from Paradise Lost / by John Milton
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat.
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all the works gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.
DPF / Benét
Love the little birds and all the art that follows them.
from John James Audubon / by Stephen Vincent Benét
Let the wind blow hot or cold,
Let it rain or snow,
Everywhere the birds went
Audubon would go.
DPF / Ruefle
From The Best America Poetry, 2013: Editor, David Lehman, Guest Editor, Denise Duhamel (my erratum from Duhamel’s 2/15/14 post: guest editor The Best American Poetry, 2013, of course, since there is no “best of” for 2014 yet, since 2014 has barely begun). Love her A Little White Shadow erasures, too.
from Little Golf Pencil / by Mary Ruefle
…I told them that in the beginning you understand the world but not yourself, and when you finally understand yourself you no longer understand the world. They seemed satisfied with that.
DPF / Lincoln
For President’s Day, from his book, The Poems of Abraham Lincoln.
from My Childhood Home I See Again / by Abraham Lincoln
My childhood home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There’s pleasure in it too.
DPF / Jeffers
Thank you to our 21st-Century guide, Lucas Seastrom, for bringing the skull to light and for capturing the imagination of our children with, not only the secret doors and passages, but with the poetry of the carved word, the painted word, the quoted word, the spoken word (by Jeffers himself) and the printed word read aloud, offered back again, as it once was daily, to this plot’s salt air.
from Tor House / by Robinson Jeffers
My ghost you needn’t look for; it is probably
Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not dancing on wind
With the mad wings and the day moon.
DPF / Duhamel
Duhamel is the editor of the 2013 Best American Poetry.
from Hippie Barbie / by Denise Duhamel
She couldn’t
make a peace sign with her stuck-together fingers.
She felt a little like Sandra Dee at a Janis Joplin concert.
DPF / Bervin
From her erasures of Shakespeare’s sonnets; from her book entitled, Nets.
from 15 / by Jennifer Bervin
the stars
the selfsame sky
for love of you
DPF / Pizarro Harman
For Leonora Carrington’s painting. And, mothers and daughters.
from Baby Giant / by Michele Pizarro Harman
For your birth,
a river-rush basket
lined in fleece,
willow walls,
and knots of pillows
stitched in birds.
DPF / Schnackenberg
From her signature poem. And, fathers and daughters.
from Supernatural Love / by Gjertrud Schnackenberg
My father puzzles why
It is my habit to identify
Carnations as “Christ’s flowers,” knowing I
Can give no explanation but “Because.”
DPF / Greger
Brothers and sisters. And, snow.
from Wind Wrapped in Snow / by Debora Greger
Snowflake, you’re out
with no coat. Listen. Stand still.
No one is calling
across a world half-buried in snow,
Come back, you hear me,
Come back this instant, you forgot —
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 