1. Salvage - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1914. Read 3693 times on American Poems.

GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year
between Brussels and Paris.
And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on
the great arches and naves and little whimsical
corners of the Churches of Northern France--Brr-rr!
I'm glad you're a... (Read full poem)

Light hearted William twirled 
his November moustaches 
and, half dressed, looked
from the bedroom window
upon the spring weather. 
Heigh-ya! sighed he gaily 
leaning out to see 
up and down the street 
where a heavy sunlight 
lay beyond some blue... (Read full poem)

3. The Fall - written by Russell Edson
Read 2467 times on American Poems.

There was a man who found two leaves and came 
indoors holding them out saying to his parents 
that he was a tree.

  To which they said then go into the yard and do 
not grow in the living room as your roots may 
ruin the carpet.

  He said I was... (Read full poem)

I Christmas Poem for Nancy

Noel, Noel
We live and we die
Between heaven and hell
Between the earth and the sky
And all shall be well
And all shall be unwell
And once again! all shall once again!
                All shall be well
By the ringing and... (Read full poem)

5. Imanuel Ehrenhardt - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 430 times on American Poems.

I began with Sir William Hamilton's lectures.
Then studied Dugald Stewart;
And then John Locke on the Understanding,
And then Descartes, Fichte and Schelling,
Kant and then Schopenhauer --
Books I borrowed from old Judge Somers.
All read with... (Read full poem)

The lump of coal my parents teased
I'd find in my Christmas stocking
turned out each year to be an orange,
for I was their sunshine.

Now I have one C. gave me,
a dense node of sleeping fire.
I keep it where I read and write.
"You're on chummy terms... (Read full poem)

7. The Parent - written by Ogden Nash
Read 6862 times on American Poems.

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.(Read full poem)

(July 15) 

We know who 
the guards are 
in those POW 
movies with brutal 
but easy to 
fool fat Germans 
or sadistic Japanese 
who never smiled 
they're the grown-ups 
we're the kids 
that's the secret(Read full poem)

9. William and Emily - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 700 times on American Poems.

There is something about Death
Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion,
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire,
And thus fade away together,
Gradually,... (Read full poem)

Then dirt scared me, because of the dirt
he had put on her face. And her training bra
scared me—the newspapers, morning and evening,
kept saying it, training bra,
as if the cups of it had been calling
the breasts up—he buried her in... (Read full poem)

11. Before Sleep - written by Catherine Anderson
Read 2866 times on American Poems.

I was in love with anatomy
the symmetry of my body
poised for flight,
the heights it would take
over parents, lovers, a keen
riding over truth and detail.
I thought growing up would be
this rising from everything
old and earthly,
not these... (Read full poem)

To all in the village I seemed, no doubt,
To go this way and that way, aimlessly.
But here by the river you can see at twilight
The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there --
They must fly so to catch their food.
And if you have ever lost... (Read full poem)

13. April 26 - written by David Lehman
Read 675 times on American Poems.

When my father
Said mein Fehler
I thought it meant
"I'm a failure"
which was my error
which is what
mein Fehler means
in German which
is what my parents
spoke at home(Read full poem)

1
Dear ghosts, dear presences, O my dear parents,
Why were you so sad on porches, whispering?
What great melancholies were loosed among our swings!
As before a storm one hears the leaves whispering
And marks each small change in the atmosphere,
So... (Read full poem)

15. Trust in the Unexpected -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 4897 times on American Poems.

Trust in the Unexpected --
By this -- was William Kidd
Persuaded of the Buried Gold --
As One had testified --

Through this -- the old Philosopher --
His Talismanic Stone
Discerned -- still withholden
To effort undivine --

'Twas this -- allured... (Read full poem)

WHILE deep you mourn beneath the cypress-shade
The hand of Death, and your dear daughter
laid
In dust, whose absence gives your tears to flow,
And racks your bosom with incessant woe,
Let Recollection take a tender part,
Assuage the raging... (Read full poem)

17. Variations On A Theme By William Carlos Williams - written by Kenneth Koch
Read 1681 times on American Poems.

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

     	2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with... (Read full poem)

In Lake Forest, a suburb of Chicago,
a woman sits at her desk to write
me a letter. She holds a photograph
of me up to the light, one taken
17 years ago in a high school class
in Providence. She sighs, and the sigh
smells of mouthwash and... (Read full poem)

19. Voltaire Johnson - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 419 times on American Poems.

Why did you bruise me with your rough places
If you did not want me to tell you about them?
And stifle me with your stupidities,
If you did not want me to expose them?
And nail me with the nails of cruelty,
If you did not want me to pluck the... (Read full poem)

O all ye exorcizers come and exorcize now, and ye clergymen draw nigh and clerge, 
For I wish to be purged of an urge. 
It is an irksome urge, compounded of nettles and glue, 
And it is turning all my friends back into acquaintances, and all my... (Read full poem)

21. For K.R. on her Sixtieth Birthday - written by Richard Wilbur
Read 2662 times on American Poems.

Blow out the candles of your cake.
They will not leave you in the dark,
Who round with grace this dusky arc
Of the grand tour which souls must take.

You who have sounded William Blake,
And the still pool, to Plato's mark,
Blow out the... (Read full poem)

The pages of thy book I read,
And as I closed each one,
My heart, responding, ever said,
"Servant of God! well done!"

Well done!  Thy words are great and bold;
At times they seem to me,
Like Luther's, in the days of old,
Half-battles for the... (Read full poem)

23. Willie Pennington - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 469 times on American Poems.

They called me the weakling, the simpleton,
For my brothers were strong and beautiful,
While I, the last child of parents who had aged,
Inherited only their residue of power.
But they, my brothers, were eaten up
In the fury of the flesh, which... (Read full poem)

I have decorated this banner to honor my  brother. 
     Our parents did not want his name used publicly
     -- from an unnamed child's banner in the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

The boatpond, broken off, looks back at the sky.
I remember looking at you,... (Read full poem)

25. William Jones - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 342 times on American Poems.

Once in a while a curious weed unknown to me,
Needing a name from my books;
Once in a while a letter from Yeomans.
Out of the mussel-shells gathered along the shore
Sometimes a pearl with a glint like meadow rue:
Then betimes a letter from... (Read full poem)