All Poems
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from The Prelude: Book 1: Childhood and School-time
© André Breton
Not uselessly employ'd,
I might pursue this theme through every change
Of exercise and play, to which the year
Did summon us in its delightful round.
To a Skylark
© André Breton
Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Sonnet Reversed
© Rupert Brooke
Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.
In California: Morning, Evening, Late January
© Denise Levertov
Pale, then enkindled,
light
advancing,
emblazoning
summits of palm and pine,
Poet Dances with Inanimate Object
© Cornelius Eady
for Jim Schley
The umbrella, in this case;
Earlier, the stool, the
Wooden pillars that hold up
the roof.
Maudlin; Or, The Magdalen’s Tears
© Michael Rosen
If faith is a tree that sorrow grows
and women, repentant or not, are swamps,
kept busy
© Joanne Burns
from our deep cool verandah we spy on the world passing by. we both wear glasses in order to pick out the details. even as children we noticed all. people would say dont like those twins they look at you funny. we were reassured. our powers had been confirmed. but that was a long while ago. now we are 60. we have lived in this ground floor flat on the main road for 20 years. it is a very suitable dwelling, and we have a satisfactory relationship with the landlord. we think he is pleased we notice his transparency. we have been here since we left our husbands who got in the way of our observations.
after our evening meal we talk quietly of what we have seen. we believe in sharing our observations in case one of us has missed something. for our eyesight isnt as sharp as it was ten years ago. though we do clean our glasses each hour and keep our hair tied firmly back in small grey buns so nothing can distract our focus. we are small women. many people do not notice us, while we are noticing them. we keep to ourselves. mother used to say to us never get too friendly with strangers they can harm you. even if they smile and offer you an hour of their lives dont tell them nothing. mother knew a lot. she always kept the bible and a cloth to clean her hands on the kitchen table within reach.
Insomnia
© Dana Gioia
Now you hear what the house has to say.
Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,
the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,
and voices mounting in an endless drone
of small complaints like the sounds of a family
that year by year you’ve learned how to ignore.
Satires of Circumstance in Fifteen Glimpses VIII: In the Study
© Thomas Hardy
He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair
Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,
A type of decayed gentility;
And by some small signs he well can guess
That she comes to him almost breakfastless.
Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle II: To a Lady on the Characters of Women
© Alexander Pope
Nothing so true as what you once let fall,
"Most Women have no Characters at all."
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
Hearke, Hearke, the Larke at Heauens Gate Sings
© William Shakespeare
Hearke, hearke, the Larke at Heauens gate sings,
and Phoebus gins arise,
The Knife
© Jean Valentine
In my sleep:
Fell at his feet wanted to eat him right up
would have but
even better
he talked to me.
At the Executed Murderer’s Grave
© James Wright
6
Staring politely, they will not mark my face
From any murderer’s, buried in this place.
Why should they? We are nothing but a man.
Magnificat
© Hugo Williams
When he had suckled there, he began
to grow: first, he was an infant in her arms,
To the Infant Martyrs
© Richard Crashaw
Go, smiling souls, your new-built cages break,
In heaven you’ll learn to sing, ere here to speak,
Nor let the milky fonts that bathe your thirst
Be your delay;
The place that calls you hence is, at the worst,
Milk all the way.
