poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 5hWhim Wood into the coppery halls of beech and intricate oak to be close to the trees as they whisper together let fall their leaves, and we die for the winter Katherine Towers 000
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026October How suddenly the woods have turned again. I feel like Daphne, standing with my arms outstretched to the season, overtaken by color, crowned with the hammered gold of leaves. Linda Pastan Image courtesy @robertallenpoet.bsky.social 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Chorus We want to know the reasons for everything but the mothers tell us be patient. Hey there sweetheart, they say. A little fortitude, a little patience. The mothers have beautiful old lady legs. The silence in them spills into us, we are as shhhh as we can be. Catherine Barnett 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 01/10/2026To White Noise You are the sound silence makes in its sleep, air made visible by smoke, deepest breath with no breathing, O my personal ocean, O un- broken shush of mortality, O my digital sister, thank you, thank you for keeping the children from climbing over the fence of sleep. Carrie Fountain 051
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Lines for a Critic You say I live to use my life in verse And this appalls you. Sir, I have done worse. Mary Baron Image courtesy @tomsnarsky.bsky.social 0132
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 29/09/2026The Swimmer’s Death He lay outstretched upon the sunny wave, That turned and broke into Eternity. The light showed nothing but a glassy grave, Among the trackless tumuli of the sea. Then over his buried brow and eyes and lips, From every side flocked in the homing ship. Edwin Muir 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 28/09/2026the lesson of the falling leaves the leaves believe such letting go is love such love is faith such faith is grace such grace is god i agree with the leaves Lucille Clifton Image courtesy of @mayacpopa.bsky.social 0103
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 27/09/2026PARTISANS He hacks at a snowdrift: She skims the pine needles That drop into their soup , Scattering on the snowcrust Ideograms of “peace” And “love”, suchlike ideals. Michael Longley 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Mercy How is it that guilt which has no substance should be so heavy and forgiveness which has no substance should be so light? Julie Cadwallader Straub 040
Reposted by @poemtoday.bsky.socialPeter McDonald @pmcdthisandthat.bsky.social · 22/09/2026One of the many gems of Dublin folklore about Yeats, recorded by Richard Ellmann in 1946. 0144
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 25/09/2026May Day Midnight In the light of day perhaps all of this will make sense. But have we come this far, come this close to death, just to make sense? Michael Palmer Image courtesy of @mayacpopa.bsky.social 072
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Pelican Grotesque pink bill pressed to her quilled leather corset releases the last minnow from gular folds. If they want to believe she pierces her bosom to blood-nourish her young, let them. Audrey Molloy 001
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 23/09/2026What Is This Journey I am On What is this journey That leaves me And finds me On the dirt road With my bloody mouth And the other wolf O his mouth aches in mine O his mouth Opens in red ribbons And red windows O the red room of his mouth That I am sleeping so soundly in Dorothea Lasky 030
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Quaker Service on the BBC You know from the steady tick of the clock: Time moves though the spirit may not. Rosmarie Keith Image courtesy @tomsnarsky.bsky.social 073
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Running on Desire A man could rest on what he’s done, saying he’s owned and loved and seen enough to let him lie around content in the October sun, except that a man’s the odd machine that runs on what he hasn’t found. Deborah Warren 041
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Net sparrow strung up one foot knotted in an accidental backyard trap I bury her neck soft as ribbon all year she crouches at my kitchen table asking Alice Allan 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Astronomy Lessons The night stretches out like a cat after waking. "Have you ever seen so many stars?" I ask my son who is too little to have ever seen anything but the universe I have placed before him. Kate Baer 031
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Wound I’ve loved you as a man loves an old wound picked up in a razor fight on a street nobody remembers. Look at him: even in the dark he touches it gently. Larry Levis 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 17/09/2026I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you a hoopoe, you? I think I’d rather be a frog And hope for water in the bog. 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 17/09/2026unfurnished Something was said and she felt a certain way about said something. Certain only because there was no mistaking the feeling she felt—the sound empty makes inside a vacant house. Nicole Sealey 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 16/09/2026The Mosquito Knows The mosquito knows full well, small as he is he’s a beast of prey. But after all he only takes his bellyful, he doesn’t put my blood in the bank. D. H. Lawrence briefpoems.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/p... 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Night Philosophy Night philosophy becomes theology: We’ve not seen such darkness for centuries. Every thought condensed into a death before dying. Then a shout: who? Fanny Howe Image courtesy @tomsnarsky.bsky.social 021
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Sometimes I Sleep in Trees after Vincensini You’re crazy Don’t shoot Those aren’t crows They’re my shoes Henri Coulette 000
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 13/09/2026The earth has many keys, Where melody is not Is the unknown peninsula. Beauty is nature's fact. But witness for her land, And witness for her sea, The cricket is her utmost Of elegy to me. Emily Dickinson 011
