Good poems
/ page 463 of 545 /
Dream Song 265: I don't know one damned butterfly from another
© John Berryman
I don't know one damned butterfly from another
my ignorance of the stars is formidable,
also of dogs & ferns
except that around my house one destroys the other
When I reckon up my real ignorance, pal,
I mumble "many returns"-
The Morning Half-Life Blues
© Marge Piercy
Girls buck the wind in the grooves toward work
in fuzzy coats promised to be warm as fur.
The shop windows snicker
flashing them hurrying over dresses they cannot afford:
you are not pretty enough, not pretty enough.
Belly Good
© Marge Piercy
A heap of wheat, says the Song of Songs
but I've never seen wheat in a pile.
Apples, potatoes, cabbages, carrots
make lumpy stacks, but you are sleek
To the Pay Toilet
© Marge Piercy
You strop my anger, especially
when I find you in restaurant or bar
and pay for the same liquid, coming and going.
In bus depots and airports and turnpike plazas
My Mother's Body
© Marge Piercy
The dark socket of the year
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down
and threatens never to rise,
when despair descends softly as the snow
covering all paths and choking roads:
Barbie Doll
© Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
Off the Ground
© Walter de la Mare
Three jolly Farmers
Once bet a pound
Each dance the others would
Off the ground.
Good-bye
© Walter de la Mare
The last of last words spoken is, Good-bye -
The last dismantled flower in the weed-grown hedge,
The last thin rumour of a feeble bell far ringing,
The last blind rat to spurn the mildewed rye.
Bones
© Walter de la Mare
Said Mr. Smith, I really cannot
Tell you, Dr. Jones
The most peculiar pain Im in
I think its in my bones.
From The Ladies Defence
© Lady Mary Chudleigh
Melissa: I've still rever'd your Order [she is responding to a Parson] as Divine;
And when I see unblemish'd Virtue shine,
When solid Learning, and substantial Sense,
Are joyn'd with unaffected Eloquence;
The Toys
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,
I struck him, and dismiss'd
Faint Yet Pursuing
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
Heroic Good, target for which the young
Dream in their dreams that every bow is strung,
And, missing, sigh
Unfruitful, or as disbelievers die,
Departure
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
It was not like your great and gracious ways!
Do you, that have naught other to lament,
Never, my Love, repent
Of how, that July afternoon,
Death
© Helen Hunt Jackson
My body, eh? Friend Death, how now?
Why all this tedious pomp of writ?
Thou hast reclaimed it sure and slow
For half a century bit by bit.
Montjuich
© Philip Levine
"Hill of Jews," says one,
named for a cemetery
long gone."Hill of Jove,"
says another, and maybe
Green Thumb
© Philip Levine
Shake out my pockets! Harken to the call
Of that calm voice that makes no sound at all!
Take of me all you can; my average weight
May make amends for this, my low estate.
On The Meeting Of García Lorca And Hart Crane
© Philip Levine
Brooklyn, 1929. Of course Crane's
been drinking and has no idea who
this curious Andalusian is, unable
even to speak the language of poetry.
