Best Famous Suspicious Poems

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

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• All Famous Suspicious Poems

Written by Walt Whitman | Whoever You are Holding Me now in Hand WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand, Without one thing, all will be useless, I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different. Who is he that would become my follower? Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps destructive; You would have to give up all else—I alone would expect to be your God, sole and exclusive, Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting, The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have to be abandon’d; Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my shoulders, Put me down, and depart on your way. Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial, Or back of a rock, in the open air, (For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not—nor in company, And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,) But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares, Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island, Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you, With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband’s kiss, For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade. Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing, Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip, Carry me when you go forth over land or sea; For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best, And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally. But these leaves conning, you con at peril, For these leaves, and me, you will not understand, They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will certainly elude you, Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold! Already you see I have escaped from you. For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book, Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious, Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil, perhaps more; For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit—that which I hinted at; Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

Written by Chris Mansell | The unquiet city we are succulents our cool jade arms open over clean tables our fine bone china minds pull the strings of our tongues together we plait our thoughts with the television back through the aerials and transmission towers prodding through the literal fog the mechanics of which distance does not startle us or the ears pretend to hear the telephone the page also wearies us we have taken the meaning out of things by laying them face to face in our dictionary of emotions we are so entirely alone that we are unaware of it and we enjoy the religion of solitude because religions are at base meaningless and we can turn from them to a new hobby to clean ashtrays or emptier whiskey glasses we the women of our building Margaret Gladys Cecily Ida Eileen and I have the cleanest washing on our block we are proud and air our sheets although it's a long time since any serious stain or passionate figment seeped through that censorious cloth we have plants one of us has a budgie and I have three fish the details are unimportant God does not come here often we would be suspicious if he did without an identity card we collect each others' mail remind each other of garbage days and are frightened of the louts from the skating rink but in the night I leave my curtains open and air my pendant tremulous breasts

Written by James Tate | Restless Leg Syndrome After the burial we returned to our units and assumed our poses. Our posture was the new posture and not the old sick posture. When we left our stations it was just to prove we could, not a serious departure or a search for yet another beginning. We were done with all that. We were settled in, as they say, though it might have been otherwise. What a story! After the burial we returned to our units and here is where I am experiencing that lag kicking syndrome thing. My leg, for no apparent reason, flies around the room kicking stuff, well, whatever is in its way, like a screen or a watering can. Those are just two examples and indeed I could give many more. I could construct a catalogue of the things it kicks, perhaps I will do that later. We'll just have to see if it's really wanted. Or I could do a little now and then return to listing later. It kicked the scrimshaw collection, yes it did. It kicked the ocelot, which was rude and uncalled for, and yes hurtful. It kicked the guacamole right out of its bowl, which made for a grubby and potentially dangerous workplace. I was out testing the new speed bump when it kicked the Viscountess, which she probably deserved, and I was happy, needless to say, to not be a witness. The kicking subsided for a while, nobody was keeping track of time at that time so it is impossible to fill out the forms accurately. Suffice it to say we remained at our units on constant alert. And then it kicked over the little cow town we had set up for punching and that sort of thing, a covered wagon filled with cover girls. But now it was kicked over and we had a moment of silence, but it was clear to me that many of our minions were getting tetchy and some of them were getting tetchier. And then it kicked a particularly treasured snuff box which, legend has it, once belonged to somebody named Bob Mackey, so we were understandably saddened and returned to our units rather weary. No one seemed to think I was in the least bit culpable. It was my leg, of course, that was doing the actual kicking, of that I am almost certain. At any rate, we decided to bury it. After the burial we returned to our units and assumed our poses. A little bit of time passed, not much, and then John's leg started acting suspicious. It looked like it wanted to kick the replica of the White House we keep on hand just for situations such as this. And then, sure enough, it did.

