Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
...
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
...
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
...
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
...
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
...
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
...
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
...
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
...
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:
...
Writing a poem is not about bringing some words together to create some charming sentences. It's so much deeper than that. Writing poetry is a bridge that allows people to express their feelings and make others live every single word they read. Poetry is to educate people, to lead them away from hate to love, from violence to mercy and pity. Writing poetry is to help this community better understand life and live it more passionately. PoemHunter.com contains an enormous number of famous poems from all over the world, by both classical and modern poets. You can read as many as you want, and also submit your own poems to share your writings with all our poets, members, and visitors.
Sister saying—‘Soon you'll be back in the ward,'
sister thinking—‘Only two more on the list,'
the patient saying—‘Thank you, I feel fine';
small voices, small lies, nothing untoward,
though, soon, he would blink again and again
because of the fingers of Lambert Rogers,
rash as a blind man's, inside his soft brain.
If items of horror can make a man laugh
then laugh at this: one hour later, the growth
still undiscovered, ticking its own wild time;
more brain mashed because of the probe's braille path;
Lambert Rogers desperate, fingering still;
his dresser thinking, ‘Christ! Two more on the list,
a cisternal puncture and a neural cyst.'
Then, suddenly, the cracked record in the brain,
a ventriloquist voice that cried, ‘You sod,
leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone,'—
the patient's dummy lips moving to that refrain,
the patient's eyes too wide. And, shocked,
Lambert Rogers drawing out the probe
with nurses, students, sister, petrified.
‘Leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone,'
that voice so arctic and that cry so odd
had nowhere else to go—till the antique
gramophone wound down and the words began
to blur and slow, ‘ … leave … my … soul … alone … '
to cease at last when something other died.
...
Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?
By day, a mysterious wood, near the town,
breathes out cherry, a cherry perfume.
By night, on July’s sky, deep, and transparent,
new constellations are thrown.
...
The whistle bites the morning air,
A sharp and sudden, silver flare.
The dew still clings to blades of green,
Where titans wait, composed, serene.
The leather sphere, a restless heart,
Is where the sudden pulses start.
A rhythmic dance of boot and bone,
In search of glory yet unknown.
...
Archives or museums we love
and fact sheets, check lists and data processing
as we do;
with inputs that bring output we hardly
...
These years and my tears!
How heavy my fears!
The pain was loud,
The hate? A shout!
...
Having eyes to think
They use 'it' only to see
Having ears to comprehend
They use 'it' for spiteful fiend
...
'crosscurrent morning'
Streetcar wires shivering above the block,
...
Thought I healed when the silence got light,
thought I escaped all them sleepless nights.
Then one damn message pulled me deep,
back underwater where I couldn't breathe.
...
You came in soft like a calm night breeze,
said all the right shit so naturally.
I thought you were peace, thought you were fate,
didn't know pain could imitate.
...
I didn't chase, I didn't scream,
I just stepped out of your dream.
And now I watch from far away
how everything you do decays.
...
Look what you made when you pushed too far,
a woman who knows exactly who you are.
Not confused, not stuck, not blind—
just done with wasting all my time.
...
You had chances you didn't keep,
now you don't get access to me.
No more open door, no reply,
no more "why did you even try."
...
It used to hurt when I heard your name,
used to feel like it meant the same.
Now it's quiet, no reaction, no fire,
no pulling me back into your wire.
...
I stopped calling it love at last,
stopped romanticizing the past.
Because love shouldn't feel like loss,
or leave me counting every cost.
...
I dwell
In the absence
You left behind
...
If you die before me
I would jump down into your grave
and hug you so innocently
that angels will become jealous.
...
Beautiful is the 'thank you'
Wrapped with gratitude,
Offered to peace prone people
Who offer what is real-themselves
...
Indoors by technology, outdoors by speedy transport
I travel the world
Today in Japan, tomorrow in Rome,
Next day by an ancient civilization or in Hawaii or Coast Ivory,
...
The low lands call
I am tempted to answer
They are offering me a free dwelling
Without having to conquer
...
The Peace Warrior Of Mzansi, among heroes - a colossus!
Sun Of The Nation; a rare gift of Providence.
Once, entangled in the web of racist succubus;
Unruffled he declares before High Justice:
...
(This is a composition in Pilipino Language the first one I did, the only one, and hope some of the Filipinos will get this funny poem in this site. The poem is updated with English translation)
Noong taong otsenta dekada
...
Love and lust are poles apart.
Lust is chaos, love is art.
...
Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là
Et tu marchais souriante
Épanouie ravie ruisselante
...
you put this pen
in my hand and you
take the pen from you put this pen
...
On this dry prepared path walk heavy feet.
This is not "dinner music." This is a power structure.
...
"Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
Employ'd to serve her deity:
...
If you had the choice of two women to wed,
(Though of course the idea is quite absurd)
And the first from her heels to her dainty head
Was charming in every sense of the word:
...
A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
...
Between us now and here -
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life's flushest feather -
...
185
"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see—
...