Attitude: Don Juan in the Shopping Mall by S. K. Kelen
Attitude: Don Juan in the Shopping Mall by S. K. Kelen Let us fly to bounty land…Aqua I Today’s Don Juan could be any of a million characters: Mohammed Hatim a wayward son of the Mujahideen, Doan Huan sporting a Da Nang pedigree, or Mario Lanza living out a serious fetish for muscle cars, Jim […]
A sense’s addiction to chocolate by SAAJIDA GORA
The sensual mouth’s craving desires are finding sweet addiction’s rapid fires, The enticing chocolate mounds of pure pleasure, melting in a fervent, passionate, river appealing rugged hazelnut mountains, swim in the oceans of chocolate fountains. Sensations so pure, desires so dreamy, A tantalizing taste, so eerily creamy. The earthy, nutty flavour splashing around, spreading sweet […]
The Sash by Sharon Olds
The Sash by Sharon Olds The first ones were attached to my dress at the waist, one on either side, right at the point where hands could clasp you and pick you up, as if you were a hot squeeze bottle of tree syrup, and the sashes that emerged like axil buds from the angles […]
One Year by Sharon Olds
One Year by Sharon Olds When I got to his marker, I sat on it, like sitting on the edge of someone’s bed and I rubbed the smooth, speckled granite. I took some tears from my jaw and neck and started to wash a corner of his stone. Then a black and amber ant ran […]
Saison Noir by Shaunna Harper
Is that Christmas falling in your hair? I can taste your past lover’s countdown kiss, I can smell the coming year; it smells like this. I drink this season’s red wine serenade; drunken romance is bliss. Your light spots me through falling feathers and snow; the instruments pick themselves up, tangle, reminisce; the songs say […]
Metamorphosis by Shaunna Harper
We jumped from the night and fell into the moon upside down in fractured dreams. He told me if I could picture it, I could live it. Reality is a broad market. He came with golden eyes, silver lips, quilted with satin like the finest-dressed mannequin. His puppet fingers dealt a card; a blow, hard. […]
La Fleur by Shaunna Harper
La Fleur by Shaunna Harper Shower rain settles on fine hair like dew, dying sunlight a halo aglow casting darkness in me, light over you. The evening is drifting with falling snow, pooling smooth marble into your pores, beautifying your every mistake, making miracles of your flaws. Autumn breathes its rustic applause as leaves once […]
Ellipsis by Shaunna Harper
In love, in letters, subversive in meaning, emphasized in casual italics, from my mind to your fingers, from soft bone to paper, the ink lingers like oil smeared between blood and tissue. For you, over and over, from font to font with changing hands that grow in time, proposing my heart in offbeat rhyme, these […]
A Eulogy by Shaunna Harper
With smoke in my mouth and a wine glaze shimmering over my eyes like a river in the wind, I wait for this home to grow old. For the windows to stream tears as they imitate the rain, for the fruit in its bowls to turn to Fool’s Gold, for the cats, perhaps, to shed […]
Tiny Warrior by Sharmagne Leland-St. John
Tiny Warrior by Sharmagne Leland-St. John You never saw the spring my love Or the red tailed hawk circling high above On feathered wings my love You only knew the snow You never saw the prairie grasses bend and blow And undulate like the shimmering indigo sea You never saw me Your eyes were closed […]
Pain Became My Friend Today © by Shannen Wrass
Pain became my friend today She showed me how to hide She’d been watching from a distance Every tear I cried Pain became my friend today She reached out her hand to me Then pulled me into darkness And introduced me to misery Pain became my friend today Emptying my heart Staying as my constant […]
Joker of the Pack by Shekhar Srinivasan
One card in a 52 pack, Is a joker with no knack, Should he be sacked for his lack, The system shall go off track, Wonder what keeps them ticking? Perhaps a tea spoon of tricking, Or a little bit of boot-licking, And a bottle full of mimicking, Smothering the scruples of honesty, Kissing the […]
Ugliest Man In Town by Shel Silverstein
Handsome guys get girls that are pretty Other guys make it cause they’re clever and witty But the only love I ever got I got out of pity cause I’m the ugliest man in town Yeah I drive down the street in a Roys Rolls car Use hundred dollar bills when I light my cigar […]
The Unicorn by Shel Silverstein
