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Best Famous Puffy Poems

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

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Written by Marge Piercy | Create an image from this poem

My Mothers Body

 1. 

The dark socket of the year 
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down 
and threatens never to rise, 
when despair descends softly as the snow 
covering all paths and choking roads: 

then hawkfaced pain seized you 
threw you so you fell with a sharp 
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk. 
My father heard the crash but paid 
no mind, napping after lunch 

yet fifteen hundred miles north 
I heard and dropped a dish. 
Your pain sunk talons in my skull 
and crouched there cawing, heavy 
as a great vessel filled with water, 

oil or blood, till suddenly next day 
the weight lifted and I knew your mind 
had guttered out like the Chanukah 
candles that burn so fast, weeping 
veils of wax down the chanukiya. 

Those candles were laid out, 
friends invited, ingredients bought 
for latkes and apple pancakes, 
that holiday for liberation 
and the winter solstice 

when tops turn like little planets. 
Shall you have all or nothing 
take half or pass by untouched? 
Nothing you got, Nun said the dreydl
as the room stopped spinning. 

The angel folded you up like laundry 
your body thin as an empty dress. 
Your clothes were curtains 
hanging on the window of what had 
been your flesh and now was glass. 

Outside in Florida shopping plazas 
loudspeakers blared Christmas carols 
and palm trees were decked with blinking 
lights. Except by the tourist 
hotels, the beaches were empty. 

Pelicans with pregnant pouches 
flapped overhead like pterodactyls. 
In my mind I felt you die. 
First the pain lifted and then 
you flickered and went out. 


2.

I walk through the rooms of memory. 
Sometimes everything is shrouded in dropcloths, 
every chair ghostly and muted. 

Other times memory lights up from within 
bustling scenes acted just the other side 
of a scrim through which surely I could reach 

my fingers tearing at the flimsy curtain 
of time which is and isn't and will be 
the stuff of which we're made and unmade. 

In sleep the other night I met you, seventeen 
your first nasty marriage just annulled, 
thin from your abortion, clutching a book 

against your cheek and trying to look 
older, trying to took middle class, 
trying for a job at Wanamaker's, 

dressing for parties in cast off 
stage costumes of your sisters. Your eyes 
were hazy with dreams. You did not 

notice me waving as you wandered 
past and I saw your slip was showing. 
You stood still while I fixed your clothes, 

as if I were your mother. Remember me 
combing your springy black hair, ringlets 
that seemed metallic, glittering; 

remember me dressing you, my seventy year 
old mother who was my last dollbaby, 
giving you too late what your youth had wanted. 


3.

What is this mask of skin we wear, 
what is this dress of flesh, 
this coat of few colors and little hair? 

This voluptuous seething heap of desires 
and fears, squeaking mice turned up 
in a steaming haystack with their babies? 

This coat has been handed down, an heirloom 
this coat of black hair and ample flesh,
this coat of pale slightly ruddy skin.

This set of hips and thighs, these buttocks 
they provided cushioning for my grandmother 
Hannah, for my mother Bert and for me 

and we all sat on them in turn, those major 
muscles on which we walk and walk and walk 
over the earth in search of peace and plenty. 

My mother is my mirror and I am hers. 
What do we see? Our face grown young again, 
our breasts grown firm, legs lean and elegant. 

Our arms quivering with fat, eyes 
set in the bark of wrinkles, hands puffy, 
our belly seamed with childbearing, 

Give me your dress that I might try it on. 
Oh it will not fit you mother, you are too fat. 
I will not fit you mother. 

I will not be the bride you can dress, 
the obedient dutiful daughter you would chew, 
a dog's leather bone to sharpen your teeth. 

You strike me sometimes just to hear the sound. 
Loneliness turns your fingers into hooks 
barbed and drawing blood with their caress. 

My twin, my sister, my lost love, 
I carry you in me like an embryo 
as once you carried me. 


4. 

What is it we turn from, what is it we fear? 
Did I truly think you could put me back inside? 
Did I think I would fall into you as into a molten 
furnace and be recast, that I would become you? 

