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Famous Balloons Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...write.


But shortly they will cowe the louns!
Some auld-light herds in neebor touns
Are mind’t, in things they ca’ balloons,
 To tak a flight;
An’ stay ae month amang the moons
 An’ see them right.


Guid observation they will gie them;
An’ when the auld moon’s gaun to lea’e them,
The hindmaist shaird, they’ll fetch it wi’ them
 Just i’ their pouch;
An’ when the new-light billies see them,
 I think they’ll crouch!


Sae, ye observe that a’ this clatter
Is naething bu...Read more of this...



by Thomas, Dylan
...ld lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar fags, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but ...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...THE BALLOONS hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens.
They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float their faces on the face of the sky.
Balloon face eaters sit by hundreds reading the eat cards, asking, “What shall we eat?”—and the waiters, “Have you ordered?” they are sixty ballon faces sifting white over the tuxedoes.
Po...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish ----
Such ***** moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
...Read more of this...

by Silverstein, Shel
...ust wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.
And every time he stood on his head,
Every...Read more of this...



by Ai,
...ung girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...nd no one speaks that way except
In certain books. So the hours spent in vain
Were minutes blown up into comic-book balloons full
Of Keats's odes. "Goodbye, kid." Tears streamed down
The boy's face. It was a great feeling,
Like the feeling you get when you throw things away
After a funeral: clean and empty in the morning dark.
There was no time for locker-room oratory.
They knew they were facing a do-or-die situation,
With their backs to the wall, and ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...her legs spread out 
in the terrible months in the chapel. 
If you glance up, the children are there 
like delicate balloons resting on the ceiling. 
She has also carried each one down the hall 
after supper, their heads privately bent, 
two legs protesting, person to person, 
her face flushed with a song and their little sleep. 
I give you back your heart. 
I give you permission -- 
for the fuse inside her, throbbing 
angrily in the dirt, for the ***** in her...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Robert
...last. Space is nearer.
When I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of ***** school-children rise like balloons.

Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the bless?d break.

The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease....Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to...Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...' fluff. 

Joe's cannon, it weren't 'alf a corker, 
The cannon balls went three foot round. 
They wasn't no toy balloons either, 
They weighed close on sixty-five pound. 

Joe, selecting two of the largest,
Was going to load double for luck. 
When a hot shot came in thro' the porthole, 
And a gunpowder barrel got struck. 

By gum! there weren't 'alf an explosion,
The gun crew were filled with alarm. 
As out of the porthole went Joseph, 
Wi' a cannon ba...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...Against these turbid turquoise skies
The light and luminous balloons
Dip and drift like satin moons
Drift like silken butterflies;

Reel with every windy gust,
Rise and reel like dancing girls,
Float like strange transparent pearls,
Fall and float like silver dust.

Now to the low leaves they cling,
Each with coy fantastic pose,
Each a petal of a rose
Straining at a gossamer string.

Then to the tall trees th...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

(1961)...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...racks,
the ships are at restn the harbor.
The dogs are cocking their heads
and the gods are peering down from their balloons.
The town is hushed,

and everyone here has a copy.
So tell us about your parents—
your father behind the steering wheel,
your cruel mother at the sink.
Let's hear about all the clouds you saw, all the trees.

Read the poem you brought with you tonight.
The ocean has stopped sloshing around,
and even Beethoven
is sitting up in hi...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...kets riding purple mules, scarlet autocrats tumbling from the humps of camels, assassinated czars straddling vermillion balloons;
I saw then the fires flash one by one: good-by: then smoke, smoke;
And in the screens the great sisters of night and cool stars, sitting women arranging their hair,
Waiting in the sky, waiting with slow easy eyes, waiting and half-murmuring:
 “Since you know all
 and I know nothing,
 tell me what I dreamed last night.”

Pearl cobwebs in the win...Read more of this...

by Voznesensky, Andrei
...There is Bukashkin, our neighbor, 
 in underpants of blotting paper, 
 and, like balloons, the Antiworlds 
 hang up above him in the vaults. 

 Up there, like a magic daemon, 
 he smartly rules the Universe, 
 Antibukashkin lies there giving 
 Lollobrigida a caress. 

 The Anti-great-academician 
 has got a blotting paper vision. 

 Long live creative Antiworlds, 
 great fantasy amidst daft words! 
 There are wise men and stu...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...for Robert Lowell


This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint
still honored in these parts,
the paper chambers flush and fill with light
that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it's hard 
to tell them from the stars--
planets, that is--the tinted ones:
Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...did not disturb their personal life.
We calmly trailed over them
and under them, shedding
air bubbles, little white
balloons that drifted up
into the sun by the boat
where the Italian boatman slept
with his hat over his face.

Water so clear you could
read a book through it.
Water so buoyant you could
float on your elbow.
I lay on it as on a divan.
I lay on it just like
Matisse's Red Odalisque.
Water was my strange flower,
one must picture a woman
with...Read more of this...

by Riley, James Whitcomb
...snow,
Is a panorama sliding away.

The whistled air of a simple tune
Eddies and whirls my thoughts around,
As fairy balloons of thistle-down
Sail through the air of June.

O happy boy with untaught grace!
What is there in the world to give
That can buy one hour of the life you live
Or the trivial cause of your smiling face!...Read more of this...

by Piercy, Marge
...adache: 
hair like a museum piece, daily 
ornamented with ribbons, vases, 
grottoes, mountains, frigates in full 
sail, balloons, baboons, the fancy 
of a hairdresser turned loose. 
The hats were rococo wedding cakes 
that would dim the Las Vegas strip. 
Here is a woman forced into shape 
rigid exoskeleton torturing flesh: 
a woman made of pain. 

How superior we are now: see the modern woman 
thin as a blade of scissors. 
She runs on a treadmill every morning...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things