Famous Alias Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Name

by Chris Jones
 His name has been ghosted over the fence,
leaving an alias, burn, prison clothes. 
I'm half the man, he says, not my sentence,
waiting on time that other people chose.

From their windows men sing out numbers, names,
hands to the grille light for the come-back call,
but words get lost, change allegiance, and blame's
out of their mouths, love's over the wall.

Later when I...Read more of this...

Alias Bill

by Robert William Service
 We bore him to his boneyard lot
One afternoon at three;
The clergyman was on the spot
To earn his modest fee.
We sprinkled on his coffin ld
The customary loam,
And so old Bill was snugly slid
 To his last home.

A lonesome celebate we thought,
For close as clam was he;
We never guessed that he had got
A lawful family,
Till lo! we saw a gorgeous wreath
Reposing...Read more of this...

Captain Teach alias Black Beard

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Edward Teach was a native of Bristol, and sailed from that port
On board a privateer, in search of sport,
As one of the crew, during the French War in that station,
And for personal courage he soon gained his Captain's approbation. 

'Twas in the spring of 1717, Captajn Harnigold and Teach sailed from Providence
For the continent of America, and no further...Read more of this...

Goatsucker

by Sylvia Plath
 Old goatherds swear how all night long they hear
The warning whirr and burring of the bird
Who wakes with darkness and till dawn works hard
Vampiring dry of milk each great goat udder.
Moon full, moon dark, the chary dairy farmer
Dreams that his fattest cattle dwindle, fevered
By claw-cuts of the Goatsucker, alias Devil-bird,
Its eye, flashlit, a chip of ruby fire.

So fables say...Read more of this...

139. Lines on Meeting with Lord Daer

by Robert Burns
 THIS 1 wot ye all whom it concerns,
I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,
 October twenty-third,
A ne’er-to-be-forgotten day,
Sae far I sprackl’d up the brae,
 I dinner’d wi’ a Lord.


I’ve been at drucken writers’ feasts,
Nay, been *****-fou ’mang godly priests—
 Wi’ rev’rence be it spoken!—
I’ve even join’d the honour’d jorum,
When mighty Squireships of the quorum,
 Their hydra drouth did sloken.


But wi’ a...Read more of this...

Seaward

by Joseph Brodsky
Darling you think it's love it's just a midnightjourney.
Best are the dales and rivers removed by force 
as from the next compartment throttles "Oh stopit Bernie "
yet the rhythm of those paroxysms is exactly yours.
Hook to the meat! Brush to the red-brick dentures 
alias cigars smokeless like a driven nail!
Here the works are fewer than monkey wrenches 
and the phones...Read more of this...

The Confessor a Sanctified Tale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 When SUPERSTITION rul'd the land
And Priestcraft shackled Reason,
At GODSTOW dwelt a goodly band,
Grey monks they were, and but to say
They were not always giv'n to pray,
Would have been construed Treason.
Yet some did scoff, and some believ'd
That sinners were themselves deceiv'd;
And taking Monks for more than men
They prov'd themselves, nine out of ten,
Mere dupes of these Old Fathers hoary;
But read--and...Read more of this...

I threw my arms about those shoulders..

by Joseph Brodsky
 Darling, you think it's love, it's just a midnight journey.
Best are the dales and rivers removed by force,
as from the next compartment throttles "Oh, stop it, Bernie,"
yet the rhythm of those paroxysms is exactly yours.
Hook to the meat! Brush to the red-brick dentures,
alias cigars, smokeless like a driven nail!
Here the works are fewer than monkey wrenches,
and the phones are...Read more of this...

Runagate Runagate

by Robert Hayden
 Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness 
and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror 
and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing 
and the night cold and the night long and the river 
to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning 
and blackness ahead and when shall I reach that somewhere
morning and keep on going and never...Read more of this...

An Empty Threat

by Robert Frost
 I stay;
But it isn't as if
There wasn't always Hudson's Bay
And the fur trade,
A small skiff
And a paddle blade.

I can just see my tent pegged,
And me on the floor,
Cross-legged,
And a trapper looking in at the door
With furs to sell.

His name's Joe,
Alias John,
And between what he doesn't know
And won't tell
About where Henry Hudson's gone,
I can't say he's much help;
But we get...Read more of this...

106. To Gavin Hamilton Esq. Mauchline recommending a Boy

by Robert Burns
 I HOLD it, sir, my bounden duty
To warn you how that Master Tootie,
 Alias, Laird M’Gaun,
Was here to hire yon lad away
’Bout whom ye spak the tither day,
 An’ wad hae don’t aff han’;
But lest he learn the callan tricks—
 An’ faith I muckle doubt him—
Like scrapin out auld Crummie’s nicks,
 An’ tellin lies about them;
 As lieve then,...Read more of this...

The Silent Shearer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Weary and listless, sad and slow, 
Without any conversation, 
Was a man that worked on The Overflow, 
The butt of the shed and the station. 

The shearers christened him Noisy Ned, 
With an alias "Silent Waters", 
But never a needless word he said 
In the hut or the shearers' quarters. 

Which caused annoyance to Big Barcoo, 
The shed's unquestioned...Read more of this...

The Fairy Temple; Or Oberons Chapel

by Robert Herrick
 THE FAIRY TEMPLE; OR, OBERON'S CHAPEL

DEDICATED TO MR JOHN MERRIFIELD,
COUNSELLOR AT LAW

RARE TEMPLES THOU HAST SEEN, I KNOW,
AND RICH FOR IN AND OUTWARD SHOW;
SURVEY THIS CHAPEL BUILT, ALONE,
WITHOUT OR LIME, OR WOOD, OR STONE.
THEN SAY, IF ONE THOU'ST SEEN MORE FINE
THAN THIS, THE FAIRIES' ONCE, NOW THINE.

THE TEMPLE

A way enchaced with glass and beads
There is, that to the Chapel...Read more of this...

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