10 Best Famous Walkers Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Walkers poems. This is a select list of the best famous Walkers poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Walkers poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of walkers poems.

• All Famous Walkers Poems

 Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness--
Being walkers with the sun and morning.

 A young man of strong body, weakened by hunger, sat on the walker's portion of the street stretching his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating his hand toward all who passed, begging and repeating the sad song of his defeat in life, while suffering from hunger and from humiliation. 

When night came, his lips and tongue were parched, while his hand was still as empty as his stomach. 

He gathered himself and went out from the city, where he sat under a tree and wept bitterly. Then he lifted his puzzled eyes to heaven while hunger was eating his inside, and he said, "Oh Lord, I went to the rich man and asked for employment, but he turned me away because of my shabbiness; I knocked at the school door, but was forbidden solace because I was empty- handed; I sought any occupation that would give me bread, but all to no avail. In desperation I asked alms, but They worshippers saw me and said "He is strong and lazy, and he should not beg." 

"Oh Lord, it is Thy will that my mother gave birth unto me, and now the earth offers me back to You before the Ending." 

His expression then changed. He arose and his eyes now glittered in determination. He fashioned a thick and heavy stick from the branch of the tree, and pointed it toward the city, shouting, "I asked for bread with all the strength of my voice, and was refused. Not I shall obtain it by the strength of my muscles! I asked for bread in the name of mercy and love, but humanity did not heed. I shall take it now in the name of evil!" 

The passing years rendered the youth a robber, killer and destroyer of souls; he crushed all who opposed him; he amassed fabulous wealth with which he won himself over to those in power. He was admired by colleagues, envied by other thieves, and feared by the multitudes. 

His riches and false position prevailed upon the Emir to appoint him deputy in that city - the sad process pursued by unwise governors. Thefts were then legalized; oppression was supported by authority; crushing of the weak became commonplace; the throngs curried and praised. 

Thus does the first touch of humanity's selfishness make criminals of the humble, and make killers of the sons of peace; thus does the early greed of humanity grow and strike back at humanity a thousand fold!

 I

He would drink by himself
And raise a weathered thumb
Towards the high shelf,
Calling another rum
And blackcurrant, without
Having to raise his voice,
Or order a quick stout
By a lifting of the eyes
And a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;
At closing time would go
In waders and peaked cap
Into the showery dark,
A dole-kept breadwinner
But a natural for work.
I loved his whole manner,
Sure-footed but too sly,
His deadpan sidling tact,
His fisherman's quick eye
And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible
To him, my other life.
Sometimes on the high stool,
Too busy with his knife
At a tobacco plug
And not meeting my eye,
In the pause after a slug
He mentioned poetry.
We would be on our own
And, always politic
And shy of condescension,
I would manage by some trick
To switch the talk to eels
Or lore of the horse and cart
Or the Provisionals.

But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew
Others obeyed, three nights
After they shot dead
The thirteen men in Derry.
PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,
BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday
Everyone held
His breath and trembled.

II

It was a day of cold
Raw silence, wind-blown
Surplice and soutane:
Rained-on, flower-laden
Coffin after coffin
Seemed to float from the door
Of the packed cathedral
Like blossoms on slow water.
The common funeral
Unrolled its swaddling band,
Lapping, tightening
Till we were braced and bound
Like brothers in a ring.

But he would not be held
At home by his own crowd
Whatever threats were phoned,
Whatever black flags waved.
I see him as he turned
In that bombed offending place,
Remorse fused with terror
In his still knowable face,
His cornered outfaced stare
Blinding in the flash.

He had gone miles away
For he drank like a fish
Nightly, naturally
Swimming towards the lure
Of warm lit-up places,
The blurred mesh and murmur
Drifting among glasses
In the gregarious smoke.
How culpable was he
That last night when he broke
Our tribe's complicity?
'Now, you're supposed to be
An educated man,'
I hear him say. 'Puzzle me
The right answer to that one.'

III

I missed his funeral,
Those quiet walkers
And sideways talkers
Shoaling out of his lane
To the respectable
Purring of the hearse...
They move in equal pace
With the habitual
Slow consolation
Of a dawdling engine,
The line lifted, hand
Over fist, cold sunshine
On the water, the land
Banked under fog: that morning
I was taken in his boat,
The screw purling, turning
Indolent fathoms white,
I tasted freedom with him.
To get out early, haul
Steadily off the bottom,
Dispraise the catch, and smile
As you find a rhythm
Working you, slow mile by mile,
Into your proper haunt
Somewhere, well out, beyond...

