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Best Famous Handy Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Handy poems. This is a select list of the best famous Handy poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Handy poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of handy poems.

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Written by Ogden Nash | Create an image from this poem

Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice

 There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.
I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet, Because I think that is sort of sweet; No, I object to one kind of apology alone, Which is when people spend their time and yours apologizing for everything they own.
You go to their house for a meal, And they apologize because the anchovies aren't caviar or the partridge is veal; They apologize privately for the crudeness of the other guests, And they apologize publicly for their wife's housekeeping or their husband's jests; If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott, And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot; They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious diary can, But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American.
I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them, I shudder as I think of the hours that must be spend in contradicting them, Because you are very rude if you let them emerge from an argument victorious, And when they say something of theirs is awful, it is your duty to convince them politely that it is magnificent and glorious, And what particularly bores me with them, Is that half the time you have to politely contradict them when you rudely agree with them, So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf, Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.


Written by Gwendolyn Brooks | Create an image from this poem

The Lovers of the Poor

 arrive.
The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment League Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair, The pink paint on the innocence of fear; Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.
Cutting with knives served by their softest care, Served by their love, so barbarously fair.
Whose mothers taught: You'd better not be cruel! You had better not throw stones upon the wrens! Herein they kiss and coddle and assault Anew and dearly in the innocence With which they baffle nature.
Who are full, Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit, Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise.
To resurrect.
To moisten with milky chill.
To be a random hitching post or plush.
To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem.
Their guild is giving money to the poor.
The worthy poor.
The very very worthy And beautiful poor.
Perhaps just not too swarthy? Perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim Nor--passionate.
In truth, what they could wish Is--something less than derelict or dull.
Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze! God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold! The noxious needy ones whose battle's bald Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down.
But it's all so bad! and entirely too much for them.
The stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans, Dead porridges of assorted dusty grains, The old smoke, heavy diapers, and, they're told, Something called chitterlings.
The darkness.
Drawn Darkness, or dirty light.
The soil that stirs.
The soil that looks the soil of centuries.
And for that matter the general oldness.
Old Wood.
Old marble.
Old tile.
Old old old.
Note homekind Oldness! Not Lake Forest, Glencoe.
Nothing is sturdy, nothing is majestic, There is no quiet drama, no rubbed glaze, no Unkillable infirmity of such A tasteful turn as lately they have left, Glencoe, Lake Forest, and to which their cars Must presently restore them.
When they're done With dullards and distortions of this fistic Patience of the poor and put-upon.
They've never seen such a make-do-ness as Newspaper rugs before! In this, this "flat," Their hostess is gathering up the oozed, the rich Rugs of the morning (tattered! the bespattered .
.
.
), Readies to spread clean rugs for afternoon.
Here is a scene for you.
The Ladies look, In horror, behind a substantial citizeness Whose trains clank out across her swollen heart.
Who, arms akimbo, almost fills a door.
All tumbling children, quilts dragged to the floor And tortured thereover, potato peelings, soft- Eyed kitten, hunched-up, haggard, to-be-hurt.
Their League is allotting largesse to the Lost.
But to put their clean, their pretty money, to put Their money collected from delicate rose-fingers Tipped with their hundred flawless rose-nails seems .
.
.
They own Spode, Lowestoft, candelabra, Mantels, and hostess gowns, and sunburst clocks, Turtle soup, Chippendale, red satin "hangings," Aubussons and Hattie Carnegie.
They Winter In Palm Beach; cross the Water in June; attend, When suitable, the nice Art Institute; Buy the right books in the best bindings; saunter On Michigan, Easter mornings, in sun or wind.
Oh Squalor! This sick four-story hulk, this fibre With fissures everywhere! Why, what are bringings Of loathe-love largesse? What shall peril hungers So old old, what shall flatter the desolate? Tin can, blocked fire escape and chitterling And swaggering seeking youth and the puzzled wreckage Of the middle passage, and urine and stale shames And, again, the porridges of the underslung And children children children.
Heavens! That Was a rat, surely, off there, in the shadows? Long And long-tailed? Gray? The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment League agree it will be better To achieve the outer air that rights and steadies, To hie to a house that does not holler, to ring Bells elsetime, better presently to cater To no more Possibilities, to get Away.
Perhaps the money can be posted.
Perhaps they two may choose another Slum! Some serious sooty half-unhappy home!-- Where loathe-lover likelier may be invested.
Keeping their scented bodies in the center Of the hall as they walk down the hysterical hall, They allow their lovely skirts to graze no wall, Are off at what they manage of a canter, And, resuming all the clues of what they were, Try to avoid inhaling the laden air.
Written by A R Ammons | Create an image from this poem

