Tag Archives: poets

“Because I could not stop for Death” – Emily Dicksinson

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –

“The Snowman on the Moor” – Sylvia Plath

poetrysince1912:

—Sylvia Plath, Poetry, July 1957

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“Cold Reading” – Brendan Constantine

It’s really cold in here now,

easily forty below something,

and half the class is asleep.

Snow dazzles in the windows,

makes a cake of each desk.

It’s really cold in here now.

I’ve been lecturing on the same

poem for twenty six hours

and half the class is asleep.

I want them to get it. I start

to talk about death again

and it’s really cold in here now.

One student has frozen solid,

her hair snapping off in the wind

and half the class is asleep.

“See that” I say, “Lisa gets it.”

But it’s so cold in here now

half the class are white dunes

shifting to the sea.

After Suicide- Poets.org – Poetry, Poems, Bios & More

poetsorg:

Big congrats to Matt Rasmussen, whose book, Black Aperture (winner of our 2012 Walt Whitman First-Book Award), was named a National Book Award finalist! Click here to listen to Rasmussen reading “After Suicide.”

After Suicide- Poets.org – Poetry, Poems, Bios & More

“The Aurora of the New Mind” – David St. John

There had been rain throughout the province

Cypress & umbrella pines in a palsy of swirling mists 

Bent against the onshore whipping winds

I had been so looking forward to your silence

What a pity it never arrived

The uniforms of arrogance had been delivered only 

That morning to the new ambassador & his stable of lovers

The epaulettes alone would have made a lesser man weep

But I know my place & I know my business

& I know my own mind so it never occured to me

To listen as you recited that litany of automatic 

miseries

Familiar to all victims of class warfare & loveless

circumstance

By which I mean of course you & your kind

But I know my place & I know my business & baby

I know my own grieving summer mind

Still I look a lot like Scott Fitzgerald tonight with 

my tall

Tumbler of meander & bourbon & mint just clacking my

ice

To the noise of the streetcar ratcheting up some

surprise

I had been so looking forward to your silence

& what a pity it never arrived

Now those alpha waves of desire light up the horizon

Just the way my thoughts all blew wild-empty as you

stood

In the doorway to leave     in the doorway to leave


Yet I know my place & I know my business & I know those

Melodies melodies & the music of my own mind

:: from The Southern Review

“Desire” – Langston Hughes

Desire to us

Was like a double death,

Swift dying

Of our mingled breath,

Evaporation

Of an unknown strange perfume

Between us quickly

In a naked

Room.

(1947)

“When A Man Hasn’t Been Kissed” – Jeffrey McDaniel

When I haven’t been kissed in a long time,

I walk behind well-dressed women

on cold, December mornings and shovel

the steamy exhalations pluming from their lips

down my throat with both hands, hoping

a single molecule will cling to my lungs.

When I haven’t been kissed in a long time, 

I sneak into the ladies room of a fancy restaurant,

dig into the trashcan for a napkin

where a woman checked her lipstick,

then go home, light candles, put on Barry White,

and press the napkin all over my body.

When I haven’t been kissed in a long time,

I start thinking leeches are the most romantic

creatures, cause all they want to do is kiss. 

If only someone invented a kinder, gentler leech,

I’d paint it bright pink and pretend

Winona Ryder’s lips crawled off her face,

up my thigh, and were sucking on my swollen bicep.

When I haven’t been kissed

in a long time, I create civil disturbances,

then insult the cops who show up,

till one of them grabs me by the collar

and hurls me up against the squad car,

so I can remember, at least for a moment,

what it’s like to be touched.

“I Lick the Froth” – H. M. Scheppers

My tongue like bark,

I lick the froth from

my steamed soy milk

like the taste of Mom’s pinecone crafts.

Unlike the sap of my early days

of 2% that Mom had filled for my

jelly jar glass each dinner 

in the dining room with crystals.

Like cardboard, soy steam pours

over my tongue’s tip—

scrapes the buds, like the way 

Dad scraped buds in the backyard, 

the lawnmower chasing us 

in diagonals and cupcakes.

My mouth a dry scone,

I sip more, sipping mean,

until my tongue chars like

the night I reached for the switch

and realized Dad no longer

tucked me in.

The grand bland lather of Silk

rushes over my tongue of shingles 

until the foam slopes at the bottom

like shampoo slopping below my ear.

My tongue of pinecones, bitter and

arching for froth,

for the kitchen sink after midnight,

for a venom of milk,

for the sap of my early days.

Lines Off My Mind’s Shelf: Una poesia di mio

“I was intricately woven in the depths of the earth” – Psalm 139:15


Of the earth

The snow is an illusion 

masking         my youth

below it.

I wish I could hold it

and behold— 

               I’m old from it.

The labyrinth, latent behind—

my forehead— 

my eyes         donning 

sheets of an unmade bed.

My sister says you are the white and black


I face myself

an injured pigeon

woven in the depths

This is how you were made:

w[hole]