Best Famous Roosters Poems

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

Search and read the best famous Roosters poems, articles about Roosters poems, poetry blogs, or anything else Roosters poem related using the PoetrySoup search engine at the top of the page.

• All Famous Roosters Poems

Written by Elizabeth Bishop | Roosters At four o'clock in the gun-metal blue dark we hear the first crow of the first cock just below the gun-metal blue window and immediately there is an echo off in the distance, then one from the backyard fence, then one, with horrible insistence, grates like a wet match from the broccoli patch, flares,and all over town begins to catch. Cries galore come from the water-closet door, from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor, where in the blue blur their rusting wives admire, the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare with stupid eyes while from their beaks there rise the uncontrolled, traditional cries. Deep from protruding chests in green-gold medals dressed, planned to command and terrorize the rest, the many wives who lead hens' lives of being courted and despised; deep from raw throats a senseless order floats all over town. A rooster gloats over our beds from rusty irons sheds and fences made from old bedsteads, over our churches where the tin rooster perches, over our little wooden northern houses, making sallies from all the muddy alleys, marking out maps like Rand McNally's: glass-headed pins, oil-golds and copper greens, anthracite blues, alizarins, each one an active displacement in perspective; each screaming, "This is where I live!" Each screaming "Get up! Stop dreaming!" Roosters, what are you projecting? You, whom the Greeks elected to shoot at on a post, who struggled when sacrificed, you whom they labeled "Very combative. . . " what right have you to give commands and tell us how to live, cry "Here!" and "Here!" and wake us here where are unwanted love, conceit and war? The crown of red set on your little head is charged with all your fighting blood Yes, that excrescence makes a most virile presence, plus all that vulgar beauty of iridescence Now in mid-air by two they fight each other. Down comes a first flame-feather, and one is flying, with raging heroism defying even the sensation of dying. And one has fallen but still above the town his torn-out, bloodied feathers drift down; and what he sung no matter. He is flung on the gray ash-heap, lies in dung with his dead wives with open, bloody eyes, while those metallic feathers oxidize. St. Peter's sin was worse than that of Magdalen whose sin was of the flesh alone; of spirit, Peter's, falling, beneath the flares, among the "servants and officers. " Old holy sculpture could set it all together in one small scene, past and future: Christ stands amazed, Peter, two fingers raised to surprised lips, both as if dazed. But in between a little cock is seen carved on a dim column in the travertine, explained by gallus canit; flet Petrus underneath it, There is inescapable hope, the pivot; yes, and there Peter's tears run down our chanticleer's sides and gem his spurs. Tear-encrusted thick as a medieval relic he waits. Poor Peter, heart-sick, still cannot guess those cock-a-doodles yet might bless, his dreadful rooster come to mean forgiveness, a new weathervane on basilica and barn, and that outside the Lateran there would always be a bronze cock on a porphyry pillar so the people and the Pope might see that event the Prince of the Apostles long since had been forgiven, and to convince all the assembly that "Deny deny deny" is not all the roosters cry. In the morning a low light is floating in the backyard, and gilding from underneath the broccoli, leaf by leaf; how could the night have come to grief? gilding the tiny floating swallow's belly and lines of pink cloud in the sky, the day's preamble like wandering lines in marble, The cocks are now almost inaudible. The sun climbs in, following "to see the end," faithful as enemy, or friend.

Written by Oliver Wendell Holmes | A Parody on 'A Psalm of Life' Life is real, life is earnest, And the shell is not its pen – “Egg thou art, and egg remainest” Was not spoken of the hen. Art is long and Time is fleeting, Be our bills then sharpened well, And not like muffled drums be beating On the inside of the shell. In the world’s broad field of battle, In the great barnyard of life, Be not like those lazy cattle! Be a rooster in the strife! Lives of roosters all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And when roasted, leave behind us, Hen tracks on the sands of time. Hen tracks that perhaps another Chicken drooping in the rain, Some forlorn and henpecked brother, When he sees, shall crow again.

