One Friend - Paramahansa Yogananda

Many clouds do race to hide Thee –

Beasties - Helen Cruickshank

Clock-leddy, clock-leddy
    Flee awa' hame,
Your lum's in a lowe,
    Your bairns in a flame;

Birdish - Astrid Cabral

Among some green or dried out leaves
there sings upon the window sill
a foreign bird.

The Silver Maids - Carl Spitteler

High in their belfry swinging,
The Silver Maids are singing
Their matin-psalm of praise and cheer;
No angel tones diviner,
The farther off, the finer,
Nor even fails one practiced ear.

That wren - Kobayashi Issa

That wren—

Always for the first time - Andre Breton

Always for the first time
Hardly do I know you by sight
You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window
A wholly imaginary house

Gerontophobia - Marilyn Duckworth

I go to bed considering insulin
How much to flood the vein that is me
So that I may turn over in my grave
Composed, dead level?
But wake daily, measuring the panic dream, collecting
My thoughts. Am I still threaded?

Vondel's Lucifer (Act I, lines 344-410) - Joost van den Vondel

Chorus of Angels:
Strophe.
Who is it on His Throne, high-seated,
So deep in boundless realms of light,
Whose measure, space nor time hath meted,
Nor e'en eternity; whose might,
Supportless, yet itself maintaineth,
Floating on pinions of repose;

Recreation - Audre Lorde

Coming together
it is easier to work
after our bodies
meet

Easy - Sampurna Chattarji

Death is easy to pronounce.
He deserved to die.
They ought to be shot.
Hanging’s too good for him.
The words fall glib.
Throwaway lines
sentencing them to death.

I was standing - Anna Kamienska

I was standing with my sister over the patch of grave
And we were speaking about some very important things.
The boy is doing better at school. The youngest already chatters.
If you aren’t mean to people, they’ll be good to you.

Clarification to My Poetry-Readers - Nizar Qabbani

And of me say the fools:
I entered the lodges of women
And never left.
And they call for my hanging,
Because about the matters of my beloved
I, poetry, compose.

A Ballad That We Do Not Perish - Zbigniew Herbert

Those who sailed at dawn
but will never return
left their trace on a wave—

To the Tune of Qing and Ping, I of Three (Verses for the Lady Yang) - Li Bai

In clouds, I think of her raiment, in flowers, see her face,

Accept It - Solveig von Schoultz

Accept it, God.
I give you my defeat.

Remember man - Anonymous

Remember man
As thou goest by,

The Water Butt - Solveig von Schoultz

The water butt by the corner
has an eye that I love.

Sun is in the East! - Leng Mei

Sun is in the East!
This lovely man
Is in my house,

Breakfast - Jacques Prévert

He poured the coffee
Into the cup
He put the milk
Into the cup of coffee
He put the sugar
Into the coffee with milk
With a small spoon

Eight Line Poem - David Bowie

The tactful cactus by your window
Surveys the prairie of your room

Song of the Full Catch - Constance Lindsay Skinner

Here's good wind, here's sweet wind,
Here's good wind and my woman calls me!

God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children - Yehuda Amichai

God has pity on kindergarten children,
He pities school children -- less.
But adults he pities not at all.

He Was Called - Giuseppe Ungaretti

He was called
Moammed Sceab
descended
from emirs from nomads

The Stars Stand Up In The Air - Thomas MacDonagh

The stars up in the air,
The sun and the moon are gone,
The strand of its waters is bare.
And her sway is swept from the swan.

Hédauville - Roland Leighton

The sunshine on the long white road
That ribboned down the hill,
The velvet clematis that clung
Around your window-sill
Are waiting for you still.

Poems from The Tale of Genji (chapter 49) - Murasaki Shikibu

"When I went too pluck for our august Sovereign's hair wisteria blossoms,
       ah, how far above my head was the branch that caught my sleeves"

Book Two Elegy 15 - Sextus Propertius

O happy me! O night of radiance, and you,
   sweet bed that's strewn with such delights!
What declarations when the lamp was lit, what fights
   and tussles when the light was doused!
With breasts undone she teased me as we wrestled: then,
   with clothes drawn up, she feigned delay.
Her breath fell on my eyelids thick with sleep: she hissed,
   'Is this the way you finish, sluggard?'
Such length of arms' embraces as we changed positions,
   kisses lengthening on the lips!

When Mother Calls to Dinner - Uloola

We're on a farm not far from town—
There's just a dozen acres;
Our neighbours range from atheists
And infidels to Quakers;
We've got the good old pious sort
‘Long-side the hardened sinner—
But that won't spoil our appetite
When Mother calls to dinner.

Kinder Than Miriam - Kajal Ahmad

Our nation is as lonely
as Father Adam was
before the fertile
arrival of Mother Eve.

The Wind on the Hills - Dora Sigerson Shorter

Go not to the hills of Erinn
When the night winds are about,
Put up your bar and shutter,
And so keep danger out.

New Year - Bei Dao

a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year
a conductor tattooing darkness
listens to the shortest pause