At a Forest Pool

Here sad self-lovers saw in tragic error
Some lovely other or another sky;
In your reversing yet unlying mirror
  I saw I was I.

– John Hollander

This neat little poem plays off of the Narcissus myth while employing a literary trick, the palindrome, so appropriately as to almost rescue that particular form of wordplay from the realm of kitsch. A man, a plan: John Hollander!

the Secret Sits

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

– Robert Frost

“The Secret Sits” is an unusual poem for Frost, being more elusive than usual; a metaphysical teaser, it reads like a passage from an ancient Eastern religious text.

Reflections on Ice Breaking

Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

– Ogden Nash

For Nash’s birthday, here is his most quoted, most famous poem. By now, these four little lines have shed their title and author to become one of the great aphorisms of the English language. Once, in some terrible shopping outlet on the Delaware shore, I saw an Abercrombie & Fitch selling shirts spouting “Liquor Is Quicker”, and I wondered if anyone there knew the source. Cheers, Mr. Nash, for not only cementing my love of poetry, but for leaving such an indelible mark on language and the public consciousness.

Summer Haiku

  P o o l
P e o p l
  e   p l o p!
  C o o l.

– Edwin Morgan

Summer strikes. People plash. Basho nods. (Someone pees in pool.)

Self-Contradiction

abcdefghijklmNO

– bpNichol

Ulysses uses 30000 distinct words. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over a quarter million. Urban Dictionary holds 6.5 million entries. Language contains multitudes.

Small Song

The reeds give
way to the

wind and give
the wind away.

– A. R. Ammons

A moment of insight, a wisp of wordplay, a perfect title.

Poem Recognizing Someone in the Street

e   y   ?   h
e   ?   h   e
h   e   y   !

– Aram Saroyan

Saroyan modulates three letters and two punctuation marks to turn the most quotidian of events into a sparkling and surprising play of language.

One can buy Complete Minimal Poems, which contains this poem and is neither complete nor, at almost 300 pages, very minimal, from Ugly Duckling Press.