Written by Margaret Atwood | Postcards I'm thinking about you. What else can I say? The palm trees on the reverse are a delusion; so is the pink sand. What we have are the usual fractured coke bottles and the smell of backed-up drains, too sweet, like a mango on the verge of rot, which we have also. The air clear sweat, mosquitoes & their tracks; birds & elusive. Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one day after the other rolling on; I move up, it's called awake, then down into the uneasy nights but never forward. The roosters crow for hours before dawn, and a prodded child howls & howls on the pocked road to school. In the hold with the baggage there are two prisoners, their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates of queasy chicks. Each spring there's race of cripples, from the store to the church. This is the sort of junk I carry with me; and a clipping about democracy from the local paper. Outside the window they're building the damn hotel, nail by nail, someone's crumbling dream. A universe that includes you can't be all bad, but does it? At this distance you're a mirage, a glossy image fixed in the posture of the last time I saw you. Turn you over, there's the place for the address. Wish you were here. Love comes in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on & on, a hollow cave in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.

Written by Carl Sandburg | Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs RUM tiddy um, tiddy um, tiddy um tum tum. My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves. I feel like tickling you under the chin—honey—and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road? When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you—honey—put new potatoes and gravy on the table, and there ain’t too much rain or too little: Say, why do I feel so gabby? Why do I want to holler all over the place?. . . Do you remember I held empty hands to you and I said all is yours the handfuls of nothing?. . . I ask you for white blossoms. I bring a concertina after sunset under the apple trees. I bring out “The Spanish Cavalier” and “In the Gloaming, O My Darling. ” The orchard here is near and home-like. The oats in the valley run a mile. Between are the green and marching potato vines. The lightning bugs go criss-cross carrying a zigzag of fire: the potato bugs are asleep under their stiff and yellow-striped wings: here romance stutters to the western stars, “Excuse … me…”. . . Old foundations of rotten wood. An old barn done-for and out of the wormholes ten-legged roaches shook up and scared by sunlight. So a pickax digs a long tooth with a short memory. Fire can not eat this rubbish till it has lain in the sun. . . . The story lags. The story has no connections. The story is nothing but a lot of banjo plinka planka plunks. The roan horse is young and will learn: the roan horse buckles into harness and feels the foam on the collar at the end of a haul: the roan horse points four legs to the sky and rolls in the red clover: the roan horse has a rusty jag of hair between the ears hanging to a white star between the eyes. . . . In Burlington long ago And later again in Ashtabula I said to myself: I wonder how far Ophelia went with Hamlet. What else was there Shakespeare never told? There must have been something. If I go bugs I want to do it like Ophelia. There was class to the way she went out of her head. . . . Does a famous poet eat watermelon? Excuse me, ask me something easy. I have seen farmhands with their faces in fried catfish on a Monday morning. And the Japanese, two-legged like us, The Japanese bring slices of watermelon into pictures. The black seeds make oval polka dots on the pink meat. Why do I always think of niggers and buck-and-wing dancing whenever I see watermelon? Summer mornings on the docks I walk among bushel peach baskets piled ten feet high. Summer mornings I smell new wood and the river wind along with peaches. I listen to the steamboat whistle hong-honging, hong-honging across the town. And once I saw a teameo straddling a street with a hayrack load of melons. . . . Niggers play banjos because they want to. The explanation is easy. It is the same as why people pay fifty cents for tickets to a policemen’s masquerade ball or a grocers-and-butchers’ picnic with a fat man’s foot race. It is the same as why boys buy a nickel’s worth of peanuts and eat them and then buy another nickel’s worth. Newsboys shooting craps in a back alley have a fugitive understanding of the scientific principle involved. The jockey in a yellow satin shirt and scarlet boots, riding a sorrel pony at the county fair, has a grasp of the theory. It is the same as why boys go running lickety-split away from a school-room geography lesson in April when the crawfishes come out and the young frogs are calling and the pussywillows and the cat-tails know something about geography themselves. . . . I ask you for white blossoms. I offer you memories and people. I offer you a fire zigzag over the green and marching vines. I bring a concertina after supper under the home-like apple trees. I make up songs about things to look at: potato blossoms in summer night mist filling the garden with white spots; a cavalryman’s yellow silk handkerchief stuck in a flannel pocket over the left side of the shirt, over the ventricles of blood, over the pumps of the heart. Bring a concertina after sunset under the apple trees. Let romance stutter to the western stars, “Excuse … me…”

