Blue Umbrellas (D.J. Enright)
Blue umbrellas by D. J. Enright ‘The thing that makes a blue umbrella with its tail – how do you call it?’ you ask. Poorly and pale Comes my answer. For all I can call it is peacock. Now that you go...
View ArticleThe Day She Died (Christine Coates)
The day she died Tonight, as I walk, midnight swallows me on a road only I can see. Night blades its way to my tongue – a dance that tastes like old tin. Midnight swallows me tonight – the last of the...
View ArticleCheerfulness Taught by Reason (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Cheerfulness Taught by Reason By Elizabeth Barrett Browning I think we are too ready with complaint In this fair world of God’s. Had we no hope Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope Of yon gray blank...
View ArticleI had a hippopotamus (Patrick Barrington)
I had a Hippopotamus I had a Hippopotamus, I kept him in a shed And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread I made him my companion on many cheery walks And had his portrait done by a celebrity in...
View ArticleYour Laughter (Pablo Neruda)
Your Laughter Take bread away from me, if you wish, take air away, but do not take from me your laughter. Do not take away the rose, the lance flower that you pluck, the water that suddenly bursts...
View ArticleWriter Mom Haiku
Writer Mom Haiku Dishwasher running Washing machine laundering Cursor blinking, waits by Ellen Mandeville, illustrated by Corrie Haffly If you’re just joining me on my Conquer-My-Fear-Of-Poetry month...
View ArticleLament for a Boy (Jamie Calloway-Hanauer)
This lament is written for Jeremy, Jamie’s son, gone too soon from SIDS. Lament Why, oh God, have you have ripped him from my bosom, torn him from my womb? No better than a thief, you have emptied...
View ArticleKindness (Naomi Shihab Nye)
Kindness Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully...
View ArticleWhen You Are Old (William Butler Yeats)
When You Are Old When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;...
View ArticleThirsty (Karen Dabaghian)
A few years ago, Karen Dabaghian took a class on the Psalms. The course involved reading the Psalms deeply, and then writing their own poems of response. The experience was life-changing for Karen. In...
View ArticleHornbill (Arthur Attwell)
Hornbill Tockus flavirostris We know you at our campsites, your great moon-beak swinging like a bludgeon from your small, grey head, the crazy fruit of acacia trees, the bogey’s pod swelled with...
View ArticleO God, Our Help in Ages Past (Isaac Watts)
Our God, Our Help in Ages Past Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home. Under the shadow of Thy throne Thy saints have dwelt...
View ArticlePied Beauty (Gerald Manley Hopkins)
Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’...
View ArticleAdventures of Isabel (Ogden Nash)
Adventures of Isabel Isabel met an enormous bear, Isabel, Isabel, didn’t care; The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous, The bear’s big mouth was cruel and cavernous. The bear said, Isabel, glad to...
View ArticleStaying Power (Jeanne Murray Walker)
Staying Power In appreciation of Maxim Gorky at the International Convention of Atheists, 1929 Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts outside to the yard and question the sky, longing to have...
View ArticleIf (Rudyard Kipling)
If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;...
View ArticleCaged Bird (Maya Angelou)
Caged Bird A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks...
View ArticleKaleidoscope (Helen Wieger)
Kaleidoscope There is this beautiful deep down that is real whole beautiful like the kaleidoscope you have broken parts raw edges needs...
View ArticleMorning Poem (Mary Oliver)
Morning Poem Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches — and the ponds...
View ArticleAs The Ruin Falls (CS Lewis)
As The Ruin Falls All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through: I want God, you, all friends,...
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