I can't find some of my favorite poems that I'd like to share, but I have posted three of my favorites on hubski in the past.

One Train May Hide Another by Kenneth Koch Flight by James Tate Closing time at the Second Avenue Deli by Alan Dugan

I was also hoping to share another one of Koch's poems, The Art of Love but it's quite long and I can't find it posted online. It's long enough that I wouldn't care to type it out myself, but it's a great poem. If I had to make a list of poets who have most shaped my ideas on what poems should be like (and everyone who reads or writes poetry should develop their own ideas of what poetry should be) an unorganized list would have to be, Kenneth Koch and to some extent the other New York School poets, James Tate, C.P. Cavafy, Alan Dugan, Pablo Neruda and Bill Knott.

Anyway, here is one of my favorite Neruda poems, originally titled by Neruda Soneto XII Note: the English translation is taken from I Explain a Few Things edited by Ilan Stavans, 2007. I'm not sure who translated it.

    ‘Carnal Apple, Woman Filled, Burning Moon,’

    Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
    dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
    what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
    What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
    Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
    through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
    Love is a war of lightning,
    and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
    Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
    your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
    and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
    slips through the narrow channels of blood
    to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
    to be, and be nothing but light in the dark. 


    Soneto XII

    Plena mujer, manzana carnal, luna caliente,
    espeso aroma de algas, lodo y luz machacados,
    qué oscura claridad se abre entre tus columnas?
    Qué antigua noche el hombre toca con sus sentidos?

    Ay, amar es un viaje con agua y con estrellas,
    con aire ahogado y bruscas tempestades de harina:
    amar es un combate de relámpagos
    y dos cuerpos por una sola miel derrotados.

    Beso a beso recorro tu pequeño infinito,
    tus márgenes, tus ríos, tus pueblos diminutos,
    y el fuego genital transformado en delicia

    corre por los delgados caminos de la sangre
    hasta preciptitarse come un clavel nocturno,
    hasta ser y no ser sino un rayo en la sombre.