zach Savich http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14318 Near its peak, the mountain requires nearly no / effort to climb. There is no sky behind the flags, / barges of pretty silt. Some wrestlers oil themselves / to prevent a grip, others rub grit on their skin / to help it. In the cartoon, Orpheus puts glasses on the back / of his... Frannie Lindsay http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14317 The one time he was purely happy / was when he lay himself down in the water / backfloating tilting his big square chin toward the sun / opening his eyes just enough / when he needed to see where the lake / had taken him flutter-kicking now and again / as he would in time... David Schloss http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14316 When he reopened that great door / for the first time as a young man / with such innocent hopefulness, / not because he was doing it / for the first time or thinking that / it had never been done before, / but just because it had been done / over and yet over again / in... John Casteen http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14315 I crank back on him though he haul / my shoulder's socket loose, he strains / and drives until the bent rod's cold steel butt / wedged up in my teen crotch strikes / straight home and my knees numb. / This blue hooked deep on tube lures runs / dark fathoms under Plum Gut's high... B. H. Fairchild http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14314 Flashlight in hand, I stand just inside the door / in my starched white shirt, red jacket nailed shut / by six gold buttons, and a plastic black bow tie, / a sort of smaller movie screen reflecting back / the larger one. Is that really you? says Mrs. Pierce, / my Latin teacher, as... Harry Clifton http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14313 Would you believe it, I got lost again / And all roads led to Rakestreet. Which was which, / The short road or the long? A girl of ten / Behind her counter, drew me a thumbnail sketch / Of space in time. The Big House was, she said, / Five minutes away, or seven... Greg Wrenn http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14312 He lowers his blessing / mushroom-capped    glistening / & traces the trinity /        Axilla     (overturned skullcap) /                  Areola     (fisherman's ring, still warm)
/
/                            ... Keith Ratzlaff http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14311 Today when I framed / two crows / in the notch of the ash tree, / I thought of order. / Rain / was in the forecast / and presto, rain. Then / three crows / in the field tilted the world / as if imbalance were / a blessing / dropped in the cup I keep / for blessings. Then / four... David Bottoms http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14310 Sometimes when my old man tries to talk, his mind runs like a small boy / on a path through the woods. / You know the story. There's home to get to, and it's getting late, / only a little light still slicing through the trees. / And the boy has walked the path... Rae Armantrout http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14309    1 / Who am I / to experience a burst / of star formation? / I know this— / after the first rush / of enthusiasm / any idea / recedes and dims.
/
/    2 / Each one / is the inverse / shape of what's / missing.
/
/    3 / One might try / summing / the matter up / in a single... Sarah Barber http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14307 You give me the slip between garlic and lilies, / as if this is what comes of my unprotected / loves, of my hands in the sweet earth, / their willful miscegenation of the border bed / where you're tucked in deep with tulips, too, / like just one more of their heart-freaks: / a fluke... Emma Neale http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14306 There are the sweet cakes, the streamers, / the flush-cheeked children who think today / is about the sweet cakes, the streamers. / There is the beautifully aloof, heartless sunshine; / likewise the bare-armed hills, crowned in azaleas / like extrovert brides; the city's thin, quiet streets / their safe-choice grooms / and all of us standing... Jennifer Atkinson http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14304 I'd have thought my life at halfway would look /          half-grown, half-gone, or half-born, / But try as I might I can't get far enough off to see it. /          Among the reeds, the rocking cattails, / the hollow seed pods of last summer's... Edward Field http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14303 It felt so adult, at 83, going by myself to the hospital, / getting on the bus like others (all the young) headed for work / through the morning Manhattan streets / carrying umbrellas and newspapers, disappearing into subways, / lining up at carts for a (careless, cholesterol-rich) paper bag breakfast. / When the bus... Michael Dickman http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14302 You can go blind, waiting / Unbelievable quiet / except for their / soundings / Moving the sea around / Unbelievable quiet inside you, as they change / the face of water / The only other time I felt this still was watching Leif shoot up when /            we were twelve / Sunlight... Barbara Hamby http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14301 i>Mon Dieu, said the Hindoo, I don't want to stop drinking. Who do? /         But sometimes you have to put down your glass so you / can pick it up for another round. At the University Ladies' Tea /         with the