By Peter O’Leary
In a wind
the lake's scissoring surface
and the Sun's vernal glare
the gulls cut to curls
in their turns…
the lake's scissoring surface
and the Sun's vernal glare
the gulls cut to curls
in their turns…
Explore Poems: Ode
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- By Xi ChuanTranslated By Lucas KleinIf I could, I would put on a facemask and walk into the desert to meet with fairies and angels.
I put on a facemask to resist sandstorms, put on a facemask to resist smog, put on a facemask to make... - By Emily BrontëO transient voyager of heaven!
O silent sign of winter skies!
What adverse wind thy sail has driven
To dungeons where a prisoner lies?
Methinks the hands that shut the sun
So sternly from this morning's brow
Might still their rebel task have done
And checked a thing... - By Bruce SniderShe lip-syncs “Hello God,” then “9 to 5.”
She struts. Or does she fly? Like the soul,
a rhinestone, she tells us, will never die.
She’s a blush-pink Bible. Patched together,
she’s a cosmic doll. Mirror of a mirror,
she winks, her face the only... - By Karen Leona AndersonBlack and crackling curiosity,
you can take the crush of my hand
or glass or chair leg and skitter
away, the plastic of animals,
Teflon finger of the nest, chitin-bright
layer-down of trail and track,
mind with the brilliance of leg.
Part honeydew, part nectar,
part dead insect... - By Anna Maria HongMisery spots Catastrophe scaling
the garden wall. Misery dials M for ________, while Catastrophe
robocalls Fate. Misery swabs her nose and recites
her birthdate. It is possible to be crushed
by the wave, while holding open
the gate. Catastrophe rolls down
a window and coughs in... - By Anna Maria HongMisery from Alpha to Omega. Misery
is fluent in Latin and Greek.
Misery is the shield full of fable
and augury. Misery is the hand
holding the shield, numb to
vulnerability. It is possible
to be both arrow and bleed.
Misery makes the same mistake,
inscribing want with... - By Anne SextonEveryone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings.
They wanted to cut you out
but they will not.
They said you were immeasurably empty
but you are not.
They said you were sick unto dying
but they were wrong.
You are singing like a... - By Angel Nafismy sister wraps the throw
around herself on the small
cream loveseat & i know
for sure that she is not
a speck of dirt on a pill.
she coughs & sniffs up all
the lucky air in the room
into her excellent nostrils,
which are endless
holy wells... - By Ashanti AndersonYou are dark as religion. Remember God
could not have named a modicum of light without you.
You are plum, black currant, passion
fruit in another woman’s garden. You are Black
as and as if by magic. Black not as sin, but a cave’s... - By George SterlingAs unto lighter strains a boy might turn
From where great altars burn
And Music’s grave archangels tread the night,
So I, in seasons past,
Loved not the bitter might
And merciless control
Of thy bleak trumpets calling to the soul.
Their... - By Safia Elhilloi was mothered by lonely women some
of them wives some of them with
plumes of smoke for husbands all lonely
smelling of onions & milk ... - By Karen An-hwei LeeIn a new translator’s version of Genesis, there’s no Adam.
No serpent. In paradise, I don’t bleed. Fig leaf-free girl,
dear God, I say as we converse fluently without tongues,
joined as two spice-drenched beloveds in a song of songs,
could we please ask... - By John KeatsThou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe...- Love
- Classic Love
- Desire & Passion
- Heartache & Loss
- Infatuation & Crushes
- Romantic Love
- Unrequited Love
- Nature
- Landscapes & Pastorals
- Living
- The Mind
- Memory & Nostalgia
- Time & Brevity
- Relationships
- Arts & Sciences
- Music
- Painting & Sculpture
- Philosophy
- Mythology & Folklore
- Greek & Roman Mythology
- Stanza Forms
- Rhymed Stanza
- Techniques
- Imagery
- Metaphor
- Types/Modes
- Ekphrasis
- Ode
- Anxiety & Insecurity
- Disappointment
- Arts & Culture
- Classics
- + 25 more
- By Thomas Luxwhich regenerate their tails
and also eat only the tails of other electric eels,
presumably smaller, who, in turn, eat ...
Without consulting an ichthyologist — eels
are fish — I defer to biology’s genius.
I know little of their numbers
and habitat, other than they are river dwellers.
Guess which... - By Sharon OldsSpoon of O, spoon of nothing,
spoon of ankh, spoon of poonss,
spoon of the lady at the dressing table,
spoon of , spoon of female,
spoon of , spoon of war,
spoon of the world, spoon of War of the
Worlds, spoon of stick... - By Amber Atiyato mama who on the eve of my birth beat a bitch with a kool-aid spoon
for taking her eldest child’s red balloon (if i wasn’t wet-fisted, all hemmed
up inside cecelia, i’da jumped in)
to the bazaar of milk & afterbirth that... - By Alan Seeger
I
Ay, it is fitting on this holiday,
Commemorative of our soldier dead,
When—with sweet flowers of our New England May
Hiding the lichened... - By W. S. MerwinWhen you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not
and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer... - By Eduardo C. CorralI only recognized your hair: short,
neatly combed. Our mother
would’ve been proud.
In the Sonoran desert
your body became a slaughter-
house where faith and want were stunned,
hung upside down, gutted. We
were taught
to bring roses, to aim for the bush. Remember?
You tried...