1. Polly's Tree - written by Sylvia Plath
From The Collected Poems. Published in 1959. Read 2908 times on American Poems.

A dream tree, Polly's tree:
 a thicket of sticks,
  each speckled twig

ending in a thin-paned
 leaf unlike any
  other on it

or in a ghost flower
 flat as paper and
  of a color

vaporish as frost-breath,
 more finical than
  any silk fan

the... (Read full poem)

IN the morning, a Sunday morning, shadows of sea and adumbrants of rock in her eyes … horseback in leather boots and leather gauntlets by the sea.
  
In the evening, a Sunday evening, a rope of pearls on her white shoulders … and a... (Read full poem)

3. A Child’s Amaze. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 3717 times on American Poems.

SILENT and amazed, even when a little boy, 
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements, 
As contending against some being or influence.(Read full poem)

The mint bed is in
bloom:  lavender haze
day.  The grass is 
more than green and
throws up sharp and 
cutting lights to 
slice through the 
plane tree leaves.  And 
on the cloudless blue 
I scribble your name.(Read full poem)

5. April 21 - written by David Lehman
Read 1586 times on American Poems.

I'm a very average person,
and I think most people are.
I vote with the common man.
I have two kids, a boy and a girl.
Last Sunday I played golf with the boss.
Hey, it beats working.
I'm his wife. I may be brainless but
I'm her husband. I played... (Read full poem)

One shows me how to lie down in a field of clover.
Another how to slip my hand under her Sunday skirt.
Another how to kiss with a mouth full of blackberries.
Another how to catch fireflies in jar after dark.

Here is a stable with a single black... (Read full poem)

7. Jan Kubelik - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1913. Read 1639 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)

The little sparrows 
hop ingenuously 
about the pavement 
quarreling 
with sharp voices 
over those things 
that interest them. 
But we who are wiser 
shut ourselves in 
on either hand 
and no one knows 
whether we think good 
or evil.... (Read full poem)

9. Happiness - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1912. Read 15411 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)

No doubt to-morrow I will hide
My face from you, my King.
Let me rejoice this Sunday noon,
And kneel while gray priests sing.

It is not wisdom to forget.
But since it is my fate
Fill thou my soul with hidden wine
To make this white hour... (Read full poem)

11. I never felt at Home -- Below - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2430 times on American Poems.

I never felt at Home -- Below --
And in the Handsome Skies
I shall not feel at Home -- I know --
I don't like Paradise --

Because it's Sunday -- all the time --
And Recess -- never comes --
And Eden'll be so lonesome
Bright Wednesday Afternoons... (Read full poem)

They got me into the Sunday-school
In Spoon River
And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus.
I could have been no worse off
If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.
For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,
And... (Read full poem)

13. may my heart always be open to little... (19) - written by e.e. cummings
Read 27608 times on American Poems.

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
   
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and... (Read full poem)

to my aunt blanche
who rolled from grass to driveway
into the street one sunday morning.
i was ten.      i had never seen
a human woman hurl her basketball
of a body into the traffic of the world.
Praise to the drivers who stopped in... (Read full poem)

15. The Answer - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Read 2165 times on American Poems.

You have spoken the answer.
A child searches far sometimes
Into the red dust
On a dark rose leaf
And so you have gone far
For the answer is:
Silence.

In the republic
Of the winking stars and spent cataclysms
Sure we are it is off there... (Read full poem)

The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.
The fat
Sacrifices its opacity. . . .

A window, holy gold.
The fire makes it precious,
The same fire

Melting the tallow heretics,
Ousting the Jews.
Their thick palls float

Over the cicatrix of Poland,... (Read full poem)

17. Broken Tabernacles - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1183 times on American Poems.

HAVE I broken the smaller tabernacles, O Lord?
And in the destruction of these set up the greater and massive, the everlasting tabernacles?
I know nothing today, what I have done and why, O Lord, only I have broken and broken tabernacles.
They were... (Read full poem)

One wants a teller in a time like this

One's not a man, one's not a woman grown
To bear enormous business all alone.

One cannot walk this winding street with pride
Straight-shouldered, tranquil-eyed,
Knowing one knows for sure the way back... (Read full poem)

19. Shiloh - written by Herman Melville
Read 6571 times on American Poems.

A Requiem

Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the fields in cloudy days,
The forest-field of Shiloh -
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the... (Read full poem)

I HEARD you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass’d the
	church; 
Winds of autumn!—as I walk’d the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch’d
	sighs, up above, so mournful; 
I heard the perfect Italian... (Read full poem)

21. If anybody's friend be dead - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3473 times on American Poems.

If anybody's friend be dead
It's sharpest of the theme
The thinking how they walked alive --
At such and such a time --

Their costume, of a Sunday,
Some manner of the Hair --
A prank nobody knew but them
Lost, in the Sepulchre --

How warm, they... (Read full poem)

And then we began eating corn starch,
chalk chewed wet into sirup.  We pilfered
Argo boxes stored away to stiffen
my white dress shirt, and my cousin
and I played or watched TV, no longer annoyed
by the din of never cooling afternoons.

On... (Read full poem)

23. Womanly Qualms - written by Ellis Parker Butler
From Leslie’s Monthly. Published in 1902. Read 472 times on American Poems.

When I go rowing on the lake,
    I long to be a man;
I’ll give my Sunday frock to have
    A callous heart like Dan.

I love the ripple of the waves
    When gliding o’er the deep,
But when I see the cruel ours,
    I close my eyes and... (Read full poem)

Though cranes and bulldozers came,
yanked free marble and creek stones
like loose teeth, and then shovels
unearthed coffins and Christ's
stained glass face no longer paned
windows but like the steeple,
piano, bell, and hymnals
followed that rolling... (Read full poem)

25. My Father's Hats - written by Mark Irwin
Published in 2000. Read 1421 times on American Poems.

Sunday mornings I would reach
high into his dark closet while standing
     on a chair and tiptoeing reach
higher, touching, sometimes fumbling
     the soft crowns and imagine
I was in a forest, wind hymning
     through pines, where the musky... (Read full poem)