Lyric Poems
Sun
by Michael Palmer
Write this. We have burned all their villages
Write this. We have burned all the villages and the people in them
Write this. We have adopted their customs and their manner of dress
Write this. A word may be shaped like a bed, a basket of tears or an X
In the notebook it says, It is the time of mutations, laughter at jokes,
secrets beyond the boundaries of speech
......
Night
by Lucy Maud Montgomery
A pale enchanted moon is sinking low
Behind the dunes that fringe the shadowy lea,
And there is haunted starlight on the flow
Of immemorial sea.
I am alone and need no more pretend
Laughter or smile to hide a hungry heart;
I walk with solitude as with a friend
Enfolded and apart.
......
Psalm
by Alicia Suskin Ostriker
I am not lyric any more
I will not play the harp
for your pleasure
I will not make a joyful
noise to you, neither
will I lament
for I know you drink
lamentation, too,
......
The Unsubscriber
by Bill Knott
Like all children, you were a de facto
Member of the Flat Earth Society,
Believing nothing but what you could see
Or touch or whatever sense led act to
Fruition: mudpies made summer beneath
A tree whose measured shade endowed decrees
Between light and dark: such hierarchies
Gave you implicit, a sophistic faith--
......
Indian Summer
by Sara Teasdale
Lyric night of the lingering Indian summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locust slowly grinding the silence,
Under a moon waning and warn and broken,
Tired with summer.
......
O Stay my Lover
by Muhammad Umair
I die here, you live there;
Dolorous distance brought tears;
I'll fall apart---I have this fear;
All I see with open eyes is nightmares.
With yourself, you brought extreme ecstasy,
With myself, I saw the nature dancing;
Now with your departure, you give me melancholy;
I see myself in this lake of uncertainty---drowning.
......
Indian Summer
by Sara Teasdale
Lyric night of the lingering Indian summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locust slowly grinding the silence,
Under a moon waning and warn and broken,
Tired with summer.
......
Sappho
by Sara Teasdale
The twilight's inner flame grows blue and deep,
And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea,
The temples glimmer moonwise in the trees.
Twilight has veiled the little flower face
Here on my heart, but still the night is kind
And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast.
Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk
Along the surges creeping up the shore
When tides came in to ease the hungry beach,
And running, running, till the night was black,
......
The Tavern Of Last Times
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
At Box Hill, Surrey
A modern hour from London (as we spin
Into a silver thread the miles of space
Between us and our goal), there is a place
Apart from city traffic, dust, and din,
Green with great trees, where hides a quiet Inn.
Here Nelson last looked on the lovely face
Which made his world; and by its magic grace
Trailed rosy clouds across each early sin.
......
A Lyric Day
by Robert William Service
I deem that there are lyric days
So ripe with radiance and cheer,
So rich with gratitude and praise
That they enrapture all the year.
And if there is a God b\above,
(As they would tell me in the Kirk,)
How he must look with pride and love
Upon his perfect handiwork!
To-day has been a lyric day
......