Written by Amy Levy | Run to Death A True Incident of Pre-Revolutionary French History. Now the lovely autumn morning breathes its freshness in earth's face, In the crowned castle courtyard the blithe horn proclaims the chase; And the ladies on the terrace smile adieux with rosy lips To the huntsmen disappearing down the cedar-shaded groves, Wafting delicate aromas from their scented finger tips, And the gallants wave in answer, with their gold-embroidered gloves. On they rode, past bush and bramble, on they rode, past elm and oak; And the hounds, with anxious nostril, sniffed the heather-scented air, Till at last, within his stirrups, up Lord Gaston rose, and spoke-- He, the boldest and the bravest of the wealthy nobles there : 'Friends,' quoth he, 'the time hangs heavy, for it is not as we thought, And these woods, tho' fair and shady, will afford, I fear, no sport. Shall we hence, then, worthy kinsmen, and desert the hunter's track For the chateau, where the wine cup and the dice cup tempt us back?' 'Ay,' the nobles shout in chorus ; 'Ay,' the powder'd lacquey cries; Then they stop with eager movement, reining in quite suddenly; Peering down with half contemptuous, half with wonder-opened eyes At a 'something' which is crawling, with slow step, from tree to tree. Is't some shadow phantom ghastly ? No, a woman and a child, Swarthy woman, with the 'gipsy' written clear upon her face; Gazing round her with her wide eyes dark, and shadow-fringed, and wild, With the cowed suspicious glances of a persecuted race. Then they all, with unasked question, in each other's faces peer, For a common thought has struck them, one their lips dare scarcely say,-- Till Lord Gaston cries, impatient, 'Why regret the stately deer When such sport as yonder offers? quick ! unleash the dogs--away!' Then they breath'd a shout of cheering, grey-haired man and stripling boy, And the gipsy, roused to terror, stayed her step, and turned her head-- Saw the faces of those huntsmen, lit with keenest cruel joy-- Sent a cry of grief to Heaven, closer clasped her child, and fled! * * * * * * * O ye nobles of the palace! O ye gallant-hearted lords! Who would stoop for Leila's kerchief, or for Clementina's gloves, Who would rise up all indignant, with your shining sheathless swords, At the breathing of dishonour to your languid lady loves! O, I tell you, daring nobles, with your beauty-loving stare, Who ne'er long the coy coquetting of the courtly dames withstood, Tho' a woman be the lowest, and the basest, and least fair, In your manliness forget not to respect her womanhood, And thou, gipsy, that hast often the pursuer fled before, That hast felt ere this the shadow of dark death upon thy brow, That hast hid among the mountains, that hast roamed the forest o'er, Bred to hiding, watching, fleeing, may thy speed avail thee now! * * * * * * * Still she flees, and ever fiercer tear the hungry hounds behind, Still she flees, and ever faster follow there the huntsmen on, Still she flees, her black hair streaming in a fury to the wind, Still she flees, tho' all the glimmer of a happy hope is gone. 'Eh? what? baffled by a woman! Ah, sapristi! she can run! Should she 'scape us, it would crown us with dishonour and disgrace; It is time' (Lord Gaston shouted) 'such a paltry chase were done!' And the fleeter grew her footsteps, so the hotter grew the chase-- Ha! at last! the dogs are on her! will she struggle ere she dies? See! she holds her child above her, all forgetful of her pain, While a hundred thousand curses shoot out darkly from her eyes, And a hundred thousand glances of the bitterest disdain. Ha! the dogs are pressing closer! they have flung her to the ground; Yet her proud lips never open with the dying sinner's cry-- Till at last, unto the Heavens, just two fearful shrieks resound, When the soul is all forgotten in the body's agony! Let them rest there, child and mother, in the shadow of the oak, On the tender mother-bosom of that earth from which they came. As they slow rode back those huntsmen neither laughed, nor sang, nor spoke, Hap, there lurked unowned within them throbbings of a secret shame. But before the flow'ry terrace, where the ladies smiling sat, With their graceful nothings trifling all the weary time away, Low Lord Gaston bowed, and raising high his richly 'broider'd hat, 'Fairest ladies, give us welcome! 'Twas a famous hunt to-day.'

