Here's another favorite, by Anonymous:

He prayeth best who loveth best
All creatures great and small.
The Streotococcus is the test -
I love him least of all.

Very Short Poems
 

Hello to All,

I have always read this epitaph by W.B.Yeats as a very short poem by him about himself. Here it is:

W.B.Yeats (1865-1939)


'Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!'


And here is the link:

http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/yeats.htm

Warmest regards/Abid

Even though this is allegedly a short story by Ernest Hemingway, it has the conciseness, cut and slash, and gravitas-in-sketch of a flash poem:

For sale
Baby shoes
Never used

Cheers wkg

Here’s one of those linguistic nits
I’d like you all to share.
It’s not a Helly Copter; it’s
A Helico Pter.

Yeah. I wrote it. It's not great but it is short.

Separation

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

[W. S. Merwin]

Love that one, Marcia!
Thanks.

Nemo

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

--Margaret Atwood

Roy Campbell's imagistic

Fishing Boats in Martigues

Around the quays, kicked off in twos
The Four Winds dry their wooden shoes.

Very Short Poems
 

Hello to All,

If it is allowed and moderators do not mind it, I would like to submit one of my short poems. It was a little longer but I simply failed to improve upon the first two lines and friends told me to let them be during the www.criticalpoet.com days......thanks....warmest regards/Abid

The Touch (23-12-2004)

Saying goodbye,
your hand lingers in mine
like fragrance in the air.


(I was asked to get rid of these last three lines:

Carrying your touch
I try to walk steady
but they spot it and smile.)

Hi Abid,

As you invoked the moderator, here I am. Thanks for reviving this thread from seven years ago. It's always interesting to go through the archives and have a fresh look at a topic.

On the subject of posting your own poem, I would just remind you what the description of this forum is:

Musing on Mastery: The tradition of the masters: the classics & how they did it. (Metrical Poetry & Free Verse.)

However, we're not absolutely rigid on this. While discussing some tradition or some aspect of mastery, a point can be effectively made by quoting from one's own poems, and so we let it go. However, it's best if the thread doesn't turn into a parade of self-citations.

Thanks again for the interest in the topic.

Sheen

Sun splinters
In water's skin
Quivers hundreds
Of lines to rim
One radiance
You within

Samuel Menashe

Television

Hug me, mother of noise,
Find me a hiding place.
I am afraid of my voice.
I do not like my face.

xxx- Anne Stevenson

A poor thing, but -

After Sū San

Bed with you
was Mount Olympus
but now you’ve gone,
it’s just white plains again.

Frank

Ed Conti has a million of them, but I've always been especially fond of this one, whose title (if it had one) I forget. Ed will forgive me if I've mangled it, but this is the way I remember it:

Life is a journey
that ends on a gurney.

Amateur Astronomy

The constellations in her vast dark eyes

Induce a host of telescopes to rise.

—Don Thackrey

God of Roads

I, peregrine of noon.

--Yvor Winters

And let's not forget Nash's
 

RCL: BEING IN RECOVERY, I THANK YOU FOR THE REMINDER...........
.........."One Day At A Time". You could add a line or two by saying how or why liquor is quicker.
Mahalos , Shawn.

Hi Ed: When I was a freshman in high school in 1962, my biology teacher called the TV the 'idiot box'. This candid short poem states the TV on other clear notes of varied planes.
MAHALOS, Shawn

Stevenson does show 'the soul of wit' in that poem, Shawn. It illuminates so much without giving an easy out or answer. I so admire poets who have that gift.

Ed




I had gone broke, and got set to come back,
And lost, on a hot day and a fast track,
On a long shot at long odds, a black mare
By Hatred out of Envy by Despair.

xxxxx- J. V. Cunningham

One of my favs.

The Owl

Beneath her nest
a shrew’s head,
a finch’s beak
and the bones
of a quail attest

the owl devours
the hour,
and disregards
the rest.

wendy v.

The clanking and wanking of Her Majesty's prisons.

Gavin Ewart

On Fleas

Adam
Had'em

(Anon)

Great thread!

I see a few others have already offered "Fleas," a favorite of mine, but I don't think this one's been posted yet--a little more substantial, in more ways than one:


"First Fig"

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

And of course:

"Second Fig"

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

--Edna St. Vincent Millay