Poems

I Am Learning to Abandon the World by Linda Pastan I am learning to abandon the world before it can abandon me. Already I have given up the moon and snow, closing my shades against the claims of white. And the world has taken my father, my friends. I have given up melodic lines of hills, moving to a flat, tuneless landscape. And every night I give my body up limb by limb, working upwards across bone, towards the heart. But morning comes with small reprieves of coffee and bir

Ode to a Drone by Amit Majmudar Hell-raiser, razor-feathered risers, windhover over Peshawar, power's joystick-blithe thousand-mile scythe, proxy executioner's proxy ax pinged by a proxy server, winged victory, pilot cipher unburdened by aught but fuel and bombs, fool of God, savage idiot savant sucking your benumbed trigger-finger gamer's thumb Today's blog poem was first published in the book, Dothead , published in 2016 by Knopf Doubleday. You can also read it again here

Things on Fire by Fatima Van Hattum A flat, so small, the stove was also the counter, the rice cooking on the back burner and the cutting board, balanced on the front, red peppers sliced thin one time, I turned my back for a minute to finish the climax to a story, you yelled the cutting board was on fire the door to the shower hit against the toilet and
 you had to turn sideways to get in 
the bathroom was through our bedroom 
I hid under the covers in the morning so your br

ABC by Robert Pinsky Any body can die, evidently. Few Go happily, irradiating joy, Knowledge, love. Many Need oblivion, painkillers, Quickest respite. Sweet time unafflicted, Various world: X=your zenith. This poem was first published in 1999, in The New York Review of Books . Click here to read it there and definitely look around--they publish lots of great poetry and review more books than any of us could possibly ever read. I love reading well-written reviews, and this s

To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse by Burlee Vang The moon will shine for God knows how long. As if it still matters. As if someone is trying to recall a dream. Believe the brain is a cage of light & rage. When it shuts off, something else switches on. There’s no better reason than now to lock the doors, the windows. Turn off the sprinklers & porch light. Save the books for fire. In darkness, we learn to read what moves along the horizon, across the periphery of a gun scope—

Song: Let Us Go Back by Vita Sackville-West Let us go back together to the hills.  Weary am I of palaces and courts,  Weary of words disloyal to my thoughts,— Come, my belovèd, let us to the hills. Let us go back together to the land,  And wander hand in hand upon the heights; Kings have we seen, and manifold delights,— Oh, my beloved, let us to the land! Lone and unshackled, let us to the road  Which holds enchantment round each hidden bend,  Our course uncompassed and our

Cherry Blossoms by Toi Derricotte I went down to mingle my breath with the breath of the cherry blossoms. There were photographers: Mothers arranging their children against gnarled old trees; a couple, hugging, asks a passerby to snap them like that, so that their love will always be caught between two friendships: ours & the friendship of the cherry trees. Oh Cherry, why can’t my poems be as beautiful? A young woman in a fur-trimmed coat sets a card table with linens, candl

Leave It All Up to Me by Major Jackson All we want is to succumb to a single kiss that will contain us like a marathon with no finish line, and if so, that we land like newspapers before sunrise, halcyon mornings like blue martinis. I am learning the steps to a foreign song: her mind was torpedo, and her body was storm, a kind of Wow . All we want is a metropolis of Sundays, an empire of hand-holding and park benches. She says, "Leave it all up to me." This poem appeared in

I Stop Writing the Poem by Tess Gallagher to fold the clothes. No matter who lives or who dies, I’m still a woman. I’ll always have plenty to do. I bring the arms of his shirt together. Nothing can stop our tenderness. I’ll get back to the poem. I’ll get back to being a woman. But for now there’s a shirt, a giant shirt in my hands, and somewhere a small girl standing next to her mother watching to see how it’s done. This poem originally appeared in Poetry East , Issue

