1. Birthday of but a single pang - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 9802 times on American Poems.

Birthday of but a single pang
That there are less to come --
Afflictive is the Adjective
But affluent the doom --(Read full poem)

My framework is broken, I am coming to an end,
God send it soon. When I had most to say
my tongue clung to the roof
I mean of my mouth. It is my Lady's birthday
which must be honoured, and has been. God send
it soon.

I now must speak to my... (Read full poem)

3. March 30 - written by David Lehman
Read 1082 times on American Poems.

Eighty-one degrees a record high for the day
which is not my birthday but will do until
the eleventh of June comes around and I know
what I want: a wide-brimmed Panama hat
with a tan hatband, a walk in the park
and to share a shower with a zaftig... (Read full poem)

Thirty today, I saw
The trees flare briefly like
The candles on a cake,
As the sun went down the sky,
A momentary flash,
Yet there was time to wish(Read full poem)

5. A Birthday Poem - written by Ted Kooser
Published in 2000. Read 8120 times on American Poems.

Just past dawn, the sun stands
with its heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come
with his bucket
for the foamy white light,
and then a long day in the pasture.
I too spend my days grazing,
feasting on every green... (Read full poem)

For Alexandra, born May 17, 1999


Armored in red, her voice commands
every corner. Bells gong on squares,
in steeples, answering the prayers.
Bright tulips crown the boulevards.

Pulled from the womb she imitates
that mythic kick from some god's... (Read full poem)

7. Poem For My 43rd Birthday - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 2877 times on American Poems.

To end up alone
in a tomb of a room
without cigarettes
or wine--
just a lightbulb
and a potbelly,
grayhaired,
and glad to have
the room. 
...in the morning
they're out there
making money:
judges, carpenters,
plumbers, doctors,
newsboys,... (Read full poem)

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's... (Read full poem)

9. Christmas At The Orphanage - written by Bill Knott
Read 886 times on American Poems.

But if they'd give us toys and twice the stuff most
parents splurge on the average kid, orphans, I submit, need more than enough; 
in fact, stacks wrapped with our names nearly hid
the tree: these sparkling allotments yearly
guaranteed a lack... (Read full poem)

Blow out the candles of your cake.
They will not leave you in the dark,
Who round with grace this dusky arc
Of the grand tour which souls must take.

You who have sounded William Blake,
And the still pool, to Plato's mark,
Blow out the... (Read full poem)

11. The Gentlest Lady - written by Dorothy Parker
From Sunset Gun. Published in 1928. Read 3195 times on American Poems.

They say He was a serious child,
And quiet in His ways;
They say the gentlest lady smiled
To hear the neighbors' praise.

The coffers of her heart would close
Upon their smaliest word.
Yet did they say, "How tall He grows!"
They thought she had not... (Read full poem)

So let me have the rouge again,
And comb my hair the curly way.
The poor young men, the dear young men
They'll all be here by noon today.

And I shall wear the blue, I think-
They beg to touch its rippled lace;
Or do they love me best in pink,
So... (Read full poem)

13. Nostos - written by Louise Gluck
From Meadowlands. Published in 1996. Read 1886 times on American Poems.

There was an apple tree in the yard --
this would have been
forty years ago -- behind,
only meadows. Drifts
of crocus in the damp grass.
I stood at that window:
late April. Spring
flowers in the neighbor's yard.
How many times, really, did... (Read full poem)

28 July
                                   
Calmly, while sat up friendlies & made noise
delight fuller than he can ready sing
or studiously say,
on hearing that the year had swung to pause
and culminated in an abundant thing,
came his... (Read full poem)

15. Birthday (Autobiography) - written by Robinson Jeffers
Read 1534 times on American Poems.

Seventy years ago my mother labored to bear me,
A twelve-pound baby with a big head,
Her first, it was plain torture. Finally they used the forceps
And dragged me out, with one prong
In my right eye, and slapped and banged me until I breathed.
I am... (Read full poem)

Nobody in the widow's household
ever celebrated anniversaries.
In the secrecy of my room
I would not admit I cared
that my friends were given parties.
Before I left town for school
my birthday went up in smoke 
in a fire at City Hall that... (Read full poem)

17. A Birthday Present - written by Sylvia Plath
Read 19205 times on American Poems.

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

'Is this the one... (Read full poem)

I Christmas Poem for Nancy

Noel, Noel
We live and we die
Between heaven and hell
Between the earth and the sky
And all shall be well
And all shall be unwell
And once again! all shall once again!
                All shall be well
By the ringing and... (Read full poem)

19. Dream Song 97: Henry of Donnybrook bred like a pig - written by John Berryman
From His Toy, His Dream, His Rest. Published in 1968. Read 710 times on American Poems.

Henry of Donnybrook bred like a pig,
bred when he was brittle, bred when big,
how he's sweating to support them.
Which birthday of the brighter darker man,
the Goya of the Globe & Blackfriars, whom—
our full earth smiled on... (Read full poem)

The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and... (Read full poem)

21. The Wifebeater - written by Anne Sexton
Read 6303 times on American Poems.

There will be mud on the carpet tonight
and blood in the gravy as well.
The wifebeater is out,
the childbeater is out
eating soil and drinking bullets from a cup.
He strides bback and forth
in front of my study window
chewing little red pieces of my... (Read full poem)

We must have clamored for the same mother, hurried for
     the same womb.
I know it now as I read that my birthday is his.
Since the first time I saw his picture, I sensed something—
and with a fierce bonding and animosity
began following his... (Read full poem)

23. Candle Hat - written by Billy Collins
Read 4886 times on American Poems.

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of... (Read full poem)

The night attendant, a B.U. sophomore,
rouses from the mare's-nest of his drowsy head
propped on The Meaning of Meaning.
He catwalks down our corridor.
Azure day
makes my agonized blue window bleaker.
Crows maunder on the petrified... (Read full poem)

25. Yankee Doodle - written by Vachel Lindsay
Read 848 times on American Poems.

This poem is intended as a description of a sort of Blashfield mural painting on the sky. To be sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, yet in a slower, more orotund fashion. It is presumably an exercise for an entertainment on the evening of... (Read full poem)