Category: American Poets
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On the Subject of Doctors
I like to see doctors cough. What kind of human being would grab all your money just when you’re down? I’m not saying they enjoy this: “Sorry, Mr. Rodriguez, that’s it, no hope! You might as well hand over your wallet.” Hell no, they’d rather be playing golf and swapping jokes about our feet. Some […]
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Street View
I Google where I come from in Ireland,drag the yellow man into street viewand click the spin arrow over and overso I can see it all. When I pull him offthe control panel, above his + and – ,he flies, a patch of green hoveringbelow him, his own flying island, his littleearth shadow, smudged at the […]
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The Snow is Deep on The Ground
By Kenneth Patchen The snow is deep on the ground. Always the light fallsSoftly down on the hair of my belovèd. This is a good world.The war has failed.God shall not forget us.Who made the snow waits where love is. Only a few go mad.The sky moves in its whitenessLike the withered hand of an old […]
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Stupid Meditation on Peace by Robert Pinsky
Insomniac monkey-mind ponders the Dove,Symbol not only of Peace but sexualLove, the couple nestled and brooding. After coupling, the human animal needsThe woman safe for nine months and more.But the man after his turbulent minute or two Is expendable. Usefully rash, recklessFor defense, in his void of redundancyWilling to death and destruction. Monkey-mind envies the […]
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If You Can,t Trust the Monitors by Dorothea Lasky
If you can’t trust the monitorsThen why do they have the monitorsIf you can’t trust the carsThen why have the carsIf you can’t trust that I think you’re hotThen why do you look so goodTurning me on that way that you doIf you can’t trust the peopleThen why have the peopleIf you can’t trust the […]
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Adultery at Forty by Donald Hall
At shower’s head, high over the porcelain moonscape, a waterdrop gathers itself darkly, with hesitation, hangs, swells, shakes, looms, as if uncertain in which direction to hurl itself, and plunges to come apart at its only destination.
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Once The World Was Perfect by Joy Harjo
Once the World Was Perfect Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.Then we took it for granted.Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.And once Doubt ruptured the web,All manner of demon thoughtsJumped through—We destroyed the world we had been givenFor inspiration, […]
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Blind Curse by Simon Ortiz J.
You could drive blindfor those two secondsand they would be forever.I think that as a diesel truckpasses us eight miles east of Mission.Churning through the storm, heedlessof the hill sliding away.There isn’t much use to curse but I do.Words fly away, tumbling invisiblytoward the unseen point wherethe prairie and sky meet.The road is like that […]
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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird BY WALLACE STEVENS
1Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. 2I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. 3The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime. 4A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman […]
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Daddy by Sylvia Plath
You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoeIn which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time——Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal And […]
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One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster:places, and names, and where it […]
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The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
So much dependsupon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the whitechickens
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I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing BY WALT WHITMAN
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without […]
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Love Letter from Inside Fatherhood by Fritz Ward
Inside the trap, I spend weeks remodeling the haven you’ll haunt. Not for the joy of it, but for the wonder that keeps snapping my neck. Come December, there’s a morning when the sun slathers the bare trees in saffron and I hold you more delicately than I’ve ever held myself. See how we’ve risen […]
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September Tomatoes by karina Borowicz
The whiskey stink of rot has settled in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises when I touch the dying tomato plants. Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots and toss them in the compost. It feels cruel. Something in […]
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