What did you fear in me, the child who wore 
your hair, the woman who let that black hair 
grow long as a banner of darkness, when you
a proper flapper wore yours cropped?

You pushed and you pulled on my rubbery
flesh, you kneaded me like a ball of dough. 
Rise, rise, and then you pounded me flat. 
Secretly the bones formed in the bread.

I became willful, private as a cat. 
You never knew what alleys I had wandered. 
You called me bad and I posed like a gutter 
queen in a dress sewn of knives. 

All I feared was being stuck in a box 
with a lid. A good woman appeared to me 
indistinguishable from a dead one 
except that she worked all the time. 

Your payday never came. Your dreams ran 
with bright colors like Mexican cottons 
that bled onto the drab sheets of the day 
and would not bleach with scrubbing. 

My dear, what you said was one thing 
but what you sang was another, sweetly 
subversive and dark as blackberries 
and I became the daughter of your dream. 

This body is your body, ashes now 
and roses, but alive in my eyes, my breasts, 
my throat, my thighs. You run in me 
a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood, 

you sing in my mind like wine. What you 
did not dare in your life you dare in mine.


Written by Anne Sexton | Create an image from this poem

Rapunzel

 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down your shoulder, 
come touch a copy of you 
for I am at the mercy of rain, 
for I have left the three Christs of Ypsilanti 
for I have left the long naps of Ann Arbor 
and the church spires have turned to stumps. 
The sea bangs into my cloister 
for the politicians are dying, 
and dying so hold me, my young dear, 
hold me... 

The yellow rose will turn to cinder 
and New York City will fall in 
before we are done so hold me, 
my young dear, hold me. 
Put your pale arms around my neck. 
Let me hold your heart like a flower 
lest it bloom and collapse. 
Give me your skin 
as sheer as a cobweb, 
let me open it up 
and listen in and scoop out the dark. 
Give me your nether lips 
all puffy with their art 
and I will give you angel fire in return. 
We are two clouds 
glistening in the bottle galss. 
We are two birds 
washing in the same mirror. 
We were fair game 
but we have kept out of the cesspool. 
We are strong. 
We are the good ones. 
Do not discover us 
for we lie together all in green 
like pond weeds. 
Hold me, my young dear, hold me. 

They touch their delicate watches 
one at a time. 
They dance to the lute 
two at a time. 
They are as tender as bog moss. 
They play mother-me-do 
all day. 
A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young.


Once there was a witch's garden 
more beautiful than Eve's 
with carrots growing like little fish, 
with many tomatoes rich as frogs, 
onions as ingrown as hearts, 
the squash singing like a dolphin 
and one patch given over wholly to magic -- 
rampion, a kind of salad root 
a kind of harebell more potent than penicillin, 
growing leaf by leaf, skin by skin. 
as rapt and as fluid as Isadoran Duncan. 
However the witch's garden was kept locked 
and each day a woman who was with child 
looked upon the rampion wildly, 
fancying that she would die 
if she could not have it. 
Her husband feared for her welfare 
and thus climbed into the garden 
to fetch the life-giving tubers. 

Ah ha, cried the witch, 
whose proper name was Mother Gothel, 
you are a thief and now you will die. 
However they made a trade, 
typical enough in those times. 
He promised his child to Mother Gothel 
so of course when it was born 
she took the child away with her. 
She gave the child the name Rapunzel, 
another name for the life-giving rampion. 
Because Rapunzel was a beautiful girl 
Mother Gothel treasured her beyond all things. 
As she grew older Mother Gothel thought: 
None but I will ever see her or touch her. 
She locked her in a tow without a door 
or a staircase. It had only a high window. 
When the witch wanted to enter she cried" 
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. 
Rapunzel's hair fell to the ground like a rainbow. 
It was as strong as a dandelion 
and as strong as a dog leash. 
Hand over hand she shinnied up 
the hair like a sailor 
and there in the stone-cold room, 
as cold as a museum, 
Mother Gothel cried: 
Hold me, my young dear, hold me, 
and thus they played mother-me-do. 

