Poems: A-Z First Line Index
“A equals X,” says Mister One.“At pet stores in Detroit, you can buy
“Had he and I but met
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
“I grant you ample leave
“Is my team ploughing,
“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,
“Lincoln?—
“Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died.
‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be?
Here, she said, put this on your head.
A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,
A brilliance takes up residence in flaws—
A famous battle happened in this valley.
A free bird leaps
A little black thing among the snow,
A little candlewax on the thumbnail, liquid
A man steps out of sunlight,
A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
A noiseless patient spider,
A poem should be palpable and mute
A professor invites me to his “Black Lit” class; they’re
A silver Lucifer
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
A siren sang, and Europe turned away
A strong song tows
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
A woman in the shape of a monster
Abortions will not let you forget.
About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Absorbed in planting bulbs, that work of hope,
After all, there’s no need
After his ham & cheese in the drape factory cafeteria,
After reading Ash Wednesday
Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Airport bus from JFK
Alabanza. Praise the cook with a shaven head
All evening I hunted
All Greece hates
All our roads go nowhere.
All the new thinking is about loss.
All the Sioux were defeated. Our clan
All things within this fading world hath end,
All you
Alone with our madness and favorite flower
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
Always the caravan of sound made us halt
An emerald dungeon’s blacklight glow
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
And here face down beneath the sun
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
As a sloop with a sweep of immaculate wing on her delicate spine
As I wandered on the beach
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
As we drove back, crossing the hill,
At dawn the panther of the heavens peers over the edge of the world.
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
At six I lived or spells
At the beginning the oldest man sat on the corner
At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
At the throat of Soweto
At this hour the soul floats weightlessly
At Wilshire & Santa Monica I saw an opossum
Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair,
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Back when I used to be Indian
Back when the earth was new
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
Be music, night,
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Beautifully Janet slept
because it has no pure products
Before you, I was living on an island
Behold and soak like a sponge.
Below the gardens and the darkening pines
Between the dark and the daylight,
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold,
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Break, break, break,
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Call the roller of big cigars,
Calmly we walk through this April’s day,
Cherry plums suck a week’s soak,
Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know
Cold for so long, unable to speak,
Come here’s
Come live with me and be my love,
Come up from the fields father, here’s a letter from our Pete,
Come, my Celia, let us prove,
Conchita debemos to speak totalmente in English
Constantly risking absurdity
Crowned with a feathered helmet,
Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;
Dear God, Our Heavenly Father, Gracious Lord,
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Did you sneeze?
Do not despair of man, and do not scold him,
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Do nothing and everything will be done,
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
Echo that loved hid within a wood
Elm branches radiate green heat,
Escape me?
Every city in America is approached
Every few minutes, he wants
Facing the wind of the avenues
Fair tree! for thy delightful shade
Falling to sleep last night in a deep crevasse
Farewell, too little and too lately known,
Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
Fires, always fires after midnight,
First a noise under the kitchen,
Five soldiers fixed by Mathew Brady’s eye
Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow,
For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
For my people everywhere singing their slave songs repeatedly:
Frame within frame, the evolving conversation
From a documentary on marsupials I learn
From childhood’s hour I have not been
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Gay Fashion thou Goddess so pleasing,
Give all to love;
Go and catch a falling star,
Go home. It's never what you think it is,
Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal,
Go, dumb-born book,
Go, lovely rose!
God love you now, if no one else will ever,
Had we but world enough and time,
Half a league, half a league,
Half of my life is gone, and I have let
Happy the man, whose wish and care
Hardly a ghost left to talk with. The slavs moved on
Harmonious Powers with Nature work
Have but one God: thy knees were sore
He lived—childhood summers
He thinks when we die we’ll go to China.
He wants to be
He was running with his friend from town to town.
Hearing your words, and not a word among them
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Her body is not so white as
Here is a symbol in which
Here is the grackle, people.
Here they are. The soft eyes open.
Here, above,
His clumsy body is a golden fruit
His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Hog Butcher for the World,
honey people murder mercy U.S.A.
Hopper never painted this, but here
How blest the land that counts among
How confident I am it is there. Don’t I bring it,
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
How easily happiness begins by
How many times these low feet staggered —
How much grit do you think you’ve got?