Fire and Ice By Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. This is one of Frost’s most famous poems and a favorite for people who need (or want) to memorize a poem. I do not have much to say about this one, except that the weird rhyme scheme works: ABAABCB

Little Song for Kimberly by Alison Pelegrin Child, don’t bother tracking down your kin. Keep Out. Police line—can’t come in. Though I guess You’ll wonder why you’re mean like a Marine, Where you got them smarts. Blame it on us— Olympic liars, a.k.a. your mama’s side. We never knew there was a you, I swear. And once we did, Amanda said you died, Sent us hunting for your cremains everywhere. The ones who have you now can’t be so bad. I bet you never toddle in the dirt With a f

Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.    In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.    Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win    Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives. I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, And in the ruined trenches, lashed

Ars Poetica by Rita Dove Thirty miles to the only decent restaurant was nothing, a blink in the long dull stare of Wyoming. Halfway there the unknown but terribly important essayist yelled Stop! I wanna be in this; and walked fifteen yards onto the land before sky bore down and he came running, crying Jesus--there's nothing out there! I once met an Australian novelist who told me he never learned to cook because it robbed creative energy. What he wanted most was to be mute;

Night, Death, Mississippi by Robert Hayden I. A quavering cry. Screech-owl? Or one of them? The old man in his reek and gauntness laughs — One of them, I bet — and turns out the kitchen lamp, limping to the porch to listen in the windowless night. Be there with Boy and the rest if I was well again. Time was. Time was. White robes like moonlight In the sweetgum dark. Unbucked that one then and him squealing bloody Jesus as we cut it off. Time was. A cry? A cry all right. He h

Tonight We Die as a Family by Mohammed El-Kurd At the hospital the nurse is startled a surprise visitor: her husband’s corpse on a stretcher he arrived in the backseat of a taxi-- a makeshift hearse. There are not enough ambulances in Gaza and more than enough death. She is livid. Men never listen I told you wait till after my shift I need to tend to the wounded first I told you tonight we die as a family we were supposed to die as a family View of destruction in Rafah, sout

You Want a Social life, with Friends by Kenneth Koch You want a social life, with friends, A passionate love life and as well To work hard every day. What’s true Is of these three you may have two And two can pay you dividends But never may have three. There isn’t time enough, my friends—
 Though dawn begins, yet midnight ends—
 To find the time to have love, work, and friends.
 Michelangelo had feeling 
For Vittoria and the Ceiling
 But did he go to parties at day’s end? Ho

I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies by June Jordan Dedicated to the Poet Agostinho Neto, President of The People’s Republic of Angola: 1976 1 I will no longer lightly walk behind a one of you who fear me:                                     Be afraid. I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits and facial tics I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore and this is dedicated in particular to those who hear my footsteps or the insubstantial rattling of my g

The Occupation by Robert Bringhurst for Janet Danielson I will tell you how it was the world changed, she said --and darkness wrapped us round. I heard her clearly, though I barely heard the words. It was nearly--yes-- as if she were singing. Our job, she was saying, is not to change the world--nor even to keep it from changing. No, she was saying (the story was over already): our only job is being changed. This poem, by a Canadian poet (actually, an ex-pat American), s

For the Thief by Alison Hawthorne Deming Thank you for leaving the desk and the chair, the books, snapshots and piano. I've heard of moving van robberies-- coming home from work to percussion of empty rooms. Thank you for leaving the trapped air that softens the blunt edge of my day. What's mine--the hum of identity-- still surrounds me, though the electronics are gone and the jewelry that was too precious to wear. Thank you for not spraying the walls with coke or with piss.

Acceptance Speech by Lynn Powell The radio's replaying last night's winners and the gratitude of the glamorous, everyone thanking everybody for making everything so possible, until I want to shush the faucet, dry my hands, join in right here at the cluttered podium of the sink, and thank my mother for teaching me the true meaning of okra, my children for putting back the growl in hunger, my husband, primo uomo of dinner, for not begrudging me this starring role— without all