All Poems

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O thou beloved, by whom I stand,
Straining in mine thy kindred hand,
Farewell!on yonder mountain's brow
I see a beckoning hand of snow;
Stern winter dares no nearer come,
But waves me towards his northern home.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

© Pierre Reverdy

Sing slowly, then fast.
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,
And eyes and ears and mouth and nose,
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.

The Kalevala - Rune XXII

© Elias Lönnrot

THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL.

Selected Haiku by Issa

© Robert Hass

Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.

Happiness

© Wilfred Owen

Yet heaven looks smaller than the old doll's-home,
No nestling place is left in bluebell bloom,
And the wide arms of trees have lost their scope.
The former happiness is unreturning:
Boys' griefs are not so grievous as our yearning,
Boys have no sadness sadder than our hope.

Psalm 119 part 15

© Isaac Watts

O that thy statutes every hour
Might dwell upon my mind!
Thence I derive a quick'ning power,
And daily peace I find.

(We both live in the same village...)

© Anselm Hollo

We both live in the same village and that is our one piece of joy.
The yellow bird sings in their tree and makes my heart dance with gladness.
Her pair of pet lambs come to graze near the shade of our garden.
If they stray into our barley field I take them up in my arms.
The name of our village is Khanjuna, and Anjana they call our river;
My name is known to all the village and her name is Ranjana.

Thick Is The Darkness

© William Ernest Henley

Thick is the darkness -
Sunward, O, sunward!
Rough is the highway -
Onward, still onward!

Scopolamine (English translation)

© Catherine Pozzi

This wine that flows within my vein
Has drowned my heart and will again
In the sky-with neither captain nor money-
My heart sails into a scene
Where Oblivion melts like honey

The Adventures of a Turtle

© Russell Edson

The turtle carries his house on his back. He is both the house and the person of that house.
But actually, under the shell is a little room where the true turtle, wearing long underwear, sits at a little table. At one end of the room a series of levers sticks out of slots in the floor, like the controls of a steam shovel. It is with these that the turtle controls the legs of his house.
Most of the time the turtle sits under the sloping ceiling of his turtle room reading catalogues at the little table where a candle burns. He leans on one elbow, and then the other. He crosses one leg, and then the other. Finally he yawns and buries his head in his arms and sleeps.
If he feels a child picking up his house he quickly douses the candle and runs to the control levers and activates the legs of his house and tries to escape.

The Tall Figures of Giacometti

© May Swenson

We move by means of our mud bumps.

We bubble as do the dead but more slowly.

Jessie Mitchell’s Mother

© Gwendolyn Brooks

Into her mother’s bedroom to wash the ballooning body.

“My mother is jelly-hearted and she has a brain of jelly:

If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso

© Gertrude Stein

If I told him would he like it. Would he like it if I told him.

The Laurentians

© Frederick George Scott

These mountains once, throned in some primal sea,
Shook half the world with thunder, and the sun
Pierced not the gloom that clung about their crest;
Now with sealed lips, toilers from toil set free,
Unvexed by fate, the part they played being done,
They watch and wait in venerable rest.

Last Hope

Beside a humble stone, a tree

Floats in the cemetery’s air,

The New Year

© Emma Lazarus

Look where the mother of the months uplifts
In the green clearness of the unsunned West,
Her ivory horn of plenty, dropping gifts,
Cool, harvest-feeding dews, fine-winnowed light;
Tired labor with fruition, joy and rest
Profusely to requite.

English Eclogues VI - The Ruined Cottage

I pass this ruin'd dwelling oftentimes
And think of other days. It wakes in me
A transient sadness, but the feelings Charles
That ever with these recollections rise,
I trust in God they will not pass away.