Best Famous Nine Times Poems

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

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• All Famous Nine Times Poems

Written by Sylvia Plath | Lady Lazarus I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it_____ A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face featureless, fine Jew linen. Peel off the napkin O my enemy. Do I terrify?------- The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments. The Peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand in foot ------ The big strip tease. Gentleman , ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call. It's easy enough to do it in a cell. It's easy enough to do it and stay put. It's the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: 'A miracle!' That knocks me out. There is a charge For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart--- It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair on my clothes. So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash--- You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there---- A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air. (1962)

Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | All Things Will Die Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing Under my eye; Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing Over the sky. One after another the white clouds are fleeting; Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating Full merrily; Yet all things must die. The stream will cease to flow; The wind will cease to blow; The clouds will cease to fleet; The heart will cease to beat; For all things must die. All things must die. Spring will come never more. O, vanity! Death waits at the door. See! our friends are all forsaking The wine and the merrymaking. We are call'd—we must go. Laid low, very low, In the dark we must lie. The merry glees are still; The voice of the bird Shall no more be heard, Nor the wind on the hill. O, misery! Hark! death is calling While I speak to ye, The jaw is falling, The red cheek paling, The strong limbs failing; Ice with the warm blood mixing; The eyeballs fixing. Nine times goes the passing bell: Ye merry souls, farewell. The old earth Had a birth, As all men know, Long ago. And the old earth must die. So let the warm winds range, And the blue wave beat the shore; For even and morn Ye will never see Thro' eternity. All things were born. Ye will come never more, For all things must die.

Written by David Lehman | When A Woman Loves A Man When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri. When she says quixotic she means mercurial. And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again," she means, "Put your arms around me from behind as I stand disconsolate at the window." He's supposed to know that. When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginia or he is in Boston, writing, and she is in New York, reading, or she is wearing a sweater and sunglasses in Balboa Park and he is raking leaves in Ithaca or he is driving to East Hampton and she is standing disconsolate at the window overlooking the bay where a regatta of many-colored sails is going on while he is stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway. When a woman loves a man it is one-ten in the morning, she is asleep he is watching the ball scores and eating pretzels drinking lemonade and two hours later he wakes up and staggers into bed where she remains asleep and very warm. When she says tomorrow she means in three or four weeks. When she says, "We're talking about me now," he stops talking. Her best friend comes over and says, "Did somebody die?" When a woman loves a man, they have gone to swim naked in the stream on a glorious July day with the sound of the waterfall like a chuckle of water ruching over smooth rocks, and there is nothing alien in the universe. Ripe apples fall about them. What else can they do but eat? When he says, "Ours is a transitional era." "That's very original of you," she replies, dry as the Martini he is sipping. They fight all the time It's fun What do I owe you? Let's start with an apology Ok, I'm sorry, you dickhead. A sign is held up saying "Laughter." It's a silent picture. "I've been fucked without a kiss," she says, "and you can quote me on that," which sounds great in an English accent. One year they broke up seven times and threatened to do it another nine times. When a woman loves a man, she wants him to meet her at the airport in a foreign country with a jeep. When a man loves a woman he's there. He doesn't complain that she's two hours late and there's nothing in the refrigerator. When a woman loves a man, she wants to stay awake. She's like a child crying at nightfall because she didn't want the day to end. When a man loves a woman, he watches her sleep, thinking: as midnight to the moon is sleep to the beloved. A thousand fireflies wink at him. The frogs sound like the string section of the orchestra warming up. The stars dangle down like earrings the shape of grapes.

