1. 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)

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)

3. I knew that I had gained - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1205 times on American Poems.

I knew that I had gained
And yet I knew not how
By Diminution it was not
But Discipline unto

A Rigor unrelieved
Except by the Content
Another bear its Duplicate
In other Continent.(Read full poem)

The things we thought that we should do
We other things have done
But those peculiar industries
Have never been begun --

The Lands we thought that we should seek
When large enough to run
By Speculation ceded
To Speculation's Son --

The Heaven, in... (Read full poem)

5. 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)

Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By -- Paradox -- the Mind itself --
Presuming it to lead

Quite Opposite -- How Complicate
The Discipline of Man --
Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain --(Read full poem)

7. I can wade Grief - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3626 times on American Poems.

I can wade Grief --
Whole Pools of it --
I'm used to that --
But the least push of Joy
Breaks up my feet --
And I tip -- drunken --
Let no Pebble -- smile --
'Twas the New Liquor --
That was all!

Power is only Pain --
Stranded, thro'... (Read full poem)

My prayers have been answered, if they were prayers. I live.
I'm alive, and even in rather good health, I believe.
If I'd quit smoking I might live to be a hundred.
Truly this is astonishing, after the poverty and pain,
The suffering. Who... (Read full poem)

9. Sleep - written by Russell Edson
Read 1375 times on American Poems.

There was a man who didn't know how to sleep; nodding 
off every night into a drab, unprofessional sleep. Sleep that 
he'd grown so tired of sleeping.
  He tried reading The Manual of Sleep, but it just put him 
to sleep. That same old sleep that he... (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)

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)

13. 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)

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)

15. So Does Everybody Else, Only Not So Much - written by Ogden Nash
Read 2012 times on American Poems.

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)

It is good for strength not to be merciful
To its own weakness, good for the deep urn to run
     over, good to explore
The peaks and the deeps, who can endure it,
Good to be hurt, who can be healed afterward: but
     you that have whetted... (Read full poem)

17. Spinster - written by Sylvia Plath
From The Collected Poems. Published in 1956. Read 6476 times on American Poems.

Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious april walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover's gestures... (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)

19. 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)

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)

21. 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)

But if they'd give us toys and twice the stuff most
parents splurge on the average kid, orphans, I submit, need more than enough; 
in fact, stacks wrapped with our names nearly hid
the tree: these sparkling allotments yearly
guaranteed a lack... (Read full poem)

23. Yesterday - written by W.S. Merwin
Read 4487 times on American Poems.

My friend says I was not a good son
you understand
I say yes I understand

he says I did not go
to see my parents very often you know
and I say yes I know

even when I was living in the same city he says
maybe I would go there once
a month or maybe... (Read full poem)

In the airport bar, I tell my mother not to worry.
No one ever tripped and fell into the San Andreas
Fault. But as she dabs at her dry eyes, I remember
those old movies where the earth does open.

There's always one blonde entomologist,... (Read full poem)

25. Guilty Of Dust - written by Frank Bidart
Published in 1984. Read 3118 times on American Poems.

up or down from the infinite C E N T E R
B R I M M I N G at the winking rim of time

the voice in my head said

LOVE IS THE DISTANCE
BETWEEN YOU AND WHAT YOU LOVE

WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE

           *

then I saw the parade of my loves

those... (Read full poem)