Still

 I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is

magnificent with existence, is in 
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:

I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!
Written by A R Ammons | Create an image from this poem

Rogue Elephant

 The reason to be autonomous is to stand there,
a cleared instrument, ready to act, to search

the moral realm and actual conditions for what
needs to be done and to do it: fine, the

best, if it works out, but if, like a gun, it
comes in handy to the wrong choice, why then

you see the danger in the effective: better
then an autonomy that stands and looks about,

negotiating nothing, the supreme indifferences:
is anything to be gained where as much is lost:

and if for every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction has the loss been researched

equally with the gain: you can see how the
milling actions of millions could come to a

buzzard-like glide as from a coincidental,
warm bottom of water stuck between chilled

peaks: it is not so easy to say, OK, go on
out and act: who, doing what, to what or

whom: just a minute: should the bunker be
bombed (if it stores gas): should all the

rattlers die just because they rattle: if I
hear the young gentleman vomiter roaring down

the hall in the men's room, should I go and
inquire of him, reducing him to my care: no

wonder the great sayers (who say nothing) sit
about in inaccessible states of mind: no

wonder still wisdom and catatonia appear to
exchange places occasionally: but if anything

were easy, our easy choices soon would carry
away our ignorance with the world-better

let the mixed-up mix and let the surface shine
with all the possibilities, each in itself.
Written by James Tate | Create an image from this poem

The Definition of Gardening

 Jim just loves to garden, yes he does.
He likes nothing better than to put on his little overalls and his straw hat.
He says, "Let's go get those tools, Jim.
" But then doubt begins to set in.
He says, "What is a garden, anyway?" And thoughts about a "modernistic" garden begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve.
He stands in the driveway a long time.
"Horticulture is a groping in the dark into the obscure and unfamiliar, kneeling before a disinterested secret, slapping it, punching it like a Chinese puzzle, birdbrained babbling gibberish, dig and destroy, pull out and apply salt, hoe and spray, before it spreads, burn roots, where not desired, with gloved hands, poisonous, the self-sacrifice of it, the self-love, into the interior, thunderclap, excruciating, through the nose, the earsplitting necrology of it, the withering, shrivelling, the handy hose holder and Persian insect powder and smut fungi, the enemies of the iris, wireworms are worse than their parents, there is no way out, flowers as big as heads, pock-marked, disfigured, blinking insolently at me, the me who so loves to garden because it prevents the heaving of the ground and the untimely death of porch furniture, and dark, murky days in a large city and the dream home under a permanent storm is also a factor to keep in mind.
"


Written by Lewis Carroll | Create an image from this poem

Fit the Third ( Hunting of the Snark )