Written by Barry Tebb | Bridge Over The Aire Book 3 THE KINGDOM OF MY HEART 1 The halcyon settled on the Aire of our days Kingfisher-blue it broke my heart in two Shall I forget you? Shall I forget you? I am the mad poet first love You never got over You are my blue-eyed Madonna virgin bride I shall carve ‘MG loves BT’ On the bark of every Wind-bent tree in East End Park 2 The park itself will blossom And grow in chiaroscuro The Victorian postcard’s view Of avenue upon avenue With palms and pagodas Lakes and waterfalls and A fountain from Versailles. 3 You shall be my queen In the Kingdom of Deira Land of many rivers Aire the greatest Isara the strong one Robed in stillness Wide, deep and dark. 4 In Middleton Woods Margaret and I played Truth or dare She bared her breasts To the watching stars. 5 “Milk, milk, Lemonade, round The corner Chocolate spread” Nancy chanted at Ten in the binyard Touching her ****, Her ****, her bum, Margaret joined in Chanting in unison. 6 The skipping rope Turned faster And faster, slapping The hot pavement, Margaret skipped In rhythm, never Missing a beat, Lifting the pleat Of her skirt Whirling and twirling. 7 Giggling and red Margaret said In a whisper “When we were Playing at Nancy’s She pushed a spill Of paper up her You-know-what She said she’d Let you watch If you wanted.” 8 Margaret, this Saturday morning in June There is a queue at the ‘Princess’ for The matin?e, down the alley by the blank Concrete of the cinema’s side I hide With you, we are counting our picture Money, I am counting the stars in your Hair, bound with a cheap plastic comb. 9 You have no idea of my need for you A lifetime long, every wrong decision I made betrayed my need; forty years on Hear my song and take my hand and move Us to the house of love where we belong. 10 Margaret we sat in the cinema dark Warm with the promise of a secret kiss The wall lights glowed amber on the Crumbling plaster, we looked with longing At the love seats empty in the circle, Vowing we would share one. 11 There is shouting and echoes Of wild splashing from York Road baths; forty years on It stirs my memory and Will not be gone. 12 The ghosts of tramtracks Light up lanes To nowhere In Leeds Ten. Every road Leads nowhere In Leeds Nine. Motorways have cut The city’s heart In two; Margaret, Our home lies buried Under sixteen feet Of stone. 13 Our families moved And we were lost I was not there to hear The whispered secret Of your first period. 14 God is courage’s infinite ground Tillich said; God, give me enough To stand another week without her Every day gets longer, every sleep Less deep. 15 Why can’t I find you, Touch you, Bind your straw-gold hair The colour of lank February grass? 16 Under the stone canopy Of the Grand Arcade I pass Europa Nightclub; In black designer glass I watch the faces pass But none is like your’s, No voice, no eyes, No smile at all Like your’s. 17 From Kirkstall Lock The rhubarb crop To Knostrop’s forcing sheds The roots ploughed up Arranged in beds Of perfect darkness Where the buds burst With a pip, rich pink Stalks and yellow leaves Hand-picked by Candle-light to Keep the colour right So every night the Rhubarb train Could go from Leeds To Covent Garden. 18 The smell of Saturday morning Is the smell of freedom How the bounds may grow Slowly slowly as I go. “Rag-bone rag-bone White donkey stone” Auntie Nellie scoured Her door step, polished The brass knocker Till I saw my face Bunched like a fist Complete with goggles Grinning like a monkey In a mile of mirrors. 19 Every door step had a stop A half-stone iron weight To hold it back and every Step was edged with donkey Stone in yellow or white From the ragman or the potman With his covered cart jingling Jangling as it jerked hundreds Of cups on hooks pint and Half pint mugs and stacks of Willow-patterned plates From Burmantofts. 20 We heard him a mile off Nights in summer when He trundled round the Corner over the cobbles Jamming the wood brake Blocks whoaing the horses With their gleaming brasses And our mams were always Waiting where he stopped. 21 Double summer-time made The nights go on for ever And no-one cared any more How long we played what Or where and we were left Alone and that’s all I wanted Then or now to be left alone Never to be called in from The Hollows never to be Called from Margaret. 