1. John Ericsson Day Memorial, 1918 - written by Carl Sandburg
From Cornhuskers. Published in 1918. Read 1295 times on American Poems.

INTO the gulf and the pit of the dark night, the cold night, there is a man goes into the dark and the cold and when he comes back to his people he brings fire in his hands and they remember him in the years afterward as the fire bringer—they... (Read full poem)

Bright-eyed & bushy tailed woke not Henry up.
Bright though upon his workshop shone a vise
central, moved in
while he was doing time down hospital
and growing wise.
He gave it the worst look he had left.

Alone. They all abandoned... (Read full poem)

3. The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator - written by Anne Sexton
Read 10502 times on American Poems.

The end of the affair is always death. 
She's my workshop. Slippery eye, 
out of the tribe of myself my breath 
finds you gone. I horrify 
those who stand by. I am fed. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
Finger to finger, now she's mine. 
She's not... (Read full poem)

A noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.
An adjective is what describes the noun.
In "The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz"

of and with are prepositions. The's
an article, a can's a noun,
a noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.

A... (Read full poem)

5. Alan Dugan Telling Me I Have A Problem With Time - written by Nick Flynn
From Some Ether. Published in 2000. Read 1621 times on American Poems.

He reads my latest attempt at a poem
and is silent for a long time, until it feels
like that night we waited for Apollo,
my mother wandering in and out of her bedroom, asking,
Haven't they landed yet? At last
Dugan throws it on the table and... (Read full poem)

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)

7. When they come back -- if Blossoms do -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2537 times on American Poems.

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)

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)

9. 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)

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)

11. 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)

I shall come back without fanfaronade
Of wailing wind and graveyard panoply;
But, trembling, slip from cool Eternity-
A mild and most bewildered little shade.
I shall not make sepulchral midnight raid,
But softly come where I had longed to be
In... (Read full poem)

13. Not To Keep - written by Robert Frost
From New Hampshire. Published in 1923. Read 12565 times on American Poems.

They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying... And she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight,
Living. They gave him back to her alive
How else? They are not... (Read full poem)

ONE man killed another. The saying between them had been “I’d give you the shirt off my back.”
  
The killer wept over the dead. The dead if he looks back knows the killer was sorry. It was a shot in one second of hate out of ten... (Read full poem)

15. Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom - written by Dorothy Parker
From Enough Rope. Published in 1926. Read 4255 times on American Poems.

Daily dawns another day;
I must up, to make my way.
Though I dress and drink and eat,
Move my fingers and my feet,
Learn a little, here and there,
Weep and laugh and sweat and swear,
Hear a song, or watch a stage,
Leave some words upon a page,
Claim... (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)

17. Back Yard - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1916. Read 2819 times on American Poems.

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an
     accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next... (Read full poem)

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)

19. The ones that disappeared are back - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1259 times on American Poems.

The ones that disappeared are back
The Phoebe and the Crow
Precisely as in March is heard
The curtness of the Jay --
Be this an Autumn or a Spring
My wisdom loses way
One side of me the nuts are ripe
The other side is May.(Read full poem)

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,
so leave them alone.
Take your foot out of the graveyard,
they are busy being dead.

Everyone was always to blame:
the... (Read full poem)

21. Knee Song - written by Anne Sexton
Read 2889 times on American Poems.

Being kissed on the back 
of the knee is a moth 
at the windowscreen and 
yes my darling a dot 
on the fathometer is 
tinkerbelle with her cough 
and twice I will give up my 
honor and stars will stick 
like tacks in the night 
yes oh yes yes yes... (Read full poem)

Smiling back from Coronation
May be Luxury --
On the Heads that started with us --
Being's Peasantry --

Recognizing in Procession
Ones We former knew --
When Ourselves were also dusty --
Centuries ago --

Had the Triumph no Conviction
Of how many... (Read full poem)

23. The Suitor - written by Jane Kenyon
Read 1989 times on American Poems.

We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping. 
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder; 
they show their light undersides,
turning all at once
like a school of fish. 
Suddenly I understand that I am happy.... (Read full poem)

Look back on Time, with kindly eyes --
He doubtless did his best --
How softly sinks that trembling sun
In Human Nature's West --(Read full poem)

25. Tom Merritt - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 494 times on American Poems.

At first I suspected something --
She acted so calm and absent-minded.
And one day I heard the back door shut,
As I entered the front, and I saw him slink
Back of the smokehouse into the lot,
And run across the field.
And I meant to kill him... (Read full poem)