Sample Poetry by Lyn Lifshin

Poetry on the WEB

from Cold Comfort

drifting
after a day we stay in bed until . . .
indian summer
getting my mother ice
my mother's ring
Barbie watches TV alone, naked
Mother and daughter photographs
My mother's address book
My mother straightening pots and pans
My mother wants lamb chops . . .
The daughter I don't have

from before it's LIGHT

Moving by Touch
But Instead Has Gone UnderGround
My mother and the bed
In my mother's last hours
Early Friday I wondered, suddenly, was Cab Calloway living, was he dead
Feeding ducks, grey November
The birds like a radio on all night
In the rippled ebony cove
Geese at midnight
Like a dark lantern
At the pond early
Reprieve
The woman who loves maps
Geese on ice
At the all night talk radio station
Camp Hochelago
Alberta hunter
Early, last day of June
May, drizzle Virginia
I remember Haifa being lovely but
Carl's department store bathroom
23 Hill Street
38 Main Street
My mother's third call on a day of sleet and December falling
The smallest orange slivers
Maui, early, a night of bad dreams
My mother tells me she likes my barrette
The doctor says my mother is fun
My mother and the lilacs

from Not Made of Glass

things a woman under glass doesn't get
dream of ivy
1918
my mother and the bed
waiting, the hallways under her skin thick with dreamchildren
madonna who writes ten poems a day

from Blue Tattoo

For Me The Holocaust Started In '33 In A Small Village
On The Way To The Gas
Who Held the Camera So Steadily,and Why?

from Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Poses On Red Satin 
Marilyn Knows She Should Make Herself
Marilyn Hates Elastic
Marilyn Decides To Go Meet Elvis

from Reading Lips

Guilt
September
Madonna of the Bad Timing
Another Dream of Having Just One Year

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