1. One Perfect Rose - written by Dorothy Parker
From Enough Rope. Published in 1926. Read 11316 times on American Poems.

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has... (Read full poem)

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)

3. Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased) - written by William Matthews
Read 610 times on American Poems.

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)

It may be misery not to sing at all, 
And to go silent through the brimming day; 
It may be misery never to be loved, 
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.

To sing the perfect song, 
And by a half-tone lost the key, 
There the potent... (Read full poem)

5. Let me not mar that perfect Dream - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2160 times on American Poems.

Let me not mar that perfect Dream
By an Auroral stain
But so adjust my daily Night
That it will come again.

Not when we know, the Power accosts --
The Garment of Surprise
Was all our timid Mother wore
At Home -- in Paradise.(Read full poem)

The day you flew in perfect arc 
from your motorcycle was the same day 
I broke the perfect formation of your women 
at the railing, leaving behind 
your grandmother and mother, to run 
and jump the fence.  The stop watch hanging 
from my neck,... (Read full poem)

7. On The Death Of A Young Lady Of Five Years Of Age - written by Phillis Wheatley
Read 736 times on American Poems.

FROM dark abodes to fair etherial light
Th' enraptur'd innocent has wing'd her flight;
On the kind bosom of eternal love
She finds unknown beatitude above.
This known, ye parents, nor her loss deplore,
She feels the iron hand of pain no... (Read full poem)

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

9. We Stopped at Perfect Days - written by Richard Brautigan
Read 2091 times on American Poems.

We stopped at perfect days
and got out of the car. 
The wind glanced at her hair. 
It was as simple as that. 
I turned to say something--(Read full poem)

WHAT ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning? 
Or, coming in, to avoid the bars, and follow the channel, a perfect pilot needs? 
Here, sailor! Here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot, 
Whom, in a little boat, putting off, and... (Read full poem)

11. All is Truth. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 11991 times on American Poems.

O ME, man of slack faith so long! 
Standing aloof—denying portions so long; 
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth; 
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as
    inevitably
	upon
	itself as... (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)

13. 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)

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)

15. Sadness - written by Donald Justice
Read 8777 times on American Poems.

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)

I am ill today but I am not
too ill.  I am not ill at all.
It is a perfect day, warm
for winter, cold for fall.

A fine day for seeing.  I see
ceramics, during lunch hour, by
Mir6, and I see the sea by Leger;
light, complicated Metzingers
and a rude... (Read full poem)

17. To The Honourable T. H. Esq; On the Death Of His Daughter - written by Phillis Wheatley
Read 938 times on American Poems.

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)

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)

19. Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell - written by Archibald MacLeish
Read 3470 times on American Poems.

Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered
Figuring what anything is for:
Enough for her devotions that things are
And can be contemplated soon as gathered.

She knows how every living thing was fathered,
She calculates the climate of each... (Read full poem)

He tells you when you've got on
     too much lipstick
And helps you with your girdle
     when your hips stick.(Read full poem)

21. Destruction Of Daughters - written by Lee Upton
Read 464 times on American Poems.

The friend who is concerned
with backdrops, not us,
but what we stand against,
his way of looking at the women
he loves,
to not look at them at all
but at roofs, a bit of sky.
To understand when exactly
a woman is angry
because of the way she... (Read full poem)

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)

23. X - written by Jean Valentine
Read 527 times on American Poems.

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)

WHY! who makes much of a miracle? 
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, 
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, 
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the... (Read full poem)

25. Excelsior. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 2607 times on American Poems.

WHO has gone farthest? For lo! have not I gone farther? 
And who has been just? For I would be the most just person of the earth; 
And who most cautious? For I would be more cautious; 
And who has been happiest? O I think it is I! I think no one was... (Read full poem)