Best Famous Submerged Poems

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

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• All Famous Submerged Poems

Written by Larry Levis | The Widening Spell Of Leaves --The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968 --for my brother Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill. I was driving south toward a large city famous For so little it had a replica, in concrete, In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it. But the city was hours away, beyond the hills Shaped like the bodies of sleeping women. Often I had to slow down for herds of goats Or cattle milling on those narrow roads, & for The narrower, lost, stone streets of villages I passed through. The pains in my stomach had grown Gradually sharper & more frequent as the day Wore on, & now a fever had set up house. In the villages there wasn't much point in asking Anyone for help. In those places, where tanks Were bivouacked in shade on their way back From some routine exercise along The Danube, even food was scarce that year. And the languages shifted for no clear reason From two hard quarries of Slavic into German, Then to a shred of Latin spliced with oohs And hisses. Even when I tried the simplest phrases, The peasants passing over those uneven stones Paused just long enough to look up once, Uncomprehendingly. Then they turned Quickly away, vanishing quietly into that Moment, like bark chips whirled downriver. It was autumn. Beyond each village the wind Threw gusts of yellowing leaves across the road. The goats I passed were thin, gray; their hind legs, Caked with dried ****, seesawed along-- Not even mild contempt in their expressionless, Pale eyes, & their brays like the scraping of metal. Except for one village that had a kind Of museum where I stopped to rest, & saw A dead Scythian soldier under glass, Turning to dust while holding a small sword At attention forever, there wasn't much to look at. Wind, leaves, goats, the higher passes Locked in stone, the peasants with their fate Embroidering a stillness into them, And a spell over all things in that landscape, Like . . . That was the trouble; it couldn't be Compared to anything else, not even the sleep Of some asylum at a wood's edge with the sound Of a pond's spillway beside it. But as each cramp Grew worse & lasted longer than the one before, It was hard to keep myself aloof from the threadbare World walking on that road. After all, Even as they moved, the peasants, the herds of goats And cattle, the spiralling leaves, at least were part Of that spell, that stillness. After a while, The villages grew even poorer, then thinned out, Then vanished entirely. An hour later, There were no longer even the goats, only wind, Then more & more leaves blown over the road, sometimes Covering it completely for a second. And yet, except for a random oak or some brush Writhing out of the ravine I drove beside, The trees had thinned into rock, into large, Tough blonde rosettes of fading pasture grass. Then that gave out in a bare plateau. . . . And then, Easing the Dacia down a winding grade In second gear, rounding a long, funneled curve-- In a complete stillness of yellow leaves filling A wide field--like something thoughtlessly, Mistakenly erased, the road simply ended. I stopped the car. There was no wind now. I expected that, & though I was sick & lost, I wasn't afraid. I should have been afraid. To this day I don't know why I wasn't. I could hear time cease, the field quietly widen. I could feel the spreading stillness of the place Moving like something I'd witnessed as a child, Like the ancient, armored leisure of some reptile Gliding, gray-yellow, into the slightly tepid, Unidentical gray-brown stillness of the water-- Something blank & unresponsive in its tough, Pimpled skin--seen only a moment, then unseen As it submerged to rest on mud, or glided just Beneath the lustreless, calm yellow leaves That clustered along a log, or floated there In broken ringlets, held by a gray froth On the opaque, unbroken surface of the pond, Which reflected nothing, no one. And then I remembered. When I was a child, our neighbors would disappear. And there wasn't a pond of crocodiles at all. And they hadn't moved. They couldn't move. They Lived in the small, fenced-off backwater Of a canal. I'd never seen them alive. They Were in still photographs taken on the Ivory Coast. I saw them only once in a studio when I was a child in a city I once loved. I was afraid until our neighbor, a photographer, Explained it all to me, explained how far Away they were, how harmless; how they were praised In rituals as "powers." But they had no "powers," He said. The next week he vanished. I thought Someone had cast a spell & that the crocodiles Swam out of the pictures on the wall & grew