Good poems
/ page 279 of 545 /
Confluence
© Yusef Komunyakaa
I’ve been here before, dreaming myself
backwards, among grappling hooks of light.
Small Kingdom
© Samuel Menashe
In their doorways women sit sewing
By the good light of afternoon
And nothing is beyond knowing
Though the sun shall go down soon
['Joy of my life, full oft for loving you']
© Edmund Spenser
Joy of my life, full oft for loving you
I bless my lot, that was so lucky placed:
The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith
© Gwendolyn Brooks
He wakes, unwinds, elaborately: a cat
Tawny, reluctant, royal. He is fat
And fine this morning. Definite. Reimbursed.
from A Ballad Upon A Wedding
© Sir John Suckling
I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen;
Oh, things without compare!
Such sights again cannot be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake, or fair.
A Prayer for My Daughter
© William Butler Yeats
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
Helen: A Revision
© Jack Spicer
And if he dies on this road throw wild blackberries at his ghost
And if he doesn't, and he won't, hope the cost
Hope the cost.
The War in the Air
© Howard Nemerov
For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,
Who rarely bothered coming home to die
But simply stayed away out there
In the clean war, the war in the air.
Ælla, a Tragical Interlude
© Thomas Chatterton
The boddynge flourettes bloshes atte the lyghte;
The mees be sprenged wyth the yellowe hue;
Ynn daiseyd mantels ys the mountayne dyghte;
The nesh yonge coweslepe bendethe wyth the dewe;
The trees enlefed, yntoe Heavenne straughte,
Whenn gentle wyndes doe blowe to whestlyng dynne ys broughte.
As Children Know
© James Russell Lowell
Elm branches radiate green heat,
blackbirds stiffly strut across fields.
Makeup on Empty Space
© Anne Waldman
I am putting makeup on empty space
all patinas convening on empty space
Le Maudit
© William Langland
He sits alone in the firelight
And on either side drifts by
Sleep, like a torrent whirling,
Profound, wrinkled and dumb.
Firstlings
© Louise Imogen Guiney
(January 7, 1915)
In the dregs of the year, all steam and rain,
In the timid time of the heart again,
When indecision is bold and thorough,
And action dreams of a dawn in vain,
She Was a Phantom of Delight
© André Breton
She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
Butchers
© C. K. Williams
1
Thank goodness we were able to wipe the Neanderthals out, beastly things,
