1. Pain -- has an Element of Blank -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 6945 times on American Poems.

Pain -- has an Element of Blank --
It cannot recollect
When it begun -- or if there were
A time when it was not --

It has no Future -- but itself --
Its Infinite contain
Its Past -- enlightened to perceive
New Periods -- of Pain.(Read full poem)

From Blank to Blank --
A Threadless Way
I pushed Mechanic feet --
To stop -- or perish -- or advance --
Alike indifferent --

If end I gained
It ends beyond
Indefinite disclosed --
I shut my eyes -- and groped as well
'Twas lighter -- to be Blind --(Read full poem)

3. Writing - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 2259 times on American Poems.

often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman's love,
no wealth
can
match it. 
nothing can save
you
except
writing. 
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in. 
it blasts the
darkness. 
writing is... (Read full poem)

Our share of night to bear --
Our share of morning --
Our blank in bliss to fill
Our blank in scorning --

Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way!
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards -- Day!(Read full poem)

5. Zero - written by Robert Creeley
Read 1995 times on American Poems.

for Mark Peters

Not just nothing,
Not there's no answer,
Not it's nowhere or
Nothing to show for it -

It's like There's no past like
the present. It's
all over with us.
There are no doors...

Oh my god!  Like
I wish I had a dog.
Oh my god!
I had a... (Read full poem)

Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death --
Each one unto the other
Society enough.

Pain is the Junior Party
By just a Second's right --
Death tenderly assists Him
And then absconds from Sight.(Read full poem)

7. There is an arid Pleasure -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1387 times on American Poems.

There is an arid Pleasure --
As different from Joy --
As Frost is different from Dew --
Like element -- are they --

Yet one -- rejoices Flowers --
And one -- the Flowers abhor --
The finest Honey -- curdled --
Is worthless -- to the Bee --(Read full poem)

Pain -- expands the Time --
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain --

Pain contracts -- the Time --
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not --(Read full poem)

9. Tempestrousseau - written by Bill Knott
Read 548 times on American Poems.

The clock is dressed in drag, I mean it wears
space instead of its own proper aspect
but if it wore time, would it disappear
isn't visibility an effect 

of transvestism, that shield pastime whose
crosscasual aim unmasks the eye: must you
assume the... (Read full poem)

Up from the bronze, I saw
Water without a flaw
Rush to its rest in air,
Reach to its rest, and fall.

Bronze of the blackest shade,
An element man-made,
Shaping upright the bare
Clear gouts of water in air.

O, as with arm and hammer, 
Still it is... (Read full poem)

11. Through what transports of Patience - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1338 times on American Poems.

Through what transports of Patience
I reached the stolid Bliss
To breathe my Blank without thee
Attest me this and this --
By that bleak exultation
I won as near as this
Thy privilege of dying
Abbreviate me this --(Read full poem)

At Half past Three, a single Bird
Unto a silent Sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.

At Half past Four, Experiment
Had subjugated test
And lo, Her silver Principle
Supplanted all the rest.

At Half past Seven, Element
Nor Implement,... (Read full poem)

13. The hallowing of Pain - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1900 times on American Poems.

The hallowing of Pain
Like hallowing of Heaven,
Obtains at a corporeal cost --
The Summit is not given

To Him who strives severe
At middle of the Hill --
But He who has achieved the Top --
All -- is the price of All --(Read full poem)

A sunny day's complete Poussiniana
Divide it from itself. It is this or that
And it is not.
By metaphor you paint
A thing. Thus, the pineapple was a leather fruit,
A fruit for pewter, thorned and palmed and blue,
To be served by men of ice.
The... (Read full poem)

15. There is a pain -- so utter -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2973 times on American Poems.

There is a pain -- so utter --
It swallows substance up --
Then covers the Abyss with Trance --
So Memory can step
Around -- across -- upon it --
As one within a Swoon --
Goes safely -- where an open eye --
Would drop Him -- Bone by Bone.(Read full poem)

Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen... (Read full poem)

17. Are Friends Delight or Pain? - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 4621 times on American Poems.

Are Friends Delight or Pain?
Could Bounty but remain
Riches were good --

But if they only stay
Ampler to fly away
Riches are sad.(Read full poem)

Always your face like a space 
(Destination: beautiful) ship 
Empties its mote of closeup trace 
Down screens that blink blank blip 

Somewhere between countdown 
And coma time is a line 
Where waking centuries often 
Drained against that measure we... (Read full poem)

19. Pheasant - written by Sylvia Plath
Read 3610 times on American Poems.

You said you would kill it this morning.
Do not kill it. It startles me still,
The jut of that odd, dark head, pacing

Through the uncut grass on the elm's hill.
It is something to own a pheasant,
Or just to be visited at all.

I am not mystical: it... (Read full poem)

Like eyes that looked on Wastes --
Incredulous of Ought
But Blank -- and steady Wilderness --
Diversified by Night --

Just Infinites of Nought --
As far as it could see --
So looked the face I looked upon --
So looked itself -- on Me --

I offered... (Read full poem)

21. If pain for peace prepares - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 4570 times on American Poems.

If pain for peace prepares
Lo, what "Augustan" years
Our feet await!

If springs from winter rise,
Can the Anemones
Be reckoned up?

If night stands fast -- then noon
To gird us for the sun,
What gaze!

When from a thousand skies
On our developed... (Read full poem)

There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain --
'Tis Pain's Successor -- When the Soul
Has suffered all it can --

A Drowsiness -- diffuses --
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousness --
As Mists -- obliterate a Crag.

The Surgeon --... (Read full poem)

23. Power - written by Adrienne Rich
Published in 1974. Read 13079 times on American Poems.

Living in the earth-deposits of our history

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this... (Read full poem)

Through that window—all else being extinct
Except itself and me—I saw the struggle
Of darkness against darkness. Within the room
It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw
How order might—if chaos wished—become:
And saw... (Read full poem)

25. Charles Carville's Eyes - written by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Read 481 times on American Poems.

A melanholy face Charles Carville had,
But not so melancholy as it seemed, 
When once you knew him, for his mouth redeemed 
His insufficient eyes, forever sad: 
In them there was no life-glimpse, good or bad,
Nor joy nor passion in them ever... (Read full poem)