Sentimental

the second time

i ask mama

about residential school

she says no

i ask her again

she says no

the third time

i stop listen

to her silence

ask about her diabetes

her hip achy back

her sore knees

did she get her hearing aid fixed

whether...

Rosanna Deerchild

Invitation to Love

Come when the nights are bright with stars

Or when the moon is mellow;

Come when the sun his golden bars

Drops on the hay-field yellow.

Come in the twilight soft and gray,

Come in the night or come in the day,

Come, O love, whene’er you may,

And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,

...

Paul Laurence Dunbar
1872-1906

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

After the click of the shutting. Life to life —

I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,

And feel as safe as guarded by a charm

Against the stab of worldlings,...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
1806-1861

Two Hours on the Train

During two hours on the train

I rerun the film of my life

Two minutes per year on average

Half an hour for childhood

Another half-hour for prison

Love, books, wandering

take up the rest

the hand of my companion

gradually melts into mine

and her head on my shoulder

is as light as a dove

When we...

Abdellatif Laâbi
b. 1942

A Short Story of Falling

It is the story of the falling rain

to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower

to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary

that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water’s wishes and this tale

hangs in a seed-head smaller...

Alice Oswald
b. 1966

Ae Fond Kiss

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;

Ae fareweel, and then forever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,

Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,

While the star of hope she leaves him:

Me, nae cheerfu’ twinkle...

Robert Burns
1759-1796

Gayatri

I have a picture of us when we are seven

but we aren’t in it. At the time it was taken

we thought we were. We posed with our wide

grins and best-friends-forever certainty. I angled

the camera to capture us in front of a Christmas tree.

All the sparkling tinsel and dangling silver balls aren’t there.

There...

Souvankham Thammavongsa
b. 1978

Smooth Horizon of the Verb Love

an urban image from the eighties

when we hung out at Chez Madame Arthur

and at the back of the room

women wrapped their arms around

nights of ink and dawn

calendar of murmurs

vague caresses about the planet and its water

we could have...

Nicole Brossard
b. 1943

Good Day Villanelle

You ran naked out the door.

The neighbours laughed; I chased you down.

I hardly see you anymore.

I know you’re busy.

Did I tell you when you were little how

you ran naked out the door?

You got halfway down the street

before I caught you in my arms.

I hardly see you anymore.

I...

Damian Rogers
b. 1972

The Boxers

We were combatants from the start. Our dad

Bought us boxing gloves when we were ten —

Champions like Euryalus, say, or Epeius

Of wooden-horse fame: ‘I am the greatest!’

‘Nobody’s going to knock me down!’ Listen,

Peter, to the commentary — gruesome teeth-

Grinding, sweat splattering their arms and legs,

Huge fists in ox-hide...

Michael Longley
b. 1939

World Town

Entirely windless, today’s sea; of these waters’ many names

the best seemed “field-of-pearl-leaves,” for it smelled like the air

in the house he built entirely of doors: pink school door,

gold of the burnt hotel, two old church blues, the abandoned

bank’s steel doors singular and immovably wedged over

the family’s heads though as with everything...

Shane Book

Portrait of Alice with Elvis

Queen and King, they rule side by side

in golden thrones above the clouds.

Her giggle and wide eyes remind him

of his first young wife, and his twang

never ceases to thrill her, so different

from the prim accents of men she’s known.

She sings for him, “Hound Dog”

and “Heartbreak Hotel,” and he turns

the Mock...

Stephanie Bolster
b. 1969

Sometimes I Find Myself Weeping at the Oddest Moment

sometimes I find myself

weeping

at the oddest moment

an unexpected voice

mon oncle André

calling Christmas Day

wishing me

a Merry Christmas

and I am

that little girl

walking across the lake

with her grandfather

to check on the snares

and traps he...

Rita Bouvier
b. 1950

When Winter Comes

Rain at Muchalat, rain at Sooke,

And rain, they say, from Yale to Skeena,

And the skid-roads blind, and never a look

Of the Coast Range blue over Malaspina,

And west winds keener

Than jack-knife blades,

And rocks grown greener

With the long drip-drip from the cedar shades

On the drenched deep soil where the footsteps...

Marjorie Pickthall
1883-1922

Hall of Mirrors

To Kristin Lems

We miss something now

as we think about it

Let’s see: eat, sleep & dream, read

A good book, by Robert Stone

...

Ted Berrigan
1934-1983

Heirloom

My father bequeathed me no wide estates;

No keys and ledgers were my heritage;

Only some holy books with yahrzeit dates

Writ mournfully upon a blank front page —

...

