For Day 5 of National Poetry Month, from poetryfoundation.org.
from City At Night / by James Tate
A seer bobs along, oblivious or beguiled.
I look for my reflection in a window:
Goodnight Joe, Goodnight Joe, Goodnight.
20th-Century Poetry
DPF / Yeats
For a hundred years ago tomorrow, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Easter 1916 / by William Butler Yeats
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
DPF / Mayer
For one of my favorite months, from poetryfoundation.org.
from A Very Strong February / by Bernadette Mayer
One weekend fisherman and blue painters watch
The vivid violet winds blow visibility from the mountain
Beyond the black valley. That means or then you know
You’re in a big cloud of it, it’s brilliant white mid-February
DPF / Tate
For the amazing James, from The Prose Poem: An International Journal, edited by Peter Johnson.
from All Over the Lot / by James Tate
The boy grinned up at me. My old tweed vest was infested with fleas. I started walking backwards. People were shoving me this way and that.
DPF / Plath
For one who, in another era, might have been saved, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Elm / by Sylvia Plath
Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale
irretrievables?
DPF / Kizer
For daughters, from Mermaids in the Basement.
from For My Daughter / by Carolyn Kizer
I held my breath that night
to the light sound of rain
and prayed you to grow.
DPF / Moss
For an apt metaphor for drilling to the core of any of us, from The American Poetry Review, January / February 2016, in an article about Moss by Laurence Lieberman. If I have gathered the title incorrectly, please message me for the correction. Obviously, I should buy the book.
from Poem of Self / by Stanley Moss
Putting his back into the drill, as if the tree were marble,
he quickly passed through American history,
knot and counter-knot, to the age of Mozart,
through the Baroque, through Shakespeare grain
DPF / de la Mare
For the season and its greenery, from poetryfoundation.org.
from Mistletoe / by Walter de la Mare
Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.
DPF / Johnston
For holidays and gold, from poetryfoundation.org.
from The Golden Hinde / by Devin Johnston
With a telescope, my sister spies
the erstwhile chemist of Argonne
who left his post to polish glass.
As penance, he engraves
a glyph of hydrogen
DPF / Frost
For peace, from poetryfoundation.org.
from What the Dove Sings / by Carol Frost
The mourning dove
wearing noon’s aureole
coos from the rhododendron,
oo-waoh, shadow o-
ver what to do. Oh.
Daily Poetry Fragments {Semi-Daily} 