pill-popping dean's... John Kinsella http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14300 It's been weird weather. Storms that brew / but don't break, winds that strew / small branches and leaf litter, / sun and rain in equal measure, / cold so deadly it's the talk of town, / and no one's sure if the drought's broken. / It's been weird weather. Especially / this morning. Tim calls me... Judith Hall http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14299 However, whenever whispered, whatever said, / Prayers blow out the windows / And tangle on / The way to heaven in a tree. / Some sound like leaves: Brittle: Wishes: Please. / Some boast, swinging on a golden pail / Among the lightest, scentless fruit. / No reason why. / What is above the head smells divine. / Most... T. Alan Broughton http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14298 Now that the festive singers are gone / and only the single star remains / sharp and distant, why recall / when women came caroling at night, / dressed in caps and gowns dark / as the air around them? Allowed to stand / inside where rough winds only reached / my ankles, a rising tide and... Sherod Santos http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14297 A mist had settled over everything. / It was after ten, almost eleven. / A smudgy lamplight overran the curbs / where leaves had started / to gather as well. / Some young people / prowling the neighborhood / were afraid that nothing would happen tonight, / just as nothing / had happened the night before. / Although it was... Chard DeNiord http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14296 div style="line-height:25px"> / In the sudden silence of his phone / he knew that something was wrong, / not in general but with him, him. / He was born with the knowledge of his own problems, / but not the tools to solve them completely. / They wanted to tell him, then didn't, wisely— / his friends of... Andrew Hudgins http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14295 Red lights whirling behind her in the sun, / a cop ordered me off the trestle. Why? / I asked, squinting. I knew what she'd say. / I loved this shortcut to my bad job, loved walking / above the street and then above the river, / mincing across the slick, splintering ties / —a true... Jacques Réda / translated from the French by Andrew Shields http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14294 As gray as an old wooden telegraph pole, I am now / Growing gnarled. I am beginning to crack, and I am / Getting deaf. I no longer hear the beatific sound / In myself that, as if with love, makes even concrete hum. / It was the music of the wind, in chords... Tomasz Rózycki / translated from the Polish by Mira Rosenthal http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14293 When I began to write, I didn't know / how quickly it would make me very rich, / how I would buy an island, how I'd fly / there fifteen times a day, how waves would place / old bottles at my feet, how narwhals from / those waves would eat straight from my hand,... Charles Simic http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14292 Quick-tempered tribe, this is your season, / You who take scant notice of a breeze in winter / And will forbear a major snowstorm, / Now take offense at any little puff of wind, / And get-to-whispering and gossipmongering. / What calumnies are you exchanging at night? / You who are usually so discreet and wise.... Brian Teare http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14290 Make it / the place / it was then, / so full it split / vision to live / there in winter / so late & wet / abundance / toppled toward / awful—birds / of paradise / a profusion / the ripe colors / of anodized / metal; in gutters / umbrellas / smashed / like pigeons, / bent ribs bright / among black / slack fluttering; / camellias' / pink... Isobel Dixon http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14289 My iris purple skirt— / its silky swish— / was packed at first for partying in / but then the destination changed: / I checked in for a flight / towards his final journeying. / In that petal furl, with a beaded / butterfly to curb its wrap, / I helped to carry him, / a coffined husk, / across a patch... Scott Cairns http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14288 And when, of a given evening, say, an evening laced / with storm clouds skirting distance parsed by slanting light, / or when the thick air of an August afternoon by the late approach / of just such a storm turns suddenly thin and cool, and the familiar / roaring, for the moment made... Timothy Liu http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14287 Amidst the rush at Lincoln-Center, I settled / in, checking my shoes, then untying one / as I lifted up its hot mouth to my face, / trying to locate whatever odor was about / if not from me then perhaps my chair / refusing to give up its former occupant, / the others beside me oblivious... Rae Armantrout http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14286 A scatter / of cold cases / makes two / separate strings. / Rival news hours / mime discovery. / * / For so long / we've been practicing— / unwrapping / our surprise. / * / In heaven / the soul is sheltered / from the expanse / of time. / It... Ross White http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14285 I am keeping very still, / my pants hiked, my socks rolled down / over the mouth of my sneakers, / so limb leads can read my heart at an angle. / Shirtless, pressed flat to paper pulled / over the creaky plastic exam table. / The leads on my