Famous Back Down Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Back Down poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous back down poems. These examples illustrate what a famous back down poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Sexton, Anne
...refuse to remember the dead.
And the dead are bored with the whole thing.
But you -- you go ahead,
go on, go on back down
into the graveyard,
lie down where you think their faces are;
talk back to your old bad dreams....Read more of this...
by
Jong, Erica
...an,
reeling us all in.
So we land
on the windy peak,
touch skis to snow,
are married to our purple shadows,
& ski back down
to the unimaginable valley
leaving no footprints....Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...very window there,
Making the gravel leap and leap in air,
Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly
And roll back down the mound beside the hole.
I thought, Who is that man? I didn't know you.
And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs
To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.
Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice
Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why,
But I went near to see with my own eyes.
You could sit there with the st...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...page and the survivors
gone off to Africa or madness?
If my life ended in late spring
of 1964 while I walked alone
back down the mountain road?
I sing an old song to myself. I study
the way the snow remains, gray
and damp, in the deep shadows of the firs.
I wonder if the bike is safe hidden
just off the highway. Up ahead
the road, black and winding, falls
away, and there is the valley where
I lived half of my life, spectral
and calm. I sigh with ...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...ing
off into the night.
You chose no God
but each other, head,
belly, groin, heart, you
chose the lonely road
back down these hills
empty handed, breath
steaming in the cold
March night, or worse,
the wrong roads
that led to black earth
and the broken seed
of your body. The sea
spreads below, still
as dark and heavy
as oil. As I
descend step by step
a wind picks up and hums
through the low trees
along the way, like
the heavens' last groan
or ...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...ycle leant on the verge.
Trace me your wheel-tracks, you fortunate bicycle,
Out of the shopping and into the dark,
Back down the avenue, back to the pottingshed,
Back to the house on the fringe of the park.
Golden the light on the locks of Myfanwy,
Golden the light on the book on her knee,
Finger marked pages of Rackham's Hans Anderson,
Time for the children to come down to tea.
Oh! Fullers angel-cake, Robertson’s marmalade,
Liberty lampshade, come shine on us ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...be the fact that we were still alive had something
to do with it. Hard to tell.
We turned around and started back down the mountain. The
baby cried when she saw the snow again, holding out her
hands for the snow. We didn't have time to stop. It was get-
ting late.
We got in our car and drove back to McCall. That evening
we talked about Communism. The Mormon girl read aloud to
us from a book called The Naked Communist written by an
ex...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...of good fishing,
let the baby fall asleep directly in the sun and when the baby
woke up, she puked and I carried her back down the trail.
My woman trailed silently behind, carrying the rods and
the fish. The baby puked a couple more times, thimblefuls
of gentle lavender vomit, but still it got on my clothes, and
her face was hot and flushed.
We stopped at Mushroom Springs. I gave her a small
drink of water, not too much, and rinsed the vomit taste o...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in...Read more of this...
by
Jobe, James Lee
...
just past the north fork of Cache Creek,
across the broad meadow, through
blue oak woodland, up, up to the ridge,
and back down to the creek bank,
the crossing point, me striding with
mud caking my old hiking boots.
For a millennia the Miwok people walked
these canyons and ridges. Pomo, too.
Gathering acorns to trade, the sweetest
was said to be from the Coastal Live Oaks.
Or bringing down a mule deer, a Tule elk,
meat for everyone, garments or a drumsk...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...ed quail
Abandoning the hills
For the sparse trail
On which, exposed, I also packed.
Six weeks. I went back down
Through my own woods
Afraid of what I knew they'd done.
There, there, an A&P,
And not a tree
For Miles, and mammoth hills of goods.
Fat men in uniforms,
Young men in aprons
With one face shouting, "He is mad!"
I answered: "I am Lincoln,
Aaron Burr,
The aging son of Appleseed.
"I am American
And I am cold....Read more of this...
by
Merwin, W S
...f the wall
With sleeves trying to say something
What are the hands
A. Paid
No what are the hands
A. Climbing back down the museum wall
To their ancestors the extinct shrews that will
Have left a message
What is the silence
A. As though it had a right to move
Who are the compatriots
A. They make the stars of bone...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
...s dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white sleeping town;
At the church on the hillside—
And then come back down.
Singing: 'There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely for ever
The kings of the sea.'...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
"you can make it," I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and tha...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...by, about once every ten minutes, I would get up and stick
out my thumb as if it were a bunch of bananas and then sit
back down on the rock again.
The old shack had a tin roof colored reddish by years of
wear, like a hat worn under the guillotine. A corner of the
roof was loose and a hot wind blew down the river and the
loose corner clanged in the wind.
A car went by. An old couple. The car almost swerved off
the road and into the river. I gu...Read more of this...
by
Graham, Jorie
...n two are
Explain not one
(in theory) (and in practice)
blurry, my love, like a right quotation,
wanting so to sink back down,
you washing me in soil now, my shoulders dust, my rippling dust,
Look I'll scrub the dirt listen.
Up here how will I
(not) hold you.
Where is the dirt packed in again around us between us obliterating difference
Must one leave off Explain edges
(tongue breaks) (thin fire)
(in eyes)
And bless. And blame.
(Moonless night.Read more of this...
by
Jobe, James Lee
...on
climbing higher above the park across the street
"Who can stay awake longer?" I asked her
as she began her long arc back down...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Back Down poems.