All Poems
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Twelfth Night
© David Lehman
His first infidelity was a mistake, but not as big
As her false pregnancy. Later, the boy found outHe was born three months earlier than the date
On his birth certificate, which had turned into
A marriage license in his hands. Had he been trapped
Paradise Lost : Book XII.
© John Milton
As one who in his journey bates at noon,
Though bent on speed; so here the Arch-Angel paused
July 12
© David Lehman
Wisteria, hysteria is as obvious a rhyme
as Viagra and Niagara there must be a reason
honeymooners traditionally went to the Falls
which were, said the divine Oscar,
Warned
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
They stood at the garden gate.
By the lifting of a lid
She might have read her fate
In a little thing he did.
A Quick One Before I Go
© David Lehman
There comes a time in every man's life
when he thinks: I have never had a single
original thought in my life
including this one & therefore I shall
"I dare not leave the splendid town"
© Lesbia Harford
I dare not leave the splendid town
To go where morning meadows are,
For somewhere here the Future's hid
In factory, shop, or liquor bar.
To William Holden
© David Lehman
(July 15) We know who
the guards are
in those POW
movies with brutal
February 23
© David Lehman
Light rain is falling in Central Park
but not on Upper Fifth Avenue or Central Park West
where sun and sky are yellow and blue
Winds are gusting on Washington Square
Elegy I
© Henry James Pye
O Happiness! thou wish of every mind,
Whose form, more subtle than the fleeting air,
To The Author Of Glare
© David Lehman
There comes a time when the story turns into twenty
different stories and soon after that he academy of shadows
retreats to the cave of a solitary boy in a thriving
Sestina
© David Lehman
At the restaurant, people were talking about Philip Levine's
latest: the Pulitzer. A toast was proposed by Anne Sexton.
No one saw the stranger, who said his name was Marvin Bell,
pour something into Donna's drink. "In the Walt Whitman
Shopping Center, there you feel free," said Ted Berrigan,
pulling on a Chesterfield. Everyone laughed, except T. S. Eliot.
Conditions of Living
© Benjamin Jonson
Living a whole life has three conditions:
absorbing work which demands and brings fulfilment,
a group of friends with whom to exchange minds,
and a full love to be lost in all the time.
Ode To Pornography
© David Lehman
If you could write down the words
moving through a man's mind as
he masturbates you'd have a quick
bonus bonk read, I used to think.
My Boating Song
© Horace Smith
Hurrah, boys, or losing or winning,
Feel your stretchers and make the blades bend;
Hard on to it, catch the beginning,
And pull it clean through to the end.
January 24
© David Lehman
I was about to be mugged by a man
with a chain so angry he growled
at the Lincoln Center subway station
when out of nowhere appeared a tall
Translation Of The Epitaph On Virgil And Tibullus By Domitius Marsus
© George Gordon Byron
He who sublime in epic numbers roll'd,
And he who struck the softer lyre of love,
By Death's unequal hand alike controll'd,
Fit comrades in Elysian regions move!
December 7
© David Lehman
As I sit at my desk wishing
I did not have to edit a book
on poetry and painting a
subject that fascinates me
The Accompanist by Dick Allen: American Life in Poetry #188 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
I really like this poem by Dick Allen, partially for the way he so easily draws us in, with his easygoing, conversational style, but also for noticing what he has noticed, the overlooked accompanist there on the stage, in the shadow of the singer.
The Accompanist
A Little History
© David Lehman
Some people find out they are Jews.
They can't believe it.
Thy had always hated Jews.
As children they had roamed in gangs on winter nights in the old
