Poems About May
May is one of the most enigmatic months, so it’s no wonder that so many great poems have been written about this month. Depending on where you live, May teeters between Spring and Summer. Because of this, it usually gets the best of both worlds. Poems about spring, poems about summer, poems about beauty. May Poems have it all.
Why May Poems?
Any month technically has its own unique attributes, but May perhaps has the most. May flowers have long been a cornerstone for nature poets throughout history. Additionally, when reading poems about certain months of the year, we get to see how each poet gives their own unique spin on the month. We get to see what it means to them individually. Enjoy this collection of May Poems!
May by Karen Volkman
In May’s gaud gown and ruby reckoning
the old saw wind repeats a colder thing.
Says, you are the bluest body I ever seen.
Says, dance that skeletal startle the way I might.
Radius, ulna, a catalogue of flex.
What do you think you’re grabbing
with those gray hands? What do you think
you’re hunting, cat-mouth creeling
in the mouseless dawn? Pink as meat
in the butcher’s tender grip, white as
the opal of a thigh you smut the lie on.
In May’s red ruse and smattered ravishings
you one, you two, you three your cruder schemes,
you blanch black lurk and blood the pallid bone
and hum scald need where the body says I am
and the rose sighs Touch me, I am dying
in the pleatpetal purring of mouthweathered May
from Spar. Copyright © 2002 by Karen Volkman
May by Jonathan Galassi
The backyard apple tree gets sad so soon,
takes on a used-up, feather-duster look
within a week.
The ivy’s spring reconnaissance campaign
sends red feelers out and up and down
to find the sun.
Ivy from last summer clogs the pool,
brewing a loamy, wormy, tea-leaf mulch
soft to the touch
and rank with interface of rut and rot.
The month after the month they say is cruel
is and is not.
from North Street and Other Poems (Copyright © 2001 by Jonathan Galassi)
May by Tom Disch
Such beauty, you say
Let us stop & admire
A moment, a day
The fields & the fire
God the great spider
Has caught you again
May Day by Tess Taylor
They go, the early flags, the gory maples—
so too the daffodils & Lenten roses.
Other petals swirl & nights warm.
Buds thicken and cast shadows:
in a thunderstorm
I almost forget the ice that was.
Narcissi suckle watery paths;
meadows heap up emerald masses.
How green & I want to delight
except this undertow—it pulls so fast
passing before I recognize it—
like souls in Dante who can’t see the present,
white lilacs curdle in pre-summer heat.
The parade I barely noticed was beginning
is already halfway down the street.
from Work and Days. Copyright © 2016 by Tess Taylor.
May 8th, 2023 by C.W. Bryan
The broccolini is punching through the soil;
the stray cat is shitting on the birch firewood.
And I am dancing with you in the kitchen.
May Flowers by C.W. Bryan
She cups her hand to the flower head
so that it might share in her experience.
The acoustics here are terrible,
empty as the pockets of the slow May afternoon.
Her laughter pops like hot oil,
before dissipating into the depths
of tall grasses where the thrush
sleep quietly together, dreaming.
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Read More Like May Poems
May is about the first time of the year that Summer can be felt. June is on the horizon, so check out these June Poems. Additionally, check out this collection of Summer Haiku from our Haiku Series. Thank you for checking out these May Poems, and I hope you enjoyed reading.
If you’re anything like me, and want to lay your hands on something more physical check out Ted Kooser’s Sure Signs. This book is separated into different seasons of the year, and there are so many beautiful summer and spring poems.
