Good poems
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Song of the Dwarf
© Rainer Maria Rilke
Maybe my soul is straight and good,
but she’s got to lug my heart, my blood,
I Am the Woman
© Gerard Malanga
I am the Woman, ark of the law and its breaker,
Who chastened her steps and taught her knees to be meek,
Bridled and bitted her heart and humbled her cheek,
Parcelled her will, and cried "Take more!" to the taker,
Shunned what they told her to shun, sought what they bade her seek,
Locked up her mouth from scornful speaking: now it is open to speak.
I would I might Forget that I am I
© George Santayana
Sonnet VII
I would I might forget that I am I,
Wall, Cave, and Pillar Statements, after Asôka
© Alan Dugan
In order to perfect all readers
the statements should be carved
Charlie Howard’s Descent
© Mark Doty
Between the bridge and the river
he falls through
a huge portion of night;
it is not as if falling
An Anatomy of the World
© John Donne
(excerpt)
AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD
Wherein,
by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress
Superbly Situated
© Padraic Colum
you politely ask me not to die and i promise not to
right from the beginning—a relationship based on
good sense and thoughtfulness in little things
The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
© Geoffrey Chaucer
But for to tellen yow of his array,
His hors weren goode, but he was nat gay;
Of fustian he wered a gypon
Al bismótered with his habergeon;
For he was late y-come from his viage,
And wente for to doon his pilgrymage.
Eve of St. Agony or The Middleclass Was Sitting on Its Fat
© Kenneth Patchen
Ghosts in packs like dogs grinning at ghosts
Pocketless thieves in a city that never sleeps
Chains clank, warders curse, this world is stark mad
Lines to Mr. Hodgson Written on Board the Lisbon Packet
© Lord Byron
Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,
Our embargo's off at last;
The Lover: A Ballad
© Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
At length, by so much importunity press'd,
Take, C, at once, the inside of my breast;
The Secret Garden
© Rita Dove
I was ill, lying on my bed of old papers,
when you came with white rabbits in your arms;
and the doves scattered upwards, flying to mothers,
and the snails sighed under their baggage of stone . . .
Of the Poet’s Youth
© Erin Belieu
When the man behind the counter said, “You pay
by the orifice,” what could we do but purchase them all?
Sloth
© Yusef Komunyakaa
If you're one of seven
Downfalls, up in your kingdom
Of mulberry leaves, there are men
Betting you aren't worth a bullet,
Ulysses
© Alfred Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
from The Seasons: Winter
© James Thomson
Father of light and life! thou Good Supreme!
O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit; and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!
The Operation
© Anne Sexton
Clean of the body’s hair,
I lie smooth from breast to leg.
All that was special, all that was rare
is common here. Fact: death too is in the egg.
Fact: the body is dumb, the body is meat.
And tomorrow the O.R. Only the summer was sweet.
To Ben Jonson
© Thomas Carew
'Tis true, dear Ben, thy just chastising hand
Hath fix'd upon the sotted age a brand