chest pump electrical information / to the... George Witte http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14283 Economies of scale dictate / specific fates, a calculus / where greater good enables one / unhappy outcome at a time / (others' grief negating yours). / We can't account for every life. / Advertising's down, the papers / allocate obituaries / to lives and deaths deemed newsworthy. / The worm's devoured to feed the flock; / objectives require sacrifice, / loss... Bernadette Mayer http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14282 Daily as the lazy lily / the silly daisy let's be / while we drink the wine / stronger than the dock / on which we recline / swimming alone mid-week / not enough paid work / to have a car to get here / or there with, enough / wherewithal to be / the subjects of your generosity / we... D. A. Powell http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14281 were lifted over the valley, its steepling dustdevils / the redwinged blackbirds convened / vibrant arc their swift, their dive against the filmy, the finite air / the profession of absence, of being absented, a lifting skyward / then gone / the moment of flight: another resignation from the sweep of earth / jackrabbit, swallowtail, harlequin... Liāna Langa / translated from the Latvian by Inara Cedrins http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14278 tares and anemones have finished blooming / under the skin of turf I, cocooned, lie, trying to understand, / where the colors of blossoms have lain, what are the steps of seeds / my casing is quiet and musical, / yellowed, rich / nowhere is the sky closer than underground, / among the roots of hyssop,... Conor O'Callaghan http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14277 The rest / have driven to the mall. / Any second now / it'll be too dark. / This close to the edge, / among other things, / I read. / Leaves rattle overhead. / Little pockets / of canned applause / sift through / the screened porch / in next door's yard. ... Juditha Dowd http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14276 Well, a Great Highland Bagpipe can reach 100 decibels— / pipers have to wear earplugs, / And the wars they've accompanied, / or maybe provoked, / And that tired debate over what's under a kilt— / nothing, or the shorts known as trews, / (You knew that, about the earplugs?) / And the animal skin, / the pipes attached where... Charles O. Hartman http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14275 Too far—he said—and this tin can / will rattle to scrap. The path is good / for goats but the right rear wheel loathes it. / I came here every summer as a boy / with my father, give his soul peace / now that his body has it, to carry firewood / down to the... David Wagoner http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14274 You had to use breath / you didn't have / enough of meanwhile / staying in one lane / of cinders running / so far ahead of you / you couldn't believe / you were supposed to / catch up to where / it seemed to be going / without you without / the loss of your lungs / your feet no... Joanna Klink http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14272 I would remain by night with you / who, having held me once, wrapped everything I knew / into my sleeping body's hold and held fast and stayed. / You shuttled in sleep against me and away, not sleeping, / beached and exhausted by wine and rushes from / another life whose body my body... Camille Dungy http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14271 whose scornings are flint on dry rock / which—don't we know—is all the heart afforded / a certain type: untended, magnifying boys. / oh fickle lens! oh smoke and smoldering beetle! / oh thwarted desire in foothills of brush / and now flame. ... Michael McFee http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14270 1. / Before they were known as "Monk" and "Ammons" / they were just two down-east North Carolina kids / born poor on the wrong side of town, or on the farm, / who grew up tall and smart, with big strong hands / and a knack for playing hymns by ear on the pianos / in... Nikki Giovanni http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14269 I sing for you / Out of tune / Off key / Forgetting lyrics / Remembering longing / I perch / On your heart / I whisper in your ear / Tiptoeing lightly / Across your lashes / I steal a kiss / You flick / And blink / And flick / Again / I fly away / Leaving my song /        ... Mary Montague http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14268 A sunlit September morning. Bright balsam-light / planing through poles of Sitka spruce, / ambering under a honeycombed canopy / to tan the leaflitter, its shag of needles, / shale of beech. Now a sound, soft shush / like finest rain, a light spray through the trees; / but there is no rain, no wind. I... Ron De Maris http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14265 Ocean shallows, sun shining clear on clean sand / then the distant blue where depth begins / its promise of forever. The world ends in cataracts / falling freely over the edge into blackness / and stars; how many centuries to learn the earth / is round? Bonefish still don't know it speeding / like horizontal... Coleman Barks http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14264 I do not want the last thing I say to anyone / to be how I feel something has gone cold in me / and I don't love you as much as I used to. / You always want the truth, don't you? / Well that's how it is with me at the moment.... Kevin Stein