The late Bill Knott has several short poems I like in his self-published Selected Poems 1960-2013. A few:
FOOTNOTE
All of us who lived on Earth
and all our loves and wars
may not appear at all
in the moon's memoirs.
SECURITY
If I had a magic carpet
I'd keep it
Floating always
Right in front of me
Perpendicular, like a door.
TO X
You're like a scissors
popsicle I don't know to
whether jump back
or lick
SLUM SCENE
poor children sharing
back and forth their one
set of Dracula's teeth--
here even the dead
live hand to mouth
POEM
Even when the streets are empty,
even at night, the stopsign
tells the truth.
IN SLEEP
We brush the other, invisible moon.
Its caves come out and carry us inside.
[UNTITLED]
Fingerprints look like ripples
because time keeps dropping
another stone into our palm.
INTHREADABLE
each snowflake's
a maze
whose center
no other flake can find
the ways
to enter
MINOR POEM
The only response
to a child's grave is
to lie down before it and play dead.
|