Years later a prince came by 
and heard Rapunzel singing her loneliness. 
That song pierced his heart like a valentine 
but he could find no way to get to her. 
Like a chameleon he hid himself among the trees 
and watched the witch ascend the swinging hair. 
The next day he himself called out: 
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, 
and thus they met and he declared his love. 
What is this beast, she thought, 
with muscles on his arms 
like a bag of snakes? 
What is this moss on his legs? 
What prickly plant grows on his cheeks? 
What is this voice as deep as a dog? 
Yet he dazzled her with his answers. 
Yet he dazzled her with his dancing stick. 
They lay together upon the yellowy threads, 
swimming through them 
like minnows through kelp 
and they sang out benedictions like the Pope. 

Each day he brought her a skein of silk 
to fashion a ladder so they could both escape. 
But Mother Gothel discovered the plot 
and cut off Rapunzel's hair to her ears 
and took her into the forest to repent. 
When the prince came the witch fastened 
the hair to a hook and let it down. 
When he saw Rapunzel had been banished 
he flung himself out of the tower, a side of beef. 
He was blinded by thorns that prickled him like tacks. 
As blind as Oedipus he wandered for years 
until he heard a song that pierced his heart 
like that long-ago valentine. 
As he kissed Rapunzel her tears fell on his eyes 
and in the manner of such cure-alls 
his sight was suddenly restored. 

They lived happily as you might expect 
proving that mother-me-do 
can be outgrown, 
just as the fish on Friday, 
just as a tricycle. 
The world, some say, 
is made up of couples. 
A rose must have a stem. 

As for Mother Gothel, 
her heart shrank to the size of a pin, 
never again to say: Hold me, my young dear, 
hold me, 
and only as she dreamed of the yellow hair 
did moonlight sift into her mouth.
Written by Anne Sexton | Create an image from this poem

Rapunzel

 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down your shoulder, 

come touch a copy of you 
for I am at the mercy of rain, 
for I have left the three Christs of Ypsilanti 
for I have left the long naps of Ann Arbor 
and the church spires have turned to stumps. 
The sea bangs into my cloister 
for the politicians are dying, 
and dying so hold me, my young dear, 
hold me... 
The yellow rose will turn to cinder 

and New York City will fall in 
before we are done so hold me, 
my young dear, hold me. 
Put your pale arms around my neck. 
Let me hold your heart like a flower 
lest it bloom and collapse. 
Give me your skin 
as sheer as a cobweb, 
let me open it up 
and listen in and scoop out the dark. 
Give me your nether lips 
all puffy with their art 
and I will give you angel fire in return. 
We are two clouds 
glistening in the bottle galss. 
We are two birds 
washing in the same mirror. 
We were fair game 
but we have kept out of the cesspool. 
We are strong. 
We are the good ones. 
Do not discover us 
for we lie together all in green 
like pond weeds. 
Hold me, my young dear, hold me. 
They touch their delicate watches 

one at a time. 
They dance to the lute 
two at a time. 
They are as tender as bog moss. 
They play mother-me-do 
all day. 
A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
Once there was a witch's garden 
more beautiful than Eve's 
with carrots growing like little fish, 
with many tomatoes rich as frogs, 
onions as ingrown as hearts, 
the squash singing like a dolphin 
and one patch given over wholly to magic -- 
rampion, a kind of salad root 
a kind of harebell more potent than penicillin, 
growing leaf by leaf, skin by skin. 
as rapt and as fluid as Isadoran Duncan. 
However the witch's garden was kept locked 
and each day a woman who was with child 
looked upon the rampion wildly, 
fancying that she would die 
if she could not have it. 
Her husband feared for her welfare 
and thus climbed into the garden 
to fetch the life-giving tubers. 

