Poems

Best Poems
1.
Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
...

2.
Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
...

3.
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
...

4.
Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
...

5.
Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
...

6.
Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
...

7.
Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
...

8.
Maya Angelou

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
...

9.
Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
...

10.
Pablo Neruda

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.
...

Writing a poem is not about bringing some words together to create some charming sentences. It's so much deeper than that. Writing poetry is a bridge that allows people to express their feelings and make others live every single word they read. Poetry is to educate people, to lead them away from hate to love, from violence to mercy and pity. Writing poetry is to help this community better understand life and live it more passionately. PoemHunter.com contains an enormous number of famous poems from all over the world, by both classical and modern poets. You can read as many as you want, and also submit your own poems to share your writings with all our poets, members, and visitors.

POEM OF THE DAY
Vulture

I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling
high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit
narrowing,
I understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-
feathers
Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.
I could see the naked red head between the great wings
Bear downward staring. I said, 'My dear bird, we are wasting time
here.
These old bones will still work; they are not for you.' But how
beautiful
he looked, gliding down
On those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering away in the
sea-light
over the precipice. I tell you solemnly
That I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak
and
become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes--
What a sublime end of one's body, what an enskyment; what a life
after death.
...

POEM OF THE DAY - MODERN POEM
Lorena

it lay in my palm soft and trembled
as a new bird and i thought about
authority and how it always insisted
on itself, how it was master
of the man, how it measured him, never
was ignored or denied, and how it promised
there would be sweetness if it was obeyed
just like the saints do, like the angels
and i opened the window and held out my
uncupped hand; i swear to god

...

POEM OF THE DAY - MEMBER POEM
The Horses

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day

...

NEW POEMS
EXPLORE POEMS
Best Member Poems
1.
indira babbellapati

I dwell
In the absence
You left behind
...

2.
Dr. Antony Theodore

If you die before me
I would jump down into your grave
and hug you so innocently
that angels will become jealous.
...

3.
yoonoos peerbocus

Beautiful is the 'thank you'
Wrapped with gratitude,
Offered to peace prone people
Who offer what is real-themselves
...

4.
Muzahidul Reza

Indoors by technology, outdoors by speedy transport
I travel the world
Today in Japan, tomorrow in Rome,
Next day by an ancient civilization or in Hawaii or Coast Ivory,
...

5.
Howard Simon

The low lands call
I am tempted to answer
They are offering me a free dwelling
Without having to conquer
...

6.
Chinedu Dike

The Peace Warrior Of Mzansi, among heroes - a colossus!
Sun Of The Nation; a rare gift of Providence.
Once, entangled in the web of racist succubus;
Unruffled he declares before High Justice:
...

7.
Ency Bearis

(This is a composition in Pilipino Language the first one I did, the only one, and hope some of the Filipinos will get this funny poem in this site. The poem is updated with English translation)


Noong taong otsenta dekada
...

8.
Jazib Kamalvi

Love and lust are poles apart.

Lust is chaos, love is art.
...

Best Classical Poems
1.
Jacques Prevert

Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là
Et tu marchais souriante
Épanouie ravie ruisselante
...

2.
Evie Shockley

you put this pen
in my hand and you
take the pen from you put this pen
...

3.
Barbara Guest

On this dry prepared path walk heavy feet.
This is not "dinner music." This is a power structure.
...

4.
Richard Lovelace

"Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
Employ'd to serve her deity:
...

5.
Robert William Service

If you had the choice of two women to wed,
(Though of course the idea is quite absurd)
And the first from her heels to her dainty head
Was charming in every sense of the word:
...

6.
Emily Jane Brontë

A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
...

7.
Thomas Hardy

Between us now and here -
   Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
   Life's flushest feather -
...

8.
Emily Dickinson

185

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see—
...

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