Work poems
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The Deserted Village
© Oliver Goldsmith
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
Account of a Visit From ST. Nicholas
© Major Henry Livingston, Jr.
"Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The Lonely God
© James Brunton Stephens
So Eden was deserted, and at eve
Into the quiet place God came to grieve.
His face was sad, His hands hung slackly down
Along his robe; too sorrowful to frown
In The Poppy Field
© James Brunton Stephens
Mad Patsy said, he said to me,
That every morning he could see
An angel walking on the sky;
Across the sunny skies of morn
Tokens
© Ingeborg Bachmann
Green mwold on zummer bars do show
That they've a-dripped in winter wet;
The hoof-worn ring o' groun' below
The tree do tell o' storms or het;
For A Depressed Woman
© James A. Emanuel
I
My friends do not know.
But what could my friends not know?
About what? What friends?
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
© John Ashbery
As Parmigianino did it, the right hand
Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer
And swerving easily away, as though to protect
What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams,
My Philosophy of Life
© John Ashbery
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea--
call it a philosophy of life, if you will.Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?
Lesson In Grammar
© Vernon Scannell
THE SENTENCEPerhaps I can make it plain by analogy.
Imagine a machine, not yet assembled,
Each part being quite necessary
To the functioning of the whole: if the job is fumbled
Death In The Lounge Bar
© Vernon Scannell
The bar he went inside was not
A place he often visited;
He welcomed anonymity;
No one to switch inquisitive
Wednesday
© Marvin Bell
Gray rainwater lay on the grass in the late afternoon.
The carp lay on the bottom, resting, while dusk took shape
in the form of the first stirrings of his hunger,
and the trees, shorter and heavier, breathed heavily upward.
I, or Someone Like Me
© Marvin Bell
In a wilderness, in some orchestral swing
through trees, with a wind playing all the high notes,
and the prospect of a string bass inside the wood,
I, or someone like me, had a kind of vision.
He Said To
© Marvin Bell
crawl toward the machine guns
except to freeze
for explosions and flares.
It was still ninety degrees
Conquistador
© Alec Derwent Hope
I sing of the decline of Henry Clay
Who loved a white girl of uncommon size.
Although a small man in a little way,
He had in him some seed of enterprise.
Work
© Chris Jones
I caught rumours of some internal hearing
then you appeared with tears squeezing your eyes,
hands scrunched up like a child's, rice paper skin.
That work mates complained was a big surprise
Walking With Angels
© Emanuel Xavier
AIDS
knows the condom wrapped penetration
of strangers and lovers, deep inside
only a tear away from risk
454. Epistle from Esopus to Maria
© Robert Burns
Our force united on thy foes well turn,
And dare the war with all of woman born:
For who can write and speak as thou and I?
My periods that deciphering defy,
And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply!