Ah ha, cried the witch, 
whose proper name was Mother Gothel, 
you are a thief and now you will die. 
However they made a trade, 
typical enough in those times. 
He promised his child to Mother Gothel 
so of course when it was born 
she took the child away with her. 
She gave the child the name Rapunzel, 
another name for the life-giving rampion. 
Because Rapunzel was a beautiful girl 
Mother Gothel treasured her beyond all things. 
As she grew older Mother Gothel thought: 
None but I will ever see her or touch her. 
She locked her in a tow without a door 
or a staircase. It had only a high window. 
When the witch wanted to enter she cried" 
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. 
Rapunzel's hair fell to the ground like a rainbow. 
It was as strong as a dandelion 
and as strong as a dog leash. 
Hand over hand she shinnied up 
the hair like a sailor 
and there in the stone-cold room, 
as cold as a museum, 
Mother Gothel cried: 
Hold me, my young dear, hold me, 
and thus they played mother-me-do. 

Years later a prince came by 
and heard Rapunzel singing her loneliness. 
That song pierced his heart like a valentine 
but he could find no way to get to her. 
Like a chameleon he hid himself among the trees 
and watched the witch ascend the swinging hair. 
The next day he himself called out: 
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, 
and thus they met and he declared his love. 
What is this beast, she thought, 
with muscles on his arms 
like a bag of snakes? 
What is this moss on his legs? 
What prickly plant grows on his cheeks? 
What is this voice as deep as a dog? 
Yet he dazzled her with his answers. 
Yet he dazzled her with his dancing stick. 
They lay together upon the yellowy threads, 
swimming through them 
like minnows through kelp 
and they sang out benedictions like the Pope. 

Each day he brought her a skein of silk 
to fashion a ladder so they could both escape. 
But Mother Gothel discovered the plot 
and cut off Rapunzel's hair to her ears 
and took her into the forest to repent. 
When the prince came the witch fastened 
the hair to a hook and let it down. 
When he saw Rapunzel had been banished 
he flung himself out of the tower, a side of beef. 
He was blinded by thorns that prickled him like tacks. 
As blind as Oedipus he wandered for years 
until he heard a song that pierced his heart 
like that long-ago valentine. 
As he kissed Rapunzel her tears fell on his eyes 
and in the manner of such cure-alls 
his sight was suddenly restored. 

They lived happily as you might expect 
proving that mother-me-do 
can be outgrown, 
just as the fish on Friday, 
just as a tricycle. 
The world, some say, 
is made up of couples. 
A rose must have a stem. 

As for Mother Gothel, 
her heart shrank to the size of a pin, 
never again to say: Hold me, my young dear, 
hold me, 
and only as she dreamed of the yellow hair 
did moonlight sift into her mouth.
Written by Wilfred Owen | Create an image from this poem

A Terre

 (Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)


Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me -- brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

I tried to peg out soldierly -- no use!
One dies of war like any old disease.
This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
I have my medals? -- Discs to make eyes close.
My glorious ribbons? -- Ripped from my own back
In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.)

A short life and a merry one, my brick!
We used to say we'd hate to live dead old, --
Yet now . . . I'd willingly be puffy, bald,
And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys
At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose
Little I'd ever teach a son, but hitting,
Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting.
Well, that's what I learnt, -- that, and making money.
Your fifty years ahead seem none too many?
Tell me how long I've got? God! For one year
To help myself to nothing more than air!
One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?
Spring wind would work its own way to my lung,
And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
My servant's lamed, but listen how he shouts!
When I'm lugged out, he'll still be good for that.
Here in this mummy-case, you know, I've thought
How well I might have swept his floors for ever,
I'd ask no night off when the bustle's over,
Enjoying so the dirt. Who's prejudiced
Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust,
Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn,
Less warm than dust that mixes with arms' tan?
I'd love to be a sweep, now, black as Town,
Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?

O Life, Life, let me breathe, -- a dug-out rat!
Not worse than ours the existences rats lead --
Nosing along at night down some safe vat,
They find a shell-proof home before they rot.
Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,
Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,
And subdivide, and never come to death,
Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.
"I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone."
Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned;
The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.
"Pushing up daisies," is their creed, you know.
To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap,
For all the usefulness there is in soap.
D'you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup?
Some day, no doubt, if . . .
 Friend, be very sure
I shall be better off with plants that share
More peaceably the meadow and the shower.
Soft rains will touch me, -- as they could touch once,
And nothing but the sun shall make me ware.
Your guns may crash around me. I'll not hear;
Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince.
Don't take my soul's poor comfort for your jest.
Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds,
But here the thing's best left at home with friends.

