Passion Poems | Poemist

Popular Passion Poems

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.

......

The Man With The Hoe (Written After Seeing Millet's World-Famous Painting)

by Edwin Markham

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

......

Ahmad Faraz translations by Michael R. Burch

by Michael R. Burch

These are English translations of Urdu poems by Ahmad Faraz.

The Eager Traveler
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Even in the torture chamber, I was the lucky one;
When each lottery was over, unaccountably I had won.

And even the mightiest rivers found accessible refuge in me;

......

The Carcass

by Charles Baudelaire

Remember that object we saw, dear soul,
In the sweetness of a summer morn:
At a bend of the path a loathsome carrion
On a bed with pebbles strewn,

With legs raised like a lustful woman,
Burning and sweating poisons,
It spread open, nonchalant and scornful,
Its belly, ripe with exhalations.

......

Green Chile

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

I prefer red chile over my eggs
and potatoes for breakfast.
Red chile ristras decorate my door,
dry on my roof, and hang from eaves.
They lend open-air vegetable stands
historical grandeur, and gently swing
with an air of festive welcome.
I can hear them talking in the wind,
haggard, yellowing, crisp, rasping
tongues of old men, licking the breeze.

......

Recent Passion Poems

Ahmad Faraz translations by Michael R. Burch

by Michael R. Burch

a hundred people

by Mishka M

i am a hundred people at once,
a poet, a painter, a dreamer—
and i can’t remember which one of them is mine.
each morning,
i wake up with a new ambition,
a new hope to be something different.
but by the time the sun sets,
i’ve forgotten what i wanted to be,
because there’s always something more
pulling me in a thousand directions.

......

Erotic Poems by Michael R. Burch

by Michael R. Burch

These are the best erotic poems and erotic translations of Michael R. Burch. Most of these poems are naughty or risqué rather than graphic. Erotic poems come in all shapes, sizes and forms: haiku, tanka, epigrams, couplets, limericks, sonnets, rondels, roundels, villanelles, free verse, etc. There is also a collection of humorous erotic poems at the bottom of this page.

I found the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses.—attributed to Sappho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 42
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

......

A World Full Of Imagination

by Zee K

I dream to fly high,

Within and far away in the sky ;

Far away from the web of lies,

In the beautiful land where one never cries ;

My imagination soars so mighty,

......

Strong

by Leo McManus

Strong
I have been hurt,
I have suffered,
I have become strong.