1. The Lightning is a yellow Fork - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3619 times on American Poems.

The Lightning is a yellow Fork
From Tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropt
The awful Cutlery

Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The Apparatus of the Dark
To ignorance revealed.(Read full poem)

Our journey had advanced --
Our feet were almost come
To that odd Fork in Being's Road --
Eternity -- by Term --

Our pace took sudden awe --
Our feet -- reluctant -- led --
Before -- were Cities -- but Between --
The Forest of the Dead --

Retreat... (Read full poem)

3. Objector - written by William Stafford
Read 971 times on American Poems.

In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon
to ward off complicity--the ordered life
our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife,
our chance to live depends on such a sign
while others talk and The Pentagon from the moon
is bouncing exact commands:... (Read full poem)

Who carved this shattered harp on my stone?
I died to you, no doubt. But how many harps and pianos
Wired I and tightened and disentangled for you,
Making them sweet again -- with tuning fork or without?
Oh well! A harp leaps out of the ear of a... (Read full poem)

5. The Road - written by Russell Edson
Read 1323 times on American Poems.

There was a road that leads him to go to find a certain 
time where he sits. 

Smokes quietly in the evening by the four legged table 
wagging its (well why not) tail, friendly chap. 

Hears footsteps, looks to find his own feet gone. 

The road... (Read full poem)

Split the Lark -- and you'll find the Music --
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled --
Scantilly dealt to the Summer Morning
Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.

Loose the Flood -- you shall find it patent --
Gush after Gush, reserved for you... (Read full poem)

7. Before I got my eye put out - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3313 times on American Poems.

Before I got my eye put out
I liked as well to see --
As other Creatures, that have Eyes
And know no other way --

But were it told to me -- Today --
That I might have the sky
For mine -- I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me --

The... (Read full poem)

for Hank and Nancy

Seven thousand acres of grass have faded yellow
from his cough. These limp days, his anger,
legend forty years from moon to Stevensville,
lives on, just barely, in a Great Falls whore.
Cruel times, he cries, cruel winds. His... (Read full poem)

9. Localities - written by Carl Sandburg
From Cornhuskers. Published in 1918. Read 1109 times on American Poems.

WAGON WHEEL GAP is a place I never saw
And Red Horse Gulch and the chutes of Cripple Creek.
 
Red-shirted miners picking in the sluices,
Gamblers with red neckties in the night streets,
The fly-by-night towns of Bull Frog and Skiddoo,
The night-cool... (Read full poem)

There was a road that leads him to go to find 
a certain time where he sits. 

Smokes quietly in the evening by the four legged 
table wagging its (well why not) tail, friendly 
chap. 

Hears footsteps, looks to find his own feet gone. 

The road... (Read full poem)

11. The Road to Paradise is plain, - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1922 times on American Poems.

The Road to Paradise is plain,
And holds scarce one.
Not that it is not firm
But we presume
A Dimpled Road
Is more preferred.
The Belles of Paradise are few --
Not me -- nor you --
But unsuspected things --
Mines have no Wings.(Read full poem)

There is a fork in a branch
of an ancient, enormous maple,
one of a grove of such trees,
where I climb sometimes and sit and look out
over miles of valleys and low hills.
Today on skis I took a friend
to show her the trees. We set out
down the road,... (Read full poem)

13. Mid-Day - written by H. D.
Read 6911 times on American Poems.

The light beats upon me.
I am startled--
a split leaf crackles on the paved floor--
I am anguished--defeated.

A slight wind shakes the seed-pods--
my thoughts are spent
as the black seeds.
My thoughts tear me,
I dread their fever.
I am scattered in... (Read full poem)

This is the year the old ones,
the old great ones
leave us alone on the road.

The road leads to the sea.
We have the words in our pockets,
obscure directions. The old ones

have taken away the light of their presence,
we see it moving away... (Read full poem)

15. A little Road -- not made of Man -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1552 times on American Poems.

A little Road -- not made of Man --
Enabled of the Eye --
Accessible to Thill of Bee --
Or Cart of Butterfly --

If Town it have -- beyond itself --
'Tis that -- I cannot say --
I only know -- no Curricle that rumble there
Bear Me --(Read full poem)

I, too, would ease my old car to a stop
on the side of some country road
and count the stars or admire a sunset
or sit quietly through an afternoon....

I'd open the door and go walking
like James Wright across a meadow,
where I might touch a pony's... (Read full poem)

17. The Road and the End - written by Carl Sandburg
From Chicago Poems. Read 5214 times on American Poems.

I SHALL foot it
Down the roadway in the dusk,
Where shapes of hunger wander
And the fugitives of pain go by.
I shall foot it
In the silence of the morning,
See the night slur into dawn,
Hear the slow great winds arise
Where tall trees flank... (Read full poem)

I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel
in the center of the road and that's when
the deer came charging out of the forest
and forced me to hit the brakes for all I
was worth and I careened back to the other
side of the road just as a skunk came... (Read full poem)

19. The Warning - written by Robert Creeley
Read 1798 times on American Poems.

For love-I would
split open your head and put
a candle in
behind the eyes.

Love is dead in us
if we forget
the virtues of an amulet
and quick surprise.(Read full poem)

There was one I met upon the road
Who looked at me with kind eyes.
Her said, "Show me of your wares."
And this I did,
Holding forth one.
He said, "It is a sin."
Then held I forth another;
He said, "It is a sin."
Then held I forth another;
He said,... (Read full poem)

21. Roofs - written by Joyce Kilmer
From Main Street and Other Poems. Published in 1917. Read 4846 times on American Poems.

(For Amelia Josephine Burr)

The road is wide and the stars are out
and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my... (Read full poem)

sometimes i am alive because with
me her alert treelike body sleeps
which i will feel slowly sharpening
becoming distinct with love slowly,
who in my shoulder sinks sweetly teeth
until we shall attain the Springsmelling
intense large... (Read full poem)

23. Twilight Song - written by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Read 588 times on American Poems.

Through the shine, through the rain 
We have shared the day’s load; 
To the old march again 
We have tramped the long road; 
We have laughed, we have cried,
And we’ve tossed the King’s crown; 
We have fought, we have died, 
And we’ve trod the... (Read full poem)

The Road was lit with Moon and star --
The Trees were bright and still --
Descried I -- by the distant Light
A Traveller on a Hill --
To magic Perpendiculars
Ascending, though Terrene --
Unknown his shimmering ultimate --
But he indorsed the sheen --(Read full poem)

25. To G. M. W. And G. F. W. - written by Ellis Parker Butler
From On the Tibur Road. Published in 1912. Read 201 times on American Poems.

Whenas—(I love that “whenas” word—
  It shows I am a poet, too,)
Q. Horace Flaccus gaily stirred
  The welkin with his tra-la-loo,
He little thought one donkey’s back
  Would carry thus a double load—
Father and son upon one jack,... (Read full poem)