Here are some poems I like and I hope you like them, too. Plus, eep, here’s one from me as well.
I like short poems,
Which get to the point,
And tell a secret,
Or keep one.
- Aaron Cohen
Separation
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
- W.S. Merwin
Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
- Langston Hughes
CREATIVE
Everyone says, "Be creative."
Invent something new and they'll buy it.
But I've just invented this mustard ice cream, And nobody here wants to try it!
- Shel Silverstein from A Light in the Attic
Resume
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
- Dorothy Parker
Grief
Woke up early this morning and from my bed
looked far across the Strait to see
a small boat moving through the choppy water,
a single running light on. Remembered
my friend who used to shout
his dead wife's name from hilltops
around Perugia. Who set a plate
for her at his simple table long after
she was gone. And opened the windows
so she could have fresh air. Such display
I found embarrassing. So did his other
friends. I couldn't see it.
Not until this morning.
-Raymond Carver
O snail,
climb Mt. Fuji,
but slowly, slowly
- Kobayashi Issa
One day, it will be better.
I will put the pen down
and forget how to remember the nights I
tried
to write you out of my system like an
addiction.
It will be remarkable and I'll still want to
call you.
-Caitlyn Siehl
Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry
Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.
There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.
- Howard Nemerov
I Swear, Next Time I See You I'll Be Funny
I will make jokes at my own expense,
be charming as a surprise.
I will ask about your new life
and Be Cool About It
and I will not mention Memphis.
Or how your hair feels in my hands.
I will not mention the last time I saw you.
My mouth, so far from yours, I said
I am afraid I will spend entire years
trying not to need you.
As if I wasn't certain.
As if this wasn't my confession.
- Clementine von Radics
[since feeling is first]
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
- E.E. Cummings
All roads lead to you,
Even those I took to forget you.
-Mahmoud Darwish
MY SHADOW
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest things about him is the way he likes to grow-
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an India rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.
He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
Though my soul may set in darkness,
it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.
- Sarah Williams
93 Percent Stardust
We have calcium in our bones,
iron in our veins,
carbon in our souls,
and nitrogen in our brains.
93 percent stardust,
with souls made of flames,
we are all just stars
that have people names.
- Nikita Gill
Why Are Your Poems So Dark?
Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
- Linda Pastan
The Two Times I Loved You the Most In a Car
It was your idea
to park and watch the elephants
swaying among the trees
like royalty
at that make-believe safari
near Laguna.
I didn't know anything that big
could be so quiet.
And once, you stopped
on a dark desert road
to show me the stars
climbing over each other
riotously
like insects
like an orchestra
thrashing its way
through time itself
I never saw light that way
again.
- Dorothea Grossman
Boogie Woogie
You shout from the other room
You ask me how to spell boogie-woogie
And instantly I think what luck
no war has been declared
no fire has consumed
our city’s monuments
our bodies our dwellings
The river didn’t flood
no friends
have been arrested
It’s only boogie-woogie
I sigh relieved
and say it’s spelled just like it sounds
boogie-woogie
- Adam Zagajewski. Translated by Clare Cavanaugh
Defining the Problem
I can't forgive you. Even if I could,
You wouldn't pardon me for seeing through you.
And yet I cannot cure myself of love
For what I thought you were before I knew you.
- Wendy Cope
Tigers
What are we now but voices
who promise each other a life
neither one can deliver
not for lack of wanting
but wanting won't make it so.
We cling to a vine
at the cliff's edge.
There are tigers above
and below. Let us love
one another and let go.
- Eliza Griswold
I Did Think, Let's Go About This Slowly
I did think, let's go about this slowly.
This is important. This should take
some really deep thought. We should take
small thoughtful steps.
But, bless us, we didn't.
- Mary Oliver
Loving
When we loved
we didn't love right.
The mornings weren't funny
and we lost too much sleep.
I wish we could do it all again,
with clown hats on.
- Jane Stembridge
I recognize that I love--you--by this:
that you leave in me a wound
That I do not want to replace.
- Jacques Derrida
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
- Wislawa Szymborska
you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
- Margaret Atwood
To Drink
I want to gather your darkness
in my hands, to cup it like water
and drink.
I want this in the same way
as I want to touch your cheek—
it is the same—
the way a moth will come
to the bedroom window in late September,
beating and beating its wings against cold glass,
the way a horse will lower
his long head to water, and drink,
and pause to lift his head and look,
and drink again,
taking everything in with the water,
everything.
- Jane Hirshfield
All hearts float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wetblack and glimmering,
their four mouths gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart’s
regular struggle against being drowned.
- Margret Atwood
Maybe,
Forever
Was a word meant
For memories and
Not people.
- Bhakti
The Orange
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange -
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave -
They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.
- Wendy Cope