Experienced bloggers advise newbies, “Post early and often.” Doggone it, I just can’t seem to do that. Notwithstanding the fact that I don’t think clearly before 10 a.m., I also couldn’t post one of my long poetry responses every single day. I’d burn out in a month and so would my readers. But I do […]
MoreI Have News for You by Tony Hoagland There are people who do not see a broken playground swing as a symbol of ruined childhood and there are people who don’t interpret the behavior of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process. There are people who don’t walk […]
MoreCome, Let Us Find by William Henry Davies Come, let us find a cottage, love, That’s green for half a mile around; To laugh at every grumbling bee, Whose sweetest blossom’s not yet found. Where many a bird shall sing for you, And in your garden build its nest: They’ll sing for you […]
MoreAncestors by Angus Martin All these people at my back, watching me—out there— people clothed in animal skins and others only in body hair, – half animals themselves, poking me with sticks in the soft parts of my unconscious, startling me with sudden mad cries and eliciting responses – that escape my knowledge […]
MoreDespite good intentions (isn’t this always the way), I didn’t get much done on PoemElf during the month of August. Vacation and sloth kept me away from the computer, and then the fall, spinal cord injury, massive infection and passing of my dear father-in-law. I loved him so much. On returning from his funeral, I […]
MoreThen by Eavan Boland Where are the lives we lived when we were young? Our kisses, the heat of our skin, our bitter words? The first waking to the first child’s cry? With just three questions and four lines, Irish poet Eavan Boland pulls up memories for me so swiftly and so abundantly that the […]
MoreSiren Song BY MARGARET ATWOOD This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see the beached skulls the song nobody knows because anyone who has heard it is dead, and the others can’t […]
MoreMagna Est Veritas by Coventry Patmore Here, in this little Bay, Full of tumultuous life and great repose, Where, twice a day, The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes, Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town, I sit me down. For want of me the world’s course will not fail: When all its […]
MoreThe Overhead Rack By John Updike Worst of all, and most hated by me as I sit docilely crammed into my seat, crammed and strapped like a psychotic in restraints, are these bland-faced complacent graduates of business school, trained to give each other and the rest of the poor world the business, who […]
Morepoem is taped to trashcan Yesterday By W.S. Merwin My friend says I was not a good son you understand I say yes I understand – he says I did not go to see my parents very often you know and I say yes I know – even when I was […]
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