From Sarnia's 1934 yearbook.

From Bluff Your Way In Poetry by Nick Yapp, 1989.  (However, we don't say we've spent three days and nights reading The New Apocalyptics.  Rather, we say -- truthfully -- that we've been reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead.)

From The George Washington Ghost, 1926.

"The bird of the morning only knoweth the worth of the book of the rose; for not every one who readeth the page understandeth the meaning." —Hafiz.

Yes, they got TWO words wrong in this quotation (about 20% in error!).  From Clarion's 1946 yearbook.

All poetry worth reading begins the same way, with a battle between two bears.  From Barnard's 1907 yearbook.

Here's a precursor to John Blase's logic that God is blue:

If God is Love (as the Bible says)
and Love is Blue (as the song says)
then the law of transitivity leads me to
at least consider the possibility that
God is Blue (as I’ve long hunched).
—"In Praise of Blue," 2020

From The Gateway, Feb. 20, 1969.

"To know the Moon as few men may, one must be just a little fey; and for our friendship's sake I'm glad that I am just a trifle mad."  From The Complete Poems of Robert Service, 1945.

Chris Piuma, rapier sharpened by a battery of Latin examinations, offers today's Tic Tac Toe-generated story.

Our Tic Tac Toe generator builds stories out of the one-letter words X and O.  Here's an example.  To play along, see below for instructions and a link to a template.

"Poets not writing poetry?" -- turns out that poets never have written poetry.  It's all been a big scam.  From The Gateway, 1982.

Morning sends the vampires, wraiths, and ghouls of night back to the mouth of hell.  From The Wave, 1894.

"Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded." —Gertude Stein

"Colors seen by candle-light will not look the same by day." —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Never think she loves him wholly, never believe her love is blind, all his faults are locked securely in a closet of her mind." —Sara Teasdale

From West Virginia Wesleyan's 1958 yearbook.

From Sarnia's 1927 yearbook.

From General William Booth Enters Into Heaven, and Other Poems by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, 1913.

By Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, in Forum, 1914.

As you suspected, the moon is a holy owl-queen who pours a jar of owls upon wicked mousies.  From General William Booth Enters Into Heaven, and Other Poems by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, 1913.

Using our Tic-Tac-Toe Story Generator [instructions and template here], we can translate the game on this student's back into a poem:

A wish for experimental kisses,

unknowable              surprises,

the sun mysterious, shadowing.

(Photo from West Georgia's 1941 yearbook.)