Famous Ballooning Poems by Famous Poets

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

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In the Home Stretch

...en
Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,
So much too light and airy for their strength
It almost seemed to come ballooning up,
Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling.
“A fit!” said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder.
“It’s good luck when you move in to begin
With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind,
It’s not so bad in the country, settled down,
When people ’re getting on in life, You’ll like it.”
Joe said: “You big boys ought to find a farm,
And make...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert


Last Words

...oad and turned me over 
so that my open eyes could flood heaven. 
My clothes went skittering down 
the road without me, ballooning 
out into any shape, giddy 
with release. My coins, my rings, 
the keys to my house shattered 
like ice and fell into the mountain 
thorns and grasses, little bright points 
that make you think there is magic 
in everything you see. No, it can't 
be, you say, for someone is speaking 
calmly to you in a voice you know. 
Someone alive and confident ...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Shirt

...m his shirt as he came down,
Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers--

Like Hart Crane's Bedlamite, "shrill shirt ballooning."
Wonderful how the patern matches perfectly
Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked

Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme
Or a major chord. Prints, plaids, checks,
Houndstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans

Invented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of Ossian,
To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed
By a fabricat...Read more of this...
by Pinsky, Robert

Talking To My Father Whose Ashes Sit In A Closet And Listen

...ers only he can provide. 

I imagine him drawing a breath, sensing 
his lungs once again filling with air, his thoughts ballooning. 

Originally published in The Rose & Thorn, Summer 2004.
Copyright © Lisa Zaran, 2004...Read more of this...
by Zaran, Lisa

The Cremona Violin

...ng."
The trees of the forest are masts, tall masts;
They are swinging over
Her and her lover.
Almost swooning
Under the ballooning canvas,
She lies
Looking up in his eyes
As he bends farther over.
Theodore, still her lover!
The suds were dried upon Charlotta's hands,
She leant against the table for support,
Wholly forgotten. Theodore's eyes were brands
Burning upon his music. He stopped short.
Charlotta almost heard the sound of bands
Snapping. She put one hand up to her hear...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy


The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket

...landward, fall
Headlong and break on our Atlantic wall
Off 'Sconset, where the yawing S-boats splash
The bellbuoy, with ballooning spinnakers,
As the entangled, screeching mainsheet clears
The blocks: off Madaket, where lubbers lash
The heavy surf and throw their long lead squids
For blue-fish? Sea-gulls blink their heavy lids
Seaward. The winds' wings beat upon the stones,
Cousin, and scream for you and the claws rush
At the sea's throat and wring it in the slush
Of this old...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Robert

To Brooklyn Bridge

...hee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant re...Read more of this...
by Crane, Hart

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