Poetry

and squander the power of the noblest gift, only to make men worse, more skeptical, and sadder? Is this your sacred calling as prophets and as artists?… Where are our enthusiasts, our dreamers, our troubadours, to sing us the meaning of the world and the splendors of nature?

— Alexandru Vlahuță · Where Are Our Dreamers

Foreign Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of Five Sisters Cass was The Most Beautiful Girl In Town

— Charles Bukowski · The Most Beautiful Woman in Town

Who is Jeremy Ward? August 12th, 1986. Hello, John. Thanks for the good letter. I

— Charles Bukowski · Letter to John Martin

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow upon the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go free. Command the last fruits to be full;

— Rainer Maria Rilke · Autumn Day

(translated by Annemarie S. Kidder) I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough to truly consecrate the hour.

— Rainer Maria Rilke · I Am Much Too Alone

I stopped looking for you I stopped waiting for you I stopped dying for you and I started dying for myself

— Leonard Cohen · I stopped looking for you

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day I would be grounded, rooted.

— Andrea Gibson · The Nutritionist

since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you;

— e.e. cummings · [since feeling is first]

Too much too little well not enough to fight too thin or nobody laughter or tears or immaculate haters lovers non-consumer an old guy in a cheap room

— Charles Bukowski · People Aren't Good (The Crunch)

Nice chance completely cut loose from purpose he was a young man riding a bus through North Carolina on the way to somewhere

— Charles Bukowski · Nirvana

Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone.

— T.S. Eliot · The Hollow Men

The wayfarer, Perceiving the pathway to truth, Was struck with astonishment. It was thickly grown with weeds.

— Stephen Crane · The Wayfarer

we had goldfish and they circled around and around in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes covering the picture window and my mother, always smiling, wanting us all

— Charles Bukowski · A Smile to Remember

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;

— Rudyard Kipling · If

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

— Mary Oliver · When I Am Among The Trees

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting

— Mary Oliver · The Journey

Long live the weeds that overwhelm My narrow vegetable realm\! – The bitter rock, the barren soil That force the son of man to toil;

— Theodore Roethke · Long Live The Weeds

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going

— Charles Bukowski · Bluebird

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.

— Robert Frost · Fire and Ice

(Keeping Quiet) Translated by Stephen Mitchell Now we will all count to twelve and we will all keep still. This one time upon the earth, let’s not speak any language, let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be a delicious moment, without hurry, without…

— Pablo Neruda · A Callarse (Keeping Quiet)