A long time ago, when the earth was green and there was more kinds of animals than you’ve ever seen, and they run around free while the world was bein’ born, and the lovliest of all was the Unicorn. There was green alligators and long-neck geese. There was humpy bumpy camels and chimpanzees. There was […]
The Perfect High by Shel Silverstein
There once was a boy named Gimmesome Roy. He was nothing like me or you. ‘Cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do. As a kid, he sat in the cellar, sniffing airplane glue. And then he smoked bananas — which was then the thing to do. He tried aspirin in […]
The Nap Taker by Shel Silverstein
No – I did not take a nap – The nap – took – me off the bed and out the window far beyond the sea, to a land where sleepy heads read only comic books and lock their naps in iron safes so that they can’t get took. And soon as I came to […]
The Boa Constrictor Song by Shel Silverstein
I’m being swallered by a Boa Constrictor a Boa Constrictor, a Boa Constrictor I’m being swallered by a Boa Constrictor and I don’t – like snakes – one bit! Oh no, he swallered my toe. Oh gee, he swallered my knee. Oh fiddle, he swallered my middle. Oh what a pest, he swallered my chest. […]
The Bagpipe Who Didn’t Say No by Shel Silverstein
It was nine o’clock at midnight at a quarter after three When a turtle met a bagpipe on the shoreside by the sea, And the turtle said, “My dearie, May I sit with you? I’m weary.” And the bagpipe didn’t say no. Said the turtle to the bagpipe, “I have walked this lonely shore, I […]
Rock ‘N’ Roll Band by Shel Silverstein
If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band, We’d travel all over the land. We’d play and we’d sing and wear spangly things. If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band. If we were a rock ‘n’ roll band, And we were up there on the stand, The people would here us and love us […]
Polly In A Porny by Shel Silverstein
Haha I kissed Polly goodnight haha as we stood at her front door Now she’s quite a proper lady so I didn’t ask for anything more But haha I was feeling oh so groovie that I went down to the movie And I sat down and guess just what I saw I saw Polly in […]
I’m So Good That I Don’t Have To Brag by Shel Silverstein
Now I’m warnin’ all you women don’t stand too close to me cause you might catch fire Now you’re talkin’ to a man in a whole other kind of bag Well I’m three parts tiger and one part snake I’ll ball you to sleep and I’ll bite you awake And I’m so good that I […]
Hug O’War by Shel Silverstein
I will not play at tug o’ war. I’d rather play at hug o’ war, Where everyone hugs Instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles And rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, And everyone grins, And everyone cuddles, And everyone wins. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems […]
Hamlet As Told On The Street by Shel Silverstein
Now Francisco and Bernardo, they was guardin’ the castle, Leanin’ on their spears, not lookin’ for no hassle, Havin’ themselves a brew or two, When out in the night they hear woo-wooo-wooo. And here comes this ghost, lookin’ ragged and rank, In a rusty suit of armor, goin’ clank, clank, clank. They say, “Hey, Mr. […]
Everybody’s Makin’ It Big But Me by Shel Silverstein
Elvis he’s a hero he’s a superstar And I hear that Paul McCartney drives a Rolls Royse car And Dylan sings for millions And I just sing for free Oh everybody’s makin’ it big but me Oh, everybody’s makin’ it big but me Everybody’s makin’ it big but me Neil Diamond sings for diamonds And […]
Dirty Ol’ Me by Shel Silverstein
Well I was sittin’ up in my crane leftin’ boulders in the rain Can’t get promoted no matter what I do Ah when the forman he comes around and he yells up from the ground He says hold that load up there for a minute or two Cause I got to check some gear down […]
Cloudy Sky by Shel Silverstein
The Moon she is a pretty girl who lives up in the stars And that old cloud he’s a great old man who loves her from afar He loves her from afar When Lady Moon smiles down on him ol’ Cloud is all a-wonder So he starts to sing to her and that’s what makes […]
Bigtime by Shel Silverstein
Hey dragged up my holly and I pull it to a town for the bigtime Hey rig down the road I tore ’em down I’m a bigtime I wheeled right in them swinging doors Out through the window with half of that store Everybody stopped and roared here comes Bigtime Lemme grab me a bottle […]
