(Inner Tube) by Michael Ondaatje
On the warm July river head back upside down river for a roof slowly paddling towards an estuary between trees there’s a dog learning to swim near me friends on shore my head dips back to the eyebrow I’m the prow on an ancient vessel, this afternoon I’m going down to Peru soul between my […]
Elizabeth by Michael Ondaatje
Elizabeth by Michael Ondaatje Catch, my Uncle Jack said and oh I caught this huge apple red as Mrs Kelly’s bum. It’s red as Mrs Kelly’s bum, I said and Daddy roared and swung me on his stomach with a heave. Then I hid the apple in my room till it shrunk like a face […]
Bearhug by Michael Ondaatje
Bearhug by Michael Ondaatje Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight I yell ok. Finish something I’m doing, then something else, walk slowly round the corner to my son’s room. He is standing arms outstretched waiting for a bearhug. Grinning. Why do I give my emotion an animal’s name, give it that dark squeeze […]
Application For A Driving License by Michael Ondaatje
Application For A Driving License by Michael Ondaatje Two birds loved in a flurry of red feathers like a burst cottonball, continuing while I drove over them. I am a good driver, nothing shocks me. End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave Talking […]
Woman Work by Maya Angelou
I’ve got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I’ve got shirts to press The tots to dress The can to be cut I gotta clean up this […]
When You Come by Maya Angelou
When you come to me, unbidden, Beckoning me To long-ago rooms, Where memories lie. Offering me, as to a child, an attic, Gatherings of days too few. Baubles of stolen kisses. Trinkets of borrowed loves. Trunks of secret words, End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s […]
Woman With Parasol by Martin Willitts Jr.
Woman With Parasol by Martin Willitts Jr. (Based on Claude Monet’s painting, “Woman with Parasol”) (The models for this painting were Camille Monet and Her Son Jean) I.The artist There is no hurry here. She has been standing like this, a parasol shading her from the sun so her skin does not turn leathery from […]
Woman With Parasol by Martin Willitts Jr.
Woman With Parasol by Martin Willitts Jr. (Based on Claude Monet’s painting, “Woman with Parasol”) (The models for this painting were Camille Monet and Her Son Jean) I.The artist There is no hurry here. She has been standing like this, a parasol shading her from the sun so her skin does not turn leathery from […]
The Dreadful Has Already Happened by Mark Strand
The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly. They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air. Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun. A small band is playing old fashioned marches. My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot. My father […]
The Dreadful Has Already Happened by Mark Strand
The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly. They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air. Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun. A small band is playing old fashioned marches. My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot. My father […]
Courtship by Mark Strand
There is a girl you like so you tell her your penis is big, but that you cannot get yourself to use it. Its demands are ridiculous, you say, even self-defeating, but to be honored, somehow, briefly, inconspicuously in the dark. When she closes her eyes in horror, you take it all back. You tell […]
The Steeple-Jack by Marianne Moore
Dürer would have seen a reason for living in a town like this, with eight stranded whales to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house on a fine day, from water etched with waves as formal as the scales on a fish. One by one in two’s and three’s, the seagulls […]
Peter by Marianne Moore
Strong and slippery, built for the midnight grass-party confronted by four cats, he sleeps his time away– the detached first claw on the foreleg corresponding to the thumb, retracted to its tip; the small tuft of fronds or katydid-legs above each eye numbering all units in each group; the shadbones regularly set about the mouth […]
Passion by Sera Jacob
What I chose among the pearls, Where I stopped by the horizon, Why I paused to look at the roaring waves, When the raindrops kissed my cheek, Soil succumbed the shells turning grey, Debris waltzed beneath the moisture, Letting sands tick-tock the beat, Rapt droplets on the petals glistened, Leaves were strewn over the trodden […]
My Daughter at 14, Christmas Dance, 1981 by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Panic in your face, you write questions to ask him. When he arrives, you are serene, your fear unbetrayed. How unlike me you are. After the dance, I see your happiness; he holds your hand. Though you barely speak, your body pulses messages I can read all too well. He kisses you goodnight, his body […]
If you should tire of loving me by Margaret Widdemer
If you should tire of loving me by Margaret Widdemer If you should tire of loving me Some one of our far days, Oh, never start to hide your heart Or cover thought with praise. For every word you would not say Be sure my heart has heard, So go from me all silently Without […]
Woman by Manmohan Acharya
O! Poet Bumblebee, please don’t repeat such poetry which are hummed by the dancing rhythm of the sweet sounds coming out of the bangles and leg ornaments having small bells, of the prostitutes. The lady laborers are living cursed lives. They are working very hard in impassable mines and dangerous forests, bathing with their tears […]
The Husband’s Black Hands by Mallika Sengupta
The moment she tucks in the mosquito net and goes to bed, her husband’s black hands fumble after the snakes and frogs of her body: “You’re hurting me! Let go!” In anger, those black hands twist her breasts. He says, “Listen here, Sweta, don’t be coy. If ever I find even the evening star gesturing […]
The Eve of Saint Agnes by Malcolm Massiah
The Eve of Saint Agnes by Malcolm Massiah ‘Twas on the eve of St Agnes’ Day, When young virgin’s minds fly astray; Stacey lay her body bare To January’s freezing air. She cast her liquid ebon eyes, Up to the boundless starry skies, Hoping to find in that heavenly place, The image of her true […]
Sonnet V by Mahmoud Darwish
I touch you as a lonely violin touches the suburbs of the faraway place patiently the river asks for its share of the drizzle and, bit by bit, a tomorrow passing in poems approaches so I carry faraway’s land and it carries me on travel’s road On a mare made of your virtues, my soul […]
Rita And The Rifle by Mahmoud Darwish