http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14263 Lofting the Molotov cocktail into the church's / empty lot was, in retrospect, a political act. / Back then it was only three guys I didn't like / unhanding the girly mags, fevered to spectacular action. / Friday night and no driver's license gave us this license. / In the graveyard we slunk behind granite... Charles Dobzynski / translated from the French by Marilyn Hacker http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14262 June, '40. They sang in the streets / toys given out to children / contained their death certificates. / * / The form to fill out / is a ticket for a free trip / from the Post-Mortem Tourist Bureau. / * / On schoolboys' smocks / stars were dying of laughter / forced laughter, yellow stars. / * / Those who... Barbara Guest http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14261 Wild gardens overlooked by night lights. Parking / lot trucks overlooked by night lights. Buildings / with their escapes overlooked by lights. / They urge me to seek here on the heights / amid the electrical lighting that self who exists, / who witnesses light and fears its expunging, / I take from my wall the landscape with... Aleksandr Kushner / translated from the Russian by Carol Ueland and Robert Carnevale http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14259 Fine, then, lie in the grass. The thicker it grows / The less conspicuous is the white torso, / That much more futile the long trajectory / Of power's glare; the less glory / The more butterflies here and wasps. / The more softly the word is pronounced / The more ardent, the more miraculous. / The... Allen Edwin Butt http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14258 Words without much use / now. Unable to remake / the thing. And I thought / what should I think— / followed by: spring light looks / like feathers. (Birds / seemed conveniently / decorous.) What then / does this leave I asked / & was surprised to know / so quickly—that my understanding / of what the light & birds / could... Jessica Greenbaum http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14257 Because the white truck traveling the span of the Williamsburg Bridge / could be the white fastener traveling the top of a zip-lock bag, / the East River and tugs might be contained without spilling / in today's October light, along with this new spray of trees and / picnic tables which appeared when... Chad Davidson http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14256 The shoulders, lowered in fields, glisten rouge. / Around his head the halo of vines, a fistful / of leaves translucent as skin, a sword curled / with arabesques of the same young flora. Study / the facial muscles. They suggest more than three / hundred heavens, one for every minute / the sun lords over... Eric Ormsby http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14255 My little champion, / Staccato-eloquent, / My ventriloquist of skeleton / Stalks, you: fuzz-affluent / Against the broken prism / December dandles when the snow is still. / Shy profiteer of schism, / You preach relinquishment along my windowsill. / Strip! Strip! Strip! You cheep. / The only luxury is in the chill; / The only perch of rest is... Jack Spicer http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14254 / You have not listened to a word I have sung / Said Orpheus to the trees that did not move / Your branches vibrate at the tones of my lyre / Not at the sounds of my lyre. / You have set us a tough problem said the trees / Our branches are rooted in... Rita Dove http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14253 [Clement] / Dressed for rejoicing in red jackets, / we climb the sides of the organ / to reach the knobs. I yank out a note, / mix in a fifth, an octave, add eerie flutes / and a buzzing multitude of strings. / George... Tarfia Faizullah http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14252 Do you remember what you were doing when they came for you? / When they came for me, / my green and yellow Eid sari / was flapping damply / between two palm trees. / I remember bayonets. Teeth. / Gleaming water swept / over Mother's feet. Grandfather / used to call me Priyobashini, girl / of sweet words. That... Kay Ryan http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14250 ("Lobster" and "Lady's Wrist Watch") Jim Crenner http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14249 Fifty swallows flocked along the wires / twitter frantically about the impending / journey south. On the lawn below, / a scattering of robins, glassy-eyed / from the summer's regimen of sex / and parenting, stagger about uncertainly, / heads cocked as if to keep one eye / on the sky and the other ear to the... Jill McDonough http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14248 "October 8, 1789: Rachel Wall" and "October 29, 1901" Martin Espada http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14247 In the projects of Brooklyn, everyone lied. / My mother used to say: / If somebody starts a fight, / just walk away. / Then somebody would smack / the back of my head / and dance around me in a circle, laughing. / When I was twelve, pus bubbled / on my tonsils, and everyone said: / After... Linda Pastan http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14246 In Monet's Water Lilies, / willows dissolve into / flowers dissolve into water, / and form becomes a dream / in purples and blues / without scent or story. / Consider the death of boundaries, / the way sight dissolves / the moment just before sleep / overtakes us. The way / a man can disappear / inside a