poems and pickaxes

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? by A.E. Housman He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to ...

Consolation by Wislawa Szymborska Darwin. They say he read novels to relax, But only certain kinds: nothing that ended unhappily. If ...

The Problem by Richard Siken The problem (if there was one) was simply a problem with the question. He wants to paint a bird, needs to, a...

If I Could Tell You by W.H. Auden Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell yo...

An Unacceptable Smile by Kostas Montis (tr. Amaranth Sitas & Charles Dodd) I do not know how far the rights of a mirror reach, I do ...

Casabianca by Elizabeth Bishop  Love's the boy stood on the burning deck  trying to recite "The boy stood on  the burning deck...

Kites by Kostas Montis (tr. Amaranth Sitas & Charles Dodd) We are kites, kites caught on the electric wires, with those broken stri...

Those Who Love by Sara Teasdale Those who love the most, Do not talk of their love, Francesca, Guinevere, Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise, ...

The Eyes Of The Poor by Charles Baudelaire Ah! So you would like to know why I hate you today? It will certainly be harder for you to und...

Fundamental Difference by Yannis Ritsos (tr. Minas Savvas) In the middle of the road they got hungry.  They sat down      for their lunc...

That Which Remains by Adriana Ierodiakonou (tr. Thanasis Maskaleris) That which remains most is what leaves us      As the nothing is m...

"I'm Nobody!..." (288) by Emily Dickinson I'm Nobody!  Who are you? Are you--Nobody--Too? Then there's a pair of ...

The Obligation to Be Happy by Linda Pastan It is more onerous than the rites of beauty or housework, harder than love. But you expect ...

Parable Of The Russian Émigrés  by Zbigniew Herbert (tr. Peter Dale Scott) It was the year twenty or perhaps twenty-one the Russian émi...

Late Fragment by Christian Wiman How to say this-- my silences were not always mine: scrabbled hole and the dark beyond, vaporous pond...

Desert Places by Robert Frost Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost ...

Food For Prophets by Gunter Grass (tr. Anselm Hollo) When the locusts occupied our town, no milk came to the door, the dailies suffocate...

Winter: My Secret by Christina Rossetti I tell my secret? No indeed, not I: Perhaps some day, who knows? But not today; it froze, and ...

Queen Victoria And Me by Leonard Cohen Queen Victoria my father and all his tobacco loved you I love you too in all your forms the sl...

A Waking by Octavio Paz (tr. Eliot Weinberger) I was walled inside a dream. Its walls had no consistency, no weight: its emptiness was...

The Flowers That I Left In The Ground by Leonard Cohen The flowers that I left in the ground, that I did not gather for you, today I b...

Possibilities by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Where are the Poets, unto whom belong The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent ...

"The brain within its groove.."  by Emily Dickinson The brain within its groove Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swe...

The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself;...

This Is a Photograph of Me by Margaret Atwood It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be a smeared print: blurred lines and g...

Wrestling With The Angel by Jacques Prévert (tr. Benedikt) Don't bother The fight's fixed The match is rigged and when he or s...

A Forge, and a Scythe by Raymond Carver One minute I had the windows open and the sun was out. Warm breezes blew through the room. (I ...

Feeling Fucked Up by Etheridge Knight Lord she's gone done left me done packed/up and split and I with no way to make her come back...

In The Lobby of the Hotel del Mayo by Raymond Carver The girl in the lobby reading a leather-bound book. The man in the lobby using a br...

Unanswered Letter by Tess Gallagher Your silence is leaning toward judgment. Yesterday I bragged, writing to calm my paranoid friend, ...

Love at First Sight by Wislawa Szymborska (tr. Baranczak & Cavanagh) They’re both convinced that a sudden passion joined them. Such...

The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students by Galwlay Kinnell Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me snapsh...

Solitude by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Edward Snow) Solitude is like a rain. It rises from the sea toward evening; from plains, which are ...

It Is The Season by Josephine Jacobsen when we learn or do not learn to say goodbye. The crone leaves that as green virgins opened t...

Between Going And Staying by Octavio Paz Between going and staying the day wavers, in love with its own transparency. The circular a...

The Burning of The Books by Bertolt Brecht When the Regime commanded that books with harmful knowledge Should be publicly burned on all...

