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Best Famous Almonds Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Almonds poems. This is a select list of the best famous Almonds poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Almonds poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of almonds poems.

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Written by Nazim Hikmet | Create an image from this poem

Things I Didnt Know I Loved

 it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain 
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it 
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love

and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
 and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before 
 and will be said after me

I didn't know I loved the sky 
cloudy or clear
the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino
in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish 
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard 
the guards are beating someone again
I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest 
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish 
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves.
.
.
they call me The Knife.
.
.
lover like a young tree.
.
.
I blow stately mansions sky-high" in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief to a pine bough for luck I never knew I loved roads even the asphalt kind Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea Koktebele formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish the two of us inside a closed box the world flows past on both sides distant and mute I was never so close to anyone in my life bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé when I was eighteen apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take and at eighteen our lives are what we value least I've written this somewhere before wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play Ramazan night a paper lantern leading the way maybe nothing like this ever happened maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy going to the shadow play Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat with a sable collar over his robe and there's a lantern in the servant's hand and I can't contain myself for joy flowers come to mind for some reason poppies cactuses jonquils in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika fresh almonds on her breath I was seventeen my heart on a swing touched the sky I didn't know I loved flowers friends sent me three red carnations in prison I just remembered the stars I love them too whether I'm floored watching them from below or whether I'm flying at their side I have some questions for the cosmonauts were the stars much bigger did they look like huge jewels on black velvet or apricots on orange did you feel proud to get closer to the stars I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to say they were terribly figurative and concrete my heart was in my mouth looking at them they are our endless desire to grasp things seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad I never knew I loved the cosmos snow flashes in front of my eyes both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind I didn't know I liked snow I never knew I loved the sun even when setting cherry-red as now in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors but you aren't about to paint it that way I didn't know I loved the sea except the Sea of Azov or how much I didn't know I loved clouds whether I'm under or up above them whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois strikes me I like it I didn't know I liked rain whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train is it because I lit my sixth cigarette one alone could kill me is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue the train plunges on through the pitch-black night I never knew I liked the night pitch-black sparks fly from the engine I didn't know I loved sparks I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return 19 April 1962 Moscow


