Famous Best Friend Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Best Friend poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous best friend poems. These examples illustrate what a famous best friend poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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8 Fragments For Kurt Cobain

by Jim Carroll
 1/
Genius is not a generous thing
In return it charges more interest than any amount of royalties can cover
And it resents fame
With bitter vengeance 

Pills and powdres only placate it awhile
Then it puts you in a place where the planet's poles reverse
Where the currents of electricity shift 

Your Body becomes a magnet and pulls to it despair and rotten teeth,
Cheese...Read more of this...

You

by Barry Tebb
 “Remember, you loved me, when we were young, one day”



The words of the song in Tauber’s mellifluous tenor

Haunt my nights and days, make me tremble when I hear

Your voice on the phone, sadden me when I can’t make into your smile

The pucker of your lips, the gleam in your eye.



The day we met is with me still, you asked...Read more of this...

Scab Maids On Speed

by Maggie Estep
 My first job was when I was about 15. I had met
a girl named Hope who became my best friend. Hope and I were flunking math
class so we became speed freaks. This honed our algebra skills and we quickly
became whiz kids. For about 5 minutes. Then, our brains started to fry
and we were just teenage speed freaks.

Then, we decided...Read more of this...

The Best Friend

by William Henry Davies
  Now shall I walk 
Or shall I ride? 
"Ride", Pleasure said; 
"Walk", Joy replied.

Now what shall I -- 
Stay home or roam? 
"Roam", Pleasure said; 
And Joy -- "stay home."

Now shall I dance, 
Or sit for dreams? 
"Sit," answers Joy; 
"Dance," Pleasure screams.

Which of ye two 
Will kindest be? 
Pleasure laughed sweet, 
But Joy kissed me....Read more of this...

Octaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I 

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel -- 
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand. 

II 

Tumultuously void of a clean...Read more of this...

Reality Jew

by D A Levy
When i was a little kid
my parents never told me
i didn't find out until
i got out of high school
then when people asked me,
I ASKED THEM,
"Nationality or Religion?"

When i was a little kid
my parents brought me up as a christian
that when i discovered,
i was different
i wasnt THAT sick!
so at sixteen
still being a virgin forest
i decided
i must be a buddhist monk,
Then when...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXVIII. Spirto felice, che sì dolcemente. BEHOLDING IN FANCY THE SHADE OF LAURA, HE TELLS HER THE LOSS THAT THE WORLD SUSTAINED IN HER DEPARTURE.  Blest spirit, that with beams so sweetly clearThose eyes didst bend on me, than stars more bright,And sighs didst breathe, and words which could delightDespair; and...Read more of this...

Loyalty

by James Tate
 This is the hardest part:
When I came back to life
I was a good family dog
and not too friendly to strangers.
I got a thirty-five dollar raise
in salary, and through the pea-soup fogs 
I drove the General, and introduced him 
at rallies. I had a totalitarian approach 
and was a massive boost to his popularity. 
I did my best to reduce...Read more of this...

CIA Dope Calypso

by Allen Ginsberg
 In nineteen hundred forty-nine
China was won by Mao Tse-tung
Chiang Kai-shek's army ran away
They were waiting there in Thailand yesterday

Supported by the CIA
Pushing junk down Thailand way

First they stole from the Meo Tribes
Up in the hills they started taking bribes
Then they sent their soldiers up to Shan
Collecting opium to send to The Man

Pushing junk in Bangkok yesterday
Supported by the CIA

Brought...Read more of this...

When A Woman Loves A Man

by David Lehman
 When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri.
When she says quixotic she means mercurial.
And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"
she means, "Put your arms around me from behind
as I stand disconsolate at the window."

He's supposed to know that.

When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginia
or he is in Boston,...Read more of this...

August 8th

by Anne Sexton
 And do not be indiscreet or unconventional. Play it safe.

Listen here. I've never played it safe
in spite of what the critics say.
Ask my imaginary brother, that waif,
that childhood best friend who comes to play
dress-up and stick-up and jacks and Pick-Up-Sticks,
bike downtown, stick out tongues at the Catholics.

Or form a Piss Club where we all go
in the bushes and peek...Read more of this...

Portrait Number Five: Against A New York Summer

by Jack Gilbert
 I'd walk her home after work
buying roses and talking of Bechsteins.
She was full of soul.
Her small room was gorged with heat
and there were no windows.
She'd take off everything
but her pants
and take the pins from her hair
throwing them on the floor
with a great noise.
Like Crete.
We wouldn't make love.
She'd get on the bed
with those nipples
and we'd lie
sweating
and talking of my best...Read more of this...