How time reverses
I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
I acknowledge my status as a stranger:
I am a feather on the bright sky
I am driving; it is dusk; Minnesota.
I am four in this photograph, standing
I am learning to abandon the world
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
I am the Smoke King
I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall
I am wondering what became of all those tall abstractions
I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
I buried my father
I came to you one rainless August night.
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed,
I don’t know somehow it seems sufficient
I don’t mind the human race.
I don't know how it happened, but I fell—
I don’t know what to say to you, neighbor,
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
I dreamed that I was old: in stale declension
I felt a Funeral in my Brain,
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I grow old under an intensity
I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
I have heard the horn of Roland goldly screaming
I have just come down from my father.
I have met them at close of day
I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;
I have not ever seen my father’s grave.
I have sown beside all waters in my day.
I have studied the tight curls on the back of your neck
I have two daughters.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
I know I promised to stop
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
I leant upon a coppice gate
I like to find
I like to touch your tattoos in complete
I met a traveller from an antique land,
I once hit clothespins
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
I remember a square of New York’s Hudson River glinting between warehouses.
I ruin my hats and all the mat slides glad
I saw the spiders marching through the air,
I see you shuffle up Washington Street
I shot an arrow into the air,
I speak this poem now with grave and level voice
I stand and listen, head bowed,
I summon up Panofskv from his bed
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
I think I should have loved you presently,
I think that I shall never see
I try to make myself afraid,
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I wake up cold, I who
I walk the purple carpet into your eye
I wander thro' each charter'd street,
I wandered lonely as a cloud
I wanted so ably
I wanted to know what it was like before we
I was ill, lying on my bed of old papers,
I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen,
I was your rebellious son,
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
I would my soul were like the bird
I’ve known rivers:
I’ll do what I must if I’m bold in real time.
I, too, sing America.
I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
If all the world and love were young,
If but some vengeful god would call to me
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If I should die, think only this of me:
if mama
If the angle of an eye is all,
If we could get the hang of it entirely
If when my wife is sleeping
If yet I have not all thy love,
If you can keep your head when all about you
If you cannot trust the dog, the faithful one?
If you undo your do you would
Imagine waking
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
In a dream I returned to the river of bees
In a field
In a solitude of the sea
In a stable of boats I lie still,
In Abraham Lincoln’s city,
In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
In his fifth year the son, deep in the backseat
in Just-
In musty light, in the thin brown air
In my craft or sullen art
In October of the year,
In that country the animals
In the backyard of our house on Norwood,
In the desert
In the laboratory waiting room
In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
In the morning of the tribe this name Ancapagari was given to
In the steamer is the trout
In this writing mine
In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine,
In view of the fading animals
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
Inside the veins there are navies setting forth,
Instead of a cup of tea, instead of a milk-
Into this net of leaves, green as old glass
It ever was allow’d, dear Madam,
It is an afternoon toward the end of August:
It is more onerous
It is not bad. Let them play.
It is portentous, and a thing of state
It only takes one night with the wind on its knees
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
It sifts from Leaden Sieves —
It was a picture I had after the war.
It was a time when they were afraid of him.
It was a way of punishing the house, setting it ablaze
It was like soul-kissing, the way the words
It was many and many a year ago,
It was midday before we noticed it was morning.
It was not death, for I stood up,
It would be neat if with the New Year
It’s in the perilous boughs of the tree
It's a scientific fact that anyone entering the distance will
It's the Fourth of July, the flags
It’s the little towns I like
Jane, Jane,
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jeremiah Dickson was a true-blue American,
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear
King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
Las casitas near the gray cannery,
Last year we went to Lissadell.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Lay down these words
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Let the light of late afternoon
Life has loveliness to sell,
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
Life, like a marble block, is given to all,
Lift ev’ry voice and sing,
Like all his people he felt at home in the forest.
Like the foghorn that’s all lung,
Lincoln?
Lions don’t need your help. In the Serengeti,
Looking into my daughter’s eyes I read
Lord’s lost Him His mockingbird,
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Love in Fantastic Triumph sat,
Love not too much. But how,
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Man, the egregious egoist,
Manic-depressive Lincoln, national hero!
Margaret, are you grieving
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
Maud went to college.
Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
Mine, said the stone,
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Most of the past is lost,
Moth-force a small town always has,
Mountains, a moment’s earth-waves rising and hollowing; the earth too’s an ephemerid; the stars—
Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All,
Mr. Kessler, you know, was in the army,
Much Madness is divinest Sense —
My bands of silk and miniver
My chalk is no longer than a chip of fingernail,
My father in the night commanding No
My father knows the proper way
My friends,
My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy,
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
My mind’s a map. A mad sea-captain drew it
My mind’s eye opens before
My mother died one summer—
My mother’s mother, widowed very young
My youth? I hear it mostly in the long, volleying
Nautilus Island’s hermit
New Year’s morning—
Newspaper says the boy killed by someone,
Nights, by the light of whatever would burn:
No coward soul is mine
No eye that sees could fail to remark you:
No moon floods the memory of that night
No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately.
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
Now comes the evening of the mind.
Now his nose’s bridge is broken, one eye
Now it hangs on the back of the kitchen chair
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Now that I have your face by heart, I look
Now you hear what the house has to say.
Now, in a breath, we’ll burst those gates of gold,
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
O Carib Isle!
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
O thou bright jewel in my aim I strive
O wearisome condition of humanity!
O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Of the sleeves, I remember their weight, like wet wool,
Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
Often visitors there, saddened
oh antic God
Oh chimes set high on the sunny tower
Oh pile of white shirts who is coming
Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! whare the crick so still and deep
Oh, Hope! thou soother sweet of human woes!
On the lawn at the villa—
Once I wasn’t always so plain.
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Once upon a time
Once you said joking slyly, If I’m killed
Once you saw a drove of young pigs
One by one they appear in
One girl a full head taller
One must have a mind of winter
Our father liked to play a game.
Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of me unworthy and unknown
Out of the deep and the dark,
Out of the night that covers me,
Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl
Pale, then enkindled,
Passing the American graveyard, for my birthday
Past the fourth cloverleaf, by dwindling roads
Pavement slipp’ry, people sneezing,
People who have no children can be hard:
Pigfoot (with Aces Under) Passes
Piping down the valleys wild,
Play the one about the family of the ducks
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
Put my glad rags in a cardboard box—
Ravished lute, sing to her virgin ears,
Reading in the paper a summary
Reptilian green the wrinkled throat,
Retired ballerinas on winter afternoons
Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,
Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Searching for pillowcases trimmed
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Shall earth no more inspire thee,
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
She fears him, and will always ask
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
She saved me. When I arrived in 6th grade,
She stands beside me, stands away,
She walks in beauty, like the night
Since I am coming to that holy room,
Since there is no escape, since at the end
Sitting between the sea and the buildings
Sky’s gray sheet spreads icy rain.
So by sixteen we move in packs
So sexy to slide under-
So, we'll go no more a roving
Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
Some say it’s in the reptilian dance
Some say the world will end in fire,
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
Somewhere, someone is asking a question,
Sorrow is my own yard
Soul and race
Stand in a field long enough, and the sounds
Stand on the highest pavement of the stair—
Starspangled cowboy
Stellar dust has settled.
Stunned heat of noon. In shade, tan, silken cows
Such a book must contain—
Summer is late, my heart.
Sundays too my father got up early
Sunset and evening star,
Surfaces serve
Swear by the olive in the God-kissed land—
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Take this kiss upon the brow!
Talent is what they say
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Tengo mucho respeto ’pa
That gaunt old man came first, his hair as white
That night your great guns, unawares,
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
The vias of Italy turn to memory with each turn
The American eagle is not aware he is
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The best job I had was moving a stone
The bud
The cursive crawl, the squared-off characters
The darkness crumbles away.
The days are dog-eared, the edges torn,
The Devil’s tour of hell did not include
The dove-white gulls
The extraordinary patience of things!
The game of baseball is not a metaphor
The Goddess who created this passing world
The gravel road rides with a slow gallop
The heavy bodies lunge, the broken language
The hounds, you know them all by name.
The house is so quiet now
The instructor said,
The last time I saw Paul Castle
The letters of the Jews as strict as flames
The light has traveled unthinkable thousands of miles to be
The lords of life, the lords of life,—
The mossy transom light, odors of cabbage
The most popular “act” in
The music was already turning sad,
The night John Henry is born an ax
The northern lights. I wouldn’t have noticed them
The poet pursues his beautiful theme;
The pure products of America
The river is famous to the fish.