Written by Amy Lowell | Create an image from this poem

The Fruit Shop

 Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown,
High-waisted, girdled with bright blue;
A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown
She pluckered her little brows into
As she picked her dainty passage through
The dusty street.
"Ah, Mademoiselle, A dirty pathway, we need rain, My poor fruits suffer, and the shell Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
The baker down at the corner says We need a battle to shake the clouds; But I am a man of peace, my ways Don't look to the killing of men in crowds.
Poor fellows with guns and bayonets for shrouds! Pray, Mademoiselle, come out of the sun.
Let me dust off that wicker chair.
It's cool In here, for the green leaves I have run In a curtain over the door, make a pool Of shade.
You see the pears on that stool -- The shadow keeps them plump and fair.
" Over the fruiterer's door, the leaves Held back the sun, a greenish flare Quivered and sparked the shop, the sheaves Of sunbeams, glanced from the sign on the eaves, Shot from the golden letters, broke And splintered to little scattered lights.
Jeanne Tourmont entered the shop, her poke Bonnet tilted itself to rights, And her face looked out like the moon on nights Of flickering clouds.
"Monsieur Popain, I Want gooseberries, an apple or two, Or excellent plums, but not if they're high; Haven't you some which a strong wind blew? I've only a couple of francs for you.
" Monsieur Popain shrugged and rubbed his hands.
What could he do, the times were sad.
A couple of francs and such demands! And asking for fruits a little bad.
Wind-blown indeed! He never had Anything else than the very best.
He pointed to baskets of blunted pears With the thin skin tight like a bursting vest, All yellow, and red, and brown, in smears.
Monsieur Popain's voice denoted tears.
He took up a pear with tender care, And pressed it with his hardened thumb.
"Smell it, Mademoiselle, the perfume there Is like lavender, and sweet thoughts come Only from having a dish at home.
And those grapes! They melt in the mouth like wine, Just a click of the tongue, and they burst to honey.
They're only this morning off the vine, And I paid for them down in silver money.
The Corporal's widow is witness, her pony Brought them in at sunrise to-day.
Those oranges -- Gold! They're almost red.
They seem little chips just broken away From the sun itself.
Or perhaps instead You'd like a pomegranate, they're rarely gay, When you split them the seeds are like crimson spray.
Yes, they're high, they're high, and those Turkey figs, They all come from the South, and Nelson's ships Make it a little hard for our rigs.
They must be forever giving the slips To the cursed English, and when men clips Through powder to bring them, why dainties mounts A bit in price.
Those almonds now, I'll strip off that husk, when one discounts A life or two in a ****** row With the man who grew them, it does seem how They would come dear; and then the fight At sea perhaps, our boats have heels And mostly they sail along at night, But once in a way they're caught; one feels Ivory's not better nor finer -- why peels From an almond kernel are worth two sous.
It's hard to sell them now," he sighed.
"Purses are tight, but I shall not lose.
There's plenty of cheaper things to choose.
" He picked some currants out of a wide Earthen bowl.
"They make the tongue Almost fly out to suck them, bride Currants they are, they were planted long Ago for some new Marquise, among Other great beauties, before the Chateau Was left to rot.
Now the Gardener's wife, He that marched off to his death at Marengo, Sells them to me; she keeps her life From snuffing out, with her pruning knife.
She's a poor old thing, but she learnt the trade When her man was young, and the young Marquis Couldn't have enough garden.
The flowers he made All new! And the fruits! But 'twas said that he Was no friend to the people, and so they laid Some charge against him, a cavalcade Of citizens took him away; they meant Well, but I think there was some mistake.
He just pottered round in his garden, bent On growing things; we were so awake In those days for the New Republic's sake.
He's gone, and the garden is all that's left Not in ruin, but the currants and apricots, And peaches, furred and sweet, with a cleft Full of morning dew, in those green-glazed pots, Why, Mademoiselle, there is never an eft Or worm among them, and as for theft, How the old woman keeps them I cannot say, But they're finer than any grown this way.
" Jeanne Tourmont drew back the filigree ring Of her striped silk purse, tipped it upside down And shook it, two coins fell with a ding Of striking silver, beneath her gown One rolled, the other lay, a thing Sparked white and sharply glistening, In a drop of sunlight between two shades.
She jerked the purse, took its empty ends And crumpled them toward the centre braids.
The whole collapsed to a mass of blends Of colours and stripes.
"Monsieur Popain, friends We have always been.
In the days before The Great Revolution my aunt was kind When you needed help.
You need no more; 'Tis we now who must beg at your door, And will you refuse?" The little man Bustled, denied, his heart was good, But times were hard.
He went to a pan And poured upon the counter a flood Of pungent raspberries, tanged like wood.
He took a melon with rough green rind And rubbed it well with his apron tip.
Then he hunted over the shop to find Some walnuts cracking at the lip, And added to these a barberry slip Whose acrid, oval berries hung Like fringe and trembled.
He reached a round Basket, with handles, from where it swung Against the wall, laid it on the ground And filled it, then he searched and found The francs Jeanne Tourmont had let fall.
"You'll return the basket, Mademoiselle?" She smiled, "The next time that I call, Monsieur.
You know that very well.
" 'Twas lightly said, but meant to tell.
Monsieur Popain bowed, somewhat abashed.
She took her basket and stepped out.
The sunlight was so bright it flashed Her eyes to blindness, and the rout Of the little street was all about.
Through glare and noise she stumbled, dazed.
The heavy basket was a care.
She heard a shout and almost grazed The panels of a chaise and pair.
The postboy yelled, and an amazed Face from the carriage window gazed.
She jumped back just in time, her heart Beating with fear.
Through whirling light The chaise departed, but her smart Was keen and bitter.
In the white Dust of the street she saw a bright Streak of colours, wet and gay, Red like blood.
Crushed but fair, Her fruit stained the cobbles of the way.
Monsieur Popain joined her there.
"Tiens, Mademoiselle, c'est le General Bonaparte, partant pour la Guerre!"
Written by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson | Create an image from this poem

This Month the Almonds Bloom at Kandahar

   The singer only sang the Joy of Life,
     For all too well, alas! the singer knew
   How hard the daily toil, how keen the strife,
     How salt the falling tear; the joys how few.