22 City of back-to-backs From Armley Heights Laid out in rows Like trees or grass I watch you pass. 23 The Aire is slow and almost Still In the Bridgefield The Joshua Tetley clock Over the Atkinson Grimshaw Print Is stopped at nineteen fifty Four The year I left. 24 Grimshaw’s home was Half a mile away In Knostrop Hall Margaret and I Climbed the ruined Walls her hair was Blowing in the wind Her eyes were stars In the green night Her hands were holding My hands. 25 Half a century later I look out over Leeds Nine What little’s left is broken Or changed Saturday night Is silent and empty The paths over the Hollows Deserted the bell Of St. Hilda’s still. 26 On a single bush The yellow roses blush Pink in the amber light Night settles on the Fewstons and the Copperfields No mothers’ voices calling us. Lilac and velvet clover Grew all over the Hollows It was all the luck We knew and when we left Our luck went too. 27 Solid black Velvet basalt Polished jet Millstone grit Leeds Town Hall Built with it Soaks up the fog Is sealed with smog Battered buttressed Blackened plinths White lions’ paws Were soft their Smiles like your’s. 28 Narrow lanes, steep inclines, Steps, blank walls, tight And secret openings’ The lanes are your hips The inclines the lines Of your thighs, the steps Your breasts, blank walls Your buttocks, tight and Secret openings your Taut vagina’s lips. 29 There is a keening and a honing And a winnowing in the wind I am the surge and flow In Winwaed’s water the last breath Of Elmete’s King. I am Penda crossing the Aire Camping at Killingbeck Conquered by Aethalwald Ruler of Deira. 30 Life is a bird hovering In the Hall of the King Between darkness and darkness flickering The stone of Scone at last lifted And borne on the wind, Dunedin, take it Hold it hard and fast its light Is leaping it is freedom’s Touchstone and firestone. 31 Eir, Ayer or Aire I’ll still be there Your wanderings off course Old Ea, Old Eye, Dead Eye Make no difference to me. Eg-an island - is Aire’s True source, names Not places matter With the risings Of a river Ea land-by-water I’ll make my own way Free, going down river To the far-off sea. 32 Poetry is my business, my affair. My cri-de-coeur, jongleur Of Mercia and Elmete, Margaret, Open your door I am heaping Imbroglios of stars on the floor Meet me by the Office Lock At midnight or by the Town Hall Clock. 33 Nennius nine times have I knocked On the door of your grave, nine times More have I made Pilgrimage to Elmete’s Wood where long I lay by beck and bank Waiting for your tongue to flame With Pentecostal fire. 34 Margaret you rode in the hollow of my hand In the harp of my heart, searching for you I wandered in Kirkgate Market’s midnight Down avenues of shuttered stalls, our secrets Kept through all the years. From the Imperial on Beeston Hill I watch the city spill glass towers Of light over the horizon’s rim. 35 The railyard’s straights Are buckled plates Red bricks for aggregate All lost like me Ledsham and Ledston Both belong to Leeds But Ledston Luck Is where Aire leads. 36 Held of the Crown By seven thanes In Saxon times ‘In regione Loidis’ Baeda scripsit Leeds, Leeds, You answer All my needs. 37 A horse shoe stuck for luck Behind a basement window: Margaret, now we’ll see What truth there is In dreams and poetry! I am at one with everyone There is poetry Falling from the air And you have put it there. 38 The sign for John Eaton Street Is planted in the back garden Of the transport caf? between The strands of a wire mesh fence Straddling the cobbles of a street That is no more, a washing line And an abandoned caravan. 39 ‘This open land to let’ Is what you get on the Hollows Thousands of half-burned tyres The rusty barrel of a Trumix lorry Concrete slabs, foxgloves and condoms, The Go-Kart Arena’s signboards, Half the wall of Ellerby Lane School. 40 There is a mermaid singing On East Street on an IBM poster Her hair is lack-lustre Her breasts are facing the camera Her tail is like a worn-out brush. Chimney stacks Blind black walls Of factories Grimy glass Flickering firelight In black-leaded grates. 41 Hunslet de Ledes Hop-scotch, hide and seek, Bogies-on-wheels Not one tree in Hunslet Except in the cemetery The lake filled in For fifty years, The bluebell has rung Its last perfumed peal. 42 I couldn’t play out on Sunday Mam and dad thought us a cut Above the rest, it was another Test I failed, keeping me and Margaret apart was like the Aztecs Tearing the heart from the living flesh. 43 Father, your office job Didn’t save you From the drugs They never gave you. 44 Isaiah, my son, You made it back From Balliol to Beeston At a run via the Playing fields of Eton. There is a keening and a honing And a winnowing in the wind Winwaed’s water with red bluid blent.