Silently & multiplied & then turned into Shadows resting on the banks of lakes & streams Or took the shapes of fallen logs in campgrounds In the mountains. They ate our neighbor, Mr. Hirata. They ate his whole family. That is what I believed, Then. . .that someone had cast a spell. I did not Know childhood was a spell, or that then there Had been another spell, too quiet to hear, Entering my city, entering the dust we ate. . . . No one knew it then. No one could see it, Though it spread through lawnless miles of housing tracts, And the new, bare, treeless streets; it slipped Into the vacant rows of warehouses & picked The padlocked doors of working-class bars And union halls & shuttered, empty diners. And how it clung! (forever, if one had noticed) To the brothel with the pastel tassels on the shade Of an unlit table lamp. Farther in, it feasted On the decaying light of failing shopping centers; It spilled into the older, tree-lined neighborhoods, Into warm houses, sealing itself into books Of bedtime stories read each night by fathers-- The books lying open to the flat, neglected Light of dawn; & it settled like dust on windowsills Downtown, filling the smug cafés, schools, Banks, offices, taverns, gymnasiums, hotels, Newsstands, courtrooms, opium parlors, Basque Restaurants, Armenian steam baths, French bakeries, & two of the florists' shops-- Their plate glass windows smashed forever. Finally it tried to infiltrate the exact Center of my city, a small square bordered With palm trees, olives, cypresses, a square Where no one gathered, not even thieves or lovers. It was a place which no longer had any purpose, But held itself aloof, I thought, the way A deaf aunt might, from opinions, styles, gossip. I liked it there. It was completely lifeless, Sad & clear in what seemed always a perfect, Windless noon. I saw it first as a child, Looking down at it from that as yet Unvandalized, makeshift studio. I remember leaning my right cheek against A striped beach ball so that Mr. Hirata-- Who was Japanese, who would be sent the next week To a place called Manzanar, a detention camp Hidden in stunted pines almost above The Sierra timberline--could take my picture. I remember the way he lovingly relished Each camera angle, the unwobbling tripod, The way he checked each aperture against The light meter, in love with all things That were not accidental, & I remember The care he took when focusing; how He tried two different lens filters before He found the one appropriate for that Sensual, late, slow blush of afternoon Falling through the one broad bay window. I remember holding still & looking down Into the square because he asked me to; Because my mother & father had asked me please To obey & be patient & allow the man-- Whose business was failing anyway by then-- To work as long as he wished to without any Irritations or annoyances before He would have to spend these years, my father said, Far away, in snow, & without his cameras. But Mr. Hirata did not work. He played. His toys gleamed there. That much was clear to me . . . . That was the day I decided I would never work. It felt like a conversion. Play was sacred. My father waited behind us on a sofa made From car seats. One spring kept nosing through. I remember the camera opening into the light . . . . And I remember the dark after, the studio closed, The cameras stolen, slivers of glass from the smashed Bay window littering the unsanded floors, And the square below it bathed in sunlight . . . . All this Before Mr. Hirata died, months later, From complications following pneumonia. His death, a letter from a camp official said, Was purely accidental. I didn't believe it. Diseases were wise. Diseases, like the polio My sister had endured, floating paralyzed And strapped into her wheelchair all through That war, seemed too precise. Like photographs . . . Except disease left nothing. Disease was like And equation that drank up light & never ended, Not even in summer. Before my fever broke, And the pains lessened, I could actually see Myself, in the exact center of that square. How still it had become in my absence, & how Immaculate, windless, sunlit. I could see The outline of every leaf on the nearest tree, See it more clearly than ever, more clearly than I had seen anything before in my whole life: Against the modest, dark gray, solemn trunk, The leaves were becoming only what they had to be-- Calm, yellow, things in themselves & nothing More--& frankly they were nothing in themselves, Nothing except their little reassurance Of persisting for a few more days, or returning The year after, & the year after that, & every Year following--estranged from us by now--& clear, So clear not one in a thousand trembled; hushed And always coming back--steadfast, orderly, Taciturn, oblivious--until the end of Time.

