1. Poem Written At Morning - written by Wallace Stevens
Read 10286 times on American Poems.

A sunny day's complete Poussiniana
Divide it from itself. It is this or that
And it is not.
By metaphor you paint
A thing. Thus, the pineapple was a leather fruit,
A fruit for pewter, thorned and palmed and blue,
To be served by men of ice.
The... (Read full poem)

A long -- long Sleep -- A famous -- Sleep --
That makes no show for Morn --
By Stretch of Limb -- or stir of Lid --
An independent One --

Was ever idleness like This?
Upon a Bank of Stone
To bask the Centuries away --
Nor once look up -- for Noon?(Read full poem)

3. An Almost Made Up Poem - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 5457 times on American Poems.

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems... (Read full poem)

He reads my latest attempt at a poem
and is silent for a long time, until it feels
like that night we waited for Apollo,
my mother wandering in and out of her bedroom, asking,
Haven't they landed yet? At last
Dugan throws it on the table and... (Read full poem)

5. November 6 - written by David Lehman
Read 2134 times on American Poems.

Remember when Khrushchev said
"We will bury you!"
on the cover
of Time
I thought he was
employing a metaphor
as in "Braves Scalp Giants!"
on the back page
of the Daily News
I pictured the Russians
burying us under a mound
of all the rubble
that... (Read full poem)

The riches of the poet are equal to his poetry 
His power is his left hand
      It is idle weak and precious
His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him
   like Midas Because it is that laziness which is a form of impatience 
And this... (Read full poem)

7. A Sort Of A Song - written by William Carlos Williams
Read 15271 times on American Poems.

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
—through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my... (Read full poem)

I say to my woman, "Jeffers was 
a great poet. think of a title
like Be Angry At The Sun. don't you 
realize how great that is?

"you like that negative stuff." she 
says

"positively," I agree, finishing my
drink and pouring another.
"in one of... (Read full poem)

9. What Can We Do? - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 3807 times on American Poems.

at their best, there is gentleness in Humanity.
some understanding and, at times, acts of
courage
but all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn't
have too much.
it is like a large animal deep in sleep and
almost nothing can awaken it.
when... (Read full poem)

Oh many times did Ernest Hyde and I
Argue about the freedom of the will.
My favorite metaphor was Prickett's cow
Roped out to grass, and free you know as far
As the length of the rope.
One day while arguing so, watching the cow
Pull at the... (Read full poem)

11. This - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 2589 times on American Poems.

self-congratulatory nonsense as the
famous gather to applaud their seeming
greatness
you
wonder where 
the real ones are
what 
giant cave
hides them
as
the deathly talentless
bow to
accolades
as
the fools are
fooled
again
you 
wonder where 
the real... (Read full poem)

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can'ts seem just to say that anything is the thing it... (Read full poem)

13. The Spring - written by Delmore Schwartz
Published in 1965. Read 19618 times on American Poems.

(After Rilke)


Spring has returned! Everything has returned!
The earth, just like a schoolgirl, memorizes
Poems, so many poems. ... Look, she has learned
So many famous poems, she has earned so many prizes!

Teacher was strict. We delighted in the... (Read full poem)

Will there really be a "Morning"?
Is there such a thing as "Day"?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like Water lilies?
Has it feathers like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never... (Read full poem)

15. The List of Famous Hats - written by James Tate
From Reckoner. Published in 1986. Read 7570 times on American Poems.

Napoleon's hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous
hat, but that's not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for
show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all hon-
esty wasn't much different than the one any jerk... (Read full poem)

I had sex with a famous poet last night 
and when I rolled over and found myself beside him I shuddered 
because I was married to someone else, 
because I wasn't supposed to have been drinking,
because I was in fancy hotel room
I didn't... (Read full poem)

17. Happiness - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1912. Read 15394 times on American Poems.

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell
me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of
thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though
I was trying to fool with them
And... (Read full poem)

As he grew famous—ah, but what is fame?—
he lost his old obsession with his name,
things seemed to matter less,
including the fame—a television team came
from another country to make a film of him
which did not him... (Read full poem)

19. Typhoon Signal No. 1 - written by Nick Carbo
Read 1218 times on American Poems.

This is where the typhoon starts—
inside the fourth paragraph,
ten city blocks away,

where the neurosurgeon halfs
La Celestina, where you occupy
the spot under that Tiffany lamp,

where Edgar Rice Burroughs laughs,
where sugar cane is... (Read full poem)

My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.

They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.

I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience... (Read full poem)

21. Franklin Jones - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 533 times on American Poems.

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)

Silence is a great blue bell
Swinging and ringing, tinkling and singing, 
In measure's pleasure, and in the supple symmetry
                of the soaring of the immense intense wings
                glinting against
All the blue radiance above us... (Read full poem)

23. The Position - written by Russell Edson
Read 981 times on American Poems.

They let me in. I went right up to the nursery 
and climbed into the crib, and assumed the famous 
fetal position.

They didn't know what to make of it. They stood 
by the crib looking down at me.

They were young. This was their house. Instead 
of... (Read full poem)

I SAW a famous man eating soup.
I say he was lifting a fat broth
Into his mouth with a spoon.
His name was in the newspapers that day
Spelled out in tall black headlines
And thousands of people were talking about him.
  
  When I saw him,
He sat... (Read full poem)

25. Praying Drunk - written by Andrew Hudgins
From The Alsop Review. Published in 1991. Read 2806 times on American Poems.

Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk.
Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks.
I ought to start with praise, but praise
comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you
about the woman, whom I taught, in bed,
this prayer? It starts with praise; the... (Read full poem)