If all the trees in all the woods were men; 
And each and every blade of grass a pen; 
If every leaf on every shrub and tree 
Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea 
Were changed to ink, and all earth's living tribes 
Had nothing else to do... (Read full poem)

Unto seventy years and seven,
Hide your double birthright well-
You, that are the brat of Heaven
And the pampered heir to Hell.

Let your rhymes be tinsel treasures,
Strung and seen and thrown aside.
Drill your apt and docile measures
Sternly as you... (Read full poem)

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)

Perhaps the earth is floating,
I do not know.
Perhaps the stars are little paper cutups
made by some giant scissors,
I do not know.
Perhaps the moon is a frozen tear,
I do not know.
Perhaps God is only a deep voice
heard by the deaf,
I do not... (Read full poem)

I find it very hard to be fair-minded
About people who go around being air-minded.
I just can't see any fun
In soaring up up up into the sun
When the chances are still a fresh cool orchid to a paper geranium
That you'll unsoar down down down onto... (Read full poem)

Into the gravity of my life,
the serious ceremonies
of polish and paper
and pen, has come

this manic animal
whose innocent disruptions
make nonsense
of my old simplicities--

as if I needed him
to prove again that after
all the careful... (Read full poem)

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)

once
we were young
at this
machine. . .
drinking
smoking
typing
it was a most 
splendid
miraculous
time
still
is
only now
instead of
moving toward
time
it 
moves toward 
us
makes each word 
drill 
into the
paper
clear
fast
hard
feeding... (Read full poem)

A rumpled sheet
Of brown paper
About the length

And apparent bulk
Of a man was
Rolling with the 

Wind slowly over
And over in 
The street as

A car drove down
Upon it and 
Crushed it to

The ground. Unlike
A man it rose
Again rolling

With the... (Read full poem)

I had no objection at all
To selling my household effects at auction
On the village square.
It gave my beloved flock the chance
To get something which had belonged to me
For a memorial.
But that trunk which was struck off
To Burchard, the... (Read full poem)

John Clare
wrote poems
on scraps
of paper,

erased them
with bread
he ate
afterwards.

When he ran
out of scraps
he wrote
in his hat.

When he ran
out of bread
he ate
grass.(Read full poem)

A lighted window floats through the night 
like a piece of paper in the wind.

  I want to see into it. I want to climb 
through into its lighted room.

  As I reach for it it slips through the 
trees. As I chase it it rolls and tumbles 
into the... (Read full poem)