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
In Tall Grass	Carl Sandburg	08/03/2019
Still Waiting	Harryette Mullen	08/02/2019
From “Be Recorder”	Carmen Giménez	08/01/2019
Something to Believe In	Carl Phillips	07/31/2019
Seville	Kendra DeColo	07/30/2019
Riding	Cynthia Cruz	07/29/2019
From “Stray Birds” [233—237]	Rabindranath Tagore	07/28/2019
Aspiration	Adah Isaacs Menken	07/27/2019
Road Hazard	Bradley Paul	07/26/2019
Another Small Gathering	Lindsay Bernal	07/25/2019