1. The Hunter - written by Ogden Nash
Read 3485 times on American Poems.

The hunter crouches in his blind
'Neath camouflage of every kind
And conjures up a quacking noise
To lend allure to his decoys
This grown-up man, with pluck and luck
is hoping to outwit a duck(Read full poem)

I SAW Man, the man-hunter,
Hunting with a torch in one hand
And a kerosene can in the other,
Hunting with guns, ropes, shackles.
  
  I listened
  And the high cry rang,
The high cry of Man, the man-hunter:
We’ll get you yet, you sbxyzch!... (Read full poem)

3. The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top - written by Stephen Crane
From War is Kind & Other Lines. Published in 1899. Read 2834 times on American Poems.

The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top

Blood -- blood and torn grass --
Had marked the rise of his agony --
This lone hunter.
The grey-green woods impassive
Had watched the threshing of his limbs.

A canoe with flashing paddle,
A girl with... (Read full poem)

"I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One color, one... (Read full poem)

5. A Boy Named Sue - written by Shel Silverstein
From sung by Johnny Cash. Published in 1969. Read 46410 times on American Poems.

Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
and he didn't leave much to Ma and me,
just this old guitar and a bottle of booze.
Now I don't blame him because he run and hid,
but the meanest thing that he ever did was
before he left he went and... (Read full poem)

In spite of all the learn'd have said;
I still my old opinion keep,
The posture, that we give the dead,
Points out the soul's eternal sleep.

Not so the ancients of these lands --
The Indian, when from life releas'd
Again is seated with his... (Read full poem)

7. Fault - written by Sara Teasdale
Read 1406 times on American Poems.

They came to tell your faults to me,
They named them over one by one;
I laughed aloud when they were done,
I knew them all so well before, --
Oh, they were blind, too blind to see
Your faults had made me love you more.(Read full poem)

Leaping, leaping, leaping,
down line by line,
growling at the cadavers,
filling the holy jugs with their piss,
falling into windows and mauling the parents,
but soft, kiss-soft,
and sobbing sobbing
into their awful dog dish.

No point? No twist for... (Read full poem)

9. The Hunter - written by Ellis Parker Butler
From Leslie’s Monthly. Published in 1903. Read 342 times on American Poems.

A full-fledged gun cannot endure
The trifling of an amateur;
Poor marksmanship its temper spoils
And this is why the gun recoils.

A self-respecting gun I’m sure
Delights to jar the amateur
And thinks that it is no disgrace
To kick his... (Read full poem)

Healed of my hurt, I laud the inhuman Sea--
Yea, bless the Angels Four that there convene; 
For healed I am even by the pitiless breath 
Distilled in wholesome dew named rosmarine. (Read full poem)

11. The pungent atom in the Air - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1382 times on American Poems.

The pungent atom in the Air
Admits of no debate --
All that is named of Summer Days
Relinquished our Estate --

For what Department of Delight
As positive are we
As Limit of Dominion
Or Dams -- of Ecstasy --(Read full poem)

A Wounded Deer -- leaps highest --
I've heard the Hunter tell --
'Tis but the Ecstasy of death --
And then the Brake is still!

The Smitten Rock that gushes!
The trampled Steel that springs!
A Cheek is always redder
Just where the Hectic... (Read full poem)

13. How We Heard the Name - written by Alan Dugan
Read 752 times on American Poems.

The river brought down
dead horses, dead men
and military debris,
indicative of war
or official acts upstream,
but it went by, it all
goes by, that is the thing
about the river. Then
a soldier on a log
went by. He seemed drunk
and we asked... (Read full poem)

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun;
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk;
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse;
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust;
And loved so well a high behavior
In man or maid, that thou... (Read full poem)

15. i am accused of tending to the past - written by Lucille Clifton
Read 1119 times on American Poems.

i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother's itch
took it to breast
and named... (Read full poem)

There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five.
There's a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice
just won the National Book Award.
The name "Ai" is pronounced "I"
so that whenever I talk about the poet Ai
such as I'm teaching Ai's... (Read full poem)

17. Taxi Suite (excerpt: 1. After Anacreon) - written by Lew Welch
Read 369 times on American Poems.

When I drive cab
I am moved by strange whistles and wear a hat

When I drive cab
I am the hunter. My prey leaps out from where it
hid, beguiling me with gestures

When I drive cab
all may command me, yet I am in command of all who do

When... (Read full poem)

To Ezra Pound

These are the names of the companies that have made
        money from this war
nineteenhundredsixtyeight  Annodomini  fourthousand
        eighty Hebraic
These are the Corporations who have profited by merchan-
        dising... (Read full poem)

19. the lost baby poem - written by Lucille Clifton
Read 2820 times on American Poems.

the time i dropped your almost body down
down to meet the waters under the city
and run one with the sewage to the sea
what did i know about waters rushing back
what did i know about drowning
or being drowned

you would have been born in... (Read full poem)

History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had--
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote,
a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the... (Read full poem)

21. Love - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 1056 times on American Poems.

The longer I live and the more I see 
Of the struggle of souls towards the heights above, 
The stronger this truth comes home to me--- 
That the Universe rests on the shoulders of love, 
A love so limitless, deep, and broad, 
That men have... (Read full poem)

Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend,
smiles like a big cat and says
that she's a conjugated verb.
She's been doing the direct object
with a second person pronoun named Phil,
and when she walks into the room,
everybody turns:

some kind of... (Read full poem)

23. Shiva - written by Robinson Jeffers
Published in 1937. Read 2160 times on American Poems.

There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.
She loads the arts with nonsense, she is... (Read full poem)

WHEN the sea is everywhere
from horizon to horizon ..
  when the salt and blue
  fill a circle of horizons ..
I swear again how I know
the sea is older than anything else
and the sea younger than anything else.
  
My first father was a landsman.
My... (Read full poem)

25. January 3 - written by David Lehman
Read 500 times on American Poems.

The shrink says, "Everything depends
on how many stuffed animals you had
as a boy," and my mother tells me my
father was left-handed and so is my son
and they're both named Joe whose favorite 
stuffed animal was a bear called Sweetheart
while I, the... (Read full poem)