1. The Gift - written by Li-Young Lee
From Rose. Published in 1986. Read 3165 times on American Poems.

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he'd removed
the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.

I can't remember the tale,
but... (Read full poem)

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But... (Read full poem)

3. Ornithology for Beginners - written by Dorothy Parker
From Death and Taxes. Published in 1931. Read 4187 times on American Poems.

The bird that feeds from off my palm
Is sleek, affectionate, and calm,
But double, to me, is worth the thrush
A-flickering in the elder-bush.(Read full poem)

it lay in my palm soft and trembled
as a new bird and i thought about
authority and how it always insisted
on itself, how it was master
of the man, how it measured him, never
was ignored or denied, and how it promised
there would be sweetness... (Read full poem)

5. The Space Heater - written by Sharon Olds
From The New Yorker. Read 1352 times on American Poems.

On the then-below-zero day, it was on,
near the patients' chair, the old heater
kept by the analyst's couch, at the end,
like the infant's headstone that was added near the foot
of my father's grave. And it was hot, with the almost
laughing satire... (Read full poem)

I like the cool and heft of it, dull metal on the palm,
And the click, the hiss, the spark fuming into flame,
Boldface of fire, the rage and sway of it, raw blue at the base
And a slope of gold, a touch to the packed tobacco, the tip
Turned red as a... (Read full poem)

7. Written in a Volume of the Comtesse de Noailles - written by Alan Seeger
Read 332 times on American Poems.

Be my companion under cool arcades 
That frame some drowsy street and dazzling square 
Beyond whose flowers and palm-tree promenades 
White belfries burn in the blue tropic air. 
Lie near me in dim forests where the croon 
Of wood-doves sounds... (Read full poem)

Four bright steel crosses,
universal joints, plucked
out of the burlap sack --
"the heart of the drive train,"
the book says. Stars
on Lemon's wooden palm,
stars that must be capped,
rolled, and anointed,
that have their orders
and their commands as... (Read full poem)

9. Soil of Flint, if steady tilled -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1426 times on American Poems.

Soil of Flint, if steady tilled --
Will refund by Hand --
Seed of Palm, by Libyan Sun
Fructified in Sand --(Read full poem)

I like to find
what's not found
at once, but lies

within something of another nature,
in repose, distinct.
Gull feathers of glass, hidden

in white pulp: the bones of squid
which I pull out and lay
blade by blade on the draining... (Read full poem)

11. Civilization -- spurns -- the Leopard! - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2326 times on American Poems.

Civilization -- spurns -- the Leopard!
Was the Leopard -- bold?
Deserts -- never rebuked her Satin --
Ethiop -- her Gold --
Tawny -- her Customs --
She was Conscious --
Spotted -- her Dun Gown --
This was the Leopard's nature -- Signor --
Need -- a... (Read full poem)

AS Adam, early in the morning, 
Walking forth from the bower, refresh’d with sleep; 
Behold me where I pass—hear my voice—approach, 
Touch me—touch the palm of your hand to my Body as I pass; 
Be not afraid of my Body.         5(Read full poem)

13. With No Experience In Such Matters - written by Stephen Dunn
From Stephen Dunn -- New and Selected Poems 1974 - 1994. Read 1160 times on American Poems.

To hold a damaged sparrow
under water until you feel it die
is to know a small something
about the mind; how, for example,
it blames the cat for the original crime,
how it wants praise for its better side.

And yet it's as human
as pulling the plug... (Read full poem)

Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
Remember nothing, as the blowing sand
Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep
When winds along the darkened desert sweep?

Or would it still remember,... (Read full poem)

15. Nomad Exquisite - written by Wallace Stevens
Read 1066 times on American Poems.

As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth
The big-finned palm
And green vine angering for life,

As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth hymn and hymn
From the beholder,
Beholding all these green sides
And gold sides of green sides,

And blessed... (Read full poem)

Torn into light, you woke wriggling 
on a woman's palm. Halved, quartered, 
shredded to the wind, you were the life 
that thrilled along the underbelly 
of a stone. Stilled in the frozen pond 
you rinsed heaven with a sigh. 

How much earth is a... (Read full poem)

17. I should have been too glad, I see - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1802 times on American Poems.

I should have been too glad, I see --
Too lifted -- for the scant degree
Of Life's penurious Round --
My little Circuit would have shamed
This new Circumference -- have blamed --
The homelier time behind.

I should have been too saved -- I see... (Read full poem)

O great heart of God, 
Once vague and lost to me, 
Why do I throb with your throb to-night, 
In this land, eternity? 

O little heart of God, 
Sweet intruding stranger, 
You are laughing in my human breast, 
A Christ-child in a manger.... (Read full poem)

19. Her Sweet turn to leave the Homestead - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1360 times on American Poems.

Her Sweet turn to leave the Homestead
Came the Darker Way --
Carriages -- Be Sure -- and Guests -- too --
But for Holiday

'Tis more pitiful Endeavor
Than did Loaded Sea
O'er the Curls attempt to caper
It had cast away --

Never Bride had such... (Read full poem)

Who bides his time, and day by day 
Faces defeat full patiently, 
And lifts a mirthful roundelay, 
However poor his fortunes be,-- 
He will not fail in any qualm 
Of poverty -- the paltry dime 
It will grow golden in his palm, 
Who bides his... (Read full poem)

21. A Postcard From The Volcano - written by Wallace Stevens
From Wallace Stevens: The Palm at the End of the Mind Selected Poems and a Play. Published in 1936. Read 3158 times on American Poems.

Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;

And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;

And least will guess that with our... (Read full poem)

I'M not a chicken; I have seen 
Full many a chill September, 
And though I was a youngster then, 
That gale I well remember; 
The day before, my kite-string snapped, 
And I, my kite pursuing, 
The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat; 
For me... (Read full poem)

23. Cockroach - written by Anne Sexton
Read 7108 times on American Poems.

Roach, foulest of creatures,
who attacks with yellow teeth
and an army of cousins big as shoes,
you are lumps of coal that are mechanized
and when I turn on the light you scuttle
into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land.
Yet I know you... (Read full poem)

You ask why sometimes I say stop
why sometimes I cry no
while I shake with pleasure.
What do I fear, you ask,
why don't I always want to come
and come again to that molten
deep sea center where the nerves
fuse open and the brain
and body shine with... (Read full poem)

25. The Grammar Lesson - written by Steve Kowit
From In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop. Published in 1995. Read 881 times on American Poems.

A noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.
An adjective is what describes the noun.
In "The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz"

of and with are prepositions. The's
an article, a can's a noun,
a noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.

A... (Read full poem)