 The Baker's Tale 

They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
They set him conundrums to guess.
When at length he sat up and was able to speak, His sad story he offered to tell; And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!" And excitedly tingled his bell.
There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream, Scarcely even a howl or a groan, As the man they called "Ho!" told his story of woe In an antediluvian tone.
"My father and mother were honest, though poor--" "Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste.
"If it once becomes dark, there's no chance of a Snark-- We have hardly a minute to waste!" "I skip forty years," said the Baker in tears, "And proceed without further remark To the day when you took me aboard of your ship To help you in hunting the Snark.
"A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named) Remarked, when I bade him farewell--" "Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed, As he angrily tingled his bell.
"He remarked to me then," said that mildest of men, "'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right: Fetch it home by all means--you may serve it with greens And it's handy for striking a light.
"'You may seek it with thimbles--and seek it with care-- You may hunt it with forks and hope; You may threaten its life with a railway-share; You may charm it with smiles and soap--'" ("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold In a hasty parenthesis cried, "That's exactly the way I have always been told That the capture of Snarks should be tried!") "'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day, If your Snark be a Boojum! For then You will softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!" "It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul, When I think of my uncle's last words: And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl Brimming over with quivering curds! "It is this, it is this--" "We have had that before!" The Bellman indignantly said.
And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more.
It is this, it is this that I dread! "I engage with the Snark--every night after dark-- In a dreamy delirious fight: I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes, And I use it for striking a light: "But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day, In a moment (of this I am sure), I shall softly and suddenly vanish away-- And the notion I cannot endure!"
Written by Edward Taylor | Create an image from this poem

The Definition of Gardening

 Jim just loves to garden, yes he does.
He likes nothing better than to put on his little overalls and his straw hat.
He says, "Let's go get those tools, Jim.
" But then doubt begins to set in.
He says, "What is a garden, anyway?" And thoughts about a "modernistic" garden begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve.
He stands in the driveway a long time.
"Horticulture is a groping in the dark into the obscure and unfamiliar, kneeling before a disinterested secret, slapping it, punching it like a Chinese puzzle, birdbrained babbling gibberish, dig and destroy, pull out and apply salt, hoe and spray, before it spreads, burn roots, where not desired, with gloved hands, poisonous, the self-sacrifice of it, the self-love, into the interior, thunderclap, excruciating, through the nose, the earsplitting necrology of it, the withering, shrivelling, the handy hose holder and Persian insect powder and smut fungi, the enemies of the iris, wireworms are worse than their parents, there is no way out, flowers as big as heads, pock-marked, disfigured, blinking insolently at me, the me who so loves to garden because it prevents the heaving of the ground and the untimely death of porch furniture, and dark, murky days in a large city and the dream home under a permanent storm is also a factor to keep in mind.
"
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Young British Soldier

 When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
 Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, So-oldier OF the Queen! Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day, You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay, An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may: A soldier what's fit for a soldier.
Fit, fit, fit for a soldier .
.
.
First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts, For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts -- Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts -- An' it's bad for the young British soldier.
Bad, bad, bad for the soldier .
.
.
When the cholera comes -- as it will past a doubt -- Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout, For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out, An' it crumples the young British soldier.
Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier .
.
.
But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead: You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said: If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead, An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier .
.
.
If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind, Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind; Be handy and civil, and then you will find That it's beer for the young British soldier.
Beer, beer, beer for the soldier .
.
.
Now, if you must marry, take care she is old -- A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told, For beauty won't help if your rations is cold, Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.
'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier .
.
.
If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath To shoot when you catch 'em -- you'll swing, on my oath! -- Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both, An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.
Curse, curse, curse of a soldier .
.
.
When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck, Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck, Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier .
.
.
When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch, Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old *****; She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich, An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier .
.
.
When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine, The guns o' the enemy wheel into line, Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine, For noise never startles the soldier.
Start-, start-, startles the soldier .
.
.
If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white, Remember it's ruin to run from a fight: So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier .
.
.
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, So-oldier of the Queen!
Written by Lewis Carroll | Create an image from this poem

Phantasmagoria CANTO VI ( Dyscomfyture )

 As one who strives a hill to climb,
Who never climbed before:
Who finds it, in a little time,
Grow every moment less sublime,
And votes the thing a bore: 

Yet, having once begun to try,
Dares not desert his quest,
But, climbing, ever keeps his eye
On one small hut against the sky
Wherein he hopes to rest: 

Who climbs till nerve and force are spent,
With many a puff and pant:
Who still, as rises the ascent,
In language grows more violent,
Although in breath more scant: 

