poems and pickaxes

pete the parrot and shakespeare by don marquis i got acquainted with a parrot named pete recently who is an interesting bird pete say...

the lesson of the moth by don marquis i was talking to a moth the other evening he was trying to break  into an electric light b...

The Altar by Charles Simic The plastic statue of the Virgin On the top of a bedroom dresser With a blackened mirror From a bad-dream ...

"To fight aloud, is very brave..." by Emily Dickinson To fight aloud, is very brave-- But gallanter , I know Who charge...

My Husband Discovers Poetry by Diane Lockward Because my husband would not read my poems, I wrote one about how I did not love him. In...

Berryman by W.S. Merwin I will tell you what he told me in the years just after the war as we then called the second world war don...

The Poet's Occasional Alternative by Grace Paley I was going to write a poem I made a pie instead      it took about the same amou...

Ars Poetica: strategy by Alicia Ostriker When the wind is against you, run faster and keep your head down. When there is a cross wind,...

Skipping the Reception  by Dean Young I don't really want to meet Burkard. Just because I like his books. He's probably disap...

Finally I Called  by Leonard Cohen Finally I called the people I didn’t want to hear from After the third ring I said I’ll let it ring...

The Sun Has Wept Rose  by Arthur Rimbaud (tr. Paul Schmidt) The sun has wept rose in the shell of your ears, The world has rolled white ...

They Hanged Him, I Said Dismissively by Dennis Brutus They hanged him, I said dismissively having no other way to say he died or that h...

I live my life in growing orbits by Rainer Maria Rilke I live my life in growing orbits which move out over the things of the world. Pe...

Sonnet XCVIII by William Shakespeare From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath pu...

Exhaustion at Sunset by Mark Strand The empty heart comes home from a busy day at the office.  And what is the empty heart to do but empty...

Assembly Line by Shu Ting (tr. Carolyn Kizer) In time's assembly line Night presses against night. We come off the factory night-shift...

Unexpected Meeting by Wislawa Szymborska (tr. Magnus J. Krynaski & Robert A. Maguire) We are very polite to each other, insist it...

Kaleidoscope by Maria Elena Cruz Varela (tr. Mairym Cruz-Bernal & Deborah Digges) All of us were there: the one who fell marked by t...

I Wonder How Many People In This City by Leonard Cohen I wonder how many people in this city live in furnished rooms. Late at night whe...

A Man In His Life by Yehuda Amichai (tr. Benjamin Harshav & Barbara Harshav) A man in his life has no time to have Time for everyth...

The Music Crept By Us by Leonard Cohen I would like to remind the management that the drinks are watered and the hat-check girl has s...

The Broken Bell  by Charles Baudelaire (tr. Wallace Fowlie) It is bitter and sweet, during winter nights, To listen, near the fire which...

Reading Myself by Robert Lowell Like millions, I took just pride and more than just, first striking matches that brought my blood to boi...

A character whose name I forget by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa This question of desire or its equivalent erupting from caudal concerns.  How a...

Slamdancing To The Blues by David Lerner there's a sadness that's better than love it fell in the air the other night little...

10 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti           I have not lain with beauty all my life                   telling over to myself                ...

Ox Cart Man by Donald Hall In October of the year, he counts potatoes dug from the brown field, counting the seed, counting the cellar...

Nursery Tale by Philip Larkin All I remember is The horseman, the moonlit hedges, The hoofbeats shut suddenly in the yard, The hand fi...

282 by Michelangelo    In such slavery, and with so much boredom, and with false conceptions and great peril to my soul, to be here sculpt...

"You, darkness..." by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy) You, darkness, of whom I am born -- I love you...

The Narrow Sea by Robert Graves With you for mast and sail and flag, And anchor never known to drag, Death's narrow but oppressive ...

To A Steam Roller by Marianne Moore The illustration is nothing to you without the application.    You lack half wit.  You crush all th...

Fountain At Tsarskoye Selo by Alexander Pushkin (tr. D.M. Thomas) The girl has dropped the urn, and broken it on a rock. Sadly the girl sit...

'I have outlived...'  by Peter Vyazemsky (tr. A. Myers) I have outlived most things and people round me and weighed the worth of...

Garden by Marina Tsvetayeva (tr. D. McDuff) Cure for this hell, This fever, send Me a garden Toward my life's end, Toward my lif...

'Freshness of words...'  by Anna Akhmatova (tr. D.M. Thomas) Freshness of words, simplicity of emotions, If we lost these, would...

Ill Luck by Charles Baudelaire (tr. Wallace Fowlie) To raise a weight so heavy, Sisyphus, we would need your courage! Although we have ...

Facet by Dean Young For weeks, I've gone unbroken but not unpunished by the quiet of zero degrees which is worse than the quiet of...

The Last Leaf by Oliver Wendell Holmes I saw him once before, As he passed by the door,      And again The pavement stones resound, ...

Don't Turn Round by Gunter Grass (tr. Michael Hamburger & Christopher Middleton) Don't go into the wood, in the wood is the ...

Giantess by Charles Baudelaire (tr. Richard Howard) Had I been there when primal Nature teemed with monstrous progeny, I would have trie...

