A Sleepless Night
by Philip Levine
April, and the last of the plum blossoms
scatters on the black grass
before dawn. The sycamore, the lime,
the struck pine inhale
the first pale hints of sky.
An iron day,
I think, yet it will come
dazzling, the light
rise from the belly of leaves and pour
burning from the cups
of poppies.
The mockingbird squawks
from his perch, fidgets,
and settles back. The snail, awake
for good, trembles from his shell
and sets sail for China. My hand dances
in the memory of a million vanished stars.
A man has every place to lay his head.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Алексей Толстой – Шумит на дворе непогода
- Владимир Степанов – В лесу осиновом
- Cinderella by Roald Dahl
- The Alchemist in the City poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- All Saints Day 1868
- Ode To Psyche poem – John Keats poems
- Robert Burns: Elegy On The Year 1788:
- At Bessemer by Philip Levine
- What’s wrong with volunteering?
- Fareweel To A’Our Scottish Fame by Robert Burns
- The Road To Ruin by Siegfried Sassoon
- The Rhyme of the Three Sealers by Rudyard Kipling
- The Woodlark poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Sonnet CXXVIII by William Shakespeare
- Владимир Маяковский – Поляки-крестьяне, чтоб вольными быть…
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
Philip Levine ( 1928 – 2015) was an American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for more than thirty years in the English department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He served on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets from 2000 to 2006, and was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012