June Dreams, In January by Sidney Lanier
June Dreams, In January by Sidney Lanier “So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills, In languid palpitation, half a-swoon With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills; “Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale And […]
In Absence. by Sidney Lanier
In Absence. by Sidney Lanier I. The storm that snapped our fate’s one ship in twain Hath blown my half o’ the wreck from thine apart. O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart. I ask my God if e’en in His sweet place, Where, by […]
Corn by Sidney Lanier
Corn by Sidney Lanier To-day the woods are trembling through and through With shimmering forms, that flash before my view, Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue. The leaves that wave against my cheek caress Like women’s hands; the embracing boughs express A subtlety of mighty tenderness; The copse-depths into little noises start, […]
At First. To Charlotte Cushman. by Sidney Lanier
At First. To Charlotte Cushman. by Sidney Lanier My crippled sense fares bow’d along His uncompanioned way, And wronged by death pays life with wrong And I wake by night and dream by day. And the Morning seems but fatigued Night That hath wept his visage pale, And the healthy mark ‘twixt dark and light […]
An Evening Song. by Sidney Lanier
An Evening Song. by Sidney Lanier Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands, And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea, How long they kiss in sight of all the lands. Ah! longer, longer, we. Now in the sea’s red vintage melts the sun, As Egypt’s pearl dissolved in rosy wine, And Cleopatra […]
A Sea-Shore Grave. To M. J. L. by Sidney Lanier
A Sea-Shore Grave. To M. J. L. by Sidney Lanier By Sidney and Clifford Lanier. O wish that’s vainer than the plash Of these wave-whimsies on the shore: “Give us a pearl to fill the gash — God, let our dead friend live once more!” O wish that’s stronger than the stroke Of yelling wave […]
The Last Meeting by Siegfried Sassoon
I Because the night was falling warm and still Upon a golden day at April’s end, I thought; I will go up the hill once more To find the face of him that I have lost, And speak with him before his ghost has flown Far from the earth that might not keep him long. […]
Parted by Siegfried Sassoon
Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone And drifting roar of the town’s undertone; Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells Day’s midnight end. And from the day that’s over No flashes of delight I can recover; But only dreary winter streets, and faces […]
Elegy by Siegfried Sassoon
Your dextrous wit will haunt us long Wounding our grief with yesterday. Your laughter is a broken song; And death has found you, kind and gay. We may forget those transient things That made your charm and our delight: But loyal love has deathless wings That rise and triumph out of night. So, in the […]
A Letter Home by Siegfried Sassoon
(To Robert Graves) I Here I’m sitting in the gloom Of my quiet attic room. France goes rolling all around, Fledged with forest May has crowned. And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted, Thinking how the fighting started, Wondering when we’ll ever end it, Back to hell with Kaiser sent it, Gag the noise, pack up […]
A Dogs Love Is a Never Ending Game by Stacey Chillemi
As I stand beneath the open sky As the heat from the sun pours deep into my soul I quickly stare at the snakeskin clouds that fill the deep blue skies above “Woof! Woof!” My big blue eyes quickly gaze straight ahead Into the big green fields that circle around us Here comes my dog […]
Slant by Stephen Dunn
Slant by Stephen Dunn Yesterday, for a long while, the early morning sunlight in the trees was sufficient, replaced by a hello from a long-limbed woman pedaling her bike, whereupon the wind came up, dispersing the mosquitoes. Blessings, all. I’d come so far, it seemed, happily looking for so little. But then I saw a […]
Essay On The Personal by Stephen Dunn
Essay On The Personal by Stephen Dunn Because finally the personal is all that matters, we spend years describing stones, chairs, abandoned farmhouses— until we’re ready. Always it’s a matter of precision, what it feels like to kiss someone or to walk out the door. How good it was to practice on stones which were […]