April is the Cruelest Month - National Poetry Month

Either taking cue from T.S. Eliot's opening lines of the Wasteland, or for some other reason, April is designated as National Poetry Month. This has invigorated me to read more poetry and inspired me to write or at least post some gems that I've come across.


Note:
Since I should not post poems in their entirety, I will try to link to the full text on official sites, meaning sites that have obtained the appropriate permissions.

One of my favorite Pablo Neruda's sequence of poems called The Book of Questions.

Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

...

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?

- Pablo Neruda (trans: William O'Daly)

Full text of 'The Book of Questions, III'.

I came across On The Origin of Things by Troy Jollimore from the Academy of American Poets that faintly echoes the same imagery. The imagination is bolder and vivid, an imagination that is both very childlike and ludicrous.

Everyone knows that the moon started out
as a renegade fragment of the sun, a solar
flare that fled that hellish furnace ...

... nor will I allow
myself to address the idea that dance
began as a kiss, that happiness was
an accidental import from Spain, ...

- Troy Jollimore

Full text of: 'On the Origin of Things'