   He who thinks hard soon finds it hard to live,
     Learning the Secret Bitterness of Things:
   So, leaving thought, the singer strove to give
     A level lightness to his lyric strings.

   He only sang of Love; its joy and pain,
     But each man in his early season loves;
   Each finds the old, lost Paradise again,
     Unfolding leaves, and roses, nesting doves.

   And though that sunlit time flies all too fleetly,
     Delightful Days that dance away too soon!
   Its early morning freshness lingers sweetly
     Throughout life's grey and tedious afternoon.

   And he, whose dreams enshrine her tender eyes,
     And she, whose senses wait his waking hand,
   Impatient youth, that tired but sleepless lies,
     Will read perhaps, and reading, understand.

   Oh, roseate lips he would have loved to kiss,
     Oh, eager lovers that he never knew!
   What should you know of him, or words of his?—
     But all the songs he sang were sung for you!
Written by Ezra Pound | Create an image from this poem

Dance Figure

 For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee

Dark-eyed, 
O woman of my dreams, 
Ivory sandalled, 
There is none like thee among the dancers, 
None with swift feet.
I have not found thee in the tents, In the broken darkness.
I have not found thee at the well-head Among the women with pitchers.
Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark; Thy face as a river with lights.
White as an almond are thy shoulders; As new almonds stripped from the husk.
They guard thee not with eunuchs; Not with bars of copper.
Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest.
A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in patterns, hast thou gathered about thee, O Nathat-Ikanaie, 'Tree-at-the-river'.
As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me; Thy fingers a frosted stream.
Thy maidens are white like pebbles; Their music about thee! There is none like thee among the dancers; None with swift feet.
Written by Derek Walcott | Create an image from this poem

Sabbaths W.I

 Those villages stricken with the melancholia of Sunday,
in all of whose ocher streets one dog is sleeping

those volcanoes like ashen roses, or the incurable sore
of poverty, around whose puckered mouth thin boys are
selling yellow sulphur stone

the burnt banana leaves that used to dance
the river whose bed is made of broken bottles
the cocoa grove where a bird whose cry sounds green and
yellow and in the lights under the leaves crested with
orange flame has forgotten its flute

gommiers peeling from sunburn still wrestling to escape the sea

the dead lizard turning blue as stone

those rivers, threads of spittle, that forgot the old music

that dry, brief esplanade under the drier sea almonds
where the dry old men sat

watching a white schooner stuck in the branches
and playing draughts with the moving frigate birds

those hillsides like broken pots

those ferns that stamped their skeletons on the skin

and those roads that begin reciting their names at vespers

mention them and they will stop
those crabs that were willing to let an epoch pass
those herons like spinsters that doubted their reflections
inquiring, inquiring

those nettles that waited
those Sundays, those Sundays

those Sundays when the lights at the road's end were an occasion

those Sundays when my mother lay on her back
those Sundays when the sisters gathered like white moths
round their street lantern

and cities passed us by on the horizon


Written by Carolyn Forche | Create an image from this poem

Poem For Maya

 Dipping our bread in oil tins
we talked of morning peeling
open our rooms to a moment
of almonds, olives and wind
when we did not yet know what we were.
The days in Mallorca were alike: footprints down goat-paths from the beds we had left, at night the stars locked to darkness.
At that time we were learning to dance, take our clothes in our fingers and open ourselves to their hands.
The veranera was with us.
For a month the almond trees bloomed, their droppings the delicate silks we removed when each time a touch took us closer to the window where we whispered yes, there on the intricate balconies of breath, overlooking the rest of our lives.
Written by Edward Hirsch | Create an image from this poem

In Memoriam Paul Celan

 Lay these words into the dead man's grave
next to the almonds and black cherries---
tiny skulls and flowering blood-drops, eyes,
and Thou, O bitterness that pillows his head.
Lay these words on the dead man's eyelids like eyebrights, like medieval trumpet flowers that will flourish, this time, in the shade.
Let the beheaded tulips glisten with rain.
Lay these words on his drowned eyelids like coins or stars, ancillary eyes.
Canopy the swollen sky with sunspots while thunder addresses the ground.
Syllable by syllable, clawed and handled, the words have united in grief.
It is the ghostly hour of lamentation, the void's turn, mournful and absolute.
Lay these words on the dead man's lips like burning tongs, a tongue of flame.
A scouring eagle wheels and shrieks.
Let God pray to us for this man.
Written by Laure-Anne Bosselaar | Create an image from this poem

