Home Poems
A Red Palm
by Gary Soto
You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.
That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair
......
Exposure
by Wilfred Owen
I
1 Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us ...
2 Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent ...
3 Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient ...
4 Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
5 But nothing happens.
6 Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
7 Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
......
Disabled
by Wilfred Owen
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-
......
Man And Wife
by Robert Lowell
Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed;
the rising sun in war paint dyes us red;
in broad daylight her gilded bed-posts shine,
abandoned, almost Dionysian.
At last the trees are green on Marlborough Street,
blossoms on our magnolia ignite
the morning with their murderous five day's white.
All night I've held your hand,
as if you had
a fourth time faced the kingdom of the mad -
......
Lot's Wife
by Wislawa Szymborska
They say I looked back out of curiosity.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Checking for pursuers.
......
Father's Gun Hanging at the Door.
by C Duggan
My father's gun hung on the door,
at first menacing, then necessary.
That gun kept out the wolves,
the bears,
and the wind howling.
The gun kept out the cold,
my mother no longer shivered,
and my father no longer took watch.
The stars no longer stared,
and the moon no longer seemed like a dream.
......
Through the Woods
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Strawberry red skies
when home beckons through sage woods
Pink love's going down
as dewdrops on purple rose
prior to the velvet close
Flowers follow me
their fantasy fragrances
recalling burnt gold
Beauty's dying once again
......
86. Trying
by Kea Campbell
Stumbling through the door at 1 a.m., not drunk, just sleepless's bite.
My house is clouded with fog, and I return at the latest times of night.
I long for peace, careful not to make eye contact with Death.
I cry for the coach to save me from my straits, while I rise and pine to the scant love for life that's left.
The air thickens, and tensions cut my wrists.
My days expand, and I sleep without rest.
The world weighs on my chest, with past wars documented on my flesh.
Disordered mentality is cinched around my neck, but the stool I stand on is breaded with red.
......
The Reynolds Library
by John Stetson
In the small town up the road from the farm where I grew up,
the library was in the town hall,
which was also the fire station,
which was also the jail house,
and later the Plumber's place.
It was a friendly place.
The Boy Scouts met there.
They had all the Hardy Boys books.
And a hardy lot of boys, but no nooks.
......
Finding home
by Martin Gepp
Building a house in a foreign land has an odd sway
Common fears are again in charge of finding a space
Frequent visits of tears usually try to lead the way
And invasive thoughts dislocate reality from it's place
Time struggles to find it's own dominium
Late nights and deep dreams start a delirium
I suddenly wake up and find equilibrium
Just to find a pattern that is written with my past idioms
......
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Robert Louis Stevenson (31 poems about Home)
November 13, 1850 / Edinburgh, Scotland - December 3, 1894 / Vailima, Samoa -
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