Poetry poems
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At 14 by Don Welch: American Life in Poetry #201 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Don Welch lives in Nebraska and is one of those many talented American poets who have never received as much attention as they deserve. His poems are distinguished by the meticulous care he puts into writing them, and by their deep intelligence. Here is Welch's picture of a 14-year-old, captured at that awkward and painfully vulnerable step on the way to adulthood.
At 14
To be shy,
to lower your eyes
after making a greeting.
Poetry Of Departures
© Philip Larkin
Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
Preamble (A Rough Draft For An Ars Poetica)
© Jean Cocteau
The grain of rye
free from the prattle of grass
et loin de arbres orateurs
I will beguile him with the tongue
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Reason says, I will beguile him with the tongue.; Love says,
Be silent. I will beguile him with the soul.
The soul says to the heart, Go, do not laugh at me and yourself.
What is there that is not his, that I may beguile him
Fleckno, an English Priest at Rome
© Andrew Marvell
Oblig'd by frequent visits of this man,
Whom as Priest, Poet, and Musician,
I for some branch of Melchizedeck took,
(Though he derives himself from my Lord Brooke)
Last Instructions to a Painter
© Andrew Marvell
Here, Painter, rest a little, and survey
With what small arts the public game they play.
For so too Rubens, with affairs of state,
His labouring pencil oft would recreate.
The Child Of The Islands - Winter
© Caroline Norton
I.
ERE the Night cometh! On how many graves
Rests, at this hour, their first cold winter's snow!
Wild o'er the earth the sleety tempest raves;
Forest Of Europe
© Derek Walcott
The last leaves fell like notes from a piano
and left their ovals echoing in the ear;
with gawky music stands, the winter forest
looks like an empty orchestra, its lines
ruled on these scattered manuscripts of snow.
Curriculum Vitae
© Lisel Mueller
2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of
course I do not remember this.
The Lady and the Tramp by Bruce Guernsey: American Life in Poetry #139 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Man's best friend is, of course, woman's best friend, too. The Illinois poet, Bruce Guernsey, offers us this snapshot of a mutually agreed upon dependency that leads to a domestic communion.
The Proud Poet
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Shaemas O Sheel)One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed,
His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime.
"Why don't you take up fancy work, or embroidery?" he said,
"For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!"
To The Painter Of An Ill-drawn Picture of Cleone
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
Sooner I'd praise a Cloud which Light beguiles,
Than thy rash Hand which robs this Face of Smiles;
And does that sweet and pleasing Air control,
Which to us paints the fair CLEONE's Soul.
Love, The Interpreter
© Madison Julius Cawein
Thou art the music that I hear in sleep,
The poetry that lures me on in dreams;
The Appology
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
'Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule
I am alone forbid to play the fool
To follow through the Groves a wand'ring Muse
And fain'd Idea's for my pleasures chuse
Ardelia to Melancholy
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
At last, my old inveterate foe,
No opposition shalt thou know.
Since I by struggling, can obtain
Nothing, but encrease of pain,
An Invitation to Dafnis
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
Come, and lett Sansons World, no more engage,
Altho' he gives a Kingdom in a page;
O're all the Vniverse his lines may goe,
And not a clime, like temp'rate brittan show,
Come then, my Dafnis, and her feilds survey,
And throo' the groves, with your Ardelia stray.
A Tale of the Miser and the Poet
© Anne Kingsmill Finch
Noquoth the Man of broken Slumbers:
Yet we have Patrons for our Numbers;
There are Mecænas's among 'em.
The Hasteners
© Nizar Qabbani
For fifty years they starved our children
And at the end of the fast, they threw to us…
An onion..
At the Bridal Shop by Joseph O. Legaspi : American Life in Poetry #210 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
My father was the manager of a store in which chairs were strategically placed for those dutiful souls waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for shoppers. Such patience is the most exhausting work there is, or so it seems at the time. This poem by Joseph O. Legaspi perfectly captures one of those scenes.
At the Bridal Shop