Written by Marge Piercy | To Be of Use The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.

Written by Anne Sexton | For The Year Of The Insane a prayer O Mary, fragile mother, hear me, hear me now although I do not know your words. The black rosary with its silver Christ lies unblessed in my hand for I am the unbeliever. Each bead is round and hard between my fingers, a small black angel. O Mary, permit me this grace, this crossing over, although I am ugly, submerged in my own past and my own madness. Although there are chairs I lie on the floor. Only my hands are alive, touching beads. Word for word, I stumble. A beginner, I feel your mouth touch mine. I count beads as waves, hammering in upon me. I am ill at their numbers, sick, sick in the summer heat and the window above me is my only listener, my awkward being. She is a large taker, a soother. The giver of breath she murmurs, exhaling her wide lung like an enormous fish. Closer and closer comes the hour of my death as I rearrange my face, grow back, grow undeveloped and straight-haired. All this is death. In the mind there is a thin alley called death and I move through it as through water. My body is useless. It lies, curled like a dog on the carpet. It has given up. There are no words here except the half-learned, the Hail Mary and the full of grace. Now I have entered the year without words. I note the ***** entrance and the exact voltage. Without words they exist. Without words on my touch bread and be handed bread and make no sound. O Mary, tender physician, come with powders and herbs for I am in the center. It is very small and the air is gray as in a steam house. I am handed wine as a child is handed milk. It is presented in a delicate glass with a round bowl and a thin lip. The wine itself is pitch-colored, musty and secret. The glass rises in its own toward my mouth and I notice this and understand this only because it has happened. I have this fear of coughing but I do not speak, a fear of rain, a fear of the horseman who comes riding into my mouth. The glass tilts in on its own and I amon fire. I see two thin streaks burn down my chin. I see myself as one would see another. I have been cut int two. O Mary, open your eyelids. I am in the domain of silence, the kingdom of the crazy and the sleeper. There is blood here. and I haven't eaten it. O mother of the womb, did I come for blood alone? O little mother, I am in my own mind. I am locked in the wrong house.

Written by Les Murray | The Mowed Hollow When yellow leaves the sky they pipe it to the houses to go on making red and warm and floral and brown but gradually people tire of it, return it inside metal, and go to be dark and breathe water colours. Some yellow hangs on outside forlornly tethered to posts. Cars chase their own supply. When we went down the hollow under the stormcloud nations the light was generalised there from vague glass places in the trees and the colours were moist and zinc, submerged and weathered and lichen with black aisles and white poplar blues. The only yellow at all was tight curls of fresh butter as served on stainless steel in a postwar cafe: cassia flowers, soft crystal with caraway-dipped tongues, butter mountains of cassia flowers on green, still dewed with water.

Written by Marianne Moore | The Fish wade through black jade. Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps adjusting the ash-heaps; opening and shutting itself like an injured fan. The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave, cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the sun, split like spun glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices— in and out, illuminating the turquoise sea of bodies. The water drives a wedge of iron throught the iron edge of the cliff; whereupon the stars, pink rice-grains, ink- bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green lilies, and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other. All external marks of abuse are present on this defiant edifice— all the physical features of ac- cident—lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and hatchet strokes, these things stand out on it; the chasm-side is dead. Repeated evidence ahs proved that it can live on what can not revive its youth. The sea grows old in it.

Written by Nick Flynn | Amber Hover the imagined center, our tongues grew long to please it, licking the walls, a chamber built of scent, a moment followed by a lesser moment & a hunger to return. It couldn't last. Resin flowed glacially from wounds in the bark pinned us in our entering as the orchids opened wider. First, liquid, so we swam until we couldn't. Then it felt like sleep, the taste of nectar still inside us. Sometimes a flower became submerged with us. A million years went by. A hundred. Swarm of hoverflies, cockroach, assassin bug, all trapped, suspended in that moment of fullness, a Pompeii, the mother covering her child's head forever.

Written by Primo Levi | The Survivor Once more he sees his companions' faces Livid in the first faint light, Gray with cement dust, Nebulous in the mist, Tinged with death in their uneasy sleep. At night, under the heavy burden Of their dreams, their jaws move, Chewing a non-existant turnip. 'Stand back, leave me alone, submerged people, Go away. I haven't dispossessed anyone, Haven't usurped anyone's bread. No one died in my place. No one. Go back into your mist. It's not my fault if I live and breathe, Eat, drink, sleep and put on clothes.'

