Famous 2Nd Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous 2Nd poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous 2nd poems. These examples illustrate what a famous 2nd poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Bad Day At The Beauty Salon

by Maggie Estep
 I was a 20 year old unemployed receptionist with
dyed orange dreadlocks sprouting out of my skull. I needed a job, but first,
I needed a haircut.

So I head for this beauty salon on Avenue B.
I'm gonna get a hairdo.
I'm gonna look just like those hot Spanish haircut models, become brown
and bodacious, grow some 7 inch fingernails painted ***** red and...Read more of this...

The Battle of Omdurman

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye Sons of Great Britain! come join with me
And King in praise of the gallant British Armie,
That behaved right manfully in the Soudan,
At the great battle of Omdurman. 

'Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 2nd of September,
Which the Khalifa and his surviving followers will long remember,
Because Sir Herbert Kitchener has annihilated them outright,
By the British troops...Read more of this...

The Incantation

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Scene: Federal Political Arena 
A darkened cave. In the middle, a cauldron, boiling. 
Enter the three witches. 
1ST WITCH: Thrice hath the Federal Jackass brayed. 

2ND WITCH: Once the Bruce-Smith War-horse neighed. 

3RD WITCH: So Georgie comes, 'tis time, 'tis time, 
Around the cauldron to chant our rhyme. 

1ST WITCH: In the cauldron boil and bake 
Fillet of a...Read more of this...

Here I Am ..

by Charles Bukowski
 drunk again at 3 a.m. at the end of my 2nd bottle
of wine, I have typed from a dozen to 15 pages of
poesy
an old man
maddened for the flesh of young girls in this
dwindling twilight
liver gone
kidneys going
pancrea pooped
top-floor blood pressure 
while all the fear of the wasted years
laughs between my toes
no woman will live with me
no Florence Nightingale to watch...Read more of this...

The Charge of the Second Iowa Cavalry

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Comrades, many a year and day
 Have fled since that glorious 9th of May
 When we made the charge at Farmington.
 But until our days on earth are done
 Our blood will burn and our hearts beat fast
 As we tell of the glorious moments we passed,
 When we rode on the guns with a mighty shout
 And saved...Read more of this...

The House

by Philip Levine
 They are building a house
half a block down
and I sit up here
with the shades down
listening to the sounds,
the hammers pounding in nails,
thack thack thack thack,
and then I hear birds,
and thack thack thack,
and I go to bed,
I pull the covers to my throat;
they have been building this house
for a month, and soon it will have
its people...sleeping, eating,
loving, moving around,
but somehow
now
it...Read more of this...

The Idea of Ancestry

by Etheridge Knight
 Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black
faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand-
fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
cousins (1st and 2nd), nieces, and nephews.They stare
across the space at me sprawling on my bunk.I know
their dark eyes, they know mine.I know their style,
they know mine.I am all of them, they are all of...Read more of this...

The Battle of Waterloo

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year 1815, and on the 18th day of June,
That British cannon, against the French army, loudly did boom,
Upon the ever memorable bloody field of Waterloo;
Which Napoleon remembered while in St. Helena, and bitterly did rue. 
The morning of the 18th was gloomy and cheerless to behold,
But the British soon recovered from the severe cold
That they had...Read more of this...

The Kessack Ferry-Boat Fatality

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on Friday the 2nd of March, in the year of 1894,
That the Storm Fiend did loudly laugh and roar
Along the Black Isle and the Kessack Ferry shore,
Whereby six men were drowned, which their friends will deplore. 

The accident is the most serious that has occurred for many years,
And their relatives no doubt will shed many tears,
Because the accident...Read more of this...

A Radio With Guts

by Charles Bukowski
 it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street
I used to get drunk
and throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
it would break the glass in the window
and the radio would sit there on the roof
still playing
and I'd tell my woman,
"Ah, what a marvelous radio!"
the next morning I'd take the window
off the hinges
and carry it...Read more of this...

Lines in Praise of Professor Blackie

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! the people's hearts are now full of sorrow
For the deceased Professor Blackie, of Edinboro';
Because he was a Christian man, affable and kind,
And his equal in charitable actions would be hard to find 

'Twas in the year of 1895, March the 2nd, he died at 10 o'clock.
Which to his dear wife, and his adopted son, was a great shock;
And...Read more of this...

Now

by Dylan Thomas
 I sit here on the 2nd floor
hunched over in yellow
pajamas
still pretending to be
a writer.
some damned gall,
at 71,
my brain cells eaten
away by
life.
rows of books
behind me,
I scratch my thinning
hair
and search for the
word. 
for decades now
I have infuriated the
ladies,
the critics,
the university
suck-toads. 
they all will soon have
their time to
celebrate. 
"terribly overrated..." 
"gross..." 
"an aberration..." 
my hands sink into the
keyboard
of my
Macintosh,
it's the same old
con
that...Read more of this...

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