Who, climbing, gains at length the place
That crowns the upward track.
And, entering with unsteady pace, Receives a buffet in the face That lands him on his back: And feels himself, like one in sleep, Glide swiftly down again, A helpless weight, from steep to steep, Till, with a headlong giddy sweep, He drops upon the plain - So I, that had resolved to bring Conviction to a ghost, And found it quite a different thing From any human arguing, Yet dared not quit my post But, keeping still the end in view To which I hoped to come, I strove to prove the matter true By putting everything I knew Into an axiom: Commencing every single phrase With 'therefore' or 'because,' I blindly reeled, a hundred ways, About the syllogistic maze, Unconscious where I was.
Quoth he "That's regular clap-trap: Don't bluster any more.
Now DO be cool and take a nap! Such a ridiculous old chap Was never seen before! "You're like a man I used to meet, Who got one day so furious In arguing, the simple heat Scorched both his slippers off his feet!" I said "THAT'S VERY CURIOUS!" "Well, it IS curious, I agree, And sounds perhaps like fibs: But still it's true as true can be - As sure as your name's Tibbs," said he.
I said "My name's NOT Tibbs.
" "NOT Tibbs!" he cried - his tone became A shade or two less hearty - "Why, no," said I.
"My proper name Is Tibbets - " "Tibbets?" "Aye, the same.
" "Why, then YOU'RE NOT THE PARTY!" With that he struck the board a blow That shivered half the glasses.
"Why couldn't you have told me so Three quarters of an hour ago, You prince of all the asses? "To walk four miles through mud and rain, To spend the night in smoking, And then to find that it's in vain - And I've to do it all again - It's really TOO provoking! "Don't talk!" he cried, as I began To mutter some excuse.
"Who can have patience with a man That's got no more discretion than An idiotic goose? "To keep me waiting here, instead Of telling me at once That this was not the house!" he said.
"There, that'll do - be off to bed! Don't gape like that, you dunce!" "It's very fine to throw the blame On ME in such a fashion! Why didn't you enquire my name The very minute that you came?" I answered in a passion.
"Of course it worries you a bit To come so far on foot - But how was I to blame for it?" "Well, well!" said he.
"I must admit That isn't badly put.
"And certainly you've given me The best of wine and victual - Excuse my violence," said he, "But accidents like this, you see, They put one out a little.
"'Twas MY fault after all, I find - Shake hands, old Turnip-top!" The name was hardly to my mind, But, as no doubt he meant it kind, I let the matter drop.
"Good-night, old Turnip-top, good-night! When I am gone, perhaps They'll send you some inferior Sprite, Who'll keep you in a constant fright And spoil your soundest naps.
"Tell him you'll stand no sort of trick; Then, if he leers and chuckles, You just be handy with a stick (Mind that it's pretty hard and thick) And rap him on the knuckles! "Then carelessly remark 'Old coon! Perhaps you're not aware That, if you don't behave, you'll soon Be chuckling to another tune - And so you'd best take care!' "That's the right way to cure a Sprite Of such like goings-on - But gracious me! It's getting light! Good-night, old Turnip-top, good-night!" A nod, and he was gone.
Written by Nazim Hikmet | Create an image from this poem

Last Will And Testament

 Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
-- I mean,if I die before freedom comes --
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.
The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot can lie on one side of me, and on the other side the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye and died inside of forty days.
Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery -- in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline, fields held in common, water in canals, no drought or fear of the police.
Of course, we won't hear those songs: the dead lie stretched out underground and rot like black branches, deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.
But, I sang those songs before they were written, I smelled the burnt gasoline before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.
As for my neighbors, the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha, they felt the great longing while alive, maybe without even knowing it.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean -- and it's looking more and more likely -- bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia, and if there's one handy, a plane tree could stand at my head, I wouldn't need a stone or anything.
Moscow, Barviha Hospital

Book: Reflection on the Important Things