Category

Joy & Contentment

Showing 1-20 of 1,179 results
  • Poem
    By avery r. young
    a•ver•y (ā ver'ē), n. dark(iss) ¹blk-male chile foundate(id) in luv unlimit(id) fuc(k) anthem(s). ²jee…
  • Poem
    By Robert Hayden
    At Dunbar, Castle or Arcade
    we rode with the exotic sheik
    through deserts of erotic flowers;
    held in the…
  • Poem
    By William Olsen
    Observation isn’t serious play. It is living serious. Same heron. It’s used to us, we are as twilight…
  • Poem
    By W. S. Merwin
    Late in May as the light lengthens
    toward summer the young goldfinches
    flutter down through the day for…
  • Poem
    By Thomas Traherne
    I saw new Worlds beneath the Water ly,
    New Peeple; yea, another Sky
    And Sun, which seen by Day
    Might things…
  • Poem
    By Ada Limón
    Is it okay to begin with the obvious? I am full of stones—
                is it okay not to look out this window, but to look out another?

    A mentor once said, You can't start a poem...
  • Poem
    By Ada Limón
    I pass the feeder and yell, Grackle party! And then an hour later I yell, Mourning dove afterparty! (I call the feeder the party and the seed on the ground the afterparty.) I am getting so good at watching that...
  • Poem
    By Rev. Robin G. White
    The feel of a much needed hug in a moment of sorrow
    An unexpected helping hand from the stranger
    The curl of the tiniest of fingers wrapped trustingly around your own
    A gentle breeze on the cusp of Autumn
    And the way a leaf...
  • Poem
    By R. Erica Doyle
    letting  the words fly like smoke uncurling from our mouths
    we lie in bed with dykes ten years our junior, make
    pot heaps to share, sleep in the same flannel sheets,
    plot colored artist collaborations underground and not top 40,
    draw the constellations from...
  • Poem
    By David Roderick
    I wear a flower in my lapel.
    I like the sweetness of its lie in my nose.
    A carnation, the fool’s flower,

    its heart a wilting empire.
    In late-night editing sessions,
    I imagine I’m planting flowers

    in the sockets of eyes. Whatever helps
    me reach our rigor...
  • Poem
    By Tomás Q. Morín
    In this life, there are stars
    and there are stunt doubles.

    Before I became one of those fathers
    obsessed with memorizing his lines,
    making peace with the Big Director
    in the sky who doesn’t like ad libs,
    before all that, I was the star
    of my own...
  • Poem
    By Amy M. Alvarez
    Naturally, broken glass, throbbing bass, a roll of bills and a paper bag passed between the hands of hustlers. Just as true: the rows of corn planted by the family at the end of the street. Even in this leaded...
  • Poem
    By J. V. Cunningham
    You are the problem I propose,
    My dear, the text my musings glose:
    I call you for convenience love.
    By definition you’re a cause
    Inferred by necessary laws—
    You are so to the saints above.
    But in this shadowy lower life
    I sleep with a terrestrial wife
    And...
  • Poem
    By Kiki Petrosino
    So I lean back & Redford asks, “Water warm enough?”
    & I don’t answer because I’m holding my breath.
    I don't know why he asks.
    He never uses the faucet to shampoo my afro—just an old clay jar.
    Redford fills the jar at the...
  • Poem
    By Ada Limón
    I used to pretend to believe in God. Mainly, I liked so much to talk to someone in the dark. Think of how far a voice must have to travel to go beyond the universe. How powerful that voice must...
  • Poem
    By D. A. Powell
    “Anyway, it isn’t forever,” Chris said,
    “eventually you’re dead.” And we laughed

    Besides, everything is better now. Not us
    but implants, blenders, children, heart attacks.
    There’s never been a better time to be alive
    than when you are. If you are. Black-throated
    blue warbler says chewchewchewchewchewww
    drawing...
  • Poem
    By Gabriel Ramirez
    I couldn’t be who I am
    today if it wasn’t for you
    being dead. It was time
    for glitter, nail polish, and locs.
    Glitter in my nail polish.
    Glitter in my locs.
    You wouldn’t have
    loved me loving myself;
    my joy rendered
    inconvenience.
    Sucked teeth keeping me
    your grandson.
    My love for...
  • Poem
    By Susan Browne
    I swim my laps today, slowly, slowly,
    reaching my arms out & over, my fleshly oars,
    the water silken on my skin, my body still able
    to be a body & resting at the pool’s lip,
    I watch other bodies slip through the blue,
    how...
  • Poem
    By Lucia Cherciu
    Even the grocery list is a love poem, a prayer—
    God, let me keep what I love.

    Peaches, cheap. Books, brilliant—
    mine so I can underline.

    How aromatic the apricots,
    how sharp the novels.

    Together,
    we have planted an orchard.

    I don’t understand the word defensive:
    are you supposed...
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