Some Favorite Short Poems

“Wonder Is Not Precisely Knowing”
Emily Dickinson

Wonder—is not precisely Knowing
And not precisely Knowing not—
A beautiful but bleak condition
He has not lived who has not felt—

Suspense—is his maturer Sister—
Whether Adult Delight is Pain
Or of itself a new misgiving—
This is the Gnat that mangles men—

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(This has been anthologized into oblivion, but it is still one of my favorites.)
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

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(I know there’s at least one person here who reads German, so I included the original, which is far superior to my translation)
“Ecce Homo”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Ja! Ich weiss, woher ich stamme!
Ungesättigt gleich der Flamme
Glühe und verzehr' ich mich.
Licht wird alles, was ich fasse,
Kohle alles, was ich lasse.
Flamme bin ich sicherlich!

Yes! I know from what I came
Unquenched just like the flame
Glowing and consuming I am
Light for all that I catch,
Everything coal to my match.
I am surely a flame!

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(Tennyson should have written more poems about the natural world – they’re his true forte. I’m not crazy about the last line here, though, which I would rewrite as “In roaring he shall rise and all the world defy.)
“The Kraken”
Alfred Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
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(An example of a good prose poem ;))
"High Water Mark"
David Shumate

It's hard to believe, but at one point the water rose to this
level. No one had seen anything like it. People on rooftops.
Cows and coffins floating through the streets. Prisoners
carrying invalids from their rooms. The barkeeper consoling
the preacher. A coon hound who showed up a month later
forty miles downstream. And all that mud it left behind. You
never forget times like those. They become part of who you
are. You describe them to your grandchildren. But they think
it's just another tale in which animals talk and people live
forever. I know it's not the kind of thing you ought to say...
But I wouldn't mind seeing another good flood before I die.
It's been dry for decades. Next time I think I'll just let go and
drift downstream and see where I end up.

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"Beware: Do Not Read This Poem"
Ishmael Reed

tonite, thriller was
abt an ol woman, so vain she
surrounded herself w/

many mirrors

it got so bad that finally she
locked herself indoors & her
whole life became the

mirrors

one day the villagers broke
into her house, but she was too
swift for them. she disappeared

into a mirror
each tenant who bought the house
after that, lost a loved one to

the ol woman in the mirror:

first a little girl

then a young woman

then the young woman/s husband

the hunger of this poem is legendary
it has taken in many victims
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs

back off from thias poem
it is a greedy mirror
you are into this poem. from

the waist down
nobody can hear you can they?
this poem has had you up to here

belch
this poem aint got no manners
you cant call out frm this poem
relax now & go w/ this poem

move & roll on to this poem
do not resist this poem
this poem has yr eyes
this poem has his head
this poem has his arms
this poem has his fingers
this poem has his fingertips

this poem is the reader & the
reader the poem

statistic: the us bureau of missing persons re-

ports that in 1968 over 100,000 people

disappeared leaving no solid clues

nor trace
only
a space
in the lives of ther friends

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Lines Written in the MS of The Cap and Bells
“This Living Hand”
John Keats

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm'd—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.

Untitled
for O

"Queens are beautiful," she said, "because they are the underworld's finest hour."
I want to ask, "Do you live on champagne and quips?"
Do you think hell is restless sleep beneath an eye mask?
That some prince will pursue you with your broke-glass shoe?
Ah, for your sake, I wish it were.
I wish it were.