call-to-action duende love sovereignty transition vulnerability

35 poems

Poet	Poem	Written	First line	Added	Tags
Pablo Neruda	A Callarse (Keeping Quiet)	1958	(Keeping Quiet) Translated by Stephen Mitchell Now we will all count to twelve and we will all keep still. This one time upon the earth, let’s not speak any language, let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be a delicious moment, without hurry, without locomotives, all of us would be together in a sudden uneasiness. The fisherman in the cold sea would do no harm to the whales and the peasant gathering salt would look at his torn hands. Those who prepare green wars, wars of gas, wars of fire, victories without survivors, would put on clean clothing and would walk alongside their brothers in the shade, without doing a thing. What I want shouldn’t be confused with final inactivity: life alone is what matters, I want nothing to do with death. If we weren’t unanimous about keeping our lives so much in motion, if we could perhaps do nothing for once, perhaps a great silence would interrupt this sadness, this never understanding ourselves and threatening ourselves with death, perhaps the earth is teaching us when everything seems to be dead and everything is alive. Now I will count to twelve and you keep quiet and I’ll go.	Apr-23
Andrea Gibson	A Letter To The Playground Bully, From Andrea, Age 8 ½	2011	maybe there are cartwheels in your mouth	Apr-23
Charles Bukowski	A Smile to Remember		we had goldfish and they circled around and around	Jun-15
Theodore Roethke	Against Disaster	1938	Now I am out of element	Apr-23
Andrea Gibson	Ashes	2009	A couple years ago, I was told a story about a soldier who was set on fire and burned to death because he was gay. After that, I started reading similar stories about people in the GLBTQ community who were tortured or killed by being set on fire and burned. I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who had died that way and couldn’t stop wondering what they might say from where they are now.	Apr-23
Edna St. Vincent Millay	Bluebeard	1917	This door you might not open, and you did;	Apr-23
Charles Bukowski	Bluebird	1992	there's a bluebird in my heart that	Apr-23
Charles Bukowski	Creativity		You know	Jun-15
Pablo Neruda	Deber Del Poeta (Poet's Obligation)	1962	(Poet’s Obligation) [https://youtu.be/aJ8yTw2v434?si=Td99WllijelN66gf\&t=51](https://youtu.be/aJ8yTw2v434?si=Td99WllijelN66gf&t=51) Translated by Alastair Reid To whoever is not listening to the seathis Friday morning, to whoever is cooped upin house or office, factory or womanor street or mine or harsh prison cell;to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,I arrive and open the door of his prison,and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,a great fragment of thunder sets in motionthe rumble of the planet and the foam,the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.So, drawn on by my destiny,I ceaselessly must listen to and keepthe sea's lamenting in my awareness,I must feel the crash of the hard waterand gather it up in a perpetual cupso that, wherever those in prison may be,wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,I may be there with an errant wave,I may move, passing through windows,and hearing me, eyes will glance upwardsaying "How can I reach the sea?"And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,the starry echoes of the wave,a breaking up of foam and quicksand,a rustling of salt withdrawing,the grey cry of the sea-birds on the coast.So, through me, freedom and the seawill make their answer to the shuttered heart.	Apr-23
Kahlil Gibran	Defeat	1918	Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;	Apr-23
Kahlil Gibran	Do Not Love Half Lovers		Do not love half lovers	Aug-4	call-to-action duende love sovereignty
Robert Frost	Fire and Ice	1920	Some say the world will end in fire,	Apr-23
Charles Bukowski	Go All The Way	1991	If you’re going to try, go all the way.	Apr-23
Edna St. Vincent Millay	I shall forget you presently	1920	I shall forget you presently, my dear,	Apr-23
Leonard Cohen	I stopped looking for you		I stopped looking for you	Jul-9	duende love transition vulnerability
Theodore Roethke	In a Dark Time	1960	In a dark time, the eye begins to see,	Apr-23
W.E. Henley	Invictus	1875	Out of the night that covers me,	Apr-23
Naomi Shihab Nye	Kindness	1980	Before you know what kindness really is	Apr-23
Mary Oliver	Lead	2005	Here is a story	Apr-23
Theodore Roethke	Long Live The Weeds	1936	Long live the weeds that overwhelm	Apr-23
Derek Walcott	Love After Love	1976	The time will come	Apr-23
Charles Bukowski	People Aren't Good (The Crunch)		Too much too little well not enough to	Jun-15
Pablo Neruda	Pido Silencio (I Ask For Silence)	1958	(I Ask For Silence) Translated by Heidi Fischbach Now if you’d leave me in peace. Now if you’d get on without me. I am going to close my eyes And I only want five things, five favorite roots. The first is love without end. The second is to see autumn. I cannot be without leaves flying away and returning to earth. Third is grave winter, the rain I loved, the caress of a fire in a wilderness of cold. In fourth place is summertime round like a watermelon. The fifth thing is your eyes, Matilde, my love, my beloved, I don’t want to sleep without your eyes, I don’t want to be without you seeing me: I’d trade springtime for your gaze still upon me. My friends, all of that is what I want. It’s nearly nothing and almost everything. And now if you wish you may leave. So much have I lived that one day you’ll have to make yourselves forget me, erasing the blackboard of me: my heart was endless. But just because I ask for silence don’t go thinking I’m about to die: au contraire\!: it so happens I am going to be lived. It just so happens that I am and I keep being. I will not be dying for within me grains will grow, first the kernels that break through the ground to see light, but mother earth is dark: and inside me I am dark: I am like a well in whose waters the nighttime leaves her stars and goes on alone through the fields. This is about my having lived so much that I want to live another much. Never have I felt such resonance, never have I had so many kisses. Now, as always, it is early. The light takes flight with her bees. Leave me alone with this day. I ask permission to be born.	Apr-23
Pablo Neruda	Poesia (Poetry)	1964	(Poetry) And it was at that age… Poetry arrived in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don't know how or when, no they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me. I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way, deciphering that fire, and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe. And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.	Apr-23
Walt Whitman	Song Of The Open Road	1856	1	Apr-23
Robert Frost	Stopping by Woods on a Snowy…	1923	Whose woods these are I think I know.	Apr-23
T.S. Eliot	The Hollow Men	1925	Mistah Kurtz-he dead	Apr-23
Mary Oliver	The Journey	1986	One day you finally knew	Apr-23
Charles Bukowski	The Most Beautiful Woman in Town		Foreign	Jun-15
Theodore Roethke	The Waking	1953	I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.	Apr-23
Mary Oliver	When I Am Among The Trees	2006	When I am among the trees,	Apr-23
Alexandru Vlahuță	Where Are Our Dreamers	1892	I do not know — it is the melancholy of the dying century,	Jun-8
Mary Oliver	Wild Geese	1986	You do not have to be good.	Apr-23
Billy Collins	Workshop	1995	I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.	Apr-23
e.e. cummings	[since feeling is first]	1926	since feeling is first	Apr-23