Between Rita and my eyes There is a rifle And whoever knows Rita Kneels and plays To the divinity in those honey-colored eyes And I kissed Rita When she was young And I remember how she approached And how my arm covered the loveliest of braids And I remember Rita The way a sparrow remembers […]
Psalm 9 by Mahmoud Darwish
O rose beyond the reach of time and of the senses O kiss enveloped in the scarves of all the winds surprise me with one dream that my madness will recoil from you Recoiling from you In order to approach you I discovered time Approaching you in order to recoil form you I discovered my […]
Snake Pit by Muralidharan Mudaliar
A snake pit In bits and pieces And phases and leases You Reveal its hem and hilt Its frills and fancies Soft folds and ( dark) peaks Its wet crevices Its secret passages And honeyed recesses Later late and wise Deep deep down Among shriveled folds I realize I am stuck To wallow in this […]
The Shadow of Crows by Ndue Ukaj
The Shadow of Crows In the island of cordiality solitude is bitter And the broken structure of sex In the river of time was crawling I didn’t recognise Homer and his blindness With the steps of Achilles I measure the current time And the kilometers beyond Ithaca Your azured bulb becomes lost in the nudity […]
The Freedom Of Poetry by Ndue Ukaj
The Freedom Of Poetry The angels are descending slowly, Softly Quietly With love Over your fiery letters Kissing only the pain that you know Kissing only the love that you see Kissing the solitude touched only by you Caressing the Oh of the bountiful spirit The brave poetry. Then slowly and slowly Caressing your stonelike […]
Eucalyptus Grove, morning by Neal Dachstadter
Eucalyptus Grove, morning by Neal Dachstadter Eucalyptus Grove, morning Quiet Eucalyptus Grove In the shallows Of the cove Root and trunk and branches wove ‘Mid a muddy treasure trove. Well – appointed campus lake; Wealthy waters, rich to slake Duck and egret, fish and snake. Silent Eucalyptus brake! Peaceful while thy land was French Peaceful […]
The Woman From The Archive by Nijole Miliauskaite
a woman of indeterminate age in the fading light hands folded on her lap those same days those same faces a current carried on and on hair full of archival dust dishevelled, calligraphic writing, deeply hidden sadness on the window a bouquet of dried meadow flowers, barely fragrant in the fading light you turn and […]
The Walk by Noel Angelo Hurley
I enjoyed our walk today over the hills Where splendid colours danced on leaves The smell of wet trees and daffodils The confident kiss of Summer’s breeze We sat for a while, drank cold tea and laughed Remember, the radio played a song by Cliff “Poor man’s Elvis” you said, acting daft But these miss […]
Rainy Day by Nikhil Jain
On one morning, As it was raining, While the drops and road were chattering, But I was only wandering, Walking on the foot, Since Sadness was only the root, But the blessings falling from heaven, Make me feel so even, So many puddles on the road, Some so narrow and some so broad, The path […]
The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith
The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid, And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed: Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, where every sport could please, How often have I loitered […]
Palms and Hearts by Olawuyi Mutiu
BBC Blows blasted cases By egotists – termed leaders; Censoring for the fools… Date: the only honey that plant grooms in tick desert with no spoiling date. Word Used to create the orb; And things within and without; And for steering beings… My Reading Room: Paints my page with reed; Tames my palm to speak […]
My Invisible Valentine by Nin Andrews
Facts off CNN, February 14 84% of Americans say they’re in love this morning. 16% say they’re not. No undecideds, unlike every other poll. People are evenly divided over whether Valentine’s Day matters, though one reporter said she felt sorry for all those who have nobody to be their valentine. Even if it’s true that […]
Living with Cancer by Nin Andrews
Who says there is no healing? Just the other morning my cousin showed me her saline breasts. In a matter of weeks the nipples will be tattooed on. Size double C, she smirks. Just like my adolescent dream. So it doesn’t hurt when the body screams, she becomes a body without a mind, a mind […]
I was born with a cry by Nur Al-Alam
I was born with a cry by Nur Al-Alam O my Beloved! I was born with a cry. Didn’t know why? Perhaps, for separation from heaven above, Or maybe, for safety, protection and love. But before knowing where I was landed, What was I signed-up for, Even before a tear was dropped, Blessed was I, […]
From: The Home We Will Never Live In That Place by Nijole Miliauskaite
that place, where one spring we saw a grass snake – greenish gold where a forest stream curled around a meadow, laughing; fallen trees lay rotting, not touched by anyone so warm and green that place, where for the first time, I saw a grass snake – his gold crown all that is gone now […]
Femme Fatale by Nijole Miliauskaite
how simply this river flows winding its way through the meadows how simply this river flows holding a full embrace of wheat before us how simply it carries our obedient and trusting bodies *** like that girl asleep in a red shell rocked by the waves in the moonlight you sleep peacefully in his arms […]
Cambodian Flower by Norma Martiri
Cambodian Flower by Norma Martiri Falling petals brush her face Fantasies fill time and space. Mae’s soft kisses touch her cheeks A kind whisper quietly speaks. Desperation tugs and bays Darkness fills the longest days. Sweaty faces, frenzied hands Sunny beaches, waves and sands. Dirty kisses lick her neck Torture keeps rebels in check. Favourite […]
The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith
The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visits paid, And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed: Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, where every sport could please, How often have I loitered […]
What Work Is by Philip Levine
What Work Is by Philip Levine We stand in the rain in a long line waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is–if you’re old enough to read this you know what work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, shifting from one foot to […]
Waking In March by Philip Levine
Waking In March by Philip Levine Last night, again, I dreamed my children were back at home, small boys huddled in their separate beds, and I went from one to the other listening to their breathing — regular, almost soundless — until a white light hardened against the bedroom wall, the light of Los Angeles […]