Written by Robert Burns | 88. The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer YE Irish lords, ye knights an’ squires, Wha represent our brughs an’ shires, An’ doucely manage our affairs In parliament, To you a simple poet’s pray’rs Are humbly sent. Alas! my roupit Muse is hearse! Your Honours’ hearts wi’ grief ’twad pierce, To see her sittin on her **** Low i’ the dust, And scriechinh out prosaic verse, An like to brust! Tell them wha hae the chief direction, Scotland an’ me’s in great affliction, E’er sin’ they laid that curst restriction On aqua-vit&æ; An’ rouse them up to strong conviction, An’ move their pity. Stand forth an’ tell yon Premier youth The honest, open, naked truth: Tell him o’ mine an’ Scotland’s drouth, His servants humble: The muckle deevil blaw you south If ye dissemble! Does ony great man glunch an’ gloom? Speak out, an’ never fash your thumb! Let posts an’ pensions sink or soom Wi’ them wha grant them; If honestly they canna come, Far better want them. In gath’rin votes you were na slack; Now stand as tightly by your tack: Ne’er claw your lug, an’ fidge your back, An’ hum an’ haw; But raise your arm, an’ tell your crack Before them a’. Paint Scotland greetin owre her thrissle; Her mutchkin stowp as toom’s a whissle; An’ d—mn’d excisemen in a bussle, Seizin a stell, Triumphant crushin’t like a mussel, Or limpet shell! Then, on the tither hand present her— A blackguard smuggler right behint her, An’ cheek-for-chow, a chuffie vintner Colleaguing join, Picking her pouch as bare as winter Of a’ kind coin. Is there, that bears the name o’ Scot, But feels his heart’s bluid rising hot, To see his poor auld mither’s pot Thus dung in staves, An’ plunder’d o’ her hindmost groat By gallows knaves? Alas! I’m but a nameless wight, Trode i’ the mire out o’ sight? But could I like Montgomeries fight, Or gab like Boswell, 2 There’s some sark-necks I wad draw tight, An’ tie some hose well. God bless your Honours! can ye see’t— The kind, auld cantie carlin greet, An’ no get warmly to your feet, An’ gar them hear it, An’ tell them wi’a patriot-heat Ye winna bear it? Some o’ you nicely ken the laws, To round the period an’ pause, An’ with rhetoric clause on clause To mak harangues; Then echo thro’ Saint Stephen’s wa’s Auld Scotland’s wrangs. Dempster, 3 a true blue Scot I’se warran’; Thee, aith-detesting, chaste Kilkerran; 4 An’ that glib-gabbit Highland baron, The Laird o’ Graham; 5 An’ ane, a chap that’s damn’d aulfarran’, Dundas his name: 6 Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie; 7 True Campbells, Frederick and Ilay; 8 An’ Livistone, the bauld Sir Willie; 9 An’ mony ithers, Whom auld Demosthenes or Tully Might own for brithers. See sodger Hugh, 10 my watchman stented, If poets e’er are represented; I ken if that your sword were wanted, Ye’d lend a hand; But when there’s ought to say anent it, Ye’re at a stand. Arouse, my boys! exert your mettle, To get auld Scotland back her kettle; Or faith! I’ll wad my new pleugh-pettle, Ye’ll see’t or lang, She’ll teach you, wi’ a reekin whittle, Anither sang. This while she’s been in crankous mood, Her lost Militia fir’d her bluid; (Deil na they never mair do guid, Play’d her that pliskie!) An’ now she’s like to rin red-wud About her whisky. An’ Lord! if ance they pit her till’t, Her tartan petticoat she’ll kilt, An’durk an’ pistol at her belt, She’ll tak the streets, An’ rin her whittle to the hilt, I’ the first she meets! For God sake, sirs! then speak her fair, An’ straik her cannie wi’ the hair, An’ to the muckle house repair, Wi’ instant speed, An’ strive, wi’ a’ your wit an’ lear, To get remead. Yon ill-tongu’d tinkler, Charlie Fox, May taunt you wi’ his jeers and mocks; But gie him’t het, my hearty cocks! E’en cowe the cadie! An’ send him to his dicing box An’ sportin’ lady. Tell you guid bluid o’ auld Boconnock’s, 11 I’ll be his debt twa mashlum bonnocks, An’ drink his health in auld Nance Tinnock’s 12 Nine times a-week, If he some scheme, like tea an’ winnocks, Was kindly seek. Could he some commutation broach, I’ll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch, He needna fear their foul reproach Nor erudition, Yon mixtie-maxtie, ***** hotch-potch, The Coalition. Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue; She’s just a devil wi’ a rung; An’ if she promise auld or young To tak their part, Tho’ by the neck she should be strung, She’ll no desert. And now, ye chosen Five-and-Forty, May still you mither’s heart support ye; Then, tho’a minister grow dorty, An’ kick your place, Ye’ll snap your gingers, poor an’ hearty, Before his face. God bless your Honours, a’ your days, Wi’ sowps o’ kail and brats o’ claise, In spite o’ a’ the thievish kaes, That haunt St. Jamie’s! Your humble poet sings an’ prays, While Rab his name is. POSTSCRIPTLET half-starv’d slaves in warmer skies See future wines, rich-clust’ring, rise; Their lot auld Scotland ne’re envies, But, blythe and frisky, She eyes her freeborn, martial boys Tak aff their whisky. What tho’ their Phoebus kinder warms, While fragrance blooms and beauty charms, When wretches range, in famish’d swarms, The scented groves; Or, hounded forth, dishonour arms In hungry droves! Their gun’s a burden on their shouther; They downa bide the stink o’ powther; Their bauldest thought’s a hank’ring swither To stan’ or rin, Till skelp—a shot—they’re aff, a’throw’ther, To save their skin. But bring a Scotchman frae his hill, Clap in his cheek a Highland gill, Say, such is royal George’s will, An’ there’s the foe! He has nae thought but how to kill Twa at a blow. Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him; Death comes, wi’ fearless eye he sees him; Wi’bluidy hand a welcome gies him; An’ when he fa’s, His latest draught o’ breathin lea’es him In faint huzzas. Sages their solemn een may steek, An’ raise a philosophic reek, An’ physically causes seek, In clime an’ season; But tell me whisky’s name in Greek I’ll tell the reason. Scotland, my auld, respected mither! Tho’ whiles ye moistify your leather, Till, whare ye sit on craps o’ heather, Ye tine your dam; Freedom an’ whisky gang thegither! Take aff your dram! Note 1. This was written before the Act anent the Scotch distilleries, of session 1786, for which Scotland and the author return their most grateful thanks.—R. B. [back] Note 2. James Boswell of Auchinleck, the biographer of Johnson. [back] Note 3. George Dempster of Dunnichen. [back] Note 4. Sir Adam Ferguson of Kilkerran, Bart. [back] Note 5. The Marquis of Graham, eldest son of the Duke of Montrose. [back] Note 6. Right Hon. Henry Dundas, M. P. [back] Note 7. Probably Thomas, afterward Lord Erskine. [back] Note 8. Lord Frederick Campbell, second brother of the Duke of Argyll, and Ilay Campbell, Lord Advocate for Scotland, afterward President of the Court of Session. [back] Note 9. Sir Wm. Augustus Cunningham, Baronet, of Livingstone. [back] Note 10. Col. Hugh Montgomery, afterward Earl of Eglinton. [back] Note 11. Pitt, whose grandfather was of Boconnock in Cornwall. [back] Note 12. A worthy old hostess of the author’s in Mauchline, where he sometimes studies politics over a glass of gude auld Scotch Drink.—R. B. [back]