For K. J., Leaving and Coming Back by Marilyn Hacker
For K. J., Leaving and Coming Back by Marilyn Hacker August First: it was a year ago we drove down from St.-Guilhem-le-Désert to open the house in St. Guiraud rented unseen. I’d stay; you’d go; that’s where our paths diverged. I’d settle down to work, you’d start the next month of your Wanderjahr. I turned […]
Exiles by Marilyn Hacker
Exiles by Marilyn Hacker Her brown falcon perches above the sink as steaming water forks over my hands. Below the wrists they shrivel and turn pink. I am in exile in my own land. Her half-grown cats scuffle across the floor trailing a slime of blood from where they fed. I lock the door. They […]
Desesperanto by Marilyn Hacker
Desesperanto by Marilyn Hacker After Joseph Roth Parce que c’était lui; parce que c’était moi. Montaigne, De L’amitië The dream’s forfeit was a night in jail and now the slant light is crepuscular. Papers or not, you are a foreigner whose name is always difficult to spell. You pack your one valise. You ring the […]
Dear Alzheimer’s by Maria Knox
You stole my name along with all her memories, You swiped her filter,logic and personality, You left the shell of her for nearly a decade, You took our everything from us including her last breath, And now that she’s gone, You still want what’s mine. Time for your advance to the other side of my […]
Colors Passing Through Us by Marge Piercy
Purple as tulips in May, mauve into lush velvet, purple as the stain blackberries leave on the lips, on the hands, the purple of ripe grapes sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, like a new flower in a bud vase on your desk. Every day I will paint […]
Children of My Own by Marie Starr
I wasn’t allowed to date outside my race when I was young. My mother believed it was okay, admirable even, to have friends who were not white but that you wouldn’t want to marry them. And if you did, then you shouldn’t have children with them because then your children would be discriminated against. As […]
Belly Good by Marge Piercy
A heap of wheat, says the Song of Songs but I’ve never seen wheat in a pile. Apples, potatoes, cabbages, carrots make lumpy stacks, but you are sleek as a seal hauled out in the winter sun. I can see you as a great goose egg or a single juicy and fully ripe […]
Baseball and Writing by Marianne Moore
Fanaticism?No.Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either how it will go or what you will do; generating excitement– a fever in the victim– pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter. Victim in what category? Owlman watching from the press box? To whom does it apply? Who is excited?Might it be I? […]
Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual and presented dolls that did pee-pee and miniature GE stoves and irons and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy. Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs. She was healthy, tested intelligent, possessed strong arms and back, abundant […]
Attack of the Squash People by Marge Piercy
And thus the people every year in the valley of humid July did sacrifice themselves to the long green phallic god and eat and eat and eat. They’re coming, they’re on us, the long striped gourds, the silky babies, the hairy adolescents, the lumpy vast adults like the trunks of green elephants. Recite fifty zucchini […]
Always Unsuitable by Marge Piercy
She wore little teeth of pearls around her neck. They were grinning politely and evenly at me. Unsuitable they smirked. It is true I look a stuffed turkey in a suit. Breasts too big for the silhouette. She knew at once that we had sex, lots of it as if I had strolled into her […]
about emptiness… by Marina Cecilia Kohon
I’m talking about the weariness that words go through when they use up all their weight that place between my silence and the floor of your eyes. End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave Talking Writing Monster. Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the […]
A Work Of Artifice by Marge Piercy
The bonsai tree in the attractive pot could have grown eighty feet tall on the side of a mountain till split by lightning. But a gardener carefully pruned it. It is nine inches high. Every day as he whittles back the branches the gardener croons, It is your nature to be small and cozy, domestic […]
A Grave by Marianne Moore
Man looking into the sea, taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have to it yourself, it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing, but you cannot stand in the middle of this; the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave. […]
Woman by Manmohan Acharya
O! Poet Bumblebee, please don’t repeat such poetry which are hummed by the dancing rhythm of the sweet sounds coming out of the bangles and leg ornaments having small bells, of the prostitutes. The lady laborers are living cursed lives. They are working very hard in impassable mines and dangerous forests, bathing with their tears […]
Without exile, who am I? by Mahmoud Darwish
Stranger on the bank, like the river . . . tied up to your name by water. Nothing will bring me back from my free distance to my palm tree: not peace, nor war. Nothing will inscribe me in the Book of Testaments. Nothing, nothing glints off the shore of ebb and flow, between the […]
Winter’s End by Mac McGovern
Every year in early spring upon the prairie nature displays an orchestration of color and fragrance engulfing the senses proclaiming the glory of life; a banquet hailing winter’s end laid as a feast in celebration of renewal End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry […]
Wind by Mac McGovern
Wind by Mac McGovern in the fall it wafts leaves, hiding tiny fairies dancing on each as in celebration of freedom from trees bondage in the winter snow cold and unremorseful hide beauty seen only by those who dare transition to find her hidden secrets in the summer it is wispy as if entranced by […]
What these girl means to me by Maphoto selokela
I wish u knew what you mean to me, i am not looking for the perfection, i dont need some house on a lot of land… all i want is for u to be my gal… i no we have a lot of plans already… but i’ll still try to find myself go steady… so […]
Two Stranger Birds in Our Feathers by Mahmoud Darwish
My sky is ashen. Scratch my back. And undo slowly, you stranger, my braids. And tell me what’s on your mind. Tell me what crossed Youssef’s mind. Tell me some simple talk . . . talk a woman always desires to be told. I don’t want the phrase complete. Gesture is enough to scatter me […]