"It's raining.  There is silence since the rain itself" by Fernando Pessoa (tr. Edwin Honig and Susan M Brown) It's rai...

Dissolver of Sugar by Jelaluddin Rumi Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me, if this is the time. Do it gently with a touch of a hand, or a ...

Portrait Of A Lady by T.S. Eliot Thou hast committed-- Fornication: but that was in another country And besides, the wench is dead.      ...

Unrequited Love Poem  by Sierra DeMulder You will be out with friends when the news of her existence will be accidentally spilled all o...

To M.B. by Joseph Brodsky (tr. George Kline) When I embraced these shoulders, I beheld the room as it was now revealed beyond us. I saw...

Favor of Alexander Balas by C.P. Cavafy (tr. Dalven) O, I am not upset that a wheel of my chariot is broken, and I have lost a foolish v...

Infidelity by C.P. Cavafy (tr. Dalven) At the nuptial banquet of Thetis and Peleus Apollo rose from the sumptuous marriage table, and g...

Monotony C.P. Cavafy (tr. Dalven) One monotonous day follows another identical monotony. The same things will happen, they will happen ...

Theatre Impressions by Wislawa Szymborska (trans. by Krynski & Maguire) For me a tragedy's most important act is the sixth: the ...

"We believe books, music, poetry..." by Anatoly Sergeyevich Steiger We believe books, music, poetry; We believe dreams that we...

The Face Of A Woman by Ali Ahmed Said [a.k.a. Adonis] (trans. by Kamal Abu-Deeb) I dwell in the face of a woman who dwells in a wave f...

Villanelle: The Psychological Hour by Ezra Pound I I had over-prepared the event, that much was ominous. With middle-ageing care I ha...

Things That Might Have Been by Jorge Luis Borges (tr. A. S. Kline) I think of things that weren't, but might have been. The treatise...

In the Heart of the Desert by Al-Tirimmah (tr. Omar S. Pound) A foolish man rides here with my saddle and on my camel.

Elizabeth Hoar by Ralph Waldo Emerson Almost I am tempted to essay For sympathetic eyes the portraiture Of the good angels that environ...

A Traveler at Night Writes His Thoughts by Tu Fu (tr. Watson) Delicate grasses, faint wind on the bank; stark mast, a lone night boat: ...

Tale of the Assyrian Statue by Mahmoud al-Buraikan (tr. Lena Jayyusi and Naomi Shihab Nye) In a glass room In a museum that squats in...

Nicholas, The Experimental Dog by Raymond Queneau (tr. Rexroth) Nicholas You ran away from the hospital They told you you weren’t sick ...

The Room by Vladimir Nabokov The room a dying poet took at nightfall in a dead hotel had both directories -- the Book of Heaven and th...

"Many red devils..."  by Stephen Crane Many red devils ran from my heart And out upon the page. They were so tiny The pen co...

(Dedications) by Adrienne Rich I know you are reading this poem late, before leaving your office of the one intense yellow lamp-spot an...

Decisions by Boris Novak (tr. Dintinjana) Between two words choose the quieter one. Between word and silence choose listening. Betw...

from "Grapefruit" by Yoko Ono ANNOUNCEMENT PIECE I Give death announcements each time you move instead of giving announcemen...

"Of all your forgotten ones..." by Lea Goldberg (tr. Back) Of all your forgotten ones I am the most forgotten. Of all the fac...

Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thoug...

Child by Sylvia Plath Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing. I want to fill it with color and ducks, The zoo of the new ...

Vocation by Sandra Beasley For six months I dealt Baccarat in a casino. For six months I played Brahms in a mall. For six months I arra...

The Juggler at Heaven's Gate by Raymond Carver Behind the dirty table where Kristofferson is having breakfast, there's  a window...

As The Mist Leaves  No Scar by Leonard Cohen As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill, So my body leaves no scar On you, nor...

Postscriptum by Joseph Brodsky (tr. George Kline) How sad that my life has not come to mean for you what your life came to mean for me. ...

Breakfast by Jacques Prévert (tr. Lawrence Ferlinghetti) He put the coffee In the cup He put the milk In the cup of coffee He put th...

Despair Is Seated On A Bench by Jacques Prévert (tr. Lawrence Ferlinghetti) In a square on a bench There's a man who calls you when ...

One Night I Burned by Leonard Cohen One night I burned the house I loved, It lit a perfect ring In which I saw some weeds and stone Be...

Love Is A Fire by Leonard Cohen Love is a fire It burns everyone It disfigures everyone It is the world's excuse for being ugly

Waking Dreams 6 by Mina Assadi (tr. Niloufar Talebi) After rain           there will be rain After loneliness           loneliness Af...

To Fate by Charles Simic You were always more real to me than God. Setting up the props for a tragedy, Hammering the nails in With onl...

Kazoo Wedding by Charles Simic The groom is red-cheeked as he blows into a kazoo And so is the bride as she blows one too. The guests a...

Department Of Complaints by Charles Simic Where you are destined to turn up Some dark winter day Walking up and down dead escalators S...

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...