Rachel Wetzsteon:
Alicia Ostriker:
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Franz Wright:
Richard Brautigan:
Philip Larkin:
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These are superb. That Phillip Larkin one in particular.
Does this make us ambulance chasers? Very well.
My favorite ambulance poem:
Poppies In October
Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly —
A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky
Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.
O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.
Sylvia Plath