[Maryann Corbett]

Bruce, thanks for that link! Great stuff. There's brief mention of Dorothy Parker on that thread, but I think no one has yet quoted this well-loved eight-liner:

Résumé

Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.

Perhaps it's self-evident, but if you want to do Light it's probably best to go Short.

[Donna English]

Lots of great poems in this thread!

I noted this one in another thread. But it's a fine example of small but mighty poem. Only four lines, but they say everything--it's a gut punch of a poem. The last line, blending the onlookers' uneasiness and inability to comfort with the father's instability, insanity, fragility. He's sick, diseased. Do they fear to touch him, comfort him because he might shatter, or do they fear that by touching him the grief will spill out onto them and they will breakdown? Both I'd say.

The Sandy Hole by Jayne Kenyon

The infant's coffin is no bigger than a flightbag...
The young father steps backward from the sandy hole
eyes wide and dry, his hand over his mouth.
No one dares come near him, even to touch his sleeve.

[Roger Slater]

I've posted this before, a little stunner by Christina Rossetti:


Buds and Babies

A million buds are born that never blow,
..That sweet with promise lift a pretty head
..To blush and wither on a barren bed
....And leave no fruit to show.

Sweet, unfulfilled. Yet have I understood
..One joy, by their fragility made plain:
..Nothing was ever beautiful in vain,
....Or all in vain was good.

[wendy v]

Pity us
by the sea
on the sands
so briefly.


-Samuel Menashe


----


The Pope's Penis

It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver seaweed, the hair
swaying in the dark and the heat -- and at night
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of God.

Sharon Olds


-------

Magnetic

i spell it out on this fridge door
you are so wonderful
i even like th way you snor


- Wendy Cope



-----------

Fragments

I

Locke sank into a swoon;
The garden died;
God took the spinning-jenny
out of his side.

II

Where got I that truth ?
Out of a medium's mouth,
Out of nothing it came,
Out of the forest loam,
Out of the dark night where lay
The crowns of Neneveh.


- Yeats

---

How Ticklishness Evolved

What danger does he shrink from, when my nail
skitters across the boundaries of his tan --
a tiger's whisker-tip, a scorpion's tail ?
What wriggler wrecked a cave bear's dinner plan
by waking up the world's first ticklish man ?

Maybe it was the spider's needle feet
that triggered that first trembling retreat;
perhaps the flicking of a serpent's tongue,
or something more insidious and sweet,
whose touch was feather-soft before it stung.

-Rose Kelleher

--

The angel that presided over my birth
Said, "Little creature formed of joy and mirth,
Go love without the help of any Thing on earth."


-Blake

--


Morning breeze, bring news
of beauty. Slowly, please.

-Shams

------------


Not all those who pass
in front of the Great Mother's Chair
get past with only a stare.
Some she looks at their hands
To see what kind of savages they were.

- Gary Snyder

[Patricia A. Marsh]

Another one by Robert Frost:

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

[Petra Norr]

As much as I love Longfellow's "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls", I have to admire the Menashe posted in this thread for compressing the same age-old theme into a bite-size version.
Here's another Menashe I like:

Walking Stick


This stick springs
When you lean on it
It is still green
You can feel the sap
This stick gives
A spring to your walk
Old sticks snap
This stick bends like a bow
You are the arrow

----
A question for anyone and everyone:
When you write a short poem, how can you know it's really done and not just a pitiful little skeleton begging to be clothed? I'm always being told my short poems should be expanded, so obviously I haven't learned the secret of bite-size success.

[Roger Slater]

Bitter-Sweet
by George Herbert

Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.

[Donna English]

Originally Posted by Petra Norr

----
A question for anyone and everyone:
When you write a short poem, how can you know it's really done and not just a pitiful little skeleton begging to be clothed? I'm always being told my short poems should be expanded, so obviously I haven't learned the secret of bite-size success.

I know what you mean Petra. I guess my answer might sound too simple, but the short poems work when they have said all they need to say about something.

Sorta like in Forrest Gump "and that's all I've got to say about that."

Donna

[Roger Slater]

They're done when you get to the last line, I think.

It's the same way you know when your longer poems are done, only it happens sooner.

[David Anthony]

There was a thread on epitaphs a while ago.
Here's one of my favourites.

Olivia Susan Clemens (1866-1890)
[Daughter of Mark Twain]

Warm summer sun, shine kindly here;
Warm southern wind, blow softly here;
Green sod above, lie light, lie light --
Good-night, dear heart, good-night, good-night.