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)

We talked as Girls do --
Fond, and late --
We speculated fair, on every subject, but the Grave --
Of ours, none affair --

We handled Destinies, as cool --
As we -- Disposers -- be --
And God, a Quiet Party
To our Authority --

But fondest, dwelt... (Read full poem)

3. A Fairly Sad Tale - written by Dorothy Parker
From Sunset Gun. Published in 1928. Read 4713 times on American Poems.

I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan... (Read full poem)

From all the Jails the Boys and Girls
Ecstatically leap --
Beloved only Afternoon
That Prison doesn't keep

They storm the Earth and stun the Air,
A Mob of solid Bliss --
Alas -- that Frowns should lie in wait
For such a Foe as this --(Read full poem)

5. Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1639 times on American Poems.

Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die
And are too seldom born --(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. One Third Of The Calendar - written by Ogden Nash
Read 2465 times on American Poems.

In January everything freezes.
We have two children. Both are she'ses.
This is our January rule:
One girl in bed, and one in school.

In February the blizzard whirls.
We own a pair of little girls.
Blessings upon of each the head ----
The one in... (Read full poem)

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

9. Dirge - written by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Read 2326 times on American Poems.

Boys and girls that held her dear,
Do your weeping now;
All you loved of her lies here.

Brought to earth the arrogant brow,
And the withering tongue
Chastened; do your weeping now.

Sing whatever songs are sung,
Wind whatever wreath,
For a playmate... (Read full poem)

In spite of her sniffle,
Isabel's chiffle.
Some girls with a sniffle
Would be weepy and tiffle;
They would look awful,
Like a rained-on waffle,
But Isabel's chiffle
In spite of her sniffle.
Her nose is more red
With a cold in her head,
But then, to... (Read full poem)

11. buy me an ounce and i'll sell you a pound. - written by e.e. cummings
Read 13623 times on American Poems.

buy me an ounce and i'll sell you a pound.
Turn
gert
(spin!
helen)the
slimmer the finger the thicker the thumb(it's
whirl,
girls)
round and round

early to better is wiser for worse.
Give
liz
(take!
tommy)we
order a steak and they send us a... (Read full poem)

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how... (Read full poem)

13. Hare Drummer - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 390 times on American Poems.

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever's
For cider, after school, in late September?
Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets
On Aaron Hatfield's farm when the frosts begin?
For many times with the laughing girls and boys
Played I along the... (Read full poem)

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i... (Read full poem)

15. Crabapple Blossoms - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1834 times on American Poems.

SOMEBODY’S little girl—how easy to make a sob story over who she was once and who she is now.
Somebody’s little girl—she played once under a crab-apple tree in June and the blossoms fell on the dark hair.
  
It was somewhere on... (Read full poem)

“The past is a bucket of ashes.”

            1

THE WOMAN named To-morrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it... (Read full poem)

17. The Morning Half-Life Blues - written by Marge Piercy
From Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy. Published in 1999. Read 883 times on American Poems.

Girls buck the wind in the grooves toward work
in fuzzy coats promised to be warm as fur.
The shop windows snicker
flashing them hurrying over dresses they cannot afford:
you are not pretty enough, not pretty enough.

Blown with yesterday’s papers... (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)

19. 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)

It was no place for the faithless,
so I felt a little odd
walking the marshland with my daughters,

Canada geese all around and the blue 
herons just standing there;
safe, and the abundance of swans.

The girls liked saying the... (Read full poem)

21. 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)

23. Branches - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 1515 times on American Poems.

THE DANCING girls here … after a long night of it …
The long beautiful night of the wind and rain in April,
The long night hanging down from the drooping branches of the top of a birch tree,
Swinging, swaying, to the wind for a partner, to... (Read full poem)

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.(Read full poem)

25. De Profundis - written by Dorothy Parker
From Enough Rope. Published in 1926. Read 2974 times on American Poems.

Oh, is it, then, Utopian
To hope that I may meet a man
Who'll not relate, in accents suave,
The tales of girls he used to have?(Read full poem)