Poetic Medicine

By Seamus Heaney She came every morning to draw water Like an old bat staggering up the field: The pump's whooping cough, the bucket...

By Anne Whitehouse A faint breeze ruffles the last leaves on the trees, and a parade of dead leaves skids over the dry dock, light eno...

By Patricia Smith Hurricanes, 2005 Arlene learned to dance backwards in heels that were too high. Bret prayed for a shaggy mustache m...

By Sharon Olds When they say,  If there are any doctors aboard, would they make themselves known , I remember when my then husband would ...

By Bonaro Overstreet (To One Who Doubts the Worth of Doing Anything If You Can't Do Everything) You say the little efforts that I ma...

By A. R. Ammons The people of my time are passing away: my wife is baking for a funeral, a 60-year-old who died suddenly, when the phon...

By Tess Taylor My parents kissing in a kitchen. In her loop-eyed dress my mother— enormous in her belly, I loom. In a commune in Fort ...

By Hal Sirowitz In the beginning, father said, God created the universe.  Notice how He hadn’t ended it, yet. That’s in Bible Two. Hop...

By David Wojahn  A nurse gathers up the afterbirth. My mother  * had been howling but now could sleep.  * By this time I am gone—also ...

By Clive James In the NHS psychiatric test For classifying the mentally ill You have to spell 'world' backwards. Since I heard thi...

By William Stafford My feet wait there listening, and when they dislike what happens they begin to press on the floor. They know when i...

By Javed Akhtar If you have eagerness in your heart, it means you are alive, If your eyes are filled with dreams, it means you are alive L...

By Kenny Fries ...then the wasting begins and the disappearance a day at a time. -- Mark Doty The night of your reading I notice he has...

By William Stafford They tell how it was, and how time came along, and how it happened again and again. They tell the slant life takes ...

By Dennis Silk   ...

By e. e. cummings i sing of Olaf glad and big whose warmest heart recoiled at war: a conscientious object-or his wellbelovéd colonel(trig we...

By Ibrahim al-Rubaish O sea, give me news of my loved ones. Were it not for the chains of the faithless, I would have dived into you, A...

By Mitchell Hall we are all here glowing but not for so long ticking like a clock just ticking away it’s the smart one...

By Stan Lee God woke He stretched and yawned and looked around Haunted by a thought unfound A vagrant thought that would not die He rose an...

By Mark Twain Warm summer sun, Shine kindly here, Warm southern wind, Blow softly here. Green sod above, Lie light, lie light. Good ...