1. Hooray Say The Roses - written by Charles Bukowski
From burning in water drowning in flame. Published in 1955. Read 1591 times on American Poems.

hooray say the roses, today is blamesday
and we are red as blood.

hooray say the roses, today is Wednesday
and we bloom wher soldiers fell
and lovers too,
and the snake at the word.

hooray say the roses, darkness comes
all at once, like lights... (Read full poem)

THROW roses on the sea where the dead went down.
  The roses speak to the sea,
  And the sea to the dead.
Throw roses, O lovers—
  Let the leaves wash on the salt in the sun.        5(Read full poem)

3. Asking For Roses - written by Robert Frost
Read 30699 times on American Poems.

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I... (Read full poem)

There was a man
Who made his living
By painting roses
Upon silk.
He sat in an upper chamber
And painted,
And the noises of the street
Meant nothing to him.
When he heard bugles, and fifes, and drums,
He thought of red, and yellow, and white... (Read full poem)

5. Roses - written by Joyce Kilmer
From Main Street and Other Poems. Published in 1917. Read 9010 times on American Poems.

(For Katherine Bregy)

I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring,
For I would make a posy, a posy for the King.
I got an hundred roses, the loveliest there be,
From the white rose vine and the pink rose bush and from the red 
rose... (Read full poem)

Heap not on this mound
Roses that she loved so well:
Why bewilder her with roses,
That she cannot see or smell?

She is happy where she lies
With the dust upon her eyes.(Read full poem)

7. Testimony Regarding a Ghost - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 2087 times on American Poems.

THE ROSES slanted crimson sobs
On the night sky hair of the women,
And the long light-fingered men
Spoke to the dark-haired women,
“Nothing lovelier, nothing lovelier.”
How could he sit there among us all
Guzzling blood into his... (Read full poem)

Where Roses would not dare to go,
What Heart would risk the way --
And so I send my Crimson Scouts
To sound the Enemy --(Read full poem)

9. Red Roses - written by Anne Sexton
From 45 Mercy Street. Read 10849 times on American Poems.

Tommy is three and when he's bad
his mother dances with him.
She puts on the record,
"Red Roses for a Blue Lady"
and throws him across the room.
Mind you,
she never laid a hand on him.
He gets red roses in different places,
the head, that time he... (Read full poem)

i shall imagine life
is not worth dying,if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose,roses(you feel
certain)will only smile(Read full poem)

11. When Roses cease to bloom, Sir, - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 10415 times on American Poems.

When Roses cease to bloom, Sir,
And Violets are done --
When Bumblebees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the Sun --
The hand that paused to gather
Upon this Summer's day
Will idle lie -- in Auburn --
Then take my flowers -- pray!(Read full poem)

You came to me bearing bright roses,
Red like the wine of your heart;
You twisted them into a garland
To set me aside from the mart.
Red roses to crown me your lover,
And I walked aureoled and apart.
Enslaved and encircled, I bore it,
Proud... (Read full poem)

13. Poems Done on a Late Night Car - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Read 3521 times on American Poems.

I. CHICKENS

I am The Great White Way of the city:
When you ask what is my desire, I answer:
"Girls fresh as country wild flowers,
With young faces tired of the cows and barns,
Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries,
Slender... (Read full poem)

I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate 
Saying: "Once more, good youth, I stand and wait." 
Saying: "I bring you my fair Law of Peace 
And from your withering passion full release; 
Release from that white hand that stabbed you so. 
The road... (Read full poem)

15. Child of the Romans - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Published in 1912. Read 3555 times on American Poems.

THE dago shovelman sits by the railroad track
Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna.
A train whirls by, and men and women at tables
Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils,
Eat steaks running with brown gravy,
Strawberries and cream, eclaires and... (Read full poem)

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am... (Read full poem)

17. Finish - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 2240 times on American Poems.

We are like roses that have never bothered to
bloom when we should have bloomed and
it is as if
the sun has become disgusted with
waiting(Read full poem)

1
BY broad Potomac’s shore—again, old tongue! 
(Still uttering—still ejaculating—canst never cease this babble?) 
Again, old heart so gay—again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning; 
Again the freshness and... (Read full poem)

19. A Million Young Workmen, 1915 - written by Carl Sandburg
From Cornhuskers. Published in 1918. Read 1339 times on American Poems.

A MILLION young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads,
And the million are now under soil and their rottening flesh will in the years feed roots of blood-red roses.
Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another... (Read full poem)

I saw thee once- once only- years ago: 
I must not say how many- but not many. 
It was a July midnight; and from out 
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, 
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, 
There fell a... (Read full poem)

21. Platonic - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 1331 times on American Poems.

I knew it the first of the summer, 
I knew it the same at the end, 
That you and your love were plighted, 
But couldn’t you be my friend? 
Couldn’t we sit in the twilight, 
Couldn’t we walk on the shore
With only a pleasant friendship
To bind... (Read full poem)

The whole process is a lie,
        unless,
            crowned by excess,
It break forcefully,
        one way or another,
            from its confinement—
or find a deeper well.
        Antony and Cleopatra
            were right;
they have... (Read full poem)

23. Llewellyn and the Tree - written by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Read 402 times on American Poems.

Could he have made Priscilla share 
The paradise that he had planned, 
Llewellyn would have loved his wife 
As well as any in the land. 

Could he have made Priscilla cease
To goad him for what God left out, 
Llewellyn would have been as mild... (Read full poem)

F O R E W A R D

On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original
or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an intro-
duction to this book.
At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far... (Read full poem)

25. Solace - written by Dorothy Parker
From Death and Taxes. Published in 1931. Read 16116 times on American Poems.

There was a rose that faded young;
I saw its shattered beauty hung
Upon a broken stem.
I heard them say, "What need to care
With roses budding everywhere?"
I did not answer them.

There was a bird, brought down to die;
They said, "A hundred fill the... (Read full poem)