My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest,
To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased
On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.

Carry my crying spirit till it's weaned
To do without what blood remained these wounds.
Written by Frank Bidart | Create an image from this poem

Self-Portrait 1969

 He's still young--; thirty, but looks younger--
or does he?... In the eyes and cheeks, tonight,
turning in the mirror, he saw his mother,--
puffy; angry; bewildered... Many nights,
now, when he stares there, he gets angry:--
something unfulfilled there, something dead
to what he once thought he surely could be--
Now, just the glamour of habits...
 Once, instead,
he thought insight would remake him, he'd reach
--what? The thrill, the exhilaration
unravelling disaster, that seemed to teach
necessary knowledge... became just jargon.

Sick of being decent, he craves another
crash. What reaches him except disaster?


Written by Edward Lear | Create an image from this poem

F was a fan

F

was a fanMade of beautiful stuff;And when it was used,It went puffy-puff-puff!

f!

Nice little fan.

Written by Siegfried Sassoon | Create an image from this poem

Base Details

 If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath 
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, 
And speed glum heroes up the line to death. 
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face, 
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, 
Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap," 
I'd say -- "I used to know his father well; 
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead, 
I'd toddle safely home and die -- in bed.
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

My Typewriter

 I used to think a pot of ink
Held magic in its fluid,
And I would ply a pen when I
Was hoary a a Druid;
But as I scratch my silver thatch
My battered old Corona
Calls out to me as plaintively
As dying Desdemona.

"For old time's sake give me a break:
To you I've been as loyal
As ever could an Underwood,
Or Remington or Royal.
The globe we've spanned together and
Two million words, maybe,
For you I've tapped - it's time you rapped
A rhyme or two for me.

"I've seen you sit and smoke and spit
With expletives profane,
Then tear with rage the virgin page
I tendered you in vain.
I've watched you glare in dull despair
Through hours of brooding thought,
Then with a shout bang gaily out
The 'word unique' you sought.

"I've heard you groan and grunt and moan
That rhyme's a wretched fetter;
That after all you're just a small
Fat-headed verse-begetter;
You'd balance me upon your knee
Like any lady friend,
Then with a sigh you'd lay me by
For weeks and weeks on end.

"I've known when you were mighty blue
And hammered me till dawn,
Dire poverty! But I would be
The last thing you would pawn.
Days debt-accurst! Then at its worst
The sky, behold, would clear;
A poem sold, the garret cold
Would leap to light and cheer.

"You've toted me by shore and sea
From Mexico to Maine;
From Old Cathay to Mandalay,
From Samarkand to Spain.
You've thumped me in the battle's din
And pounded me in peace;
By air and land you've lugged me and
Your shabby old valise.

"But now my keys no more with ease
To your two fingers yield;
With years of use my joints are loose,
With wear of flood and field.
And even you are slipping too:
You're puffy, stiff and grey:
Old Sport, we're done, our race is run -
Why not call it a day?"

Why not? You've been, poor old machine!
My tried and faithful friend.
With fingertip your keys I'll flip
Serenely to the end.
For even though you're stiff and slow,
No other will I buy.
And though each word be wan and blurred
I'll tap you till I die.
Written by Lew Welch | Create an image from this poem

Not yet 40 my beard is already white

 Not yet 40, my beard is already white.
Not yet awake, my eyes are puffy and red,
like a child who has cried too much.

What is more disagreeable
than last night's wine?

I'll shave.
I'll stick my head in the cold spring and
look around at the pebbles.
Maybe I can eat a can of peaches.

Then I can finish the rest of the wine,
write poems 'til I'm drunk again,
and when the afternoon breeze comes up

I'll sleep until I see the moon
and the dark trees
and the nibbling deer

and hear
the quarreling coons

Book: Reflection on the Important Things