Tip-Toe-ing by Mahak Raithatha S
Every morning Tip-toe-ing, Infront of the mirror Ah, shit! Even today I have grown not up End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave Talking Writing Monster. Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an […]
They Would Love To See Me Dead by Mahmoud Darwish
They would love to see me dead, so they say: He belongs to us, he is ours. For twenty years I have heard their footsteps on the walls of the night. They open no door, yet here they are now. I see three of them: A poet, a killer, and a reader of books. Will […]
These nights by Manushya Puthiran
These nights In the cries heard by you In the mystic voices calling you alone In the meanderings you alone sensed In the perils you alone encountered Happens a life for you alone End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave Talking Writing Monster. […]
The Sound Of Your Breathing by Mac McGovern
The Sound Of Your Breathing by Mac McGovern I listen and admire as the sound of your breathing alerts to the beauty that is your life. You take in only what stimulates and increases your intensity. You work to inspire and push yourself in transitioning between barriers that define benefits to be gained, weighed against […]
The Pigeons Fly by Mahmoud Darwish
The pigeons fly, the pigeons come down… Prepare a place for me to rest. I love you unto weariness, your morning is fruit for songs and this evening is precious gold the shadows are strong as marble. When I see myself, it is hanging upon a neck that embraces only the clouds, you are the […]
The Mouse by Mac McGovern
The Mouse by Mac McGovern When the owl screeches and the wolf howls, the mouse lies quietly in the field. Is it the influence of the moon, a demonstration of anger, or celebration? For the mouse cares not the reason. His destiny the same, whether the owl or the wolf, he fulfills their need. End […]
The Most Exquisite Creature Of My Dreams by Mac McGovern
The Most Exquisite Creature Of My Dreams by Mac McGovern A wispy vapor extrudes from her flawless frame, she is dressed as if on fire, the nudity of her exquisite frame exposed, hiding none of her ample features. Yet, she is beauty incarnate, impossible to look away even for one moment in fear of missing […]
The Husband’s Black Hands by Mallika Sengupta
The moment she tucks in the mosquito net and goes to bed, her husband’s black hands fumble after the snakes and frogs of her body: “You’re hurting me! Let go!” In anger, those black hands twist her breasts. He says, “Listen here, Sweta, don’t be coy. If ever I find even the evening star gesturing […]
The Frivolity of Dreaming by Mahi Chauhan
Down by the river I sit and dream, of all the worldly pleasures the mankind screams. In this there lurks a free irresponsibility, emancipates me from the smothering vicinity of fetters of love and compassion, illusions, carnal sins that deprave, delusions. Uninhibited I delve into the frivolity of being, challenge the dogmas of life, as […]
The Eve of Saint Agnes by Malcolm Massiah
The Eve of Saint Agnes by Malcolm Massiah ‘Twas on the eve of St Agnes’ Day, When young virgin’s minds fly astray; Stacey lay her body bare To January’s freezing air. She cast her liquid ebon eyes, Up to the boundless starry skies, Hoping to find in that heavenly place, The image of her true […]
The end by Mahak Raithatha S
Alongside the morning’s silent fields Driving my convertible, roofless to say Sitting by my childhood crush Felling the gush, within The windmills passing by loud Tulips swaying proud We pass, silent Admiring just each other’s presence She smiles like she knows, Of the unspoken crush I hope, she knows (Reminisced the benches Where far away […]
The cake by Mahak Raithatha S
Soon shall I be On my way For my tongue’s ache Of devouring a cake That you bake End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave Talking Writing Monster. Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US Quant.com – a search engine from France, and […]
Thanksgiving by Mac Hammond
Thanksgiving by Mac Hammond The man who stands above the bird, his knife Sharp as a Turkish scimitar, first removes A thigh and leg, half the support On which the turkey used to stand. This Leg and thigh he sets on an extra Plate. All his weight now on One leg, he lunges for the […]
State of Siege by Mahmoud Darwish
Here, where the hills slope before the sunset and the chasm of time near gardens whose shades have been cast aside we do what prisoners do we do what the jobless do we sow hope In a land where the dawn sears we have become more doltish and we stare at the moments of victory […]
Southern Song by Margaret Walker
I want my body bathed again by southern suns, my soul reclaimed again from southern land. I want to rest again in southern fields, in grass and hay and clover bloom; to lay my hand again upon the clay baked by a southern sun, to touch the rain-soaked earth and smell the smell of soil. […]
Soul by Malkia Charlee NoCry
Soul by Malkia Charlee NoCry I was sent on earth to pester thesewomen and men of many years and easeIllness rattling my bodyboiling my skinOver-stretched and lying flatMy body could sail to heavenand this would suit me.So I gather my skirts around meHolding cloth where the sweatgrips between the breastsI look behind me andthere lies […]
Sonnet V by Mahmoud Darwish
I touch you as a lonely violin touches the suburbs of the faraway place patiently the river asks for its share of the drizzle and, bit by bit, a tomorrow passing in poems approaches so I carry faraway’s land and it carries me on travel’s road On a mare made of your virtues, my soul […]
She’s Flawless by Mandy Williams
Her eyes are deep Like the ocean She’s flawless Full of emotion Let her in Although she May push You away She is afraid Of being broken Copyright ©: Mandy Williams End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave Talking Writing Monster. Duckduckgo.com – […]
She Looks by Mac McGovern
She Looks by Mac McGovern She awoke, he was passed away from her. Wondering the halls, searching rooms, dirty, unused, cold and damp, she looks for him. Outside, the grounds are vast, courtyards, where many elaborate events echoed joyous laughter, echo no more, further frustrate her search. She looks for him, for forty years she […]
She got her wings by Mahak Raithatha S
Her mind as free as a mountaineer’s; Her eyes staring as a Painter’s; Telling the world She doesn’t care She doesn’t cry For anything they criticize Thus she got her wings And she flew high End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave Talking […]