English Flavors

  I love to lick English the way I licked the hard 
round licorice sticks the Belgian nuns gave me for six
good conduct points on Sundays after mass.
Love it when ‘plethora’, ‘indolence’, ‘damask’, or my new word: ‘lasciviousness,’ stain my tongue, thicken my saliva, sweet as those sticks — black and slick with every lick it took to make daggers out of them: sticky spikes I brandished straight up to the ebony crucifix in the dorm, with the pride of a child more often punished than praised.
‘Amuck,’ ‘awkward,’ or ‘knuckles,’ have jaw- breaker flavors; there’s honey in ‘hunter’s moon,’ hot pepper in ‘hunk,’ and ‘mellifluous’ has aromas of almonds and milk .
Those tastes of recompense still bitter-sweet today as I roll, bend and shape English in my mouth, repeating its syllables like acts of contrition, then sticking out my new tongue — flavored and sharp — to the ambiguities of meaning.
Written by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson | Create an image from this poem

I Hate This City

   I hate this City, seated on the Plain,
     The clang and clamour of the hot Bazar,
   Knowing, amid the pauses of my pain,
     This month the Almonds bloom in Kandahar.

   The Almond-trees, that sheltered my Delight,
     Screening my happiness as evening fell.
   It was well worth—that most Enchanted Night—
     This life in torment, and the next in Hell!

   People are kind to me; one More than Kind,
     Her lashes lie like fans upon her cheek,
   But kindness is a burden on my mind,
     And it is weariness to hear her speak.

   For though that Kaffir's bullet holds me here,
     My thoughts are ever free, and wander far,
   To where the Lilac Hills rise, soft and clear,
     Beyond the Almond Groves of Kandahar.

   He followed me to Sibi, to the Fair,
     The Horse-fair, where he shot me weeks ago,
   But since they fettered him I have no care
     That my returning steps to health are slow.

   They will not loose him till they know my fate,
     And I rest here till I am strong to slay,
   Meantime, my Heart's Delight may safely wait
     Among the Almond blossoms, sweet as they.

   That cursed Kaffir! Well, he won by day,
     But I won, what I so desired, by night,
   My arms held what his lack till Judgment Day!
     Also, the game is not yet over—quite!

   Wait, Amir Ali, wait till I come forth
     To kill, before the Almond-trees are green,
   To raze thy very Memory from the North,
     So that thou art not, and thou hast not been!

   Aha! Friend Amir Ali! it is Duty
     To rid the World from Shiah dogs like thee,
   They are but ill-placed moles on Islam's beauty,
     Such as the Faithful cannot calmly see!

   Also thy bullet hurts me not a little,
     Thy Shiah blood might serve to salve the ill.
   Maybe some Afghan Promises are brittle;
     Never a Promise to oneself, to kill!

   Now I grow stronger, I have days of leisure
     To shape my coming Vengeance as I lie,
   And, undisturbed by call of War or Pleasure,
     Can dream of many ways a man may die.

   I shall not torture thee, thy friends might rally,
     Some Fate assist thee and prove false to me;
   Oh! shouldst thou now escape me, Amir Ali,
     This would torment me through Eternity!

   Aye, Shuffa-Jan, I will be quiet indeed,
     Give here the Hakim's powder if thou wilt,
   And thou mayst sit, for I perceive thy need,
     And rest thy soft-haired head upon my quilt.

   Thy gentle love will not disturb a mind
     That loves and hates beneath a fiercer Star.
   Also, thou know'st, my Heart is left behind,
     Among the Almond-trees of Kandahar!
Written by Katharine Tynan | Create an image from this poem

Slow Spring

 O year, grow slowly.
Exquisite, holy, The days go on With almonds showing the pink stars blowing And birds in the dawn.
Grow slowly, year, like a child that is dear, Or a lamb that is mild, By little steps, and by little skips, Like a lamb or a child.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things