1. The Blues - written by Langston Hughes
From The Langston Huges Reader. Read 23531 times on American Poems.

When the shoe strings break
On both your shoes
And you're in a hurry-
That's the blues.

When you go to buy a candy bar
And you've lost the dime you had-
Slipped through a hole in your pocket somewhere-
That's the blues, too, and bad!(Read full poem)

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
     I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
     He did a lazy sway . . .
     He did a lazy sway . . .
To... (Read full poem)

3. Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 2992 times on American Poems.

IT’S a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes
The trombone pony neighs and the tuba jackass snorts.
The banjo tickles and titters too awful.
The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers.
  The cartoonists weep in their beer.
  Ship... (Read full poem)

Winter uses all the blues there are.
One shade of blue for water, one for ice,
Another blue for shadows over snow.
The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice-
Both different blues. And hills row after row
Are colored blue according to how... (Read full poem)

5. I'm A Fool To Love You - written by Cornelius Eady
From The Autobiography of a Jukebox. Published in 1997. Read 2539 times on American Poems.

Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman,
Some type of supernatural creature.
My mother would tell you, if she could,
About her life with my father,
A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman.
She would tell you about the choices
A young black... (Read full poem)

(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)

7. The Blues - written by William Matthews
Read 665 times on American Poems.

What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet
and boarding a downtown bus, headed for lessons?
I had pieces to learn by heart, but at twelve

you think the heart and memory are different.
"'It's a poor sort of memory that only works
backwards,' the... (Read full poem)

In the hidden part thou shalt make me to know
            wisdom.    Psalm 51

That young man
firing his Kalashnikov
into the playground
has been made to know
the hidden part.

Me, I want to pray.
I’m on my knees.
But all I am is... (Read full poem)

9. Another Day - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 2713 times on American Poems.

having the low down blues and going
into a restraunt to eat.
you sit at a table.
the waitress smiles at you.
she's dumpy. her ass is too big.
she radiates kindess and symphaty.
live with her 3 months and a man would no real agony.
o.k., you'll tip... (Read full poem)

Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey poor man, you're all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going

Father Death, Don't cry any more
Mama's there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store

Old Aunty Death  Don't hide your... (Read full poem)

11. Swing Shift Blues - written by Alan Dugan
From American Poetry Review 25th Anniv. Issue. Read 540 times on American Poems.

What is better than leaving a bar
in the middle of the afternoon
besides staying in it or not
having gone into it in the first place
because you had a decent woman to be with?
The air smells particularly fresh
after the stale beer and piss... (Read full poem)

When I was ten (no, younger
than that), my mother tried
to kill herself (without the facts
there can't be faith). One death
or another every day, Tanqueray bottles
halo the bed and she won't wake up
all weekend. In the myth book's... (Read full poem)

13. Story - written by Stephen Dunn
From Different Hours. Published in 2000. Read 1353 times on American Poems.

A woman's taking her late-afternoon walk
on Chestnut where no sidewalk exists
and houses with gravel driveways
sit back among the pines. Only the house
with the vicious dog is close to the road.
An electric fence keeps him in check.
When she comes... (Read full poem)

The continent's a tamed ox, with all its mountains,
Powerful and servile; here is for plowland, here is
     for park and playground, this helpless
Cataract for power; it lies behind us at heel
All docile between this ocean and the other. If... (Read full poem)

15. Rain - written by Jack Gilbert
From Views of Jeopardy. Published in 1962. Read 2675 times on American Poems.

Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
And the browns gone gray
And yellow
A terrible amber.
In the cold streets
Your warm body.
In whatever room
Your warm body.
Among all the people
Your absence
The people who are always
Not you.


I... (Read full poem)

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all... (Read full poem)

17. Implosions - written by Adrienne Rich
Read 4450 times on American Poems.

The world's
not wanton
only wild and wavering

I wanted to choose words that even you
would have to be changed by

Take the word
of my pulse, loving and ordinary
Send out your signals, hoist
your dark scribbled flags
but take
my... (Read full poem)

Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk 
across the board and told us 
it was roaring down the stormtracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course 
and smashed into the earth
there'd be no school... (Read full poem)

19. Somebody - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 5737 times on American Poems.

god I got the sad blue blues,
this woman sat there and she
said
are you really Charles
  
    
      
        Bukowski?
      
    
  

and I said
  
    forget that
  

I do not feel good
I've got the sad sads
all I want to do is
fuck you
and she... (Read full poem)

Unmanageable as history: these
Followers of Tammuz to the land
That offered no return, where dust
Grew thick on every bolt and door. And so the world
Chilled, and the women wept, tore at their hair.
Yet, in the skies, a goddess governed Sirius, the... (Read full poem)

21. A Negro Love Song - written by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Read 3172 times on American Poems.

Seen my lady home las' night, 
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh,
Seen a light gleam f'om huh eye,
An' a smile go flittin' by --
Jump back,... (Read full poem)

I learnt to write to you in happier days,
And every letter was a piece I chipped
From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped
From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays,
Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise.
To make a pavement for... (Read full poem)

23. Vaudeville Dancer - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1360 times on American Poems.

ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville.
  
The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to The Livery Stable Blues.
  
It is long ago, Elsie Flimmerwon, I saw your mother over a washtub in a grape... (Read full poem)

You may think it strange, Sam, that I'm writing
a letter in these circumstances. I thought
it strange too--the first time. But there's
a misconception I was laboring under, and you
are too, viz. that the imagination in your
vicinity is free... (Read full poem)

25. Ballplayer - written by Evie Shockley
Read 904 times on American Poems.

i cop a squat on a squared-off log,
to watch you ball on the community center court.
butt numb, i shift my weight

and shake mosquitos from my ankles,
but never take my eyes off the game.
yours follow the orange orb, your pupils
twin, brown moons... (Read full poem)