Quite Excellent

The Yawn

by Paul Blackburn

The black-haired girl

with the big

                                            brown

                                                                        eyes

 on the Queens …

Occasional Poem
BY JACQUELINE WOODSON

Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem
written about something
important
or special
that's gonna happen
or already did.
Think of a specific occasion, she says…

Ars Poetica
BY ARCHIBALD MACLEISH

A poem should be palpable and mute   
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A …

“Days”
Tony Mitton

Old Day, gold day,
where did you go?

Over the skyline,
sinking low.
Into the arms
of the waiting night
to nestle myself
in its dark delight.

New day, blue day,
what will you bring?

Light in th…

“On Turning Ten”
Billy Collins

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of mea…

"If I Had Known"

By Mary Carolyn Davies

If I had known what trouble you were bearing;
What griefs were in the silence of your face;
I would have been more gentle, and more caring,
And tried to g…

Autumn
Kalidasa

The autumn comes, a maiden fair
In slenderness and grace,
With nodding rice-stems in her hair
And lilies in her face.
In flowers of grasses she is clad;
And as she moves along,
Birds greet h…

Did I Miss Anything
Tom Wayman

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent …

Does Maude Have Friends? (A Poem in Fifteen Tweets)
Raphael Bob-Waksberg

@RaphaelBW
 Does Marge have friends?

@RaphaelBW
 (a poem in fifteen tweets)

@RaphaelBW
 Who are Marge’s friends? Is Helen Lovejoy a f…

We Wear the Mask
Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with…

A Good Dog
Wesley Lydon

Tail-wagging and leash-pulling as
we lead her into her new home, let loose
she runs from the front door, runs fast
not about the house, wild, but out
into the back. Excitement pause…

The Wounded Cupid. Song
BY ANACREON
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT HERRICK

Cupid as he lay among
Roses, by a Bee was stung. 
Whereupon in anger flying
To his Mother, said thus crying; 
Help! O help! your Boy’s a dy…

Cape Cod Pantoum
Maria Nazos

Tonight you’re loaning Billy your car, a brand-new
seal-gray Volkswagen Passat with four doors,
though last week at 3 a.m., he stole your canoe,
and sank it in the autumn sea,…

Leisure
William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pa…

Death

Once he will miss, twice he will miss,
  He only chooses one of many hours;
For him nor deep nor hill there is,
  But all’s one level plain he hunts for flowers.
 

Bob Hicok
Alzheimer's

Chairs move by themselves, and books.
Grandchildren visit, stand
new and nameless, their faces’ puzzles
missing pieces. She’s like a fish 

in a deep ocean, its body made of light.
Sh…

Vachel Lindsey
RAIN

Each storm-soaked flower has a beautiful eye.
And this is the voice of the stone-cold sky:
“Only boys keep their cheeks dry.
Only boys are afraid to cry.
Men thank God for tears,
Alone w…

Richard Brautigan
IT’S RAINING IN LOVE

I don’t know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
                a lot.

It makes me nervous.
I don’t say the right things
or perhaps I start
 …

What the Spider Heard
Weldon Kees

Will there be time for eggnogs and eclogues
In the place where we’re going? 
Said the spider to the fly. 

I think not, said the fly. 
I think not, sang the chorus. 
I thin…