"Long Distance" Tony Harrison (1937)

Though my mother was already two years dead

Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,

put hot water bottles her side of the bed

and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in.  You had to phone.

He'd put you off an hour to give him time

to clear away her things and look alone

as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief

though sure that very soon he'd hear her key

scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.

He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

"Heirloom" Holly McNish

it’s not your jewellery that i want, gran

it’s your butter dish

so each time i go to slather
a thick white slice of toast

with a thick bright slice of yellow
we’ll be back on those reclining chairs

supper feasts laid out
as you fast forward through 

the ‘talking bit’
of countdown

"For Grace, After A Party" Frank O Hara

You do not always know what I am feeling.

Last night in the warm spring air while I was
blazing my tirade against someone who doesn't
interest
        me, it was love for you that set me
afire,

     and isn't it odd? for in rooms full of
strangers my most tender feelings
                                  writhe and
bear the fruit of screaming. Put out your hand,
isn't there
             an ashtray, suddenly, there? beside
the bed?  And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn't
                  you like the eggs a little

different today?
                And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding.

"Japan" Billy Collins (1941)

Today I pass the time reading

a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor 
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

"On Spies" Ben Jonson

Spies, you are lights in state, but of base stuff, 

Who, when you’ve burnt yourselves down to the snuff, 

Stink and are thrown away. End fair enough.

"No Man Is An Island" John Donne

No man is an island,

Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent, 

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

As well as if a promontory were:

As well as if a manor of thy friend's

Or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

"Plum" Tony Mitton

Don’t be so glum, plum. 

Don’t feel beaten. 

You were made to be eaten. 

But don’t you know deep within, 

Beneath your juicy flesh and flimsy skin, 

You bear a mystery, 

You hold a key, 

You have the making of a whole new tree.