1. July 12 - written by David Lehman
Read 1171 times on American Poems.

Wisteria, hysteria is as obvious a rhyme
as Viagra and Niagara there must be a reason
honeymooners traditionally went to the Falls
which were, said the divine Oscar,
an American bride's second biggest disappointment
tell me which do you like... (Read full poem)

Why is the world at peace.
This may astonish you a little but when you realise how
easily Mrs. Charles Bianco sells the work of American
painters to American millionaires you will recognize that
authorities are constrained to be relieved.  Let me... (Read full poem)

3. Poem - written by Donald Justice
Read 46617 times on American Poems.

This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.

Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does no matter.
The poem will... (Read full poem)

1

the legend is whispered
in the women's tent
how the moon when she rises
full
follows some men into themselves
and changes them there
the season is short
but dreadful shapeshifters
they wear strange hands
they walk through the... (Read full poem)

5. Your Dog Dies - written by Raymond Carver
Read 38731 times on American Poems.

it gets run over by a van. 
you find it at the side of the road 
and bury it. 
you feel bad about it. 
you feel bad personally, 
but you feel bad for your daughter 
because it was her pet, 
and she loved it so. 
she used to croon to it 
and let it... (Read full poem)

The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.

Notice what this poem is not doing.

A house, a house, a barn, the old
quarry, where the river shrugs--
how much of... (Read full poem)

7. Introduction To Poetry - written by Billy Collins
From The Apple that Astonished Paris. Published in 1988. Read 10292 times on American Poems.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light 
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I... (Read full poem)

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown-- 

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

                 *

A... (Read full poem)

9. Glass - written by Robert Francis
Read 2737 times on American Poems.

Words of a poem should be glass
But glass so simple-subtle its shape
Is nothing but the shape of what it holds.

A glass spun for itself is empty,
Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.
Embossed glass hides the poem or its absence.

Words should be... (Read full poem)

Words of a poem should be glass
But glass so simple-subtle its shape
Is nothing but the shape of what it holds.

A glass spun for itself is empty,
Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.
Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence.

Words should... (Read full poem)

11. The House Of Dust: Introduction - written by Conrad Aiken
From The House of Dust. Published in 1917. Read 2282 times on American Poems.

THE HOUSE OF DUST
A Symphony

BY
CONRAD AIKEN

To Jessie

NOTE

. . . Parts of this poem have been printed in "The North American
Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review". . . . I am
indebted to Lafcadio Hearn for the... (Read full poem)

Relax. This won't last long.
Or if it does, or if the lines
make you sleepy or bored,
give in to sleep, turn on
the T.V., deal the cards.
This poem is built to withstand
such things. Its feelings
cannot be hurt. They exist 
somewhere in the... (Read full poem)

13. The Beautiful American Word, Sure - written by Delmore Schwartz
Read 1201 times on American Poems.

The beautiful American word, Sure,
As I have come into a room, and touch
The lamp's button, and the light blooms with such
Certainty where the darkness loomed before,

As I care for what I do not know, and care
Knowing for little she might not have... (Read full poem)

I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour.  I know you are reading this poem
standing up in... (Read full poem)

15. Goody For Our Side And Your Side Too - written by Ogden Nash
Read 2507 times on American Poems.

Foreigners are people somewhere else,
Natives are people at home;
If the place you're at
Is your habitat,
You're a foreigner, say in Rome.
But the scales of Justice balance true,
And tit leads into tat,
So the man who's at home
When he stays in... (Read full poem)

My poem would eat nothing. 
I tried giving it water 
but it said no, 
  
worrying me. 
Day after day, 
I held it up to the llight, 
  
turning it over, 
but it only pressed its lips 
more tightly together. 
  
It grew sullen, like a toad 
through... (Read full poem)

17. Horse - written by Louise Gluck
Read 2249 times on American Poems.

What does the horse give you
That I cannot give you?

I watch you when you are alone,
When you ride into the field behind the dairy,
Your hands buried in the mare's
Dark mane.

Then I know what lies behind your silence:
Scorn, hatred of... (Read full poem)

She's rubbing his shoulder
and he's reading about
Western birds. There's a scoop
of light just above my knee

it resembles the world, the one I know
a layer of smoke spread thin, a shelf

my mind returns again &
again to the picture
you gave me.... (Read full poem)

19. The Story Of White Man Leading Viet Cong Patrol - written by Eric Torgersen
From Quickly Aging Here: Some Poets of the 1970s; Doubleday Anchor Books, 1969. Published in 1969. Read 557 times on American Poems.

The Story of White Man Leading Viet Cong Patrol
     -AP Dispatch, Des Moines Register, August 4, 1968

The slain enemy resembled 
an American Marine
who was 18 years old
when he disappeared.

The violent episode
was one of the strangest
in this... (Read full poem)

The Story of White Man Leading Viet Cong Patrol
     -AP Dispatch, Des Moines Register, August 4, 1968

The slain enemy resembled 
an American Marine
who was 18 years old
when he disappeared.

The violent episode
was one of the strangest
in this... (Read full poem)

21. Parable - written by Richard Wilbur
Read 870 times on American Poems.

I read how Quixote in his random ride
Came to a crossing once, and lest he lose
The purity of chance, would not decide

Whither to fare, but wished his horse to choose.
For glory lay wherever turned the fable.
His head was light with pride,... (Read full poem)

My life has been the poem I would have writ, 
But I could not both live and utter it.(Read full poem)

23. The House - written by Philip Levine
Read 692 times on American Poems.

This poem has a door, a locked door, 
and curtains drawn against the day, 
but at night the lights come on, one 
in each room, and the neighbors swear 
they hear music and the sound of dancing. 
These days the neighbors will swear 
to anything, but... (Read full poem)

Up the old hill to the old house again 
Where fifty years ago the friend was young 
Who should be waiting somewhere there among 
Old things that least remembered most remain, 
He toiled on with a pleasure that was pain
To think how soon asunder... (Read full poem)

25. Ang Tunay Na Lalaki (The Real Man) Is Baffled By Cryptic Messages - written by Nick Carbo
Read 1550 times on American Poems.

He finds on cheap match covers.
PLEASE MAKE ME 
TASTE LIKE A MAN
is the first one he reads after lighting up
an American Spirit cigarette on the corner
of Broadway and Houston. The painted Statue
of Liberty on the giant DKNY ad on the side
of... (Read full poem)