Billy Collins Poetry

Fragments from the poems by Poet Laureate Billy Collins

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

I watched my poem fly down to the front
Of the bar and hover there
Until the next customer walked in--
Then I watched it fly out the door

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

...Cut me out of my life
And paste me in that book you always carry.
~Vade Mecum

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
Out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
~Forgetfulness

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.
~The Night House

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

Every night the body curls around itself
And listens for the soft bells of sleep.

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

But still, you stay perched on my shoulder,
Cricket or bluebird,
Wild parrot digging your claws into my loud shirt
~The Flight of the Reader

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

"Pardon the egg salad stain, but I'm in love."

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

Dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
The typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
A cello on the radio

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
And reached for a pen if only to show
We did not just laze in an armchair turning pages

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

Leave it all behind.
Take your head out of your hands
and arise from the couch of melancholy

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

There's something about death going on here.

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

Maybe it's just me,
But the next stanza is where I start to have a problem.

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

But I still love the details he uses
When he's describing where he lives.

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

And what's an obbligato of snow?

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

I mean how can the evening bump into the stars?

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

But I don't know if anyone else was feeling that.
Maybe it was just me.
Maybe that's just the way I read it.

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

The poem is blowing pipe smoke in my face.

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

[Billy Collins Poetry @PLBillyCollins]

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
There was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.