1. Portrait - written by Louise Bogan
Read 1078 times on American Poems.

She has no need to fear the fall 
Of harvest from the laddered reach 
Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing 
        From the steep beach.

Nor hold to pain's effrontery 
Her body's bulwark, stern and savage, 
Nor be a glass, where to forsee... (Read full poem)

There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain --
'Tis Pain's Successor -- When the Soul
Has suffered all it can --

A Drowsiness -- diffuses --
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousness --
As Mists -- obliterate a Crag.

The Surgeon --... (Read full poem)

3. Tears In Sleep - written by Louise Bogan
Read 1958 times on American Poems.

All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day,
And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger's breast,
Shed tears, like a task not to be put away---
In the false light, false grief in my happy bed,
A labor of tears, set against joy's undoing.
I would... (Read full poem)

Be patient with you?
When the stooping sky
Leans down upon the hills
And tenderly, as one who soothing stills
An anguish, gathers earth to lie
Embraced and girdled.  Do the sun-filled men
Feel patience then?
Be patient with you?
When the... (Read full poem)

5. my girl's tall with hard long eyes... (XIX) - written by e.e. cummings
Read 16455 times on American Poems.

my girl's tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes... (Read full poem)

Hard Rock/ was/ "known not to take no shit 
From nobody," and he had the scars to prove it:
Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above
His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut
Across his temple and plowed through a thick 
Canopy of kinky hair.... (Read full poem)

7. Trashcan Lives - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 1976 times on American Poems.

the wind blows hard tonight
and it's a cold wind
and I think about
the boys on the row.
I hope some of them have a bottle of
red.
it's when you're on the row
that you notice that
everything
is owned
and that there are locks on
everything.
this... (Read full poem)

I think I will learn some beautiful language, useless for commercial
Purposes, work hard at that.
I think I will learn the Latin name of every songbird, not only in
America but wherever they sing.
(Shun meditation, though; invite the... (Read full poem)

9. The Big Boots Of Pain - written by Anne Sexton
Read 3115 times on American Poems.

There can be certain potions 
needled in the clock 
for the body's fall from grace, 
to untorture and to plead for. 
These I have known 
and would sell all my furniture 
and books and assorted goods 
to avoid, and more, more. 

But the other pain
I... (Read full poem)

Time was when his half million drew 
The breath of six per cent; 
But soon the worm of what-was-not 
Fed hard on his content; 
And something crumbled in his brain 
When his half million went. 

Time passed, and filled along with his 
The... (Read full poem)

11. Killers - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1914. Read 4831 times on American Poems.

I AM singing to you
Soft as a man with a dead child speaks;
Hard as a man in handcuffs,
Held where he cannot move:

Under the sun
Are sixteen million men,
Chosen for shining teeth,
Sharp eyes, hard legs,
And a running of young warm blood in their... (Read full poem)

Go, my songs, seek your praise from the young 
and from the intolerant, 
Move among the lovers of perfection alone. 
Seek ever to stand in the hard Sophoclean light 
And take you wounds from it gladly. (Read full poem)

13. An Old Cracked Tune - written by Stanley Kunitz
Read 1269 times on American Poems.

My name is Solomon Levi,
the desert is my home,
my mother's breast was thorny,
and father I had none.

The sands whispered, Be separate,
the stones taught me, Be hard.
I dance, for the joy of surviving,
on the edge of the road. (Read full poem)

Thinking hard about you 
I got on the bus 
and paid 30 cents car fare 
and asked the driver for two transfers 
before discovering 
that I was 
alone.(Read full poem)

15. Luck - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 3800 times on American Poems.

once
we were young
at this
machine. . .
drinking
smoking
typing
it was a most 
splendid
miraculous
time
still
is
only now
instead of
moving toward
time
it 
moves toward 
us
makes each word 
drill 
into the
paper
clear
fast
hard
feeding... (Read full poem)

My love's manners in bed
are not to be discussed by me,
as mine by her
I would not credit comment upon gracefully.

Yet I ride by the margin of that lake in
the wood, the castle,
and the excitement of strongholds;
and have a small boy's notion of... (Read full poem)

17. The Liars - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 6910 times on American Poems.

(March, 1919)A LIAR goes in fine clothes.
A liar goes in rags.
A liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.
A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies.
And the stonecutters earn a living—with lies—on the tombs... (Read full poem)

a total stranger one black day
knocked living the hell out of me-- 

who found forgiveness hard because
my(as it happened)self he was 

-but now that fiend and i are such
immortal friends the other's each(Read full poem)

19. harriet - written by Lucille Clifton
Read 1191 times on American Poems.

harriet
if i be you
let me not forget
to be the pistol
pointed
to be the madwoman
at the rivers edge
warning
be free or die
and isabell
if i be you
let me in my
sojourning
not forget
to ask my brothers
ain't i a woman... (Read full poem)

The half-stripped trees 
struck by a wind together, 
bending all, 
the leaves flutter drily 
and refuse to let go 
or driven like hail 
stream bitterly out to one side 
and fall 
where the salvias, hard carmine—
like no leaf that ever... (Read full poem)

21. To A Friend - written by William Carlos Williams
From Sour Grapes. Published in 1921. Read 4310 times on American Poems.

Well, Lizzie Anderson! seventeen men—and 
the baby hard to find a father for! 

What will the good Father in Heaven say 
to the local judge if he do not solve this problem? 
A little two-pointed smile and—pouff!— 
the law is... (Read full poem)

For quick mental hygiene, the snail's my white
mobile clinic, Dr. Hoodoo inside.
Seriously. The snail's my man. He's shy,
shows speedy patience and plays safe, keeps his
hard hat on should a curve come on too fast.
And paves his road in case... (Read full poem)

23. the lost women - written by Lucille Clifton
Read 1447 times on American Poems.

i need to know their names
those women i would have walked with
jauntily the way men go in groups
swinging their arms, and the ones
those sweating women whom i would have joined
after a hard game to chew the fat
what would we have called each... (Read full poem)

It was wet & white & swift and where I am
we don't know. It was dark and then
it isn't.
I wish the barker would come. There seems to be eat
nothing. I am usually tired.
I'm alone too.

If only the strange one with so few legs would... (Read full poem)

25. Does It Pay? - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 4340 times on American Poems.

If one poor burdened toiler o’er life’s road, 
Who meets us by the way, 
Goes on less conscious of his galling load, 
Then life, indeed, does pay.

If we can show the troubled heart the gain
That lies always in loss, 
Why, then, we too are... (Read full poem)