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...
Explore Poems: Persona
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- He was jailed for cruelty to insects, and his agent wasn’t answering the phone, so he stayed awake in...
- By Michael FrazierBeen called sickle, scythe. I know weaponized. Look at your lineup, your mind: so sharp, no wonder they think you knife....
- By Michael FrazierJust cause he’s your blood you can’t expect him to stay. The wet red of men will abandon a body if offered...
- By Michael FrazierI ain’t off-key. I just stepped out the key so when I return, you can understand the key a little bit...
- By Terrance HayesBroken EarthYear of Release: 1939Running Time: 11 minutesCast: Clarence Muse and unidentified boyI am...
- By Shanta LeeMama birthed me, Papa sold me in the land of weeping willows Traces of sin trail miles across skin, ...
- By Lorine NiedeckerNothing worth noting except an Andromeda with quadrangular shoots— the boots of the people wet inside...
- By Marilyn NelsonMusical instruments sleep in the dark for several hours a day: the folks we belong to aren't always ...
- By Anne SextonChild, the current of your breath is six days long. You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed; lie, fisted...
- By Anne SextonIt was only important to smile and hold still, to lie down beside him and to rest awhile, to be folded...
- By Marilyn NelsonThe United Negro Improvement Association, he says, his little bloodshot eyes looking out of the dark...
- By Letitia Elizabeth LandonMy hand is on the lyre which never more With its sweet commerce, like a bosom friend, Will share the...
- By Stephanie BurtComplete in ourselves, we look like scraps of paper anyway: left alone, we could tell our mothers and...
- By Anna Maria HongTo push and push with raw pink claws like hands of shin. To tunnel my love through wet earth, wet stars...
- By Langston HughesThe instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true...
- By Langston HughesMy name is Johnson— Madam Alberta K. The Madam stands for business. I’m smart that way. I had a HAIR...
- By Camille T. Dungy(February, 1841) Melinda, I've been preparing to write. That peculiar girl named Molly, who has a bit...
- By Tyehimba JessI sing this body ad libitum, Europe scraped raw between my teeth until, presto, “Ave Maria” floats to the surface from a...
- By Lucille Cliftonsomebody coming in blackness like a star and the world be a great bush on his head and his eyes be fire...