All Poems

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O HYMEN! O hymenee!
Why do you tantalize me thus?
O why sting me for a swift moment only?
Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?
Is it because, if you continued beyond the swift moment, you would
soon certainly kill me?

The Wreckage

© Donald Hall

At the edge of the city the pickerel
vomits and dies. The river
with its white hair staggers to the sea.

Todesfuge

© Paul Celan

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink in the morning at noon we drink you at sundown
we drink and we drink you
A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
Your ashen hair Shulamith we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined.

Magnets

© Robert Laurence Binyon

A far look in absorbed eyes, unaware

Of what some gazer thrills to gather there;

Dog

© Gaius Valerius Catullus

The dog trots freely in the street

and sees reality

Thank-you Note

© Judith Viorst

I wanted small pierced earrings (gold).
You gave me slippers (gray).
My mother said that she would scold
Unless I wrote to say
How much I liked them.

Ah Me! Ah Me!

© Sugawara Takesue no Musume

Ah, me! Ah, me! My weary doom to labour here in the Palace!

Seven good wine-jars have I - and three in my province.

Paradise Lost: Book I (1674)

© Patrick Kavanagh

So spake th' Apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rackt with deep despare:
And him thus answer'd soon his bold Compeer.

When to Her Lute Corinna Sings

© Thomas Campion

When to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear
As any challenged echo clear;
But when she doth of mourning speak,
Evn with her sighs the strings do break.

Dancers Exercising

© Amy Clampitt

Frame within frame, the evolving conversation

is dancelike, as though two could play

Under The Rose

© Christina Georgina Rossetti

Oh the rose of keenest thorn!
One hidden summer morn
Under the rose I was born.

Mother, I cannot Mind my Wheel

© Heather Fuller

Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
Oh! if you felt the pain I feel!
But Oh, who ever felt as I!

Darest Thou Now O Soul

© Walt Whitman

Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

Mystery and Solitude in Topeka

© Mark Strand

Afternoon darkens into evening

Christmas Night Of '62

The wintry blast goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry's tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.

The Wattle [No better Right Than I]

© Henry Lawson

I saw it in the days gone by,
When the dead girl lay at rest,
And the wattle and the native rose
We placed upon her breast.

The Pit

© John Fuller

From the beginning, the egg cradled in pebbles,
The drive thick with fledglings, to the known last
Riot of the senses, is only a short pass.
Earth to be forked over is more patient,
Bird hungers more, flower dies sooner.

Scraps. "Raise it to Heaven, when thine eye fills with tear"

Raise it to Heaven, when thine eye fills with tears,
For only in a watery sky appears
The bow of light; and from th' invisible skies
Hope's glory shines not, save through weeping eyes.

The Hunting of the Snark

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.