Lisel Mueller (February 8, 1924 – February 21, 2020) How swiftly the strained honeyof afternoon lightflows into darknessand the closed bud shrugs offits special mysteryin order to break into blossom:as if what exists, existsso that it can be lostand become precious.
Linda Pastan – The Gardener
Linda Pastan (May 27, 1932 -) He’s out rescuing his fallen holliesafter the renegade snowstorm,sawing their wounded limbs offquite mercilessly (I think of the scenein “Kings Row,” the young soldier wakingto find his legs gone).He’s tying up young bamboo—their delicate tresses litter the driveway—shovelling a door through the snowto free the imprisoned azaleas.I half expect …
Henri Cole – Daffodils
Henri Cole (1956 -) Sometimes I arrive with my buds closed,and I am mistaken for scallions,but if you cut a half inch from my stemsand put me in water, I open up and releaseyellow dust from my petal cups,like talcum sprinkled on her shouldersafter she bathes and swallows herthird tranquillizer to erase herself,the sedative piercing …
Kim Addonizio – Sestina: Writing
Kim Addonizio (July 31, 1954 -) I spent an entire day at my desk writingvapid effluvia like I’m so sick of writingpages of drivel, not feeling like a writerat all even though “A writer writesand doesn’t just talk about writing”was drilled into me by a writing instructor years ago. “Writingbegets writing”was another lesson I learned …
Walt Whitman – When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer
Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) When I heard the learn’d astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I …
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Adrienne Rich – What Kind Of Times Are These
Adrienne Rich (May 16, 1929–March 27, 2012) There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphilland the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadowsnear a meeting-house abandoned by the persecutedwho disappeared into those shadows.I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooledthis isn’t a Russian poem, …
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Andrea Hollander – Premonition
Andrea Hollander (April 28, 1947 -) Dusk, and the trees barely visibleon either side of the two-lane,west through the Rockiesin our secondhand Ramblerthat growled through the landscapelike some hulking animal. Our first trip together,my husband’s attention more on methan on the darkening road,our newness a kingdomof only two. From the forest edge a deer flashedtoward …
Donald Hall – Bangers and Mash
Donald Hall (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018) We flew the Atlantic all night, your headwith its first streak of gray leaningagainst my shoulder, and took a cabto our bed-and-breakfast. We napped,woke up at noon, and rode the tubefrom Russell Square to Piccadilly Circus,where we asked a stranger to takea photograph of us standing …
Joyce Sutphen – The Art of Revision
Joyce Sutphen (August 10, 1949 -) In the morning I take outmost of what I put in last night.I cross out everything that seemsexcessive, every frill and fandango,anything fluffy—a word that shouldnever again appear in a poem,along with blossom and awesome.Once I have deleted everythingexcept the title—which now seemsto have been written by a poetwho …
Marge Piercy – Limited But Fertile Possibilities
Marge Piercy (March 31, 1936 -) We cannot have monogrammed towelsor matches with our names on. We cannothave children. We cannot share jointtax returns. We don’t have a past.Our future is a striped unicorn, fragile,shy, the first of a newspecies born without kindto hostile kin. We can work togethersnarling and giggling and grunting.Every few years …
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Ted Kooser – Splitting An Order
Ted Kooser (April 25, 1939 -) I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steadyby placing his forearms firm on the edge of the tableand using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in …
Anne Sexton – Song For A Lady
Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) On the day of breasts and small hipsthe window pocked with bad rainrain coming on like a minister,we coupled, so sane and insane.We lay like spoons while the sinisterrain dropped like flies on our lipsand our glad eyes and our small hips.“The room is so cold …
Emily Brontë – Remembrance
Emily Jane Brontë (July 30, 1818 – December 19, 1848) Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hoverOver the mountains, on that northern shore,Resting …
Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Sonnet 43
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (March 06, 1806 – June 29, 1861) How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of being an ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of everyday'sMost quiet need, by sun …
Tao Writer – Don’t Get Old
Tao Writer (April 17, 1948 -) In memory of my friend Bob McGuinn Be careful of growing old, he tells me.It happens so suddenly over the years.One day you are young, in love, full of energythe next day you are old, loveless, lackingboth muscle mass and strength.The legs are the first to go, he continues,but …
Jo McDougall – Straightpins
Jo McDougall Growing up in a small town,we didn't noticethe background figures of our lives,gray men, gnarled women,dropping from us silentlylike straightpins to a dressmaker's floor.The old did not diebut simply vanishedlike discs of snow on our tongues.We knew nothing then of nothingnessor pain or loss--our days filled with open fields,football,turtles and cows.One day we …
Vijay Seshadri – Visiting San Francisco
