Good poems
/ page 459 of 545 /
January 2
© David Lehman
The old war is over the new one has begun
between drivers and pedestrians on a Friday
in New York light is the variable and structure
the content according to Rodrigo Moynihan's
May 8
© David Lehman
700 francs will get you $109.91
on this muggy May afternoon
which is good to know since
I just found 700 francs in my wallet
The Vision Of Piers Plowman - Part 04
© William Langland
" Cesseth!' seide the Kyng, " I suffre yow no lenger.
Ye shul saughtne, forsothe, and serve me bothe.
January 31
© David Lehman
Nothing extends a phone
call more effectively than
saying you're on your way out
but she wants to tell you
December 25
© David Lehman
Christmas defeated Chanukah
once again last night
by a margin of three billion dollars
or so, but every time I hear
How Fear Came
© Rudyard Kipling
The stream is shrunk-the pool is dry,
And we be comrades, thou and I;
Shake The Superflux!
© David Lehman
I like walking on streets as black and wet as this one
now, at two in the solemnly musical morning, when everyone else
in this town emptied of Lestrygonians and Lotus-eaters
is asleep or trying or worrying why
The Body of Divinity Versifyed
© Cotton Mather
A God there is, a God of boundless Might,
In Wisdom, Justice, Goodness, Infinite.
Operation Memory
© David Lehman
We were smoking some of this knockout weed when
Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed
Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred
With a needle in his arm. And there I was, in the middle
Of a recession, in the middle of a strange city, between jobs
And apartments and wives. Nobody told me the gun was loaded.
The Left Bank
© David Lehman
Don't walk away, Renee,
I'm just getting warmed up
your body is like a river
and I'm going to swim across
A Match With The Moon
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
WEARY already, weary miles to-night
I walked for bed: and so, to get some ease,
Sappers
© Rudyard Kipling
When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear,
("It's all one," says the Sapper),
The Lord He created the Engineer,
Her Majesty's Royal Engineer,
With the rank and pay of a Sapper!
Book Sixth [Cambridge and the Alps]
© William Wordsworth
A passing word erewhile did lightly touch
On wanderings of my own, that now embraced
With livelier hope a region wider far.
Eleventh Hour
© David Lehman
The bloom was off the economic recovery.
"I just want to know one thing," she said.
What was that one thing? He'll never know,
Because at just that moment he heard the sound
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
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
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