A. M. Klein
1909-1972

The Cariboo Horses

At 100 Mile House the cowboys ride in rolling

stagey cigarettes with one hand reining

half-tame bronco rebels on a morning grey as stone

— so much like riding dangerous women

with whiskey coloured eyes...

Al Purdy
1918-2000

The Bull Moose

Down from the purple mist of trees on the mountain,

lurching through forests of white spruce and cedar,

stumbling through tamarack swamps,

came the bull moose

to be stopped...

Alden Nowlan
1933-1983

Newfoundland Sealing Disaster

Sent to the ice after white coats,

rough outfit slung on coiled rope belts,

they stooped to the slaughter: gaffed pups,

slit them free of their spotless pelts.

The storm...

Michael Crummey
b. 1965

Full Moon

My bands of silk and miniver

Momently grew heavier;

The black gauze was beggarly thin;

The ermine muffled mouth and chin;

I could not suck the moonlight in.

Harlequin in lozenges

Of love and hate, I walked in these

Striped and ragged rigmaroles;

Along the pavement my footsoles

...

Elinor Wylie
1885-1928

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And...

William Butler Yeats
1865-1939

Miniver Cheevy

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,

Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;

He wept that he was ever born,

And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old

When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;

The vision of a warrior bold

...

Edwin Arlington Robinson
1869-1935

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

II.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was...

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
1809-1892

The Potato Harvest

A high bare field, brown from the plough, and borne

Aslant from sunset; amber wastes of sky

Washing the ridge; a clamour of crows that fly

In from the wide flats where the spent tides mourn

To yon their rocking roosts in pines wind-torn;

A line of grey snake-fence, that zigzags by

...

Charles G. D. Roberts
1860-1943

Ode on Solitude

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

...

Alexander Pope
1688-1744

Père Lalement

I lift the Lord on high,

Under the murmuring hemlock boughs, and see

The small birds of the forest lingering by

And making melody.

These are mine acolytes and these my choir,

And this mine altar in the cool green shade,

Where the wild soft-eyed does draw nigh

Wondering, as in the byre

Of Bethlehem the oxen heard Thy cry...

Marjorie Pickthall
1883-1922

Thoughtless Cruelty

There, Robert, you have kill’d that fly — ,

And should you thousand ages try

The life you’ve taken to supply,

You could not do it.

You surely must have been devoid

Of thought and sense, to have destroy’d

A thing which no way you annoy’d —

You’ll one day rue it.

Twas...

Charles Lamb
1775-1834

I think I should have loved you presently

I think I should have loved you presently,

And given in earnest words I flung in jest;

And lifted honest eyes for you to see,

And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;

And all my pretty follies flung aside

That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,

Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,

Spread like a chart my little...

Edna St. Vincent Millay
1892-1950

The Dead

How great unto the living seem the dead!

How sacred, solemn; how heroic grown;

How vast and vague, as they obscurely tread

The shadowy confines of the dim unknown! —

For they have met the monster that we dread,

Have learned the secret not to mortal shown.

E’en as gigantic shadows on the wall

The spirit of the daunted child amaze...

Charles Heavysege
1816-1876

Rondeau

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in;

Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in:

Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,

Say that health and wealth have missed me,

Say I’m growing old, but add,

Jenny kissed me.

Leigh Hunt
1784-1859

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,

Where China’s gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow;

Demurest of the tabby kind,

The pensive Selima, reclined,

Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;

The fair round face, the snowy beard,

The...

Thomas Gray
1716-1771

To an Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad...

A. E. Housman
1859-1936

Confessions

What is he buzzing in my ears?

“Now that I come to die,

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?”

Ah, reverend sir, not I!

What I viewed there once, what I view again

Where the physic bottles stand

On the table’s edge, — is a suburb lane...

Robert Browning
1812-1889

The Dark Stag

A startled stag, the blue-grey Night,

Leaps down beyond black pines.

Behind — a length of yellow light —

The hunter’s arrow shines:

His moccasins are stained with red,

He bends upon his knee,

From covering peaks his shafts are sped,

The blue mists plume his mighty head, —...

Isabella Valancy Crawford
1850-1887

My Grandmother’s Love Letters

There are no stars tonight

But those of memory.

Yet how much room for memory there is

In the loose girdle of soft rain.

There is even room enough

For the letters of my mother’s mother,

Elizabeth,

That have been pressed so long

Into a corner of the roof

That they are brown and soft,

...

Hart Crane
1899-1932

So, we’ll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And...

Lord (George Gordon) Byron
1788-1824

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;

A body of England...

Rupert Brooke
1887-1915

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang...