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What I Didn't Know Before

by Ada Limón

was how horses simply give birth to other horses. Not a baby by any means, not a creature of liminal spaces, but already a four-legged beast hellbent on walking, scrambling after the mother. A horse gives way to another horse and then suddenly there are two horses, just like that. That’s how I loved you. You, off the long train from Red Bank carrying a coffee as big as your arm, a bag with two computers swinging in it unwieldily at your side. I remember we broke into laughter when we saw each other. What was between us wasn’t a fragile thing to be coddled, cooed over. It came out fully formed, ready to run.

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A Man Said to the Universe

by Stephen Crane

A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.”

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This Is Just To Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

and which you were probably saving for breakfast

Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

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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.”

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This Be The Verse

by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.     They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had     And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn     By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern     And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.     It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can,     And don’t have any kids yourself.

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"Hope" is the thing with feathers

by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

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The Quiet World

by Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look into each other’s eyes more, and also to appease the mutes, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover, proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond, I know she’s used up all her words, so I slowly whisper I love you thirty-two and a third times. After that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe.

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Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves       Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves,       And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!       The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun       The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;       Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree       And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,       The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,       And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through       The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head       He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?       Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”       He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves       Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves,       And the mome raths outgrabe.

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The Two-Headed Calf

by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

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The Red Wheelbarrow

by William Carlos Williams

so much depends upon

a red wheel barrow

glazed with rain water

beside the white chickens

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I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

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    And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;     And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,     And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor             Shall be lifted—nevermore!

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," Stanza 18

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    “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting— “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!     Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!     Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”             Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," Stanza 17

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    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—     Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,     It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”             Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," Stanza 16

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    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,     Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—     On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”             Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," Stanza 15

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    Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.     “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee     Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”             Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," Stanza 14

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    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;     This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining     On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er, But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,             She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," Stanza 13