Good poems
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Hymn to the Comb-Over by Wesley McNair: American Life in Poetry #122 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
© Ted Kooser
The chances are very good that you are within a thousand yards of a man with a comb-over, and he may even be somewhere in your house. Here's Maine poet, Wesley McNair, with his commentary on these valorous attempts to disguise hair loss.
Kaddish
© Allen Ginsberg
Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, married dreamed, mortal changed—Ass and face done with murder.
In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under pine, almed in Earth, balmed in Lone, Jehovah, accept.
Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless, Father in death. Tho I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I’m hymnless, I’m Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore
Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not light or darkness, Dayless Eternity—
Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some of my Time, now given to Nothing—to praise Thee—But Death
This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping—page beyond Psalm—Last change of mine and Naomi—to God’s perfect Darkness—Death, stay thy phantoms!
Valedictory
© Aldous Huxley
And life recedes, recedes; the curve is bare,
My handkerchief flutters blankly in the air;
And the question rumbles in the void:
Was she aware, was she after all aware?
On The Western Front
© Alfred Noyes
I found a dreadful acre of the dead,
Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.
The wings of death were hurrying overhead,
The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;
Parks and ponds
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Parks and ponds are good by day;
I do not delight
In black acres of the night,
Nor my unseasoned step disturbs
The sleeps of trees or dreams of herbs.
i wanted to overthrow the government but all i brought down was somebody's wife
© Charles Bukowski
30 dogs, 20 men on 20 horses and one fox
and look here, they write,
you are a dupe for the state, the church,
you are in the ego-dream,
read your history, study the monetary system,
note that the racial war is 23,000 years old.
Benevolent Assimilation
© George Ade
We haven't the appearance, goodness knows,
Of plain commercial men;
The Unknown Eros. Book I.
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold
In vestal February;
Not rather choosing out some rosy day
From the rich coronet of the coming May,
When all things meet to marry!
Giant Night
© Anne Waldman
Awake in a giant night
is where I am
There is a river where my soul,
hungry as a horse drinks beside me
The Stone Axe
© Robinson Jeffers
Iron rusts, and bronze has its green sickness; while flint, the hard stones, flint and chalcedony,
Cut the soft stream of time as if they were made for immortal uses. So the two-thousand-year-old
How Are Thy Servants Blest, O Lord!
© Joseph Addison
How are Thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defense!
Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help Omnipotence.
The Door
© Robert Creeley
for Robert Duncan
It is hard going to the door
cut so small in the wall where
the vision which echoes loneliness
brings a scent of wild flowers in a wood.
The Spirit Of Discovery By Sea - Book The Fifth
© William Lisle Bowles
Such are thy views, DISCOVERY! The great world
Rolls to thine eye revealed; to thee the Deep
Grandfather Bridgeman
© George Meredith
'Heigh, boys!' cried Grandfather Bridgeman, 'it's time before dinner to-day.'
He lifted the crumpled letter, and thumped a surprising 'Hurrah!'
Up jumped all the echoing young ones, but John, with the starch in his throat,
Said, 'Father, before we make noises, let's see the contents of the note.'
The old man glared at him harshly, and twinkling made answer: 'Too bad!
John Bridgeman, I'm always the whisky, and you are the water, my lad!'
Her my body
© Richard Jones
The dog licks my hand as I worry
about the left nipple
of the woman in the bathroom.
Folk Tune
© Joseph Brodsky
It's not that the Muse feels like clamming up,
it's more like high time for the lad's last nap.
And the scarf-waving lass who wished him the best
drives a steamroller across his chest.
The White Rabbit's Verses
© Lewis Carroll
They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him;
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.
Three Women
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.
