If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it.
#AmericanWriters
The brain within its groove Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swerve, ‘T were easier for you To put the water back
904 Had I not This, or This, I said, Appealing to Myself, In moment of prosperity— Inadequate—were Life—
457 Sweet—safe—Houses—Glad—gay—House… Sealed so stately tight— Lids of Steel—on Lids of Marble— Locking Bare feet out—
659 That first Day, when you praised… And said that I was strong— And could be mighty, if I liked— That Day—the Days among—
873 Ribbons of the Year— Multitude Brocade— Worn to Nature’s Party once Then, as flung aside
761 From Blank to Blank— A Threadless Way I pushed Mechanic feet— To stop—or perish—or advance—
Some keep the Sabbath going to Ch… I keep it, staying at Home— With a Bobolink for a Chorister— And an Orchard, for a Dome— Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice…
458 Like eyes that looked on Wastes— Incredulous of Ought But Blank—and steady Wilderness— Diversified by Night—
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers— Untouched by Morning— and untouched by noon— Sleep the meek members of the Res… Rafter of Satin and Roof of Ston…
838 Impossibility, like Wine Exhilarates the Man Who tastes it; Possibility Is flavorless—Combine
893 Drab Habitation of Whom? Tabernacle or Tomb— Or Dome of Worm— Or Porch of Gnome—
728 Let Us play Yesterday— I—the Girl at school— You—and Eternity—the Untold Tale—
A slash of Blue— A sweep of Gray— Some scarlet patches on the way, Compose an Evening Sky— A little purple—slipped between—
284 The Drop, that wrestles in the Se… Forgets her own locality— As I—toward Thee— She knows herself an incense small…
I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step Around a pile of mountains,