Every poem is an infant labored into birth and I am drenched with sweating effort, tired from the pain and hurt of being a man, in the poem I transform myself into a woman.

When he was in college, a famous poet made a useful distinction for him. He had drunk enough in the poet’s company to be compelled to describe to him a poem he was thinking of....

My tears of joyhear the raindrops crying,as the rain never wants to pourdown on my cloudy dayswhen I makeour love-dreamsfor the sun to dreamonly for you….(From the poem “Only For You” By Munia Khan)

Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. But it could blow everybody’s...

The Bane…where coxswain’s dirtand seaman’s shirtsbrushed bawdily upon her chest…

Come, let us speak with our bodies.Teach me how to please you.I am here to learn.Let us not waste this time.It is the hour of union.ComeAnd after you do,Come again.

Oh, a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park, And a lion-hunter In the jungle dark, And a Chinese dentist,And a British queen–All fit togetherIn the same machine.Nice, nice, very nice;Nice, nice, very nice; Nice, nice,...

Yo no me calloPerdone el ciudadano esperanzadomi recuerdo de acciones miserables,que levantan los hombres del pasado.Yo predico un amor inexorable.Y no me importa perro ni persona:sólo el pueblo es en mí considerable:sólo la Patria a...

We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description.

I fought for you, I fought for usI fought for the memories and the laughter that came upon us,Now here we are, we have become unknown people to each other,Worlds apart in an instant, for...

All that I desire in life are three…A wilderness: A beach on the sun-drenched sea,A puff of opium,And thee.

Amy King is a true bard.

If Love is Pure, Love is Simple

As a youth, I listened to the rain from the bowers of pleasure houses,Red silk drapes translucent in the glow of candlelight.In my prime, I listened to the rain as a traveler,The sky low, the...

She who is a dancer can only sway the silk of her hair like the summer breeze.

The echo of a red rose at the sunset, you decided to check out.

Nothing gold can stay.

Oh che sanguinosa e spaziosa portaFa l’una e l’altra spada ovunque giugna,Nell’arme e nelle carni! E se la vitaNon esce, sdegno tienla al petto unita.

Maybe you think life is not worth living, but is death worth dying for?

If you are still alive when you read this,close your eyes. I amunder their lids, growing black.

unaccountably we are aloneforever aloneand it was meant to bethat way,it was never meantto be any other way–and when the death strugglebeginsthe last thing I wish to seeisa ring of human faceshovering over me–better just...

I plan to be a sinner tonight. Could’ve been something else, but looked way too good in my red dress to be anything Christian.

A mask you ask? Optional I find!Masks lend appeal of a mysterious kind.

With a metal heartI came to this life,My head was a crucible, full of elixir.Pearl by pearlMy heart was poured,Drop by dropMy head was splashed.The world was entirely a magnet.

Your thoughts were deeper than your mind, your little eyes pierced through the heart of your nation.

Not all that have fallen are vanquished.

The Garden En robe de parade. – SamainLike a skein of loose silk blown against a wallShe walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,And she is dying piece-mealof a sort of emotional...

Take each day in your open palms and close your fists around it. This life is not done with you yet.

Your soul: pure glucose edged with hintsOf tentative and half-soiled tints

They tell me to be quietWhen I’d rather cause a riotAnd have everyone screamingOut their eccentric meaning.

It wouldn’t have to be sunny It wouldn’t have to be anything else then just that It would really simplify my walk home at night, where every thought I think is some contrived line I...

Every time a poet is about to write, every time the open their mouth to say something, they express their inner world and tell of their own feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and opinions, unless they are...

She didn’t do anything at allexcept arrived without warningin the middle of the night(right when I least expected it)She walked by me, with a strut in her stepsmelling like summercausing me to turn my head(even...

Impatience kills quickly.

Just take my hand, lead, dance with me…and I will simply follow the blueness of the water, the white waves rolling free…where the earth beneath my feet and stars make my heart whole again…in long...

LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY!True anyhow no matter how manyLiars use those words.

A Coy Aversion…a fluttertoo shyto be seen…

I sink into it completely, letting everything else fall away so all that’s left is this. A moment like a poem.

the poem doesn’t have stanzas, it has a body, the poem doesn’t have lines,/ it has blood, the poem is not written with letters, it’s written/ with grains of sand and kisses, petals and moments,...

Like young fern shootsmy child’s fingers curled.I did not expect,in the fifth month, frost.

The Law of the Jungle NOW this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that...

I’m heading for a clean-named placelike Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o’-lantern, will get therewithout help and nosy proclivities.

I can’t shake you.

I cannot go to school today”Said little Peggy Ann McKay.”I have the measles and the mumps,A gash, a rash and purple bumps.My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.I’m going blind in my right eye.My...

PASSIONS are likened best to floods and streams:The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;

Praise to the creator who magnifies a drop of joy within a soul into an ocean of bliss every time footsteps begin to dance.

The light needs only our trustAnd, of course, the darknessTo work its eternal alchemy.

From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot caused by their intimate weight in my lap; I loved the crisp...

We, peopling the void air, make gods to whom we impute the ills we ought to bear.

Today I introduced myself to my very own Heart,In silent agony, after all these years it bled apart.