[bdevine]

Wallace Stevens is a favorite of mine. His work has been described as "rigorous", which I would agree with. He is an inspiration to me due to his ability to straddle two worlds: his day job was mainly as an insurance executive, but he flowered late and won a Pulitzer for his poetry. I particularly like "The Emperor of Ice Cream":

  Call the roller of big cigars,
  The muscular one, and bid him whip
  In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
  Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
  As they are used to wear, and let the boys
  Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
  Let be be finale of seem.
  The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

  Take from the dresser of deal,
  Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
  On which she embroidered fantails once
  And spread it so as to cover her face.
  If her horny feet protrude, they come
  To show how cold she is, and dumb.
  Let the lamp affix its beam.
  The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

[planetmcd]

The Snow Man is quite good:

  One must have a mind of winter
  To regard the frost and the boughs
  Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

  And have been cold a long time
  To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
  The spruces rough in the distant glitter

  Of the January sun; and not to think
  Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
  In the sound of a few leaves,

  Which is the sound of the land
  Full of the same wind
  That is blowing in the same bare place

  For the listener, who listens in the snow,
  And, nothing himself, beholds
  Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

[foxhedgehog]

This poem does in two stanzas at least part of what Hamlet does in five acts. It's even more brilliant once you 'decode' it, one of my favorites.

[zorked]

Of Mere Being

  The palm at the end of the mind,
  Beyond the last thought, rises
  In the bronze distance.

  A gold-feathered bird
  Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
  Without human feeling, a foreign song.

  You know then that it is not the reason
  That makes us happy or unhappy.
  The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

  The palm stands on the edge of space.
  The wind moves slowly in the branches.
  The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.