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 12/09/2026An August Night His hands were warm and small and knowledgeable, When I saw them again last night, they were two ferrets, Playing all by themselves in a moonlit field. Seamus Heaney 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Song Two doves upon the selfsame branch, Two lilies on a single stem, Two butterflies upon one flower:— Oh happy they who look on them. Who look upon them hand in hand Flushed in the rosy summer light; Who look upon them hand in hand And never give a thought to night. Christina Rossetti 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa. Lucretius Had God designed the world, it would not be A world so frail and faulty as we see. C. S. Lewis 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Poem You can’t tell whether the upstairs neighbors are having sex or listening to talk radio that sounds like sex or whether they are having sex that sounds like talk radio. Matt Cook 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Island Life I live on an island. But that’s not the worst part. Water sloshes uncontrollably at the edges of this entire geological formation. You can hardly go anyplace without falling off. Julie O’Callaghan briefpoems.wordpress.com/2021/02/04/w...briefpoems.wordpress.comWhite Sound – Brief poems by Julie O’CallaghanJulie O’Callaghan was born in 1954 in Chicago. Her great-grandparents had emigrated there from Ballyjamesduff in County Cavan. She was the second of seven children. Her father, Jack, whom she has w… 041
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Laughter Not sure what counts more for me or for her, the surge of pleasure at making the other laugh, the sudden sun coming out, or warming to oneself for one’s wit, that shaft of it bisecting the clouds. Michael Laskey 020
Reposted by @poemtoday.bsky.socialphillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 06/09/2026Rhina Espaillat, for your labor day weekend 13210
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 06/09/2026U-District Incident Report Apparently they want your body parts. They frisk you for Your handset, earbud, bluetooth, cellphone, iPad, thumb drive, memory stick And laptop. You won’t need any of it soon. Give them The finger too. Heather McHugh 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 05/09/2026On a Singing Girl Musa of the sea-blue eyes, Silver nightingale, alone In a little coffin lies: A stone beneath a stone. She, whose song we loved the best, Is voiceless in a sudden night: On your light limbs, O loveliest, May the dust be light. Elinor Wylie 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Endings The story has two endings. It has one ending and then another. Do you hear me? I do not have the heart to edit the other out. Sandra Lim 0165
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Daily Poem no. 1 You say you love birds But only if heard No sooner than 12pm Come morning I’ll sit With magpies and tits And echo “carpe diem” Nancy Eimers 010
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Fake Pockets Like doll don’t work except in pretend; you can’t actually get a word out or a spoon in. Kay Ryan Image courtesy @phillipcrymble.bsky.social 000
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 01/09/2026Breaking Did I believe I had a clear mind? It was like the water of a river flowing shallow over the ice. And now that the rising water has broken the ice, I see that what I thought was the light is part of the dark. Wendell Berry RIP 040
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Jamesian Their relationship consisted In discussing if it existed. Thom Gunn 031
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 30/08/2026Scarf Whoever claims beauty lies in the eye of the beholder has forgotten the music silk makes settling across a bared neck: skin never touched so gently except by a child or a lover. Rita Dove Image courtesy of @mayacpopa.bsky.social 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 29/08/2026Return I will come to you again on autumn nights, as the clouds fly, as the leaves blow down. I shall speak to you again, if you will listen — as the winds cry as the years go down. Joseph Payne Brennan Image courtesy @tomsnarsky.bsky.social 1204
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 28/08/2026The Conductor one flick of the wrist and he conjures a solipsism so orchestral it sounds like empathy. Watch him. He thinks the universe resolves around him. Jessica Traynor 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Revenge of the Ex-Mistress Dear X— Finally met your wife in Beef & Beer. She hates it that you let me pierce your ear, and time you lost to me she guessed. Still, we fell in love. Please send her clothes to my address. Best wishes, no regrets. —Another X Mary Karr 020
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Fuck the Banks you can’t even storm out they have to buzz you out Matthew Rohrer 031
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Somebody Else If I was not myself, I would be somebody else. But actually I am somebody else. I have been somebody else all my life. It’s no laughing matter going about the place all the time being somebody else: people mistake you; you mistake yourself. Jackie Kay 000
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 24/08/2026Business Plan Open a shop on the beach and name it the phonetic translation in English of the sound waves make when they crash on the shore so you get free advertising all day and night until the end of time. Mark Leidner 000
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Winter Love I would like to decorate this silence, but my house grows only cleaner and more plain. The glass chimes I hung over the register ring a little when the heat goes on. I waited too long to drink my tea. It was not hot. It was only warm. Linda Gregg 150
poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 22/08/2026Happy birthday Dorothy Parker. Some brief poems here:- briefpoems.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/r...briefpoems.wordpress.comRazors – Brief Poems by Dorothy ParkerDorothy Parker (1893 – 1967) was an American poet, short story writer, critic, and satirist, best known for her wit and her wisecracks, a reputation she deplored. On August 22, 1893, she was born t… 010
