1. The Line-Gang - written by Robert Frost
From Mountain Interval. Published in 1916. Read 6079 times on American Poems.

Here come the line-gang pioneering by,
They throw a forest down less cut than broken.
They plant dead trees for living, and the dead
They string together with a living thread.
They string an instrument against the sky
Wherein words whether... (Read full poem)

In Winter in my Room
I came upon a Worm --
Pink, lank and warm --
But as he was a worm
And worms presume
Not quite with him at home --
Secured him by a string
To something neighboring
And went along.

A Trifle afterward
A thing occurred
I'd not... (Read full poem)

3. Park Apocrypha - written by Reginald Shepherd
Read 389 times on American Poems.

Listened but couldn't hear
the subject hissing: looked up to
pages of stuttering rain (it tastes

green), warmer while the song decays
such weather full of precedent
A body made of water

dropped from a stratus
window mists over as it falls,
all... (Read full poem)

October.  Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen 
I study my father's embarrassed young man's face. 
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string 
of spiny yellow perch, in the other 
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer. 

In jeans and denim shirt, he leans... (Read full poem)

5. The Wooden Toy - written by Charles Simic
Published in 1997. Read 2873 times on American Poems.

1

The brightly-painted horse
Had a boy's face,
And four small wheels
Under his feet,

Plus a long string
To pull him by this way and that
Across the floor,
Should you care to.

A string in-waiting
That slipped away
In many wiles
From each and every... (Read full poem)

A string of shiny days we had,
A spotless sky, a yellow sun;
And neither you nor I was sad
When that was through and done.

But when, one day, a boy comes by
And pleads me with your happiest vow,
"There was a lad I knew--" I'll sigh,
"I do not know... (Read full poem)

7. Witch-Wife - written by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Read 3544 times on American Poems.

She is neither pink nor pale,
        And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
        And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
        In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of... (Read full poem)

PIETRO has twenty red and blue balloons on a string.
They flutter and dance pulling Pietro’s arm.
A nickel apiece is what they sell for.
  
Wishing children tag Pietro’s heels.
  
He sells out and goes the streets alone.(Read full poem)

9. Jan Kubelik - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1913. Read 1644 times on American Poems.

YOUR bow swept over a string, and a long low note
quivered to the air.
(A mother of Bohemia sobs over a new child perfect
learning to suck milk.)

Your bow ran fast over all the high strings fluttering
and wild.
(All the girls in Bohemia are... (Read full poem)

Thy petals yet are closely curled, 
Rose of the world, 
Around their scented, golden core; 
Nor yet has Summer purpled o'er 
Thy tender clusters that begin 
To swell within 
The dewy vine-leaves' early screen 
Of sheltering green. 


O... (Read full poem)

11. Pull A String, A Puppet Moves - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 2341 times on American Poems.

each man must realize
that it can all disappear very 
quickly:
the cat, the woman, the job,
the front tire,
the bed, the walls, the
room; all our necessities
including love,
rest on foundations of sand - 
and any given cause,
no matter how... (Read full poem)

Lick the lights. Everyone
says that here. Sometimes
they'll call a spade a shovel,
hollowing half a hole,
which is all I have to sleep inside.


There's one


arboretum running
underground from near here
to Verisimilitude City.
I... (Read full poem)

13. A. E. F. - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1072 times on American Poems.

THERE will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart,
The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust.
A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest corner of it.
The trigger and the range-finder, they too will be rusty.
And no hands... (Read full poem)

This admirable gadget, when it is
Wound on a string and spun with steady force,
Maintains its balance on most any smooth
Surface, pleasantly humming as it goes.
It is whirled not on a constant course, but still
Stands in unshivering integrity
For... (Read full poem)

15. if I should sleep with a lady called death - written by e.e. cummings
Read 12319 times on American Poems.

if I should sleep with a lady called death
get another man with firmer lips
to take your new mouth in his teeth
(hips pumping pleasure into hips).

Seeing how the limp huddling string
of your smile over his body squirms
kissingly, I will bring you... (Read full poem)

As silent as a mirror is believed
Realities plunge in silence by . . .

I am not ready for repentance;
Nor to match regrets.  For the moth
Bends no more than the still
Imploring flame.  And tremorous
In the white falling flakes
Kisses are,--
The... (Read full poem)

17. Air - written by W.S. Merwin
Read 3477 times on American Poems.

Naturally it is night.
Under the overturned lute with its
One string I am going my way
Which has a strange sound.

This way the dust, that way the dust.
I listen to both sides
But I keep right on.
I remember the leaves sitting in judgment
And then... (Read full poem)

I'll clutch -- and clutch --
Next -- One -- Might be the golden touch --
Could take it --
Diamonds -- Wait --
I'm diving -- just a little late --
But stars -- go slow -- for night --

I'll string you -- in fine Necklace --
Tiaras -- make -- of some... (Read full poem)

19. The Uses Of Poetry - written by William Carlos Williams
From Poems. Published in 1909. Read 2775 times on American Poems.

I've fond anticipation of a day
O'erfilled with pure diversion presently,
For I must read a lady poesy
The while we glide by many a leafy bay,

Hid deep in rushes, where at random play
The glossy black winged May-flies, or whence flee
Hush-throated... (Read full poem)

I'm ceded -- I've stopped being Theirs --
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I've finished threading -- too... (Read full poem)

21. Bring me the sunset in a cup, - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 5856 times on American Poems.

Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning's flagons up
And say how many Dew,
Tell me how far the morning leaps --
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadth of blue!

Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin's... (Read full poem)

this is the garden:colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing
strong silent greens serenely lingering,
absolute lights like baths of golden snow.
This is the garden:pursed lips do blow
upon cool flutes within wide... (Read full poem)

23. The Silent Melody - written by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Read 763 times on American Poems.

"BRING me my broken harp," he said;
"We both are wrecks,-- but as ye will,--
Though all its ringing tones have fled,
Their echoes linger round it still;
It had some golden strings, I know,
But that was long-- how long!-- ago.

"I cannot... (Read full poem)

I knew that a baby was hid in that house,
Though I saw no cradle and heard no cry;
But the husband was tip-toeing 'round like a mouse,
And the good wife was humming a soft lullaby;
And there was a look on the face of the mother,
That I knew... (Read full poem)

25. Of Modern Poetry - written by Wallace Stevens
Read 4839 times on American Poems.

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)