Famous Short Mirror Poems
Famous Short Mirror Poems. Short Mirror Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Mirror short poems
by
Sylvia Plath
Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.
The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock
That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road---
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.
by
Rupi Kaur
god must have kneaded you and i
from the same dough
rolled us out as one on the baking sheet
must have suddenly realized
how unfair it was
to put that much magic in one person
and sadly split that dough in two
how else is it that
when i look in the mirror
i am looking at you
when you breathe
my own lungs fill with air
that we just met but we
have known each other our whole lives
if we were not made as one to begin with
by
Spike Milligan
A young spring-tender girl
combed her joyous hair
'You are very ugly' said the mirror.
But,
on her lips hung
a smile of dove-secret loveliness,
for only that morning had not
the blind boy said,
'You are beautiful'?
by
Paul Celan
tall poplars -- human beings of this earth!
black pounds of happiness -- you mirror them to death!
I saw you, sister, stand in that effulgence.
by
Billy Jno Hope
folly cracked the mirror
a soul gasping wound
voodoo induced vertigo
psychedelic blackouts
in the cracks
between art and blasphemy
paralyzing paranoia of becoming
the vision that heals
cast shadows to douse the flames
starved enlightenment
i betrayed my muse
i wallowed in nostalgic fumes
blood clots from yesteryears insurrection mad dissident desire found wanting a rage dissipating in the twilight of friendship a facade evolved.
by
Elizabeth Bishop
Caught -- the bubble
in the spirit level,
a creature divided;
and the compass needle
wobbling and wavering,
undecided.
Freed -- the broken
thermometer's mercury
running away;
and the rainbow-bird
from the narrow bevel
of the empty mirror,
flying wherever
it feels like, gay!
by
Adrian Green
There are no lies
in the morning
no cheating of age
an illusion of eye
smoothing skin over bone.
No portrait hidden away
becoming skeletal
and demanding release.
Another day to face,
my confessor, so laugh
at this charting of years.
by
Denise Levertov
I thought I was growing wings—
it was a cocoon.
I thought, now is the time to step
into the fire—
it was deep water.
Eschatology is a word I learned
as a child: the study of Last Things;
facing my mirror—no longer young,
the news—always of death,
the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoring
and howling, howling,
nevertheless
I see for a moment
that's not it: it is
the First Things.
Word after word
floats through the glass.
Towards me.
by
Jane Kenyon
I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.
Now there is no more catching
one's own eye in the mirror,
there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course
no illness.
Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing
of teeth.
No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.
The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,
and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.
by
James Joyce
They mouth love's language.
Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with.
Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love's breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat's breath,
Harsh of tongue.
This grey that stares
Lies not, stark skin and bone.
Leave greasy lips their kissing.
None
Will choose her what you see to mouth upon.
Dire hunger holds his hour.
Pluck forth your heart, saltblood, a fruit of tears.
Pluck and devour!
by
Robert Creeley
Seeing is believing.
Whatever was thought or said,
these persistent, inexorable deaths
make faith as such absent,
our humanness a question,
a disgust for what we are.
Whatever the hope,
here it is lost.
Because we coveted our difference,
here is the cost.
by
Anne Sexton
Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me .
.
.
I tapped my own head;
it was glass, an inverted bowl.
It's small thing
to rage inside your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself.
by
D. H. Lawrence
Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.
I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all requests to head-quarters!
In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct! -
So I handed her the mirror.
And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own reflection
and that held her spellbound for two seconds
while I fled.
by
Delmore Schwartz
By circumstances fed
Which divide attention
Among the living and the dead,
Under the blooms of the blossoming sun,
The gaze which is a tower towers
Day and night, hour by hour,
Critical of all and of one,
Dissatisfied with every flower
With all that's been done or undone,
Converting every feature
Into its own and unknown nature;
So, once in the drugstore,
Amid all the poppy, salve and ointment,
I suddenly saw, estranged there,
Beyond all disappointment,
My own face in the mirror.
by
Vasko Popa
Look here's that uninvited
Alien presence look it's here
A shudder on the ocean of tea in the cup
Rust taking hold
On the edges of our laughter
A snake coiled in the depths of the mirror
Will I be able to hide you
From your face in mine
Look it's the third shadow
On our imagined walk
Unexpected abyss
Between our words
Hoofs clattering
Below the vaults of our palates
Will I be able
On this unrest-field
To raise you a tent of my hands
by
Richard Brautigan
Yup.
A long lazy September look
in the mirror
say it's true.
I'm 31
and my nose is growing
old.
It starts about 1/2
an inch
below the bridge
and strolls geriatrically
down
for another inch or so:
stopping.
Fortunately, the rest
of the nose is comparatively
young.
I wonder if girls
will want me with an
old nose.
I can hear them now
the heartless bitches!
"He's cute
but his nose
is old.
"
by
Remy de Gourmont
Rose with dark eyes,
mirror of your nothingness,
rose with dark eyes,
make us believe in the mystery,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence.
Rose the colour of pure gold,
oh safe deposit of the ideal,
rose the colour of pure gold,
give us the key of your womb,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence.
Rose the colour of silver,
censer of our dreams,
rose the colour of silver,
take our heart and turn it into smoke,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence.
by
Dorothy Parker
Helen of Troy had a wandering glance;
Sappho's restriction was only the sky;
Ninon was ever the chatter of France;
But oh, what a good girl am I!
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
Telling you all would take too long.
Besides, we read in the Bible
how the good is harmful
and how misfortune is good.
Let's invite something new
by unifying our silences;
if, then and there, we advance,
we'll know it soon enough.
And yet towards evening,
when his memory is persistent,
one belated curiousity
stops him before the mirror.
We don't know if he is frightened.
But he stays, he is engrossed,
and, facing his reflection,
transports himself somewhere else.
by
Ruth Stone
Words make the thoughts.
Severe tyrants, like the scrubbers
and guardians of your cells.
They herd your visions
down the ramp to nexus
waiting with sledge hammer
to knock what is the knowing
without knowing into knowledge.
Yes, the tight bag of grammar,
syntax, the clever sidestep
from babble, is a comfortable
prison.
A mirror of the mirror.
And all that is uttered in its chains
is locked out from the secret.
by
James Joyce
Dear heart, why will you use me so?
Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
Still are you beautiful -- - but O,
How is your beauty raimented!
Through the clear mirror of your eyes,
Through the soft sigh of kiss to kiss,
Desolate winds assail with cries
The shadowy garden where love is.
And soon shall love dissolved be
When over us the wild winds blow -- -
But you, dear love, too dear to me,
Alas! why will you use me so?
by
Russell Edson
On the other side of a mirror there's an inverse world,
where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the
earth and recede to the first slime of love.
And in the evening the sun is just rising.
Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon
childhood robs them of their pleasure.
In such a world there is much sadness which, of course,
is joy.
by
Jack Spicer
If the diamond ring turns brass
Mama's going to buy you a looking glass
Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams
going on a picnic together when they were all students at the
University of Pennsylvania
Now they are all over seventy and the absent baby
Is a mirror sheltering their image.
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
'TIS easier far a wreath to bind,
Than a good owner fort to find.
I KILL'D a thousand flies overnight,
Yet was waken'd by one, as soon as twas light.
To the mother I give;
For the daughter I live.
A BREACH is every day,
By many a mortal storm'd;
Let them fall in the gaps as they may,
Yet a heap of dead is ne'er form'd.
WHAT harm has thy poor mirror done, alas?
Look not so ugly, prythee, in the glass!
1815.
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