Vijay Seshadri (February 13, 1954 -) I wanted to curl upin the comfortable cosmic melancholy of my past,in the sadness of my past being passed.I wanted to tour the museum of my antiquitiesand look at the sarcophagi there.I wanted to wallow like a water buffalo in the cool,sagacious mud of my past,so I wrote you …
Louis Jenkins – The Couple
Louis Burke Jenkins (October 28, 1942 – December 21, 2019) They no longer sleep quite as well as they didwhen they were younger. He lies awakethinking of things that happened years ago, turning uncomfortably from time to time, pulling on theblankets. She worries about money. First oneand then the other is awake during the night,in …
Richard Jones – The Loft
Richard Jones I lay on her bedwhile she opened windowsso we could see the riverand the factories beyond.Afternoon light fallingbeautifully into the room,she burned candles,incense, talking quietlyas I listened—I, who conspiredto make this happen,weaving a web of words that heldthis moment at its center.What could I say now?That I am a manempty of desire?She stood …
Stanley Moss – I’m Sorry
Stanley Moss (June 21, 1925 -) I’m sorry, exhausted, except for funds.I wrote a check, the date October 18without the year, to Theresa Monrosefor a hundred dollars, I did not writethe amount longhand.My conversation with friendsis something like the way I wrote that checkwhen I try to tell what I owe them.I don’t get it …
Charles Bukowski – The Way It Is Now
Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) I’ll tell youI’ve lived with some gorgeous womenand I was so bewitched by thosebeautiful creatures thatmy eyebrows twitched.but I’d rather drive to New Yorkbackwardsthan to live with any of them again.the next classic stupiditywill be the historyof those fellowswho inherit my femalelegacies.in their caseas in minethey …
Martin Steingesser – This Longing
Martin Steingesser … awoke to rainaround 2:30 this morningthinking of you, because I'd saidonly a few days before, thisis what I wanted, to lie with you in the darklistening how rain soundsin the tree beside my window,on the sill, against the glass, dampcool air on my face. I am lovingfresh smells, light flashes in theblack …
Julia Kasdorf – What I Learned From My Mother
Julia Kasdorf (December 06, 1962 -) I learned from my mother how to lovethe living, to have plenty of vases on handin case you have to rush to the hospitalwith peonies cut from the lawn, black antsstill stuck to the buds. I learned to save jarslarge enough to hold fruit salad for a wholegrieving household, …
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Marcia F Brown – When I Look at the Old Car
Marcia F. Brown When I look at the old carbacked into the cleared-out space in the shed,I can almost understandthose bewildered men who leavetheir softening wives in middle age,up-and-walk-out after decadesof marriage and family, to take upwith some buffed and waxed young thingwith great lines, horsepowerto burn and a dazzling arrayof untested equipment.When I look …
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James Broughton – Wondrous The Merge
James Broughton (November 10, 1913 – May 17, 1999) Had my soul tottered off to sleeptaking my potency with it?Had they both retired before I couldleaving me a classroom somnambulist?Why else should I at sixty-onefeel myself shriveling into fadeout?Then on a cold seminar Mondayin walked an unannounced redeemerdisguised as a taciturn studentBrisk and resolute in …
Pablo Neruda – XCIV If I Die
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (1July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) Pablo Neruda If I die, survive me with such sheer forcethat you awaken the furies of the pallid and the cold,from south to south lift your indelible eyes,from sun to sun dream through your singing mouth.I don't want your laughter or your steps …
Naomi Long Madgett – Without
Naomi Long Madgett (July 05, 1923 – November 04, 2020) If I were blind and could not watch the late sunmelting into a simmering seaor wish on the first starlight-starbright hope of evening,it would not be the lost sunsetthat would deprive mebut the oak-gold contour of your smile.And your hand never rising in a benediction …
Ellen Bryant Voigt – Roof
Ellen Bryant Voigt after a week of daily heavy snow I want to praise my roof firstthe acute angle at which it descends from the ridgepoleand second that it is black the color absorbingall the other colors so that even now as arctic airblows in from the plains my roof burns off from underneaththe dazzling …
Tadeusz Dąbrowski – Sentence
Tadeusz Dąbrowski It’s as if you’d woken in a locked cell and foundin your pocket a slip of paper, and on it a single sentencein a language you don’t know.And you’d be sure this sentence was the key to yourlife. Also to this cell.And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence,until finally you’d understand …
Eunice Odio – W.C.W.
Eunice Odio (October 18, 1919 – March 23, 1974) The whole arboris contained in him.It is his will,an entranceto the clear designof the waters.Heavenly musicwakes in his ear.(When God stirred,the moon never variednor the wind,a rumorof approaching dawn,stillness becomeGod’s silence.)When I saw himof an afternoon—an island facein the air—when I came upon himfrom within,the sprouting …
Alan Harawitz – Finding Religion
Alan Harawitz The lox man is waitingbehind the counterin the back of the store,an anachronism under an ancientblue Dodger baseball cap,gray hair and goatee surroundinghis pudgy pink cheeks and flabby chin. It doesn’t hurt that his name is Nathanand that he speaks with the slightestJewish inflection when he says,“Hi, what can I get you?”It’s one …
