All Poems

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Golden State

© Frank Bidart

I
To see my father
lying in pink velvet, a rosary
twined around his hands, rouged,

Randall Jarrell

© Robert Lowell

The dream went like a rake of sliced bamboo,

slats of dust distracted by a downdraw;

Sonnet II

© Paul Hamilton Hayne

I FEAR thee not, O Death! nay oft I pine
To clasp thy passionless bosom to mine own,
And on thy heart sob out my latest moan,
Ere lapped and lost in thy strange sleep divine;

Charlie Chaplin Impersonates a Poet

© Cornelius Eady

He opens his mouth: Tra-la!
Out comes doves, incandescent bulbs,
Plastic roses. Well, that’s that,
Squirms the young professor who’s
Coordinated this,
No more visiting poets!

Fanny

© John Betjeman

Part Four of “Pro Femina”

At Samoa, hardly unpacked, I commenced planting,

Ox that I saw in my childhood, as you steamed
in the burning gold on the Nicaraguan sun,
there on the rich plantation filled with tropical
harmonies; woodland dove, of the woods that sang
with the sound of the wind, of axes, of birds and wild bulls:
I salute you both, because you are both my life.

Rondeau Redoublé (and Scarcely Worth the Trouble, at That)

© Dorothy Parker

The same to me are sombre days and gay.
Though joyous dawns the rosy morn, and bright,
Because my dearest love is gone away
Within my heart is melancholy night.

Christmas Day, 1850

© George MacDonald

Beautiful stories wed with lovely days
Like words and music:-what shall be the tale
Of love and nobleness that might avail
To express in action what this sweetness says-

Exultation

© Emma Lazarus

BEHOLD, I walked abroad at early morning,
The fields of June were bathed in dew and lustre,
The hills were clad with light as with a garment.

The One I Think of Now

© Wesley McNair

At the end of my stepfather’s life

when his anger was gone,

The Lark

© Jim Carroll

You said that you loved the lark more than any other bird because of its straight flight toward the sun. That is how I wanted our flight to be.
Albatrosses fly over the sea, intoxicated by salt and iodine. They are like unfettered waves playing in the air, but they do not lose touch with the other waves.
Storks make long journeys; they cast shadows over the Earths face. But like albatrosses, they fly horizontally, resting in the hills.
Only the lark leaps out of ruts like a live dart, and rises, swallowed by the heavens. Then the sky feels as though the Earth itself has risen. Heavy jungles below do not answer the lark. Mountains crucified over the flatlands do not answer.