from Songs of Innocence: The Book of Thel / by William Blake
Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
Or Love in a golden bowl?
Poetry
DPF / Kocot
from Whether it says, you’re sick, go to the doctor / by Noelle Kocot
It was austere in its way, like dandelions.
Unlike dandelions, it bled furies.
Like dandelions, it shed everything.
DPF / Whitman
Last football game of the season.
from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry / by Walt Whitman
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
DPF / Drummond de Andrade
from Family Portrait / by Carlos Drummond de Andrade trans. by Elizabeth Bishop
I don’t distinguish those
that went away from those
that stay. I only perceive
the strange idea of family
travelling through the flesh.
DPF / Justice
An extra one today, for the rain. The poem that carried me to Florida.
from Bus Stop / by Donald Justice
And the last bus
Comes letting dark
Umbrellas out —
Black flowers, black flowers.
DPF / Forche
from Sequestered Writing / by Carolyn Forché
What ghost comes to the bedside whispering You?
— With its no one without its I —
DPF / Milosz
from Ars Poetica? / by Czeslaw Milosz trans. by Czeslaw Milosz and Lillian Vallee
What I’m saying here is not, I agree, poetry,
as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
under unbearable duress and only with the hope
that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.
DPF / Akhmatova
Dreams, war.
from Poem Without a Hero / by Anna Akhmatova
But a dream — is also something real,
Soft embalmer, Blue Bird,
The parapets and terraces of Elsinore.
DPF / Tadic
Dreams, fire, outrage.
from Armful of Twigs, Dream / by Novica Tadic trans. by Charles Simic
Armful of dry twigs
I carry to the fire
through busy streets.
DPF / Hugo
War, dreams, home.
from In Your War Dream / by Richard Hugo
You ask, “Why must I do this again?” A man
replies, “Home.” You fly over one country
after another. The nations are bright, like a map.
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 