woman. I remember... Tom Disch http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14245 There must be many other such derelicts- / orphaned, abandoned, adrift for whatever reason— / but few have kept flying before the winds / of cyberspace so briskly as Drunk Driver / (the name of the site). Anonymous (the author) / signed his last entry years ago, and more years passed / before the Comments began to accrete... Nell Regan http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14244 We stand in twos and threes, watch the dark sea pulse / through the narrow mouth of the bay; wait / for the under-belly of a wave to erupt as fish. / Cloud shrouds the mountains—the tip of Errigal / goes under and it spills over and down the back / of Muckish. I watch... Gregory Djanikian http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14242 Sometimes it can't be avoided / even though you might decline / the invitation to step outside— / sometimes you are outside / maybe in the repose of your garden / among rose petal and fern, but the whole / unvarnished spectacle of do / before you're done unto unfolding / as spider devours beetle, beetle, aphid, / and the... Gibbons Ruark http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14241 Those beads of lapis, even the classical / Blues of dawn, are dimmed by comparison. / When I hand you this bunch of cornflowers / The only other color in the room / Illumines your eyes as you arrange them. / They are the blue reflection of whatever / Moves in you, serene as cool water... Franz Wright http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14240 A pretty girl asks / for my autograph, / delighted! Except / it's her cigarette / she wants signed, / then lighted. Think about it. / I do. And am / for a moment / the happiest man / that I have ever known— / I have seen my end / and it is someone else's / body, breath / and lovely / inspiration. ... Sean Lause http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14239 The day my mother dropped a net / of oranges on the kitchen table / and the net broke and oranges / rolled and we snatched them, / my brother and I, / peeled back the skin and bit deep / to make the juice explode with our laughter, / and my father spun one orange in... Lawrence Raab http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14238 When Adam and Eve lived in the garden / they hadn't yet learned how to forget. / For them every day was the same day. / Flowers opened, then closed. / They went where the light told them to go. / They slept when it left, and did not dream. / What could they have remembered,... Nance Van Winckel http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14235 First the twitch of / our dog in her dream, / then the half-green, / half-burnt log / turns over / ... Sandra M. Gilbert http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14234 that the housekeeper said that / the gardener said that / someone named / Jean or Jeannie or Jenny / who was his friend or maybe / his boss had said that / today that just / today he was hit by a car / & he was killed he died / at once in the prime / of his... Eamon Grennan http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14233 Being drowned fathoms-deep in their tasks / keeps Vermeer's women on the Street in Delft / alive to us: one sitting where the light is right / tatting lace, the other bent, self-forgetful, / over her broom and wooden bucket, fully there / in that damp daily moment of making the courtyard / shine. Even those... Arthur Sze http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14231 Red chiles in a tilted basket catch sunlight— / we walk past a pile of burning mulberry leaves / into Xidi village, enter a courtyard, notice / an inkstone, engraved with calligraphy, filled / with water and cassia petals, smell Ming / dynasty redwood panels. As a musician lifts / a small xun to his mouth and... Eric Pankey http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14230 My father stands empty-handed, waits for my brother. / By the river he waits, impatiently. /                                                   A flock tilts, / Spirals, unfurls, settles serried in a maple.... Todd Boss http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14229 —no matter how much / muscle I might have / mustered—my mother / was like to come along / behind, reach around / me to take it up again / from where I'd left it, / lift it back into my line / of vision and in one / practiced motion from / that strangle in her bare / hands and... Olivia Clare http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14227 It is black bear o'clock / when the nightmare stalks / dormeurs like you, little / conjuring head. I will stay / here tonight, blow the dust / from your lashes, I'll lullaby bears / from your willow branch bed. /     Before I knew you, / I was like you, I was loved, too, / in... Ron Smith http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14226 The moon rose over Delphi’s plundered hush, / darkness’s theatrical curve, your sheltered, / luminous skin, delicate, sensuous air. / Look, there, Teller whispered, and one star / among astonishments of stars moved west / to east.  