what i liked about e.e. cummings
was that he cut away from 
the holiness of the
word
and with charm
and gamble
gave us lines
that sliced through the
dung.

how it was needed!
how we were withering 
away
in the old
tired
manner.

of course, then came... (Read full poem)

2. To The Whore Who Took My Poems - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 26267 times on American Poems.

some say we should keep personal remorse from the 
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out... (Read full poem)

if you like my poems let them
walk in the evening,a little behind you

then people will say
"Along this road i saw a princess pass
on her way to meet her lover(it was
toward nightfall)with tall and ignorant servants."(Read full poem)

4. Her -- "last Poems" - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 22344 times on American Poems.

Her -- "last Poems" --
Poets -- ended --
Silver -- perished -- with her Tongue --
Not on Record -- bubbled other,
Flute -- or Woman --
So divine --
Not unto its Summer -- Morning
Robin -- uttered Half the Tune --
Gushed too free for the Adoring... (Read full poem)

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie --
True Poems flee --(Read full poem)

6. As The Poems Go - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 11263 times on American Poems.

as the poems go into the thousands you
realize that you've created very
little.
it comes down to the rain, the sunlight,
the traffic, the nights and the days of the
years, the faces.
leaving this will be easier than living
it, typing one more line... (Read full poem)

(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)

8. Judson Stoddard - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 8891 times on American Poems.

On a mountain top above the clouds
That streamed like a sea below me
I said that peak is the thought of Budda,
And that one is the prayer of Jesus,
And this one is the dream of Plato,
And that one there the song of Dante,
And this is Kant and... (Read full poem)

OF what I write from myself—As if that were not the resumé; 
Of Histories—As if such, however complete, were not less complete than the preceding
	poems; 
As if those shreds, the records of nations, could possibly be as lasting as... (Read full poem)

10. The Planet On The Table - written by Wallace Stevens
Read 6297 times on American Poems.

Ariel was glad he had written his poems.
They were of a remembered time
Or of something seen that he liked.

Other makings of the sun
Were waste and welter
And the ripe shrub writhed.

His self and the sun were one
And his poems, although makings of... (Read full poem)

The great poems of
our elders in many
tongues we struggled

to comprehend who
are now content with
mystery simple

and profound you
in the night your
breath your body

orbit of time and
the moment you
Phosphorus and

Hesper a dark... (Read full poem)

12. Indications, The. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 4639 times on American Poems.

THE indications, and tally of time; 
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs; 
Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts; 
What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their
	words; 
The... (Read full poem)

Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie
tear, wanting to look like a moll
in a Chandler novel. Dinner, consisting of three parts gin 
and one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair.
There are, she said, poems that can be written... (Read full poem)

14. Trees - written by Joyce Kilmer
From Trees and Other Poems. Published in 1914. Read 34843 times on American Poems.

(For Mrs. Henry Mills Alden)

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree... (Read full poem)

Snowfall in March:
I sit in the white glow reading a thesis
About you.  Your poems, your life.

The author's my student,
He even quotes me.

Forty years since we joked in a kitchen in Portland
Twenty since you disappeared.

All those years and their... (Read full poem)

16. A Following - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 4788 times on American Poems.

the phone rang at 1:30 a.m.
  and it was a man from Denver:
   
   "Chinaski, you got a following in
  Denver..."
    "yeah?"
   "yeah, I got a magazine and I want some
  poems from you..."
    "FUCK YOU,... (Read full poem)

The word, defining, muzzles; the drawn line
Ousts mistier peers and thrives, murderous,
In establishments which imagined lines

Can only haunt.  Sturdy as potatoes,
Stones, without conscience, word and line endure,
Given an inch.  Not that they're... (Read full poem)

18. Stillborn - written by Sylvia Plath
From The Collected Poems. Published in 1960. Read 11033 times on American Poems.

These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.

O I cannot explain... (Read full poem)

I have just spent one-hour-and-a-half
handicapping tomorrow's
card.
when am I going to get at the poems?
well, they'll just have to wait
they'll have to warm their feet in the 
anteroom
where they'll sit gossiping about 
me.
"this Chinaski,... (Read full poem)

20. Ai - written by Denise Duhamel
Read 2659 times on American Poems.

There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five.
There's a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice
just won the National Book Award.
The name "Ai" is pronounced "I"
so that whenever I talk about the poet Ai
such as I'm teaching Ai's... (Read full poem)

I read to the entire plebe class,
in two batches. Twice the hall filled
with bodies dressed alike, each toting
a copy of my book. What would my
shrink say, if I had one, about
such a dream, if it were a dream?

Question and answer time.
"Sir," a... (Read full poem)

22. What I can do -- I will - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 5700 times on American Poems.

What I can do -- I will --
Though it be little as a Daffodil --
That I cannot -- must be
Unknown to possibility --(Read full poem)

Few, yet enough,
Enough is One --
To that ethereal throng
Have not each one of us the right
To stealthily belong?(Read full poem)

24. Mediums. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 3052 times on American Poems.

THEY shall arise in the States, 
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness; 
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos; 
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive; 
They shall be complete women and men—their pose brawny... (Read full poem)

Were it to be the last
How infinite would be
What we did not suspect was marked --
Our final interview.(Read full poem)