Poetry poems
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The Wooden Toy
© Charles Simic
The brightly-painted horse
Had a boy's face,
And four small wheels
Under his feet,
Thoreau's Flute
© Louisa May Alcott
We sighing said, "Our Pan is dead;
His pipe hangs mute beside the river
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,
But Music's airy voice is fled.
Poetry
© Pablo Neruda
And it was at that age… Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
Poetry
© Claude McKay
Sometimes I tremble like a storm-swept flower,
And seek to hide my tortured soul from thee.
Bowing my head in deep humility
Before the silent thunder of thy power.
Rumors from an Aeolian Harp
© Henry David Thoreau
There love is warm, and youth is young,
And poetry is yet unsung.
For Virtue still adventures there,
And freely breathes her native air.
To Roosevelt {1}
© Rubén Dario
You are strong, proud model of your race;
you are cultured and able; you oppose Tolstoy.
You are an Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar,
breaking horses and murdering tigers.
(You are a Professor of Energy,
as current lunatics say).
Cabbage Key
© Shawn McAllister
Once Hemingway
sat across this bay
and touched the endless sea
The gulf-stretched sun
The Mysterious Visitor
© Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky
Spirit, lovely guest, who are you?
Whence have you flown down to us?
Writ On The Eve Of My 32nd Birthday
© Gregory Corso
I am 32 years old
and finally I look my age, if not more.
Dream Song 125: Bards freezing, naked, up to the neck in water
© John Berryman
Bards freezing, naked, up to the neck in water,
wholly in dark, time limited, different from
initiations now:
the class in writing, clothed & dry & light,
unlimited time, till Poetry takes some,
nobody reads them though,
The Ring And The Book - Chapter VII - Pompilia
© Robert Browning
There,
Strength comes already with the utterance!
I will remember once more for his sake
The sorrow: for he lives and is belied.
Could he be here, how he would speak for me!
Fuji In A Saucer: The Poem
© Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin
Through tannic steam I catch a glimpse of Fuji:
Against a yellow sky volcanic gold
At the Top of My voice
© Vladimir Mayakovsky
Professor,
take off your bicycle glasses!
I myself will expound
those times
and myself.
The Ashes by Karin Gottshall: American Life in Poetry #21 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
How many of us, alone at a grave or coming upon the site of some remembered event, find ourselves speaking to a friend or loved one who has died? In this poem by Karin Gottshall the speaker addresses someone's ashes as she casts them from a bridge. I like the way the ashes take on new life as they merge with the wind.
The Ashes
You were carried here by hands
and now the wind has you, gritty
as incense, dark sparkles borne
Back Home
© Vladimir Mayakovsky
Thoughts, go your way home.
Embrace,
depths of the soul and the sea.
In my view,
Mollymook
© Dale Harcombe
All week, in this rented house,
sea spray and whispers of wind
weave through the eucalypts,
like a Sondheim melody.
Almon Keefer
© James Whitcomb Riley
Ah, Almon Keefer! what a boy you were,
With your back-tilted hat and careless hair,
And open, honest, fresh, fair face and eyes
With their all-varying looks of pleased surprise
And joyous interest in flower and tree,
And poising humming-bird, and maundering bee.
Raking by Tania Rochelle: American Life in Poetry #87 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
The first poem we ran in this column was by David Allan Evans of South Dakota, about a couple washing windows together. You can find that poem and all the others on our website, www.americanlifeinpoetry.org. Here Tania Rochelle of Georgia presents us with another couple, this time raking leaves. I especially like the image of the pair âbent like parentheses/ around their brittle little lawn.â?
