Howard Altmann is the author of In This House (Turtle Point Press, 2010). He lives in New York City.
poem index
occasions
- Anniversary
- Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
- Autumn
- Birthdays
- Black History Month
- Breakfast
- Breakups
- Chanukah
- Christmas
- Dinner
- Earth Day
- Easter
- Election Day
- Farewell
- Father's Day
- Fourth of July
- Funerals
- Graduation
- Halloween
- Hispanic Heritage Month
- LGBTQ Pride Month
- Lunch
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Memorial Day
- Mother's Day
- Native American Heritage Month
- New Year's
- September 11
- Spring
- Summer
- Thanksgiving
- Vacations
- Valentine's Day
- Veterans Day
- Weddings
- Winter
- Women's History Month
themes
- Afterlife
- Aging
- Ambition
- America
- American Revolution
- Americana
- Ancestry
- Anger
- Animals
- Anxiety
- Apocalypse
- Audio
- Beauty
- Beginning
- Birds
- Body
- Brothers
- Buildings
- Carpe Diem
- Cats
- Childhood
- Cities
- Clothing
- Cooking
- Creation
- Dance
- Daughters
- Death
- Deception
- Desire
- Despair
- Divorce
- Dogs
- Doubt
- Dreams
- Drinking
- Drugs
- Earth
- Eating
- Economy
- Enemies
- Environment
- Existential
- Family
- Fathers
- Flight
- Flowers
- For Children
- For Mom
- For Teens
- Friendship
- Future
- Gardens
- Gender
- Ghosts
- Gratitude
- Grief
- Gun Violence
- Happiness
- Heartache
- Heroes
- High School
- History
- Home
- Hope
- Humor
- Identity
- Illness
- Immigration
- Infidelity
- Innocence
- Jealousy
- Landscapes
- Language
- LGBTQ
- Loneliness
- Loss
- Love
- Love, Contemporary
- Luck
- Lust
- Marriage
- Math
- Memories
- Migration
- Miracles
- Money
- Mothers
- Mourning
- Movies
- Moving
- Music
- Myth
- National Parks
- Nature
- New York City
- Night
- Nostalgia
- Oblivion
- Oceans
- Old Age
- Pacifism
- Parenting
- Past
- Pastoral
- Patience
- Pets
- Plants
- Politics
- Popular Culture
- Public Domain
- Reading
- Rebellion
- Regret
- Religion
- Romance
- Sadness
- School
- Science
- Self
- Sex
- Silence
- Sisters
- Social Justice
- Sons
- Space
- Spanish
- Spirituality
- Sports
- Storms
- Suburbia
- Survival
- Teaching
- Technology
- Theft
- Thought
- Time
- Tragedy
- Travel
- Turmoil
- Underworld
- Vanity
- Violence
- Visual Art
- War
- Weather
- Work
- Writing
forms
- Abecedarian
- Acrostic
- Anaphora
- Ars Poetica
- Ballad
- Ballade
- Blues Poem
- Bop
- Cento
- Chance Operations
- Cinquain
- Doha
- Dramatic Monologue
- Ekphrastic
- Elegy
- Epic
- Epigram
- Epistle
- Erasure
- Found Poem
- Ghazal
- Haiku
- Limerick
- Ode
- Pantoum
- Prose Poem
- Renga
- Rondeau
- Sapphic
- Sestina
- Sonnet
- Tanka
- Terza Rima
- Triolet
- Villanelle
schools & movements
- Nuyorican Poetry
- Objectivists
- OULIPO
- Poets of Exile
- Romanticism
- New York School
- New Formalism
- Misty Poets
- Modernism
- Modernismo
- Négritude
- San Francisco Renaissance
- Slam/Spoken Word
- Surrealism
- Symbolists
- Translators
- Victorian
- Metaphysical Poet
- Language Poetry
- Confessional Poetry
- Contemporary
- Cowboy Poetry
- Dark Room Collective
- Concrete Poetry
- Conceptual Poetry
- Augustan
- Beat
- Black Arts
- Black Mountain
- Ethnopoetics
- Fireside Poet
- Harlem Renaissance
- Imagism
- Jazz Poetry
- Kanaka Maoli poetry
- Futurism
- Fugitives
- First World War
- Flarf
- Formalism
- Acmeism
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related poems
- The Heart of the Tree by Henry Cuyler Bunner
- Spent by Mark Doty
- Herb Garden by Timothy Steele
- In the Clearing by Patricia Hooper
- Crocus by Alfred Kreymborg
Offerings
To the night I offered a flower and the dark sky accepted it like earth, bedding for light. To the desert I offered an apple and the dunes received it like a mouth, speaking for wind. To the installation I offered a tree and the museum planted it like a man, viewing his place. To the ocean I offered a seed and its body dissolved it like time, composing a life.
Copyright © 2012 by Howard Altman. Used with permission of the author.
Copyright © 2012 by Howard Altman. Used with permission of the author.

Howard Altmann
Howard Altmann is the author of In This House (Turtle Point Press, 2010). He lives in New York City.
by this poet
poem
2017
We were searching for
ourselves, after logic
for no good reason,
jumping fires to take
the heat for walking,
wishing the blue night
not to fall into the blue
sky and darken what
remained. We were
holding on to music
2
poem
2013
And I gave myself to the poem. And the poem gave to me. And I gave myself to the sky. And the sky gave to me. And I gave myself to the wind. And the wind took what I gave and passed it to the sky. And I gave myself to women. And women gave to me. And I gave
poem
2015
That we can breathe and not forget
our dreams entirely. In the cold sun
the warmth of timelessness. There is
panic, rest assured, so much beauty
stirring, I want to touch all that
contains me. We know the questions
and the light shifts without a word.
In the clouds, a
2
related poems
poem
2011
With the arrival of the night some of his words, like the intermittent flare [Here, I detected a point of inflection provoked by the peculiar nature of desire. Which came to me even faster than imagination since it needs not move at all, waiting hidden always everywhere] of a cigarette,
poem
2005
I saw a great teapot I wanted to get you this stupendous 100% cotton royal blue and black checked shirt, There was a red and black striped one too Then I saw these boots at a place called Chuckles They laced up to about two inches above your ankles All leather and in red, black or purple It
poem
1907
What can I give you, my lord, my lover, You who have given the world to me, Showed me the light and the joy that cover The wild sweet earth and restless sea? All that I have are gifts of your giving— If I gave them again, you would find them old, And your soul would weary of always living