poems

my favorite poems

February & my love is in another state
By José Olivarez

so when i walk down the street, i hold hands
with the wind. there’s a chimney coughing
up ahead & a sky so honey, i could almost taste it.
a cat struts away from me & two yellow eyes

become four: just like that,
i’m the loneliest creature on this block.
soon the streetlights will come alive
& television sets will light up with blues.

stay with me. while the sky is still golden,
hold the ladder so i can climb, & from
the highest rung, i can scrape away a drizzle
of light to wear around my neck. alone

is the star i follow. in love & in solitude:
alone is the home with the warmest glow.

God
by Michael Bazzett

for Ada Limon

Look, it’s not that I believe in him. Nor he
in me. We have moved beyond all that.
I just like having someone there in the dark.
Usually we sit in silence, waiting for passing
headlights to glide across the ceiling and knock
stray prayers loose from where they got
stuck on their way out, so many years ago.
It’s almost like finding old piñata candy,
says God, picking one from the floorboards.
He unwraps it, takes a quick taste. Winces.
Nods like he’s just remembered something
for the thousandth, thousandth time.
What is it? I ask. It’s kind of like chewing
tinfoil, he says. All that aching naked hope.

He Visits My Town Once a Year
by Amir Khusrow

He visits my town once a year.
He fills my mouth with kisses and nectar.
I spend all my money on him
Who, girl, your man?
No, a mango.

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

The Orange
by Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I got a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.