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...
Explore Poems: Summer
Showing 1-20 of 254 poems
- By Reginald Dwayne Betts[An Outline for a Film]
A woman leans against a man who leans
against a brick wall watching cars stop like dead men
on this one-way street. Some dude glares
like O-Dog from Menace, his face towards some street
we'll never remember where a man... - By Alvin FeinmanThis this will it always be, and why
To ever argue for: here walking
In its life, or sprawled, or loitering
Down shallow valleys of the lawn:
The trees that are there
The pigeon bobbing through
Its fallowgray ellipse of ground—
The comfort of this ground
Is physical:... - By Rachel Tzvia Back1
The cyclamens have a hard time
breathing in July.
The sun ravages them and earth
is too dry.
Still, try remembering March light
and the tight
deep-buried bulbs that somehow
do not die.
2
The children are scattered
like weeds.
The children are scattered dust-colored
dirt-covered
like weeds. Mid-summer grey reigns,
and rain
exists not... - By Rachel Tzvia BackIn the capital the women are fasting.
50 days for the 50 day war
in a white tent on burning pavement
outside the prime minister’s residence.
Mid-afternoon heat seals them in
its unforgiving. Crouching beside them
all the while, the broad-backed presence
of absent sons, until they... - By Rachel Tzvia BackIn the south we are busy now
slaughtering each other, there's no time
for flowers––
Slowly summer will
scalding pass, autumn will
arrive unnoticed.
If only rain would come to
send us all indoors––
There to stand
at ruined thresholds and
watch the yellow sky
weep and weep
for all our dead. - By Linda Rodriguezthat I smile too widely,
grinning really, and laugh
too loud and often; that I walk
with spring and sensual sway;
that I stretch myself and twist
like a cat
baking in the backyard
brightness; that my brain is sun-bleached,
all rule and thought boiled away, leaving
only sensory... - By Nikki GiovanniI always like summer
best
you can eat fresh corn
from daddy's garden
and okra
and greens
and cabbage
and lots of
barbecue
and buttermilk
and homemade ice-cream
at the church picnic
and listen to
gospel music
outside
at the church
homecoming
and you go to the mountains with
your grandmother
and go barefooted
and be warm
all the time
not only... - By Kwoya Fagin MaplesMy brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.
The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money.... - By Ed Robersonstrophe
Faraway trains distant planes
the din permeating streets... - By Annie FinchOur voices press
from us
and twine
around the year's
fermenting wine
Yellow fall roars
Over the ground.
Loud, in the leafy sun that pours
Liquid through doors,
Yellow, the leaves twist down
as the winding
of the vine
pulls our curling
voices—
Glowing in wind and change,
The orange leaf tells
How one more season... - By E. E. Cummingswhat if a much of a which of a wind
gives truth to the summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
and yanks immortal stars awry?
Blow king to beggar and queen to seem
(blow friend to fiend:blow space to time)
—when skies are hanged... - By Joseph MasseySober for once, for what—
for the words to budge.
We spent summer propped up
by each other's stuttering.
There are seasons here
if you squint. And there's
relief in the landscape's
sloughed off cusps of color
fallen over the familiar
landmarks, the familiar
trash—things that last. - By Jose Hernandez DiazA mango fell from a tree into a jaguar’s paws. It was late summer. The jaguar devoured the fruit and ran into the ocean. The ocean was turquoise like the August sky. The jaguar swam underwater for a...
- By Jose Hernandez DiazA jaguar sat in a tree. It was midsummer. The sun was shining fiercely. The jaguar was a golden color with plenty of brown spots. Then the ghost of Emiliano Zapata walked by. He was in full uniform,...
- By Robert WrigleyMore oblique the eagle’s angle
than the osprey’s precipitous fall,
but rose up both and under them dangled
a trout, the point of it all.
Festooned, a limb on each one’s
favored tree either side of the river,
with chains of bone and lace of skin
the... - By Kit FanIt was summer in Hokkaido.
The forest stole the wind
and I swallowed my footsteps.
Nobody came to the springs.
Butt naked I sat... - By Sy HoahwahIn the month of cleaning family plots, I learned football among graves. All summer, fangs were plentiful. I fed only on fruit and acorns next to a nest built in a discarded doll marking the 50-yard line.
... - By Alyse KnorrBetween us bobs the baby, solemn in her infant wet suit.
The pool is the only place where
screaming does not indicate terror.
The neighbor’s pansy beds—O to lie down in those beds
and doze. Greener than grass, says Sappho,
originator of envy.
My... - By Robert FrancisWhat I remember is the ebb and flow of sound
That summer morning as the mower came and went
And came again, crescendo and diminuendo,
And always when the sound was loudest how it ceased
A moment while he backed the horses for the...