All Poems

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The Spirit Of Wine

© William Ernest Henley

The Spirit of Wine
Sang in my glass, and I listened
With love to his odorous music,
His flushed and magnificent song.

Our Eyes

© Nazim Hikmet

Our eyes
are limpid
drops of water.
In each drop exists

Optimistic Man

© Nazim Hikmet

as a child he never plucked the wings off flies
he didn't tie tin cans to cats' tails
or lock beetles in matchboxes
or stomp anthills

The army was asleep as armies sleep.
War lying on a casual sheaf peace
For a brief moment, and yet with armor on,
And yet in the cild's deep sleep, and yet so still.
Even the sentries seemed to walk their posts
With a ghost footfall that could match that night.

On Living

© Nazim Hikmet

ILiving is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example--
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,

For a Statue of Anacreon

© Theocritus

This statue, stranger, scan with earnest gaze;
And, home returning, say "I have beheld
Anacreon, in Teos; him whose lays
Were all unmatched among our sires of eld."
Say further: "Youth and beauty pleased him best;"
And all the man will fairly stand exprest.

A Sad State Of Freedom

© Nazim Hikmet

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others--
you are free to make the rich richer.

Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 2. The Poet's Tale; Lady Wentworth

© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Such was the mansion where the great man dwelt.
A widower and childless; and he felt
The loneliness, the uncongenial gloom,
That like a presence haunted every room;
For though not given to weakness, he could feel
The pain of wounds, that ache because they heal.

The Moment I Knew My Life Had Changed

© Maria Mazziotti Gillan

It was not until later
that I knew, recognized the moment
for what it was, my life before it,
a gray landscape, shapeless and misty;

Song #7.

© Robert Crawford

You, too, shall know that I have prayed
Beneath the mystic tree
Whose branches at the first were made
Out of God's memory.

I Dream Of My Grandmother And Great-grandmother

© Maria Mazziotti Gillan

I imagine them walking down rocky paths
toward me, strong, Italian women returning
at dusk from fields where they worked all day
on farms built like steps up the sides

Love Poem To My Husband Of Thirty-one Years

© Maria Mazziotti Gillan

I watch you walk up our front path,
the entire right side of your body,
stiff and unbending, your leg,
dragging on the ground,

The First Flight

© William Henry Ogilvie

While there 's one on his feet with a tale to repeat

And another is sampling a drink,

My Daughter at 14, Christmas Dance, 1981

Panic in your face, you write questions
to ask him. When he arrives,
you are serene, your fear
unbetrayed. How unlike me you are.

In A Tram

One of the twain was long and dusty grey,

And like a spark that in the ashes lies,

How to Leave the World that Worships should

© Ros Barber

Above, the sky unrolls its telegram,
immense and wordless, simply understood:
youve made your mark like birdtracks in the sand -
now make the air in your lungs your livelihood.
See how each wave arrives at last to heave
itself upon the beach and vanish. Breathe.