Sputnik, he said, as if he had launched it / himself. And our breathing fell away down / the mountain. We... Arthur Sze http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14225 1 / A downy woodpecker drills into a utility pole. / While you cut stems, arrange tulips in a vase, / I catch a down bow on the A string, beginning / of Song of the Wind. We savor black beans / with cilantro and rice, pinot noir; as light slants / through the kitchen window,... Roddy Lumsden http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14224 You bastards! It's all sherbet, and folly / makes you laugh like mules. Chances / dance off your wrists, each day ready, / sprites in your bones and spite not yet / swollen, not yet set. You gather handful / after miracle handful, seeing straight, / reaching the lighthouse in record time, / pockets brim with scimitar... Adam Kirsch http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14221 The good it did was negative. The mail / Put off its weaponized white coat of spores; / The jets no longer seemed about to fall / Or pivot madly toward the upper floors; / Such things returned to their old habitat / In nightmares and the crawl on CNN. / But where did the rainbow... Hilda Raz http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14220 Passion is inferred by what isn't said. / Absence will be valued by the one who notices first. / Pleasure can be ranked by all other thoughts kept out. / Fatigue is always spoken in a narrow range of voice. / Wars are justified by the troops who didn't die. / Progress is best measured... Carola Luther http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14219 How the waves wept about our boat / and the dry land drowned / reminding me of the march over the dunes / all those eons ago / behind the man in his garments. / Permission not asked / of the women, the children / before slicing across certainty and our own ocean / to prove a point:... Craig Arnold http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14218 AT a still point of the turning floor /     there is a dancer     you would know her /            even across a crowded room /     the way she sways is so familiar / She weaves with the easiness and grace / ... Michael McGriff http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14217 Let me be the architect / in the glass city of your mouth, / the wild clock of your mouth / that spins backward: glass to sand, / sand to freshwater pearl. / Let me be the beekeeper, feather / merchant, knife thrower, soothsayer, / the savant of your mouth. / The farrier with tested theories / of wear... Philip Levine http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14216 We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August / when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay / of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard / when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment / you get a whiff of salt, and... Philip Schultz http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14215 I became tongue-tied / and didn't say anything / when Philip Levine asked why R and I / never visited him in Fresno in 1972. / It was at a party in New York, / in 1997, I think, and I couldn't, / probably didn't want to, / remember the real reason. / R was the king of... Sophocles / translated from the Greek by Reginald Gibbons http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14214 By Memory's daughters, /                                    The Muses, /                 Forgetting, /                                ... Mark Irwin http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14213 Walking farther there, I am glad we /               age slowly, discovering now in memory /       similar frontiers of a physical world, visiting / as though for the first time /               ruins of a once... Mark Halliday http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14212 Yeah I went to the talk, and the reception. / Yeah I went to the dinner, and the party. / It was not a terrible evening. It was okay. / I don't think I did anything especially stupid. / But I feel kind of crummy. Not wretched, you know, / but just kind of lost or... Marie Étienne / translated from the French by Marilyn Hacker http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14210     2. I could tell you how for a long time I thought my memory was paralyzed: twenty years passed outside France and what have I left of it? /      - Take a good look, said my father, take a good look, we're going through the Suez Canal! /      I... Paul Guest http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14209 Should the painful condition of irreversible paralysis / last longer than forever or at least until / your death by bowling ball or illegal lawn dart / or the culture of death, which really has it out / for whoever has seen better days / but still enjoys bruising marathons of bird watching, / you, or... Daniel Brown http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14208 I'm striding down the avenue, / And rapidly at that, / When my progress runs me up against / An intersection at / The crux of which, depending from / A stanchion overhead, / An all-commanding traffic light / Presents two disks of red: / One to the way that crosses, one / To the way that favors me;... Carol Muske-Dukes http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14207 Her name unfurled above us, a windtight banner / Over a barricade. We sang her praises in Glee— / But there was no statue erected to her: no votives / To her in the hallways, where we were instructed / To remain silent (one laugh out loud = one demerit) / In passing. There were flowers... Kate Daniels http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14206 When the painter said, OK, you guys, / take off your clothes! I startled at the plural, / assuming I'd been engaged to model by myself. / But then the dark-skinned god I knew as Aaron / from my Econ class unzipped his jeans, / and dropped them, grinning, on the floor. / So I did,...