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Billy Collins Short Poems

Famous Short Billy Collins Poems. Short poetry by famous poet Billy Collins. A collection of the all-time best Billy Collins short poems


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by Billy Collins
 Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.
His ranger's hat is cocked at a disturbing angle.
His brown fur gleams under the high sun as his paws, the size of catcher's mitts, crackle into the distance.
He is sick of dispensing warnings to the careless, the half-wit camper, the dumbbell hiker.
He is going to show them how a professional does it.



by Billy Collins
 I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.
Soon I am walking across the Atlantic thinking about Spain, checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.
But for now I try to imagine what this must look like to the fish below, the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

by Billy Collins
 Tonight the moon is a cracker,
with a bite out of it
floating in the night,

and in a week or so
according to the calendar
it will probably look

like a silver football,
and nine, maybe ten days ago
it reminded me of a thin bright claw.
But eventually -- by the end of the month, I reckon -- it will waste away to nothing, nothing but stars in the sky, and I will have a few nights to myself, a little time to rest my jittery pen.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things