The sale began—young girls were there,
The sea is calm tonight.
The simple contact with a wooden spoon and the word
The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water,
The snow is deep on the ground.
The spirit is too blunt an instrument
The summer of nineteen eighteen
The sun is folding, cars stall and rise
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The time you won your town the race
The tortures of lumbago consumed Aunt Madge,
The two of them stood in the middle water,
The way a tired Chippewa woman
The well rising without sound,
The wind blows east, the wind blows west,
The wind cooled as it crossed the open pond
The wind may blow the snow about,
The winter evening settles down
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
The world is full of mostly invisible things,
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
There are no stars tonight
There is a hornet in the room
There they are.
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
There, Robert, you have kill'd that fly — ,
There’s a truth limits man
There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House,
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
They explained to me the bloody bandages
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
They had hit Ruben
They in their cruel traps, and we in ours,
They say you can jinx a poem
they thought the field was wasting
They’d been warned
Thin are the night-skirts left behind
This dry night, nothing unusual
This is about the women of that country
This is how it’s done.
This morning a cat—bright orange—pawing at the one patch of new grass in the sand-and tanbark-colored leaves.
This old house lodges no ghosts!
This was the dictator’s land
Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme—
Those intervals
Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,
Though the road turn at last
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Timing’s everything. The vapor rises
To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
To pray you open your whole self
To prepare the body,
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
To the one who sets a second place at the table anyway.
Today the cloud shapes are terrifying,
Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
Toe after toe, a snowing flesh,
Too high, too high to pluck
Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Travel is a vanishing act
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
TWINKLE, twinkle, little star,
Two guitars were left in a room all alone
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Up the reputable walks of old established trees
Vainly my heart had with thy sorceries striven:
Ventura because she was hungry and because
Virgin, sappy, gorgeous, the right-now
Wake up,
walking down park
We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,
We have all seen them circling pastures,
We here at Progressive Health would like to thank you
We live in secret cities
We made it from the ground-up corn in the old back pasture.
We pull off
We smile at each other
We tied branches to our helmets.
We used to like talking about grief
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were very tired, we were very merry—
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
What did he do except lie
What happens to a dream deferred?
What I want most is what I deeply fear:
What if I didn’t shoot the old lady
What if we got outside ourselves and there
What is a woman that you forsake her,
What is he buzzing in my ears?
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones
What on Earth deserves our trust?
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
What say the Bells of San Blas
What the scale tells you is how much the earth
What thoughts I have of you tonight Walt Whitman, for I
What torture lurks within a single thought
What’s the French for “fiddle-de-dee”?
When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin ... in the dust, in the cool tombs.
When all my five and country senses see,
When daisies pied and violets blue
When deeds splay before us
When despair for the world grows in me
When fishes flew and forests walked
When God at first made man,
When I am asked
When I consider everything that grows
When I consider how my light is spent,
When I have fears that I may cease to be
When I know you are coming home
When I see birches bend to left and right
When I was a child I knew red miners
When I was fair and young, then favor graced me.
When love was a question, the message arrived
When Love with unconfinèd wings
When Ma Rainey
When my mother died I was very young,
When others run to windows or out of doors
When summer ended
When the cow died by the green sapling,
When the first mechanical picker had stripped the field,
When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
When the world turns completely upside down
When they knew what he had given them,
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where the slow river
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,
Who would true Valour see
Whose woods these are I think I know.
Why am I if I am uncertain reasons may inclose.
Wife and servant are the same,
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
With the warmer days the shops on Elmwood
Women have no wilderness in them,
Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
Yesterday I wanted to
You are clear
You are sitting in Mrs. Caldera’s kitchen,
You are the bread and the knife,
You charm'd me not with that fair face
You could drive blind
You don't need a pony
You knew I was coming for you, little one,
You lean toward nonexistence,
You might come here Sunday on a whim.
You saved me, you should remember me.
You sway like a crane to the tunes of tossed stones.
Your head is still
Your petitions—though they continue to bear
[BASS DRUM BEATEN LOUDLY]