1. I Go Back To The House For A Book - written by Billy Collins
Read 2610 times on American Poems.

I turn around on the gravel
and go back to the house for a book,
something to read at the doctor's office,
and while I am inside, running the finger
of inquisition along a shelf,
another me that did not bother
to go back to the house for a... (Read full poem)

Of all the waltzes the great Strauss wrote,
mad with melody, rhythm--rife
From the very first to the final note,
Give me his "Artist's Life!"

It stirs my blood to my finger ends,
Thrills me and fills me with vague unrest,
And all that is... (Read full poem)

3. 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)

I went back to the clanging city,
 I went back where my old loves stayed,
But my heart was full of my new love's glory,
 My eyes were laughing and unafraid.

I met one who had loved me madly
 And told his love for all to hear --
But we talked of a... (Read full poem)

5. The Investment - written by Robert Frost
From West-Running Brook. Published in 1928. Read 3979 times on American Poems.

Over back where they speak of life as staying
('You couldn't call it living, for it ain't'),
There was an old, old house renewed with paint,
And in it a piano loudly playing.

Out in the plowed ground in the cold a digger,
Among unearthed potatoes... (Read full poem)

Knee deep in the Watauga's
rock leaping whitewater,
my brother loses his balance,
his life if our father
doesn't flail downstream swimming
the air, running the river,
tripping the stones to collar
his son gasping and coughing
onto a sandbar as... (Read full poem)

7. A Fantasy - written by Louise Gluck
From Ararat. Published in 1990. Read 2072 times on American Poems.

I'll tell you something: every day
people are dying. And that's just the beginning.
Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born,
new orphans. They sit with their hands folded,
trying to decide about this new life.

Then they're in the... (Read full poem)

My friend tells me
a man in my house jumped off the roof
the roof is the eighth floor of this building
the roof door was locked   how did he manage?
his girlfriend had said   goodbye I'm leaving
he was 22
his mother and father were hurrying
at that... (Read full poem)

9. So give me back to Death -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3178 times on American Poems.

So give me back to Death --
The Death I never feared
Except that it deprived of thee --
And now, by Life deprived,
In my own Grave I breathe
And estimate its size --
Its size is all that Hell can guess --
And all that Heaven was --(Read full poem)

The great man turns his back on the island.
Now he will not die in paradise
nor hear again
the lutes of paradise among the olive trees,
by the clear pools under the cypresses. Time

begins now, in which he hears again
that pulse which is the... (Read full poem)

11. Early Darkness - written by Louise Gluck
From The Wild Iris. Published in 1993. Read 1714 times on American Poems.

How can you say
earth should give me joy?  Each thing
born is my burden; I cannot succeed
with all of you.

And you would like to dictate to me,
you would like to tell me
who among you is most valuable,
who most resembles me.
And you hold... (Read full poem)

OH for one hour of youthful joy!
Give back my twentieth spring!
I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy,
Than reign, a gray-beard king.

Off with the spoils of wrinkled age!
Away with Learning's crown!
Tear out life's Wisdom-written... (Read full poem)

13. Crab - written by Sharon Olds
Read 1530 times on American Poems.

When I eat crab, slide the rosy
rubbery claw across my tongue
I think of my mother. She'd drive down
to the edge of the Bay, tiny woman in a
huge car, she'd ask the crab-man to
crack it for her. She'd stand and wait as the
pliers broke... (Read full poem)

When they come back -- if Blossoms do --
I always feel a doubt
If Blossoms can be born again
When once the Art is out --

When they begin, if Robins may,
I always had a fear
I did not tell, it was their last Experiment
Last Year,

When it is May, if... (Read full poem)

15. I felt my life with both my hands - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 5013 times on American Poems.

I felt my life with both my hands
To see if it was there --
I held my spirit to the Glass,
To prove it possibler --

I turned my Being round and round
And paused at every pound
To ask the Owner's name --
For doubt, that I should know the Sound --

I... (Read full poem)

Back of my back, they talk of me,
Gabble and honk and hiss;
Let them batten, and let them be-
Me, I can sing them this:

"Better to shiver beneath the stars,
Head on a faithless breast,
Than peer at the night through rusted bars,
And share an... (Read full poem)

17. Mother to Son - written by Langston Hughes
From Collected Poems. Published in 1994. Read 133754 times on American Poems.

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin'... (Read full poem)

The stork flew over a town one day, 
And back of each wing an infant lay; 
One to a rich man’s home he brought, 
And one he left at a labourer’s cot.
The rich man said, ‘My son shall be
A lordly ruler o’er land and sea.’
The labourer sighed,... (Read full poem)

19. Sexism - written by David Lehman
From Valentine Place. Published in 1996. Read 2925 times on American Poems.

The happiest moment in a woman's life
Is when she hears the turn of her lover's key
In the lock, and pretends to be asleep
When he enters the room, trying to be
Quiet but clumsy, bumping into things,
And she can smell the liquor on his breath
But... (Read full poem)

Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you're young

my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your... (Read full poem)

21. As a World Would Have It - written by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Read 582 times on American Poems.

Shall I never make him look at me again? 
I look at him, I look my life at him, 
I tell him all I know the way to tell, 
But there he stays the same. 

Shall I never make him speak one word to me?
Shall I never make him say enough to show 
My... (Read full poem)

Why did you turn back,
that hell should be reinhabited
of myself thus
swept into nothingness?

Why did you turn?
why did you glance back?

So you have swept me back--
I who could have walked with the live souls
above the earth.
I who could have... (Read full poem)

23. 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)

I remember Galileo describing the mind
as a piece of paper blown around by the wind,
and I loved the sight of it sticking to a tree,
or jumping into the backseat of a car, 
and for years I watched paper leap through my cities;
but yesterday I saw... (Read full poem)

25. February: Thinking of Flowers - written by Jane Kenyon
Read 2580 times on American Poems.

Now wind torments the field,
turning the white surface back
on itself, back and back on itself,
like an animal licking a wound.

Nothing but white--the air, the light;
only one brown milkweed pod
bobbing in the gully, smallest
brown boat on... (Read full poem)