Emily Dickinson – It was not Death, for I stood up (Poem 355)

It was not Death, for I stood up, And all the Dead, lie down - It was not Night, for all the Bells Put out their Tongues, for Noon. It was not Frost, for on my Flesh I felt Siroccos - crawl - Nor Fire - for just my marble feet Could keep a Chancel, cool - And yet, it tasted,...

Charles Bukowski – Pull A String, A Puppet Moves

each man must realize that it can all disappear very quickly: the cat, the woman, the job, the front tire, the bed, the walls, the room; all our necessities including love, rest on foundations of sand - and any given cause, no matter how unrelated: the death of a boy in Hong...

Thomas Stearns Eliot – To Walter de la Mare

The children who explored the brook and foundA desert island with a sandy cove(A hiding place, but very dangerous ground,For here the water buffalo may rove,The kinkajou, the mungabey, aboundIn the dark jungle of a mango grove,And shadowy lemurs glide from tree to tree -The guardians...

Sylvia Plath – Who

The month of flowering's finished. The fruit's in,Eaten or rotten. I am all mouth.October's the month for storage.Thie shed's fusty as a mummy's stomach:Old tools, handles and rusty tusks.I am at home here among the dead heads.Let me sit in a flowerpot,The spiders won't notice.My...

Sylvia Plath – Whiteness I Remember

Whiteness being what I rememberAbout Sam: whiteness and the great runHe gave me. I've gone nowhere since butGoing's been tame deviation. White,Not of heraldic stallions: off-whiteOf the stable horse whose history'sHumdrum, unexceptionable, hisTried sobriety hiring him outTo novices...