1. The Patriots - written by Bill Knott
Read 688 times on American Poems.

at the edge of the city in
the garbagedump where the
trucks never stop unloading
a crazy congregation stumbles
from trashmound to trashheap
they smash their fists down on
whatever's intact they tear
to bits the pitifew items
that have remained whole... (Read full poem)

Blessed is the One who lifts the slow sun
above this morning's raw orange edge,
who moves the ewe to nudge her birth-
stunned lamb into the flock's heat, who
leads the hen to steer her keets as soon as
they can walk into the insect-
filled,... (Read full poem)

3. Surprise - written by Richard Brautigan
Read 3176 times on American Poems.

I lift the toliet seat
as if it were the nest of a bird
and I see cat tracks
all around the edge of the bowl.(Read full poem)

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and... (Read full poem)

5. Child - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1916. Read 4013 times on American Poems.

The young child, Christ, is straight and wise
And asks questions of the old men, questions
Found under running water for all children
And found under shadows thrown on still waters
By tall trees looking downward, old and gnarled.
Found to the... (Read full poem)

With you, my heart is quiet here,
And all my thoughts are cool as rain.
I sit and let the shifting year
Go by before the windowpane,
And reach my hand to yours, my dear . . .
I wonder what it's like in Spain.(Read full poem)

7. A Poem For Myself - written by Etheridge Knight
Read 2537 times on American Poems.

(or Blues for a Mississippi Black Boy)

I was born in Mississippi;
I walked barefooted thru the mud.
Born black in Mississippi,
Walked barefooted thru the mud.
But, when I reached the age of twelve
I left that place for good.
My daddy... (Read full poem)

silence

.is
a
looking

bird:the

turn
ing;edge,of
life

(inquiry before snow(Read full poem)

9. Ebb - written by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Read 2052 times on American Poems.

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.(Read full poem)

In his tenth July some instinct
taught him to arm the waiting wave,
a giant where its mouth hung open.
He rode on the lip that buoyed him there
and buckled him under. The beach was strung
with children paddling their ages in,
under the glare od noon... (Read full poem)

11. Dream Song 45: He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back - written by John Berryman
From 77 Dream Songs. Published in 1964. Read 836 times on American Poems.

He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back.
He thought they was old friends. He felt on the stair
where her papa found them bare
they became familiar. When the papers were lost
rich with pals' secrets, he thought he had the knack
of ruin.... (Read full poem)

My name is Solomon Levi,
the desert is my home,
my mother's breast was thorny,
and father I had none.

The sands whispered, Be separate,
the stones taught me, Be hard.
I dance, for the joy of surviving,
on the edge of the road. (Read full poem)

13. Flounder - written by Natasha Trethewey
Read 1420 times on American Poems.

Here, she said, put this on your head.
She handed me a hat.
you 'bout as white as your dad,
and you gone stay like that.
Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down
around each bony ankle,
and I rolled down my white knee socks
letting my thin legs... (Read full poem)

The fountain bent and straightened itself
In the night wind,
Blowing like a flower.
It gleamed and glittered,
A tall white lily,
Under the eye of the golden moon.
From a stone seat,
Beneath a blossoming lime,
The man watched it.
And the... (Read full poem)

15. Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus - written by William Carlos Williams
Read 10627 times on American Poems.

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings'... (Read full poem)

harriet
if i be you
let me not forget
to be the pistol
pointed
to be the madwoman
at the rivers edge
warning
be free or die
and isabell
if i be you
let me in my
sojourning
not forget
to ask my brothers
ain't i a woman... (Read full poem)

17. Approach Of Winter - written by William Carlos Williams
From Sour Grapes. Published in 1921. Read 2288 times on American Poems.

The half-stripped trees 
struck by a wind together, 
bending all, 
the leaves flutter drily 
and refuse to let go 
or driven like hail 
stream bitterly out to one side 
and fall 
where the salvias, hard carmine—
like no leaf that ever... (Read full poem)

It has happened suddenly,
by surprise, in an arbor,
or while drinking good coffee,
after speaking, or before,

that I dumbly inhabit
a density; in language,
there is nothing to stop it,
for nothing retains an edge.

Simple ignorance... (Read full poem)

19. The Ballad Of A Bachelor - written by Ellis Parker Butler
From Century Magazine. Read 1823 times on American Poems.

Listen, ladies, while I sing
The ballad of John Henry King.

John Henry was a bachelor,
His age was thirty-three or four.

Two maids for his affection vied,
And each desired to be his bride,

And bravely did they strive to bring
Unto their feet John... (Read full poem)

I objurgate the centipede, 
A bug we do not really need. 
At sleepy-time he beats a path 
Straight to the bedroom or the bath. 
You always wallop where he's not, 
Or, if he is, he makes a spot.(Read full poem)

21. Exeunt - written by Richard Wilbur
Read 930 times on American Poems.

Piecemeal the summer dies;
At the field's edge a daisy lives alone;
A last shawl of burning lies
On a gray field-stone.

All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer's final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls... (Read full poem)

Sometimes I can almost see, around our heads,
Like gnats around a streetlight in summer,
The children we could have,
The glimmer of them.

Sometimes I feel them waiting, dozing 
In some antechamber - servants, half-
Listening for the bell.... (Read full poem)

23. The Turning - written by Philip Levine
From On The Edge. Published in 1963. Read 616 times on American Poems.

Unknown faces in the street 
And winter coming on. I 
Stand in the last moments of 
The city, no more a child, 
Only a man, -- one who has 
Looked upon his own nakedness 
Without shame, and in defeat 
Has seen nothing to bless. 
Touched once, like a... (Read full poem)

We real cool. We
Left School. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.(Read full poem)

25. Penniwit, the Artist - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 386 times on American Poems.

I lost my patronage in Spoon River
From trying to put my mind in the camera
To catch the soul of the person.
The very best picture I ever took
Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law.
He sat upright and had me pause
Till he got his cross-eye... (Read full poem)