1. shapeshifter poems - written by Lucille Clifton
From Next. Read 10546 times on American Poems.

1

the legend is whispered
in the women's tent
how the moon when she rises
full
follows some men into themselves
and changes them there
the season is short
but dreadful shapeshifters
they wear strange hands
they walk through the... (Read full poem)

it gets run over by a van. 
you find it at the side of the road 
and bury it. 
you feel bad about it. 
you feel bad personally, 
but you feel bad for your daughter 
because it was her pet, 
and she loved it so. 
she used to croon to it 
and let it... (Read full poem)

3. i carry your heart with me - written by e.e. cummings
Read 446123 times on American Poems.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my... (Read full poem)

This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.

Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does no matter.
The poem will... (Read full poem)

5. Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing - written by William Stafford
Read 10767 times on American Poems.

The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.

Notice what this poem is not doing.

A house, a house, a barn, the old
quarry, where the river shrugs--
how much of... (Read full poem)

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the joy 
at the bend in the road where we turned toward 
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands, 
from sweet fellowship in the bins, 
comes nectar at the... (Read full poem)

7. Introduction To Poetry - written by Billy Collins
From The Apple that Astonished Paris. Published in 1988. Read 10057 times on American Poems.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light 
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I... (Read full poem)

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown-- 

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

                 *

A... (Read full poem)

9. Glass - written by Robert Francis
Read 2654 times on American Poems.

Words of a poem should be glass
But glass so simple-subtle its shape
Is nothing but the shape of what it holds.

A glass spun for itself is empty,
Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.
Embossed glass hides the poem or its absence.

Words should be... (Read full poem)

Words of a poem should be glass
But glass so simple-subtle its shape
Is nothing but the shape of what it holds.

A glass spun for itself is empty,
Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.
Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence.

Words should... (Read full poem)

11. Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry - written by Stephen Dunn
Read 11548 times on American Poems.

Relax. This won't last long.
Or if it does, or if the lines
make you sleepy or bored,
give in to sleep, turn on
the T.V., deal the cards.
This poem is built to withstand
such things. Its feelings
cannot be hurt. They exist 
somewhere in the... (Read full poem)

I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour.  I know you are reading this poem
standing up in... (Read full poem)

13. The Poem You Asked For - written by Larry Levis
From Wrecking Crew, University of Pittsburgh Press . Published in 1972. Read 3121 times on American Poems.

My poem would eat nothing. 
I tried giving it water 
but it said no, 
  
worrying me. 
Day after day, 
I held it up to the llight, 
  
turning it over, 
but it only pressed its lips 
more tightly together. 
  
It grew sullen, like a toad 
through... (Read full poem)

A child draws the outline of a body.
She draws what she can, but it is white all through,
she cannot fill in what she knows is there.
Within the unsupported line, she knows
that life is missing; she has cut
one background from another. Like a... (Read full poem)

15. The Crescent Moon - written by Amy Lowell
From A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass. Read 5435 times on American Poems.

Slipping softly through the sky
Little horned, happy moon,
Can you hear me up so high?
Will you come down soon?
On my nursery window-sill
Will you stay your steady flight?
And then float away with me
Through the summer night?
Brushing over... (Read full poem)

Fine living . . . a la carte?
     Come to the Waldorf-Astoria!

     LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the
     new Waldorf-Astoria:

     "All the luxuries of private home. . . ."
Now, won't that be charming when the last... (Read full poem)

17. The Day Is A Poem (September 19, 1939) - written by Robinson Jeffers
Published in 1941. Read 1851 times on American Poems.

This morning Hitler spoke in Danzig, we hear his voice.
A man of genius: that is, of amazing
Ability, courage, devotion, cored on a sick child's soul,
Heard clearly through the dog wrath, a sick child
Wailing in Danzig; invoking destruction and... (Read full poem)

The face I carry with me -- last --
When I go out of Time --
To take my Rank -- by -- in the West --
That face -- will just be thine --

I'll hand it to the Angel --
That -- Sir -- was my Degree --
In Kingdoms -- you have heard the Raised --
Refer... (Read full poem)

19. My life has been the poem - written by Henry David Thoreau
Read 59941 times on American Poems.

My life has been the poem I would have writ, 
But I could not both live and utter it.(Read full poem)

The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.

It has to be living, to... (Read full poem)

21. Dr. Siegfried Iseman - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 723 times on American Poems.

I said when they handed me my diploma,
I said to myself I will be good
And wise and brave and helpful to others;
I said I will carry the Christian creed
Into the practice of medicine!
Somehow the world and the other doctors
Know what's in... (Read full poem)

Suppose you have an elephant
with 56 millimeter trunk
and say he's
	tearing up the jungle
(say you think he's drunk
or crazy)
How're you going to bring that elephant down?
lion can't
bear could but don't want to
and the panther's too small for that... (Read full poem)

23. Silence - written by Billy Collins
From Picnic, Lightning. Published in 1998. Read 2854 times on American Poems.

Now it is time to say what you have to say.
The room is quiet.
The whirring fan has been unplugged,
and the girl who was tapping
a pencil on her desktop has been removed.

So tell us what is on your mind.
We want to hear the sound of your... (Read full poem)

it sits outside my window now
like and old woman going to market;
it sits and watches me,
it sweats nevously
through wire and fog and dog-bark
until suddenly
I slam the screen with a newspaper
like slapping at a fly
and you could hear the... (Read full poem)

25. The Hunters in the Snow - written by William Carlos Williams
Read 7462 times on American Poems.

1962 

The over-all picture is winter 
icy mountains 
in the background the return 

from the hunt it is toward evening 
from the left 
sturdy hunters lead in 

their pack the inn-sign 
hanging from 
a broken hinge is a stag a crucifix 

between his... (Read full poem)