1. A Negro Love Song - written by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Read 3172 times on American Poems.

Seen my lady home las' night, 
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh,
Seen a light gleam f'om huh eye,
An' a smile go flittin' by --
Jump back,... (Read full poem)

If all the ships I have at sea 
Should come a-sailing home to me, 
From sunny lands, and lands of cold, 
Ah well! the harbor could not hold 
So many sails as there would be 
If all my ships came in from sea. 

If half my ships came home from... (Read full poem)

3. I learned -- at least -- what Home could be -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1764 times on American Poems.

I learned -- at least -- what Home could be --
How ignorant I had been
Of pretty ways of Covenant --
How awkward at the Hymn

Round our new Fireside -- but for this --
This pattern -- of the Way --
Whose Memory drowns me, like the Dip
Of a Celestial... (Read full poem)

They went home and told their wives,
that never once in all their lives,
had they known a girl like me,
But... They went home.

They said my house was licking clean,
no word I spoke was ever mean,
I had an air of mystery,
But... They went... (Read full poem)

5. The Player Piano - written by Randall Jarrell
Read 1435 times on American Poems.

I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House
Run by a lady my age. She was gay.
When I told her that I came from Pasadena
She laughed and said, "I lived in Pasadena
When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus."

I felt that I had met someone from... (Read full poem)

One wants a teller in a time like this

One's not a man, one's not a woman grown
To bear enormous business all alone.

One cannot walk this winding street with pride
Straight-shouldered, tranquil-eyed,
Knowing one knows for sure the way back... (Read full poem)

7. I never felt at Home -- Below - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2430 times on American Poems.

I never felt at Home -- Below --
And in the Handsome Skies
I shall not feel at Home -- I know --
I don't like Paradise --

Because it's Sunday -- all the time --
And Recess -- never comes --
And Eden'll be so lonesome
Bright Wednesday Afternoons... (Read full poem)

I Years had been from Home
And now before the Door
I dared not enter, lest a Face
I never saw before

Stare solid into mine
And ask my Business there --
"My Business but a Life I left
Was such remaining there?"

I leaned upon the Awe --
I lingered... (Read full poem)

9. On Being a Woman - written by Dorothy Parker
From Sunset Gun. Published in 1928. Read 10194 times on American Poems.

Why is it, when I am in Rome,
I'd give an eye to be at home,
But when on native earth I be,
My soul is sick for Italy?

And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me- then
I scream to have you back again?(Read full poem)

Musings of a Police Reporter in the Identification Bureau

YOU have loved forty women, but you have only one thumb.
You have led a hundred secret lives, but you mark only
one thumb.
You go round the world and fight in a thousand wars and
win all the... (Read full poem)

11. Eleventh Avenue Racket - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 2222 times on American Poems.

THERE is something terrible
about a hurdy-gurdy,
a gipsy man and woman,
and a monkey in red flannel
all stopping in front of a big house
with a sign “For Rent” on the door
and the blinds hanging loose
and nobody home.
I never saw this.
I... (Read full poem)

AFTER HAVING READ A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD CURRENT POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS


Ah, they are passing, passing by,
Wonderful songs, but born to die!
Cries from the infinite human seas,
Waves thrice-winged with harmonies.
Here I stand... (Read full poem)

13. These Fought in Any Case - written by Ezra Pound
Read 3085 times on American Poems.

These fought in any case,
and some believing
pro domo, in any case .....

Died some, pro patria,
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new... (Read full poem)

Tho' I get home how late -- how late --
So I get home - 'twill compensate --
Better will be the Ecstasy
That they have done expecting me --
When Night -- descending -- dumb -- and dark --
They hear my unexpected knock --
Transporting must the moment... (Read full poem)

15. Thinking Ahead To Possible Options And A Worst-Case Scenario - written by James Tate
Read 2982 times on American Poems.

I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel
in the center of the road and that's when
the deer came charging out of the forest
and forced me to hit the brakes for all I
was worth and I careened back to the other
side of the road just as a skunk came... (Read full poem)

Bee!  I'm expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due --

The Frogs got Home last Week --
Are settled, and at work --
Birds, mostly back --
The Clover warm and thick --

You'll get my Letter by
The seventeenth;... (Read full poem)

17. Josiah Tompkins - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 342 times on American Poems.

I was well known and much beloved
And rich, as fortunes are reckoned
In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked.
That was the home for me,
Though all my children had flown afar—
Which is the way of Nature—all but one.
The boy, who was the... (Read full poem)

Wait Mister. Which way is home?
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room,
four ladies, over eighty,
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me
and I can feel the tune... (Read full poem)

19. Away from Home are some and I -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2053 times on American Poems.

Away from Home are some and I --
An Emigrant to be
In a Metropolis of Homes
Is easy, possibly --

The Habit of a Foreign Sky
We -- difficult -- acquire
As Children, who remain in Face
The more their Feet retire.(Read full poem)

Can you imagine the air filled with smoke?
It was. The city was vanishing before noon
or was it earlier than that? I can't say because
the light came from nowhere and went nowhere. 
This was years ago, before you were born, before
your parents met... (Read full poem)

21. Hog Roast - written by Lee Upton
Read 270 times on American Poems.

If the town celebrates
his roasting
it's their right. He's their hog.
He's pork now. 

His life in the mash has gone sour.
The bad fairy presides
over his crispy feet.
The prodigal has come back 

and does not need
such company.
Now the fires licks... (Read full poem)

Not at Home to Callers
Says the Naked Tree --
Bonnet due in April --
Wishing you Good Day --(Read full poem)

23. The Wilderness - written by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Read 495 times on American Poems.

Come away! come away! there’s a frost along the marshes, 
And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where it shakes the dead black water;
There’s a moan across the lowland and a wailing through the woodland 
Of a dirge that sings to send us back to... (Read full poem)

Paw marks near one burrow show Graydigger
at home, I bend low, from down there swivel
my head, grasstop level--the world
goes on forever, the mountains a bigger
burrow, their snow like last winter. From a room
inside the world even the strongest... (Read full poem)

25. Home For Thanksgiving - written by Linda Pastan
Read 2690 times on American Poems.

The gathering family
throws shadows around us,
it is the late afternoon
Of the family.

There is still enough light
to see all the way back,
but at the windows
that light is wasting away.

Soon we will be nothing
but silhouettes: the sons'
as... (Read full poem)