Search Categories - Any -25 Lines or FewerCanadaPre 21st Century21st Century Grade levels - Any -Grades 7-9 / Sec. 1-3Grades 10-12 / Sec. 4 & 5 / CEGEP 1 Sort by RandomNewestMost popularA -> ZZ -> A Apply Ezra Pound A Virginal No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately. I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness, For my surrounding air hath a new lightness; Patrick Lane Passing into Storm Know him for a white man. He walks sideways into wind allowing the left of him to forget what the right knows as cold. His ears turn into death what Lucille Clifton forgiving my father it is friday. we have come to the paying of the bills. all week you have stood in my dreams like a ghost, asking for more time but today is payday, payday old man; my mother’s hand opens in her early grave Hollie McNish Embarrased i thought it was ok - i could understand the reasons they said there might be young children or a nervous man seeing this small piece of flesh that they weren’t quite expecting Matthew Walsh Garbage Box with Black Loons My father's speech was slurred most of my childhood — but it's a rite of passage for many Maritime Canadians 'cause I heard from a friend of a friend that linguists say our accent Hafiz Shams-ud-din-Muhammad We Haven't Travelled to This Door We haven’t travelled to this door For wealth or mastery, We come here seeking refuge from Misfortune’s misery. And we have journeyed all this way, Fleeing the confines of Sadiqa de Meijer Jesse's Farm We’re driving and the radio says mass marine extinctions within a generation. No silence, no sirens — an unflustered inflection, then stock markets, cryptic as Latin mass. I force myself: the interval Thomas Campion Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow, Though thou be black as night And she made all of light, Joy Kogawa Where There’s a Wall Where there’s a wall there’s a way through a gate or door. There’s even John Ashbery Interesting People of Newfoundland Newfoundland is, or was, full of interesting people. Like Larry, who would make a fool of himself on street corners for a nickel. There… Ian Williams Echolalia Once one gets what one wants one no longer wants it. One no longer wants what? Anna Laetitia Barbauld The Rights of Woman Yes, injured Woman! rise, assert thy right! Woman! too long degraded, scorned, oppressed; O born to rule in partial Law’s despite, Frank O’Hara The Day Lady Died It is 12:20 in New York a Friday three days after Bastille day, yes it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine Valzhyna Mort Nocturne for a Moving Train The trees I’ve glimpsed from the window of a night train were the saddest trees. They seemed about to speak, then— vanished like soldiers. Doyali Islam susiya in the south hebron hills the slanted hills recall old songs, and the women collect them like rain. the men have two-syllable Wioletta Greg All About My Grandmother Wheat daughter, prisoner of sneaky pigweed, mother to the five corners of the world and your three hectares, beak-nosed carpenter’s wife and the potter’s lover, Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sonnets from the Portuguese 24 Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife, Shut in upon itself and do no harm In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm, And let us hear no sound of human strife Nathaniel Mackey On Antiphon Island — “mu” twenty-eighth part — On Antiphon Island they lowered the bar and we bent back. It wasn't limbo we were in albeit William Shakespeare Sonnet XXIX: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal Praying Herd: For Safe Journey Draw a line through our scattered bodies. The pattern of fallen calves in this meadow will mirror the constellation above. Look up. We whip our tails to a silent song: Rabindranath Tagore Gitanjali 35 Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into… Majzoob Tabrizi Fire in the Reeds One night, fire fell into a reed bed It burned like love falling onto a soul As fire’s head warmed to its work every reed turned into a candle at its own grave Matthew Arnold Dover Beach The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Louise Bernice Halfe April 30, 2014 Weeds are flattened beneath last year’s tire tracks others lay burden by the winter’s heavy snow. The crocuses labor through this thick blanket. I am sun drained from the bleakness Susan Holbrook What Is Poetry (a twelve-tone poem) trite yap show rosy twit heap Spencer Butt Wrk this job hates me this job wouldn’t make me feel so shitty if it didn’t i’m nothing but nice to this job but when this job is done with me it always sneaks out while i’m still sleeping Selina Boan breakup a girl between two dialects still a screen and still a searching, learns the season of breakup another word for spring can come before or after depending on where you grew up online, back and forth Emily Dickinson I felt a Funeral, in my Brain I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading — treading — till it seemed Hart Crane My Grandmother’s Love Letters There are no stars tonight But those of memory. Yet how much room for memory there is Jody Chan aubade for the BPD subreddit user who wrote can people with BPD love? bedtime ritual summon a stranger tonight you linger on my laptop screen in the apartment hallway a door slams like a bird Lara Bozabalian The New School Do you remember, Nancy, when we sat in the Creole restaurant and glanced up at the television to see students running with their hands in the air and photographs of two young men? Leonard Cohen I Have Not Lingered in European Monasteries I have not lingered in European monasteries and discovered among the tall grasses tombs of knights who fell as beautifully as their ballads… Tina Cane Imaginary Dad Was so imaginary he ceased to exist he wasn’t sleeping in a treehouse or stalking the woods in fatigues cheeks smeared green with camouflage grease Liz Howard 1992 This is our welfare half a duplex with mint green siding shrugged between Anne Bradstreet The Author to Her Book Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Lawrence Ferlinghetti Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15) Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs Emily Dickinson “Hope” is the thing with feathers— “Hope” is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — Emily Riddle Holy Beings on the day the chief of kâ-awâsis announces they have confirmed 751 bodies in unmarked graves outside the residential “school” in their community, i google things like: when will the sun run out of fuel? Jalal al-Din Rumi Where did the handsome beloved go? Where did the handsome beloved go? I wonder, where did that tall, shapely cypress tree go? He spread his light among us like a candle. Where did he go? So strange, where did he go without me? e.e. cummings anyone lived in a pretty how town anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter Language English