Dawn-sniffing revenant,
Plodder through midnight rain,
Question me again.

 Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple 
 of cats.
As knockabout clown, quick-change comedians, tight-rope 
 walkers and acrobats
They had extensive reputation. They made their home in 
 Victoria Grove--
That was merely their centre of operation, for they were 
 incurably given to rove.
They were very well know in Cornwall Gardens, in Launceston 
 Place and in Kensington Square--
They had really a little more reputation than a couple of 
 cats can very well bear.

If the area window was found ajar
And the basement looked like a field of war,
If a tile or two came loose on the roof,
Which presently ceased to be waterproof,
If the drawers were pulled out from the bedroom chests,
And you couldn't find one of your winter vests,
Or after supper one of the girls
Suddenly missed her Woolworth pearls:

Then the family would say: "It's that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie--or Rumpelteazer!"-- And most of the time 
 they left it at that.

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer had a very unusual gift of the 
 gab.
They were highly efficient cat-burglars as well, and 
 remarkably smart at smash-and-grab.
They made their home in Victoria Grove. They had no regular 
 occupation.
They were plausible fellows, and liked to engage a friendly 
 policeman in conversation.

When the family assembled for Sunday dinner,
With their minds made up that they wouldn't get thinner
On Argentine joint, potatoes and greens,
And the cook would appear from behind the scenes
And say in a voice that was broken with sorrow:
"I'm afraid you must wait and have dinner tomorrow!
For the joint has gone from the oven-like that!"
Then the family would say: "It's that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie--or Rumpelteazer!"-- And most of the time 
 they left it at that.

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer had a wonderful way of working 
 together.
And some of the time you would say it was luck, and some of 
 the time you would say it was weather.
They would go through the house like a hurricane, and no sober 
 person could take his oath
Was it Mungojerrie--or Rumpelteazer? or could you have sworn 
 that it mightn't be both?

And when you heard a dining-room smash
Or up from the pantry there came a loud crash
Or down from the library came a loud ping
From a vase which was commonly said to be Ming--
Then the family would say: "Now which was which cat?
It was Mungojerrie! AND Rumpelteazer!"-- And there's nothing 
 at all to be done about that!

 In the night there are of course the seven wonders
of the world and the greatness tragedy and enchantment.
Forests collide with legendary creatures hiding in thickets.
There is you.
In the night there are the walker's footsteps the murderer's
the town policeman's light from the street lamp and the ragman's lantern
There is you.
In the night trains go past and boats
and the fantasy of countries where it's daytime. The last breaths
of twilight and the first shivers of dawn.
There is you.
A piano tune, a shout.
A door slams. A clock.
And not only beings and things and physical sounds.
But also me chasing myself or endlessly going beyond me.
There is you the sacrifice, you that I'm waiting for.
Sometimes at the moment of sleep strange figures are born and disappear.
When I shut my eyes phosphorescent blooms appear and fade
and come to life again like fireworks made of flesh.
I pass through strange lands with creatures for company.
No doubt you are there, my beautiful discreet spy.
And the palpable soul of the vast reaches.
And perfumes of the sky and the stars the song of a rooster
from 2000 years ago and piercing screams in a flaming park and kisses.
Sinister handshakes in a sickly light and axles grinding on paralyzing roads.
No doubt there is you who I do not know, who on the contrary I do know.
But who, here in my dreams, demands to be felt without ever appearing.
You who remain out of reach in reality and in dream.
You who belong to me through my will to possess your illusion
but who brings your face near mine only if my eyes are closed in dream as well as
in reality.
You who in spite of an easy rhetoric where the waves die on the beach
where crows fly into ruined factories, where the wood rots
crackling under a lead sun.
You who are at the depths of my dreams stirring up a mind
full of metamorphoses leaving me your glove
when I kiss your hand.
In the night there are stars and the shadowy motion of the sea,
of rivers, forests, towns, grass and the lungs
of millions and millions of beings.
In the night there are the seven wonders of the world.
In the night there are no guardian angels, but there is sleep.
In the night there is you.
In the daylight too.

 the sky sinks its blue teeth
into the mountains.

Rising on pure will

(the lurch & lift-off,
the sudden swing
into wide, white snow),

I encourage the cable.

Past the wind
& crossed tips of my skis
& the mauve shadows of pines
& the spoor of bears
& deer,

I speak to my fear,

rising, riding,
finding myself

the only thing
between snow & sky,

the link
that holds it all together.