The Christmas Star by Gabriela Mistral (tr. Maria Giachetti) A little girl comes running, she caught and carries a star. She goes flyi...

Doria (Dorian Girl) by Ezra Pound Be in me as the eternal moods              of the bleak wind, and not As transient things are--     ...

It Must Have Been The Spirits  by C.P. Cavafy (tr. Daniel Mendelsohn) It must have been the spirits that I drank last night, it must hav...

A Fairly Sad Tale by Dorothy Parker I think that I shall never know Why I am thus, and I am so. Around me, other girls inspire In me...

To Tu Fu From Shantung by Li Po You ask how I spend my time– I nestle against a treetrunk and listen to autumn winds in the pines all ...

Balance by Adam Zagajewski (translated by Clare Cavanagh) I watched the arctic landscape from above and thought of nothing, lovely noth...

Banking by Cara Benson Sometimes I pick up the phone and there is a person the person speaks. Sometimes I have spoken first and I say thing...

My Strip Club by Denise Duhamel In my strip club the girls crawl on stage wearing overalls and turtlenecks then slowly pull on glov...

Unexpected Dangers by Louise Erdrich I'm much the worse for wear, it's double true. Too many incidents a man might misconstrue...

DSS Dream by Martin Espada I dreamed the Department of Social Services came to the door and said: "We understand you have a baby,...

A Poem Of That Man by George Makris (tr. Nanos Valaoritis) At dawn when laughter and dream have vanished, in a wooden shack, I, under a...

Side 32 by Victor Hernandez Cruz I am glad that I am not one of those Big Con Edison pipes that sits by the River crying smoke I am gl...

When by Miltos Sachtouris (tr. Dino Siotis) When I close my eyes my beloved starts out from faraway she comes and looks at me

Individuality by Paul Klee (tr. Anselm Hollo) Individuality? is not of the substance of elements. It is an organism, indivisibly occup...

Spleen by Charles Baudelaire (tr. Sir John Squire) When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid Upon the spirit aching for the light And al...

Should, Should Not by Czeslaw Milosz A man should not love the moon. An ax should not lose weight in his hand. His garden should smell o...

Introduction To Poetry by Billy Collins I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear agai...

To Paint The Portrait Of A Bird by Jacques Prevert (tr. John Dixon Hunt) Paint first a cage with an open door paint then something pre...

Presentiment by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Edward Snow) I am like a flag surrounded by distances. I sense the winds that are coming, and mu...

What Birds by Pedro Salinas (tr Willis Barnstone) Birds?  Birds? Is there only one bird in the world flying with a thousand wings, sing...

from Attempt At A Description Of A Supper Of Various Heads In Paaris, France by Jacques Prevert (tr. Michael Benedikt) The sun shines fo...

A Man Feared by Stephen Crane A man feared that he might find an assassin; Another that he might find a victim. One was more wise than ...

Asides by Paul Valéry (tr. William Jay Smith What do you do?  Why, everything. What are you worth?  Worth, well, The worth of mastery a...

The Quiet Life by Alexander Pope HAPPY the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air   ...

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota by James Wright Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly, Asleep on...

Heat by Denis Johnson Here in the electric dusk your naked lover tips the glass high and the ice cubes fall against her teeth. It's...

excerpt from 'Denity Crisis by Christopher Durang When I was eight years old, someone brought me to this... theatre. Full of lots of ...

Song by Brigit Pegeen Kelly Listen: there was a goat’s head hanging by ropes in a tree. All night it hung there and sang. And those who ...

The Way It Is by William Stafford There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder a...

Death comes to me again, a girl by Dorianne Laux Death comes to me again, a girl in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling. It’s not so terr...

Wait by Andrew Bird Wait, don't go too early You're tired but everyone's tired But no one is tired enough Only wait a litt...

The Voice Of Robert Desnos by Robert Desnos So like a flower and a current of air the flow of water fleeting shadows the smile glimpsed...

Nest by Claire Gheerardyn He said, When I arrived in Hungary, a basket was my most precious possession, a basket woven out of chestnut ...

Too Many Names by Pablo Neruda Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays and the week with the whole year. Time cannot be cut with your weary s...

He Said Turn Here by Dean Young and then Tony showed us the lake where he had thrown some of his sadness last summer and it had dissolv...