Written by Amy Lowell | The Coal Picker He perches in the slime, inert, Bedaubed with iridescent dirt. The oil upon the puddles dries To colours like a peacock's eyes, And half-submerged tomato-cans Shine scaly, as leviathans Oozily crawling through the mud. The ground is here and there bestud With lumps of only part-burned coal. His duty is to glean the whole, To pick them from the filth, each one, To hoard them for the hidden sun Which glows within each fiery core And waits to be made free once more. Their sharp and glistening edges cut His stiffened fingers. Through the smut Gleam red the wounds which will not shut. Wet through and shivering he kneels And digs the slippery coals; like eels They slide about. His force all spent, He counts his small accomplishment. A half-a-dozen clinker-coals Which still have fire in their souls. Fire! And in his thought there burns The topaz fire of votive urns. He sees it fling from hill to hill, And still consumed, is burning still. Higher and higher leaps the flame, The smoke an ever-shifting frame. He sees a Spanish Castle old, With silver steps and paths of gold. From myrtle bowers comes the plash Of fountains, and the emerald flash Of parrots in the orange trees, Whose blossoms pasture humming bees. He knows he feeds the urns whose smoke Bears visions, that his master-stroke Is out of dirt and misery To light the fire of poesy. He sees the glory, yet he knows That others cannot see his shows. To them his smoke is sightless, black, His votive vessels but a pack Of old discarded shards, his fire A peddler's; still to him the pyre Is incensed, an enduring goal! He sighs and grubs another coal.

Written by William Topaz McGonagall | An Excursion Steamer Sunk in the Tay 'Twas in the year of 1888, and on July the 14th day, That an alarming accident occurred in the River Tay. Which resulted in the sinking of the Tay Ferries' Steamer "Dundee," Which was a most painful and sickening sight to see. The Steamer was engaged by the Independent Order of Rechabites, And all were resolved to see some rural sights; And the place they selected was the village of Newburgh; While each heart was happy and free from sorrow. And the weather was sunny, and really very fine, And 900 souls had agreed to while away the time; And they left the Craig Pier at half-past two o'clock, Never thinking they would meet with an accidental shock. And after passing underneath the Bridge of Tay, Then they took the Channel on the south side without dismay; And Captain Methven stood on the Steamer's bridge, I do declare, And for the passengers he seemed to have very great care. And all went well on board for some time, And the silvery Tay shone beautiful in the sunshine; And the passengers' hearts felt light and gay, While they gazed on the bonnie banks of the silvery Tay. To do justice to the passengers, they were a goodly band, For their behaviour, 'tis said, was truly grand; But to the eastward of Newburgh, the Steamer was too close inshore, And on passing a boatman, he warningly to them did roar,- Warning them not to come inshore so near, But his warning voice the helmsman didn't hear; Neither the Captain or passengers his warning dreads, Until the Steamer struck a number of boulders, known as The Heads. And close to the point where the Pow falls into the Tay, Which the people that escaped drowning will remember for many a day, Because many of the passengers were thrown off their balance; But, most fortunately, they were all saved merely by chance. And owing to the suddenness of the shock, many women fainted away, Which filled the rest of the passengers' hearts with dismay; But they soon regained their composure when close to the land, Especially when they saw that succour was near at hand. The engines were kept going at full speed, And God helped His people in time of need; And in a short time Newburgh was reached, While many women wept bitterly, and loudly screeched. Because by this time the forehold was nearly filled with water, Which caused the passengers' teeth with fear to chatter; Because the Steamer was settling down forward, While to land the passengers safe Captain Methven struggled hard. But before one-half of them had got ashore, The women and children were in a state of uproar, Because the forepart of the Steamer was submerged in the Tay, Which filled the passengers' hearts with dismay. But, thanks be to God! all the passengers were sent to Dundee By the Steamers Renown, Forfarshire, Protector, and the Lass o' Gowrie, Which certainly was a most beautiful sight to see, When they landed 900 passengers safe on the pier at Dundee. Then, good people, away to the mountains, glens, and lakes, And drink of milk and pure water, and eat oaten cakes; And sit down on the margin of a little burn in the sunshine, And enjoy yourselves heartily during the holiday time.

Written by Barry Tebb | Obstacles A thousand visits to the supermarket A thousand acts of sexual intimacy Spread over forty years. Your essence was quite other A smile of absolute connection Repeated a thousand times. Your daily visits to the outside lavatory While I stood talking outside, An intimacy I have sought With no other. My greatest fear is that you might Have changed beyond recognition, Submerged in trivia and the Minutiae of the quotidian. At ten my adoration of you was total. At sixty it’s somewhat greater: I place you among the angels and madonnas Of the quattrocento, Raphael and Masaccio And Petrarch’s sonnets to Laura.