Written by Henry Lawson | Peter Anderson And Co He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co. ', But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood -- And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good. 'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had -- He was fond of beer and leisure -- and the Co. was just as bad. It was limited in number to a unit, was the Co. -- 'Twas a bosom chum of Peter and his Christian name was Joe. 'Tis a class of men belonging to these soul-forsaken years: Third-rate canvassers, collectors, journalists and auctioneers. They are never very shabby, they are never very spruce -- Going cheerfully and carelessly and smoothly to the deuce. Some are wanderers by profession, `turning up' and gone as soon, Travelling second-class, or steerage (when it's cheap they go saloon); Free from `ists' and `isms', troubled little by belief or doubt -- Lazy, purposeless, and useless -- knocking round and hanging out. They will take what they can get, and they will give what they can give, God alone knows how they manage -- God alone knows how they live! They are nearly always hard-up, but are cheerful all the while -- Men whose energy and trousers wear out sooner than their smile! They, no doubt, like us, are haunted by the boresome `if' or `might', But their ghosts are ghosts of daylight -- they are men who live at night! Peter met you with the comic smile of one who knows you well, And is mighty glad to see you, and has got a joke to tell; He could laugh when all was gloomy, he could grin when all was blue, Sing a comic song and act it, and appreciate it, too. Only cynical in cases where his own self was the jest, And the humour of his good yarns made atonement for the rest. Seldom serious -- doing business just as 'twere a friendly game -- Cards or billiards -- nothing graver. And the Co. was much the same. They tried everything and nothing 'twixt the shovel and the press, And were more or less successful in their ventures -- mostly less. Once they ran a country paper till the plant was seized for debt, And the local sinners chuckle over dingy copies yet. They'd been through it all and knew it in the land of Bills and Jims -- Using Peter's own expression, they had been in `various swims'. Now and then they'd take an office, as they called it, -- make a dash Into business life as `agents' -- something not requiring cash. (You can always furnish cheaply, when your cash or credit fails, With a packing-case, a hammer, and a pound of two-inch nails -- And, maybe, a drop of varnish and sienna, too, for tints, And a scrap or two of oilcloth, and a yard or two of chintz). They would pull themselves together, pay a week's rent in advance, But it never lasted longer than a month by any chance. The office was their haven, for they lived there when hard-up -- A `daily' for a table cloth -- a jam tin for a cup; And if the landlord's bailiff happened round in times like these And seized the office-fittings -- well, there wasn't much to seize -- They would leave him in possession. But at other times they shot The moon, and took an office where the landlord knew them not. And when morning brought the bailiff there'd be nothing to be seen Save a piece of bevelled cedar where the tenant's plate had been; There would be no sign of Peter -- there would be no sign of Joe Till another portal boasted `Peter Anderson and Co. ' And when times were locomotive, billiard-rooms and private bars -- Spicy parties at the cafe -- long cab-drives beneath the stars; Private picnics down the Harbour -- shady campings-out, you know -- No one would have dreamed 'twas Peter -- no one would have thought 'twas Joe! Free-and-easies in their `diggings', when the funds began to fail, Bosom chums, cigars, tobacco, and a case of English ale -- Gloriously drunk and happy, till they heard the roosters crow -- And the landlady and neighbours made complaints about the Co. But that life! it might be likened to a reckless drinking-song, For it can't go on for ever, and it never lasted long. . . . . . Debt-collecting ruined Peter -- people talked him round too oft, For his heart was soft as butter (and the Co. 