Poems List
Explore poems from our collection
Crucible
Crucible
Hot gold runs a winding stream on the inside of a green bowl.
Yellow trickles in a fan figure, scatters a line of skirmishes, spread…
Crimson
Crimson
Crimson is the slow smolder of the cigar end I hold,
Gray is the ash that stiffens and covers all silent the fire.
(A great man I know is d…
Choices
Choices
They offer you many things,
I a few.
Moonlight on the play of fountains at night
With water sparkling a drowsy monotone,
Bare-s…
Clark Street Bridge
Clark Street Bridge
Dust of the feet
And dust of the wheels,
Wagons and people going,
All day feet and wheels.
Now. . .
. .…
Chicago Poet
Chicago Poet
I saluted a nobody.
I saw him in a looking-glass.
He smiled--so did I.
He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning--so did I.
Child Moon
Child Moon
The child's wonder
At the old moon
Comes back nightly.
She points her finger
To the far silent yellow thing
Shining through …
Bronzes
Bronzes
I
The bronze General Grant riding a bronze horse in Lincoln
Park
Shrivels in the sun by day when the motor cars whirr
Chamfort
Chamfort
There's Chamfort. He’s a sample.
Locked himself in his library with a gun,
Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye.
And this Ch…
Broadway
Broadway
I shall never forget you, Broadway
Your golden and calling lights.
I’ll remember you long,
Tall-walled river of rush and…
Bricklayer Love
Bricklayer Love
I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer
and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store.
I don't c…
'Boes
'Boes
I waited today for a freight train to pass.
Cattle cars with steers butting their horns against the
bars, went by.
Blacklisted
Blacklisted
Why shall I keep the old name?
What is a name anywhere anyway?
A name is a cheap thing all fathers and mothers leave each child:
…
Bath
Bath
A man saw the whole world as a grinning skull and cross-bones. The rose flesh of life
shriveled from all faces. Nothing counts. Everything is a fake…
Basket
Basket
speak, sir, and be wise.
Speak choosing your words, sir, like an old woman over a bushel of apples.
Baltic Fog Notes
Baltic Fog Notes
Seven days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas.
I was a plaything, a rat’s neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff…
Back Yard
Back Yard
Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.
An Italian bo…
Baby Toes
Baby Toes
There is a blue star, Janet,
Fifteen years’ ride from us,
If we ride a hundred miles an hour.
There is a white star, Janet, <…
Aztec Mask
Aztec Mask
I wanted a man’s face looking into the jaws and throat of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash of the jaws,
No gulp of the…
Ashurnatsirpal III
Ashurnatsirpal III
Three walls around the town of Tela when I came.
They expected everything of those walls;
Nobody in the town came out to kiss my feet.…
Autumn Movement
Autumn Movement
I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper…
Aprons of Silence
Aprons of Silence
Many things I might have said today.
And I kept my mouth shut.
So many times I was asked
To come and say the same things
Ev…
And This Will Be All....
And This Will Be All....
And this will be all?
And the gates will never open again?
And the dust and the wind will play around the rusty door hinges and …
An Electric Sign Goes Dark
An Electric Sign Goes Dark
Poland, France, Judea ran in her veins,
Singing to Paris for bread, singing to Gotham in a fizz at the pop of a bottle’s cork.
Always The Mob
Always The Mob
Jesus emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a
high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.