Poem-a-Day

The only daily poetry series publishing new work by today’s poets.

Poem-a-day

Madagascar [Opus 104]

^{as Emanuel Morgan}

How terrible to entertain a lunatic!
To keep his earnestness from coming close!

A Madagascar land-crab once
Lifted blue claws at me
And rattled long black eyes
That would have got me
Had I not been gay.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 15, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

Witter Bynner

Witter Bynner

Previous Poems

Title	Author	Date
The Difference	Thomas Hardy	10/07/2018
The Factories	Margaret Widdemer	10/06/2018
When We Were Fearsome	Joanna Penn Cooper	10/05/2018
El Rastro	Orlando Ricardo Menes	10/04/2018
One Sweet Braid Down She Back	Cheryl Boyce-Taylor	10/03/2018
Out of the Woods	Krista Franklin	10/02/2018
Unmarked	Tim Seibles	10/01/2018
A September Night	George Marion McClellan	09/30/2018
The Past Is the Present	Marianne Moore	09/29/2018
now i’m bologna	José Olivarez	09/28/2018