Written by Robert Frost | I. The Witch of Coös I stayed the night for shelter at a farm Behind the mountains, with a mother and son, Two old-believers. They did all the talking. MOTHER: Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits She could call up to pass a winter evening, But won’t, should be burned at the stake or something. Summoning spirits isn’t “Button, button, Who’s got the button,” I would have them know. SON: Mother can make a common table rear And kick with two legs like an army mule. MOTHER: And when I’ve done it, what good have I done? Rather than tip a table for you, let me Tell you what Ralle the Sioux Control once told me. He said the dead had souls, but when I asked him How could that be — I thought the dead were souls— He broke my trance. Don’t that make you suspicious That there’s something the dead are keeping back? Yes, there’s something the dead are keeping back. SON: You wouldn’t want to tell him what we have Up attic, mother? MOTHER: Bones — a skeleton. SON: But the headboard of mother’s bed is pushed Against the” attic door: the door is nailed. It’s harmless. Mother hears it in the night Halting perplexed behind the barrier Of door and headboard. Where it wants to get Is back into the cellar where it came from. MOTHER: We’ll never let them, will we, son! We’ll never! SON: It left the cellar forty years ago And carried itself like a pile of dishes Up one flight from the cellar to the kitchen, Another from the kitchen to the bedroom, Another from the bedroom to the attic, Right past both father and mother, and neither stopped it. Father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs. I was a baby: I don’t know where I was. 35 MOTHER: The only fault my husband found with me — I went to sleep before I went to bed, Especially in winter when the bed Might just as well be ice and the clothes snow. The night the bones came up the cellar-stairs Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me, But left an open door to cool the room off So as to sort of turn me out of it. I was just coming to myself enough To wonder where the cold was coming from, When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom And thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar. The board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on When there was water in the cellar in spring Struck the hard cellar bottom. And then someone Began the stairs, two footsteps for each step, The way a man with one leg and a crutch, Or a little child, comes up. It wasn’t Toffile: It wasn’t anyone who could be there. The bulkhead double-doors were double-locked And swollen tight and buried under snow. The cellar windows were banked up with sawdust And swollen tight and buried under snow. It was the bones. I knew them — and good reason. My first impulse was to get to the knob And hold the door. But the bones didn’t try The door; they halted helpless on the landing, Waiting for things to happen in their favor.” The faintest restless rustling ran all through them. I never could have done the thing I did If the wish hadn’t been too strong in me To see how they were mounted for this walk. I had a vision of them put together Not like a man, but like a chandelier. So suddenly I flung the door wide on him. A moment he stood balancing with emotion, And all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire Flashed out and licked along his upper teeth. Smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.) Then he came at me with one hand outstretched, The way he did in life once; but this time I struck the hand off brittle on the floor, And fell back from him on the floor myself. The finger-pieces slid in all directions. (Where did I see one of those pieces lately? Hand me my button-box- it must be there.) I sat up on the floor and shouted, “Toffile, It’s coming up to you.” It had its choice Of the door to the cellar or the hall. It took the hall door for the novelty, And set off briskly for so slow a thing, Still going every which way in the joints, though, So that it looked like lightning or a scribble, From the slap I had just now given its hand. I listened till it almost climbed the stairs From the hall to the only finished bedroom, Before I got up to do anything; Then ran and shouted, “Shut the bedroom door, Toffile, for my sake!” “Company?” he said, “Don’t make me get up; I’m too warm in bed.” So lying forward weakly on the handrail I pushed myself upstairs, and in the light (The kitchen had been dark) I had to own I could see nothing. “Toffile, I don’t see it. It’s with us in the room though. It’s the bones.” “What bones?” “The cellar bones— out of the grave.” That made him throw his bare legs out of bed And sit up by me and take hold of me. I wanted to put out the light and see If I could see it, or else mow the room, With our arms at the level of our knees, And bring the chalk-pile down. “I’ll tell you what- It’s looking for another door to try. The uncommonly deep snow has made him think Of his old song, The Wild Colonial Boy, He always used to sing along the tote-road. He’s after an open door to get out-doors. Let’s trap him with an open door up attic.” Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough, Almost the moment he was given an opening, The steps began to climb the attic stairs. I heard them. Toffile didn’t seem to hear them. “Quick !” I slammed to the door and held the knob. “Toffile, get nails.” I made him nail the door shut, And push the headboard of the bed against it. Then we asked was there anything Up attic that we’d ever want again. The attic was less to us than the cellar. If the bones liked the attic, let them have it. Let them stay in the attic. When they sometimes Come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed Behind the door and headboard of the bed, Brushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers, With sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter, That’s what I sit up in the dark to say— To no one any more since Toffile died. Let them stay in the attic since they went there. I promised Toffile to be cruel to them For helping them be cruel once to him. SON: We think they had a grave down in the cellar. MOTHER: We know they had a grave down in the cellar. SON: We never could find out whose bones they were. MOTHER: Yes, we could too, son. Tell the truth for once. They were a man’s his father killed for me. I mean a man he killed instead of me. The least I could do was to help dig their grave. We were about it one night in the cellar. Son knows the story: but “twas not for him To tell the truth, suppose the time had come. Son looks surprised to see me end a lie We’d kept all these years between ourselves So as to have it ready for outsiders. But to-night I don’t care enough to lie— I don’t remember why I ever cared. Toffile, if he were here, I don’t believe Could tell you why he ever cared himself- She hadn’t found the finger-bone she wanted Among the buttons poured out in her lap. I verified the name next morning: Toffile. The rural letter-box said Toffile Lajway.

Written by Richard Wilbur | Museum Piece The good gray guardians of art Patrol the halls on spongy shoes, Impartially protective, though Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse. Here dozes one against the wall, Disposed upon a funeral chair. A Degas dancer pirouettes Upon the parting of his hair. See how she spins! The grace is there, But strain as well is plain to see. Degas loved the two together: Beauty joined to energy. Edgar Degas purchased once A fine El Greco, which he kept Against the wall beside his bed To hang his pants on while he slept.

