Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
The City's Love
For one brief golden moment rare like wine,The gracious city swept across the line;Oblivious of the color of my skin,Forgetting that I was an alien..
© Claude McKay
Song Of The Moon
The moonlight breaks upon the city's domes,And falls along cemented steel and stone,Upon the grayness of a million homes,Lugubrious in unchanging..
© Claude McKay
The Snow Fairy
IThroughout the afternoon I watched them there,Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,Whirling fantastic in the misty air,Contending fierce for..
© Claude McKay
Flower Of Love
The perfume of your body dulls my sense.I want nor wine nor weed; your breath aloneSuffices. In this moment rare and tenseI worship at your breast...
© Claude McKay
Harlem Shadows
I hear the halting footsteps of a lassIn Negro Harlem when the night lets fallIts veil. I see the shapes of girls who passTo bend and barter at..
© Claude McKay
Dawn In New York
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comesOut of the low still skies, over the hills,Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!The Dawn! My..
© Claude McKay
After The Winter
Some day, when trees have shed their leavesAnd against the morning's whiteThe shivering birds beneath the eavesHave sheltered for the night,We'll..
© Claude McKay
A Red Flower
Your lips are like a southern lily red,Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,In which the brown bee buries deep its head,When still the dawn's a..
© Claude McKay
Romance
To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,Scented and warm against my beating breast;To whisper soft and quivering your name,And drink the..
© Claude McKay
Africa
The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light,The sciences were sucklings at thy breast;When all the world was young in pregnant nightThy slaves..
© Claude McKay
I Shall Return
I shall return again; I shall returnTo laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyesAt golden noon the forest fires burn,Wafting their blue-black smoke..
© Claude McKay
A Memory Of June
When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,With scarlet roses tinting her green breast,And mating thrushes ushering in her day,And Earth on tiptoe..
© Claude McKay
Flame-Heart
So much have I forgotten in ten years,So much in ten brief years! I have forgotWhat time the purple apples come to juice,And what month brings the..
© Claude McKay
Birds Of Prey
Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day,As they go lumbering across the sky,Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high,Beating their heavy wings of..
© Claude McKay
Courage
O lonely heart so timid of approach,Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lipsTo the faint touch of tender finger tips:What is your word? What..
© Claude McKay
Enslaved
Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,For weary centuries despised, oppressed,Enslaved and lynched, denied a human placeIn the great life line of..
© Claude McKay
America
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,Stealing my breath of life, I will confessI love this cultured..
© Claude McKay
If We Must Die
If we must die, let it not be like hogsHunted and penned in an inglorious spot,While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,Making their mock at our..
© Claude McKay
A 340 Dollar Horse And A Hundred Dollar Whore
don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see meat the racetrack any day half drunkbetting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,but let..
© Charles Bukowski
Beasts Bounding Through Time
Van Gogh writing his brother for paintsHemingway testing his shotgunCeline going broke as a doctor of medicinethe impossibility of being humanVillon..
© Charles Bukowski
For The Foxes
Don't feel sorry for me.I am a competent,satisfied human being.be sorry for the otherswhofidgetcomplainwhoconstantlyrearrange..
© Charles Bukowski
The Great Escape
listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in abucket?no, I told him.well, what happens is that now and then one crabwill climb up on top of the..
© Charles Bukowski
My Cats
I know. I know.they are limited, have differentneeds andconcerns.but I watch and learn from them.I like the little they know,which is somuch.they..
© Charles Bukowski
No help for that
There is a place in the heart thatwill never be filleda spaceand even during thebest momentsandthe greatest timestimeswe will know itwe will know..
© Charles Bukowski
On The Fire Suicides Of The Buddhists
'They only burn themselves to reach Paradise'- Mne. Nhuoriginal courage is good,motivation be damned,and if you say they are trainedto feel no..
© Charles Bukowski