's was just as soft); He would cheer the haggard missus, and he'd tell her not to fret, And he'd ask the worried debtor round with him to have a wet; He would ask him round the corner, and it seemed to him and her, After each of Peter's visits, things were brighter than they were. But, of course, it wasn't business -- only Peter's careless way; And perhaps it pays in heaven, but on earth it doesn't pay. They got harder up than ever, and, to make it worse, the Co. Went more often round the corner than was good for him to go. `I might live,' he said to Peter, `but I haven't got the nerve -- I am going, Peter, going -- going, going -- no reserve. Eat and drink and love they tell us, for to-morrow we may die, Buy experience -- and we bought it -- we're experienced, you and I. ' Then, with a weary movement of his hand across his brow: `The death of such philosophy's the death I'm dying now. Pull yourself together, Peter; 'tis the dying wish of Joe That the business world shall honour Peter Anderson and Co. `When you feel your life is sinking in a dull and useless course, And begin to find in drinking keener pleasure and remorse -- When you feel the love of leisure on your careless heart take holt, Break away from friends and pleasure, though it give your heart a jolt. Shun the poison breath of cities -- billiard-rooms and private bars, Go where you can breathe God's air and see the grandeur of the stars! Find again and follow up the old ambitions that you had -- See if you can raise a drink, old man, I'm feelin' mighty bad -- Hot and sweetened, nip o' butter -- squeeze o' lemon, Pete,' he sighed. And, while Peter went to fetch it, Joseph went to sleep -- and died With a smile -- anticipation, maybe, of the peace to come, Or a joke to try on Peter -- or, perhaps, it was the rum. . . . . . Peter staggered, gripped the table, swerved as some old drunkard swerves -- At a gulp he drank the toddy, just to brace his shattered nerves. It was awful, if you like. But then he hadn't time to think -- All is nothing! Nothing matters! Fill your glasses -- dead man's drink. . . . . . Yet, to show his heart was not of human decency bereft, Peter paid the undertaker. He got drunk on what was left; Then he shed some tears, half-maudlin, on the grave where lay the Co. , And he drifted to a township where the city failures go. Where, though haunted by the man he was, the wreck he yet might be, Or the man he might have been, or by each spectre of the three, And the dying words of Joseph, ringing through his own despair, Peter `pulled himself together' and he started business there. But his life was very lonely, and his heart was very sad, And no help to reformation was the company he had -- Men who might have been, who had been, but who were not in the swim -- 'Twas a town of wrecks and failures -- they appreciated him. They would ask him who the Co. was -- that ***** company he kept -- And he'd always answer vaguely -- he would say his partner slept; That he had a `sleeping partner' -- jesting while his spirit broke -- And they grinned above their glasses, for they took it as a joke. He would shout while he had money, he would joke while he had breath -- No one seemed to care or notice how he drank himself to death; Till at last there came a morning when his smile was seen no more -- He was gone from out the office, and his shingle from the door, And a boundary-rider jogging out across the neighb'ring run Was attracted by a something that was blazing in the sun; And he found that it was Peter, lying peacefully at rest, With a bottle close beside him and the shingle on his breast. Well, they analysed the liquor, and it would appear that he Qualified his drink with something good for setting spirits free. Though 'twas plainly self-destruction -- `'twas his own affair,' they said; And the jury viewed him sadly, and they found -- that he was dead.

Written by Syl Cheney-Coker | Of Hope and Dinosaurs Always, we searched in the stone river, while the slaughterhouse was waiting for us, long before we turned the saccharin of words into inflammable brawls. Full of ancient gluttony, we have fed our appetites, eating with hasty mouths what was meant for our own Passover. It is thus that we shall be remembered: the curse on the bellwether, crumbled destinies, although it was possible, once again, like some extinct creatures, to wish for another life. After the charnel house, what was this green pasture we were promised, when impatient like thirsty cadavers, we hurried that morning to crown the new emperor, who was really unveiling his ancient lust? Even so, someone was saying a new king deserves vestal virgins, white roosters and the finest harvest— a crest on his head woven by our hands, using the most precious leaves; an aged wine offered to a Messiah, only to be deceived by the false crown in his teeth, soon after we had silenced the red barbarians. The chosen was what we could have been, but since we have only one story to tell: whether it be of The Athens of West Africa or the song of the Wretched of the earth— in our font of secrets, where we change the name of Christ with our miscreant voices, —always this ridiculous viaticum— let us now imagine the face of a different Messiah, touching his gown with our bloody hands.