1. Muckers - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1912. Read 3277 times on American Poems.

TWENTY men stand watching the muckers.
Stabbing the sides of the ditch
Where clay gleams yellow,
Driving the blades of their shovels
Deeper and deeper for the new gas mains
Wiping sweat off their faces
With red bandanas
The muckers work on . .... (Read full poem)

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an
     accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next... (Read full poem)

3. Savoir Faire - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1692 times on American Poems.

CAST a bronze of my head and legs and put them on the king’s street.
Set the cast of me here alongside Carl XII, making two Carls for the Swedish people and the utlanders to look at between the palace and the Grand Hotel.
The summer sun will... (Read full poem)

It was an icy day.
We buried the cat,
then took her box
and set fire to it
in the back yard.
Those fleas that escaped
earth and fire
died by the cold.(Read full poem)

5. Trinity Place - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 3909 times on American Poems.

THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street.
  
The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street stops.
  
And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on... (Read full poem)

Oh, love, why do we argue like this?
I am tired of all your pious talk.
Also, I am tired of all the dead.
They refuse to listen,
so leave them alone.
Take your foot out of the graveyard,
they are busy being dead.

Everyone was always to blame:
the... (Read full poem)

7. Our Mother Pocahontas - written by Vachel Lindsay
Read 1288 times on American Poems.

(Note: — Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.)

"Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May — did she wonder? does she remember — in the dust — in the cool tombs?" 

CARL SANDBURG.... (Read full poem)

(For Thomas Augustine Daly)

The Judge's house has a splendid porch, with pillars 
and steps of stone,
And the Judge has a lovely flowering hedge that came from across 
the seas;
In the Hales' garage you could put my house and everything I... (Read full poem)

9. Before The Flood - written by W.S. Merwin
Read 1331 times on American Poems.

Why did he promise me
that we would build ourselves
an ark all by ourselves
out in back of the house
on New York Avenue
in Union City New Jersey
to the singing of the streetcars
after the story
of Noah whom nobody
believed about the waters
that... (Read full poem)

I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel
in the center of the road and that's when
the deer came charging out of the forest
and forced me to hit the brakes for all I
was worth and I careened back to the other
side of the road just as a skunk came... (Read full poem)

11. Nostos - written by Louise Gluck
From Meadowlands. Published in 1996. Read 1893 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)

EMILY DICKINSON:
You gave us the bumble bee who has a soul,
The everlasting traveler among the hollyhocks,
And how God plays around a back yard garden.

STEVIE CRANE:
War is kind and we never knew the kindness of war till
you came;
Nor the black... (Read full poem)

13. Hiding - written by Kate Northrop
From Back Through Interruption. Published in 2002. Read 333 times on American Poems.

—to my sister

Because the moon in late October made landmarks glow: the broken
     gate, our yard

full of stones, the attic window

suddenly foreign, across its face
a blue dissolve. In spite of that, the farm

remained an arrangement... (Read full poem)

The yard half a yard, 
half a lake blue as a corpse. 
The lake will tell things you long to hear: 
get away from here. 
Three o'clock. Dry leaves rat-tat like maracas. 

Whisky-colored grass
breaks at every step and trees 
are slowly realizing they... (Read full poem)

15. Sonnet: The Ghosts Of James And Peirce In Harvard Yard - written by Delmore Schwartz
Read 480 times on American Poems.

In memory of D. W. Prall


The ghosts of James and Peirce in Harvard Yard
At star-pierced midnight, after the chapel bell
(Episcopalian! palian! the ringing soared!)
Stare at me now as if they wish me well.
In the waking dream amid the trees which... (Read full poem)

Love of my life, you
Are lost and I am
Young again.

A few years pass.
The air fills
With girlish music;
In the front yard
The apple tree is
Studded with blossoms.

I try to win you back,
That is the point
Of the writing.
But you are... (Read full poem)

17. The Rat Of Faith - written by Philip Levine
From A Walk with Tom Jefferson . Published in 1988. Read 542 times on American Poems.

A blue jay poses on a stake 
meant to support an apple tree 
newly planted. A strong wind 
on this clear cold morning 
barely ruffles his tail feathers. 
When he turns his attention 
toward me, I face his eyes 
without blinking. A week ago 
my wife... (Read full poem)

The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked,
And I was tarred and feathered,
For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago:
"I saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes
Standing on the steps of a marble temple.
Great... (Read full poem)

19. The Ride - written by Richard Wilbur
Read 1189 times on American Poems.

The horse beneath me seemed 
To know what course to steer 
Through the horror of snow I dreamed,
And so I had no fear,

Nor was I chilled to death 
By the wind’s white shudders, thanks 
To the veils of his patient breath 
And the mist of... (Read full poem)

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)

21. In Back Of The Real - written by Allen Ginsberg
From Howl and Other Poems. Published in 1954. Read 7109 times on American Poems.

railroad yard in San Jose 
     I wandered desolate 
in front of a tank factory 
     and sat on a bench 
near the switchman's shack. 

A flower lay on the hay on 
     the asphalt highway 
--the dread hay flower 
     I thought--It had a 
brittle... (Read full poem)

This poem has a door, a locked door, 
and curtains drawn against the day, 
but at night the lights come on, one 
in each room, and the neighbors swear 
they hear music and the sound of dancing. 
These days the neighbors will swear 
to anything, but... (Read full poem)

23. Tree - written by Richard Jones
From The Blessing. Published in 2000. Read 748 times on American Poems.

When the sun goes down
I have my first drink
standing in the yard,
talking to my neighbor
about the alder tree
rising between our houses,
a lowly tree that prospered
from our steady inattention
and shot up quick as a weed
to tower over our... (Read full poem)

If I could have lived another year
I could have finished my flying machine,
And become rich and famous.
Hence it is fitting the workman
Who tried to chisel a dove for me
Made it look more like a chicken.
For what is it all but being... (Read full poem)

25. Preparing The Body - written by Ron Rash
From Eureka Mill. Published in 1998. Read 493 times on American Poems.

Sometimes it only took a single word,
just a look if they had drunk enough.
A hawkbill knife would flash, sometimes a gun.
The doctor closed their eyes and it was done.

That's when they'd come for me so I would walk
until I found some men out in a... (Read full poem)