Upon Nothing

by John Wilmot
 Nothing, thou elder brother even to shade,
That hadst a being ere the world was made,
And (well fixed) art alone of ending not afraid.
Ere time and place were, time and place were not,
When primitive Nothing Something straight begot,
Then all proceeded from the great united--What?
Something, the general attribute of all,
Severed from thee, its sole original,
Into thy boundless self must undistinguished fall.
Yet...Read more of this...

Good-Bye Little Cabin

by Robert William Service
 O dear little cabin, I've loved you so long,
And now I must bid you good-bye!
I've filled you with laughter, I've thrilled you with song,
And sometimes I've wished I could cry.
Your walls they have witnessed a weariful fight,
And rung to a won Waterloo:
But oh, in my triumph I'm dreary to-night --
Good-bye, little cabin, to you!

Your roof is bewhiskered, your floor...Read more of this...

Loyalty

by Edward Taylor
 This is the hardest part:
When I came back to life
I was a good family dog
and not too friendly to strangers.
I got a thirty-five dollar raise
in salary, and through the pea-soup fogs 
I drove the General, and introduced him 
at rallies. I had a totalitarian approach 
and was a massive boost to his popularity. 
I did my best to reduce...Read more of this...

Canzone XI.(R)

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XI.[R] Mai non vo' più cantar, com' io soleva. ENIGMAS.  Never more shall I sing, as I have sung:For still she heeded not; and I was scorn'd:So e'en in loveliest spots is trouble found.Unceasingly to sigh is no relief.Already on the Alp snow gathers round:Already...Read more of this...

The Evil Seekers

by Anne Sexton
 We are born with luck
which is to say with gold in our mouth.
As new and smooth as a grape,
as pure as a pond in Alaska,
as good as the stem of a green bean--
we are born and that ought to be enough,
we ought to be able to carry on from that
but one must learn about evil,
learn what is subhuman,
learn how...Read more of this...

Leaves From Australian Forests - Dedication

by Henry Kendall
To her who, cast with me in trying days, 
Stood in the place of health and power and praise;- 
Who, when I thought all light was out, became 
A lamp of hope that put my fears to shame;- 
Who faced for love's sole sake the life austere 
That waits upon the man of letters here;- 
Who, unawares, her deep affection...Read more of this...

Musings On A Landscape Of Gaspar Poussin

by Robert Southey
 Poussin! most pleasantly thy pictur'd scenes
Beguile the lonely hour; I sit and gaze
With lingering eye, till charmed FANCY makes
The lovely landscape live, and the rapt soul
From the foul haunts of herded humankind
Flies far away with spirit speed, and tastes
The untainted air, that with the lively hue
Of health and happiness illumes the cheek
Of mountain LIBERTY. My willing soul
All eager follows...Read more of this...

The Victor Dog

by James Merrill
 Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez,
The little white dog on the Victor label
Listens long and hard as he is able.
It's all in a day's work, whatever plays.

From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained.
He even listens earnestly to Bloch,
Then builds a church upon our acid rock.
He's man's--no--he's the Leiermann's best friend,

Or would be if hearing and listening were the same.
Does...Read more of this...

Sonnet CCXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 221] SONNET CCXVI. I' pur ascolto, e non odo novella. HEARING NO TIDINGS OF HER, HE BEGINS TO DESPAIR.  Still do I wait to hear, in vain still wait,Of that sweet enemy I love so well:What now to think or say I cannot tell,'Twixt hope and fear my...Read more of this...

The Devil -- had he fidelity

by Emily Dickinson
 The Devil -- had he fidelity
Would be the best friend --
Because he has ability --
But Devils cannot mend --
Perfidy is the virtue
That would but he resign
The Devil -- without question
Were thoroughly divine...Read more of this...

Face Lift

by Sylvia Plath
 You bring me good news from the clinic,
Whipping off your silk scarf, exhibiting the tight white
Mummy-cloths, smiling: I'm all right.
When I was nine, a lime-green anesthetist
Fed me banana-gas through a frog mask. The nauseous vault
Boomed with bad dreams and the Jovian voices of surgeons.
Then mother swam up, holding a tin basin.
O I was sick.

They've changed all that. Traveling
Nude as...Read more of this...

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