Written by Marianne Moore | He Digesteth Harde Yron Although the aepyornis or roc that lived in Madagascar, and the moa are extinct, the camel-sparrow, linked with them in size--the large sparrow Xenophon saw walking by a stream--was and is a symbol of justice. This bird watches his chicks with a maternal concentration-and he's been mothering the eggs at night six weeks--his legs their only weapon of defense. He is swifter than a horse; he has a foot hard as a hoof; the leopard is not more suspicious.How could he, prized for plumes and eggs and young used even as a riding-beast, respect men hiding actor-like in ostrich skins, with the right hand making the neck move as if alive and from a bag the left hand strewing grain, that ostriches might be decoyed and killed!Yes, this is he whose plume was anciently the plume of justice; he whose comic duckling head on its great neck revolves with compass-needle nervousness when he stands guard, in S-like foragings as he is preening the down on his leaden-skinned back. The egg piously shown as Leda's very own from which Castor and Pollux hatched, was an ostrich-egg.And what could have been more fit for the Chinese lawn it grazed on as a gift to an emperor who admired strange birds, than this one, who builds his mud-made nest in dust yet will wade in lake or sea till only the head shows. . . . . . . . Six hundred ostrich-brains served at one banquet, the ostrich-plume-tipped tent and desert spear, jewel- gorgeous ugly egg-shell goblets, eight pairs of ostriches in harness, dramatize a meaning always missed by the externalist. The power of the visible is the invisible; as even where no tree of freedom grows, so-called brute courage knows. Heroism is exhausting, yet it contradicts a greed that did not wisely spare the harmless solitaire or great auk in its grandeur; unsolicitude having swallowed up all giant birds but an alert gargantuan little-winged, magnificently speedy running-bird. This one remaining rebel is the sparrow-camel.

Written by Edward Taylor | Restless Leg Syndrome After the burial we returned to our units and assumed our poses. Our posture was the new posture and not the old sick posture. When we left our stations it was just to prove we could, not a serious departure or a search for yet another beginning. We were done with all that. We were settled in, as they say, though it might have been otherwise. What a story! After the burial we returned to our units and here is where I am experiencing that lag kicking syndrome thing. My leg, for no apparent reason, flies around the room kicking stuff, well, whatever is in its way, like a screen or a watering can. Those are just two examples and indeed I could give many more. I could construct a catalogue of the things it kicks, perhaps I will do that later. We'll just have to see if it's really wanted. Or I could do a little now and then return to listing later. It kicked the scrimshaw collection, yes it did. It kicked the ocelot, which was rude and uncalled for, and yes hurtful. It kicked the guacamole right out of its bowl, which made for a grubby and potentially dangerous workplace. I was out testing the new speed bump when it kicked the Viscountess, which she probably deserved, and I was happy, needless to say, to not be a witness. The kicking subsided for a while, nobody was keeping track of time at that time so it is impossible to fill out the forms accurately. Suffice it to say we remained at our units on constant alert. And then it kicked over the little cow town we had set up for punching and that sort of thing, a covered wagon filled with cover girls. But now it was kicked over and we had a moment of silence, but it was clear to me that many of our minions were getting tetchy and some of them were getting tetchier. And then it kicked a particularly treasured snuff box which, legend has it, once belonged to somebody named Bob Mackey, so we were understandably saddened and returned to our units rather weary. No one seemed to think I was in the least bit culpable. It was my leg, of course, that was doing the actual kicking, of that I am almost certain. At any rate, we decided to bury it. After the burial we returned to our units and assumed our poses. A little bit of time passed, not much, and then John's leg started acting suspicious. It looked like it wanted to kick the replica of the White House we keep on hand just for situations such as this. And then, sure enough, it did.

Written by Robert Frost | The Egg and the Machine He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. From far away there came an answering tick And then another tick. He knew the code: His hate had roused an engine up the road. He wished when he had had the track alone He had attacked it with a club or stone And bent some rail wide open like switch So as to wreck the engine in the ditch. Too late though, now, he had himself to thank. Its click was rising to a nearer clank. Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts. (He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.) Then for a moment all there was was size Confusion and a roar that drowned the cries He raised against the gods in the machine. Then once again the sandbank lay serene. The traveler's eye picked up a turtle train, between the dotted feet a streak of tail, And followed it to where he made out vague But certain signs of buried turtle's egg; And probing with one finger not too rough, He found suspicious sand, and sure enough, The pocket of a little turtle mine. If there was one egg in it there were nine, Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather All packed in sand to wait the trump together. 'You'd better not disturb any more,' He told the distance, 'I am armed for war. The next machine that has the power to pass Will get this plasm in it goggle glass.'

Written by Edgar Lee Masters | George Trimble Do you remember when I stood on the steps Of the Court House and talked free-silver, And the single-tax of Henry George? Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader Lost the first battle, I began to talk prohibition, And became active in the church? That was due to my wife, Who pictured to me my destruction If I did not prove my morality to the people. Well, she ruined me: For the radicals grew suspicious of me, And the conservatives were never sure of me -- And here I lie, unwept of all.