Halfway up the wire,
we stop,
slide back a little
(a whirr of pulleys).

Astronauts circle above us today
in the television blue of space.

But the thin withers of alps
are waiting to take us too,
& this might be the moon!

We move!

Friends, this is a toy
merely for reaching mountains

merely
for skiing down.

& now we're dangling
like charms on the same bracelet

or upsidedown tightrope people
(a colossal circus!)

or absurd winged walkers,
angels in animal fur,

with mittened hands waving
& fear turning

& the mountain
like a fisherman,

reeling us all in.

So we land
on the windy peak,
touch skis to snow,
are married to our purple shadows,
& ski back down
to the unimaginable valley

leaving no footprints.

 The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.

Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miraclc than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the star-lit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.

At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no ****** feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.

Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood.
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.

 Since I don't know who will be reading 
this or even if it will be read, I must 
invent someone on the other end 
of eternity, a distant cousin laboring 
under the same faint stars I labored 
all those unnumbered years ago. I make you 
like me in everything I can -- a man 
or woman in middle years who having 
lost whatever faiths he held goes on 
with only the faith that even more 
will be lost. Like me a wanderer, 
someone with a taste for coastal towns 
sparkling in the cold winter sun, boardwalks 
without walkers, perfect beaches shrouded 
in the dense fogs of December, morning cafes 
before the second customer arrives, 
the cats have been fed, and the proprietor 
stops muttering into the cold dishwater. 
I give you the gift of language, my gift 
and no more, so that wherever you go 
words fall around you meaning no more 
than the full force of their making, and you 
translate the clicking of teeth against 
teeth and tongue as morning light spilling 
into the enclosed squares of a white town, 
breath drawn in and held as the ocean 
when no one sees it, the waves still, 
the fishing boats drift in a calm beyond sleep. 
The gift of sleep, too, and the waking 
from it day after day without knowing 
why the small sunlit room with its single bed, 
white counterpane going yellow, and bare floor 
holds itself with such assurance 
while the flaming nebulae of dust 
swirl around you. And the sense not to ask. 
Like me you rise immediately and sit 
on the bed's edge and let whatever dream 
of a childhood home or a rightful place 
you had withdraw into the long shadows 
of the tilted wardrobe and the one chair. 
Before you've even washed your face you 
see it on the bedoilied chiffonier -- there, 
balanced precariously on the orange you bought 
at yesterday's market and saved for now. 
Someone entered soundlessly while you slept 
and left you sleeping and left this postcard 
from me and thought to close the door 
with no more fuss than the moon makes. 
There's your name in black ink in a hand 
as familiar as your own and not 
your own, and the address even you 
didn't know you'd have an hour before 
you got it. When you turn it over, 
there it is, not the photo of a star, 
or the bright sailboats your sister would 
have chosen or the green urban meadows 
my brother painted. What is it? It could be 
another planet just after its birth 
except that at the center the colors 
are earth colors. It could be the cloud 
that formed above the rivers of our blood, 
the one that brought rain to a dry time 
or took wine from a hungry one. It could 
be my way of telling you that I too 
burned and froze by turns and the face I 
came to was more dirt than flame, it 
could be the face I put on everything, 
or it could be my way of saying 
nothing and saying it perfectly.

 They have watered the street,
It shines in the glare of lamps,
Cold, white lamps,
And lies
Like a slow-moving river,
Barred with silver and black.
Cabs go down it,
One,
And then another.
Between them I hear the shuffling of feet.
Tramps doze on the window-ledges,
Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks.
The city is squalid and sinister,
With the silver-barred street in the midst,
Slow-moving,
A river leading nowhere.
Opposite my window,
The moon cuts,
Clear and round,
Through the plum-coloured night.
She cannot light the city;
It is too bright.
It has white lamps,
And glitters coldly.
I stand in the window and watch the moon.
She is thin and lustreless,
But I love her.
I know the moon,
And this is an alien city.

 The sky is crumbling into millions of paper dots
the wind blows in my face
so I duck into my favorite barber shop
and listen to Vivaldi and look in the mirror
reflecting the shopfront windows, Broadway
and 104th, and watch the dots blown by the wind
blow into the faces of the walkers outside
& here comes a thin old man swaddled in scarves,
he must be seventy-five, walking slowly,
and in his mind there is a young man dancing,
maybe seventeen years old, on a June evening --
he is that young man, I can tell, watching him walk