All Poems

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End, Middle, Beginning

© Anne Sexton

At her birth
she did not cry,
spanked indeed,
but did not yell--
instead snow fell out of her mouth.

On An Infant (From The Greek)

© William Cowper

Bewail not much, my parents! me, the prey

Of ruthless Ades, and sepulchred here.

Rumpelstiltskin

© Anne Sexton

Inside many of us
is a small old man
who wants to get out.
No bigger than a two-year-old

The Gardener

© Katharine Tynan

In the garden she hath found
Herb of grace and fever-few;
Woundwort there doth much abound,
Heartsease too.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

© Anne Sexton

The paralytic's wife
who takes her love to town,
sitting on the bar stool,
downing stingers and peanuts,
singing "That ole Ace down in the hole,"
would understand.

The Loving One Once More

© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

WHY do I o'er my paper once more bend?

Ask not too closely, dearest one, I pray

Colemira. A Culinary Eclogue

© William Shenstone

Nec tantum Veneris, quantum studiosa culinae.
Imitation.
Insensible of soft desire,
Behold Colemira prove
More partial to the kitchen fire
Than to the fire of Love.

After Auschwitz

© Anne Sexton

Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,

The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part III: Gods And False Gods: LIX

© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

THE HAUNTED HOUSE
How loud the storm blew all that bitter night!
The loosened ivy tapping on the pane
Woke me and woke, again and yet again,

The Waesome Carl

© George MacDonald

There cam a man to oor toon-en',

And a waesome carl was he,

A Curse Against Elegies

© Anne Sexton

Oh, love, why do we argue like this?
I am tired of all your pious talk.
Also, I am tired of all the dead.
They refuse to listen,

"Ay, ay, ay, the lilies of the garden"

© Lesbia Harford

Ay, ay, ay, the lilies of the garden
With red threads binding them and stars about,
These shall be her symbols, for she is high and holy,
Holy in her maidenhood and very full of doubt.

Listen here. I've never played it safe
in spite of what the critics say.
Ask my imaginary brother, that waif,
that childhood best friend who comes to play
dress-up and stick-up and jacks and Pick-Up-Sticks,
bike downtown, stick out tongues at the Catholics.

The Dirty Old Man

© William Allingham

In a dirty old house lived a Dirty Old Man;
Soap, towels, or brushes were not in his plan.
For forty long years, as the neighbors declared,
His house never once had been cleaned or repaired.

Obsessive Combination Of Onotological Inscape, Trickery And Love

© Anne Sexton

Busy, with an idea for a code, I write
signals hurrying from left to right,
or right to left, by obscure routes,
for my own reasons; taking a word like writes

The Shepherd's Calendar - August

© John Clare

Harvest approaches with its bustling day

The wheat tans brown and barley bleaches grey

To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Triumph

© Anne Sexton

Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wintgs on,
testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade,
and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn
of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made!