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Famous Bets Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Wagoner, David
...d by being suddenly lopped off
 Year after year by clippers or the stuttering
 Electric teeth of trimmers hedging their bets
To keep them all in line, all roughly

 In order. They don't even
 Want to be good-neighborly bushes
(Though under the outer stems and leaves
 The thick, thick-headed, soot-blackened

 Elderly branches have been dodging
And weaving through so many disastrous springs,
 So many whacked-out, contra-
 Dictory changes of direction, they've locked

Themse...Read more of this...



by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...ndition, 
And most of the others were running off weight. 

"No doubt someone 'blew it', for everyone knew it, 
The bets were all gone, and I muttered in spite, 
'If I can't get a copper, by Jingo, I'll stop her, 
Let the public fall in, it will serve the brutes right.' 

"I said to the jockey, 'Now, listen, my cocky, 
You watch as you're cantering down by the stand, 
I'll wait where that toff is and give you the office, 
You're only to win if I lift up my hand.' ...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...ez and New Orleans.
And a legend lives on that two gamblers were blown toward the sky and during their journey laid bets on which of the two would go higher and which would be first to set foot on the turf of the earth again.

FOOT AND MOUTH PLAGUEWhen the mysterious foot and mouth epidemic ravaged the cattle of Illinois, Mrs. Hector Smith wept bitterly over the government killing forty of her soft-eyed Jersey cows; through the newspapers she wept over her loss fo...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...d she smothered the field. 

The race put her owner right clear of his debts; 
He landed a fortune in stakes and in bets, 
He paid the old bailiff the whole of his pelf, 
And gave him a hiding to keep for himself. 

So all you bold sportsmen take warning, I pray, 
Keep clear of the running, you'll find it don't pay; 
For the very best rule that you'll hear in a week 
Is never to bet on a thing that can speak. 

And whether you're lucky or whether you lose, 
Keep c...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...neath that loved and celebrated breast,
silent, bored really blindly veined,
grieves, maybe lives and lets
live, passes bets,
something moving but invisibly,
and with what clamor why restrained
I cannot fathom even a ripple.
(See the thin flying of nine black hairs
four around one five the other nipple,
flying almost intolerably on your own breath.)
Equivocal, but what we have in common's bound to be there,
whatever we must own equivalents for,
something that maybe I ...Read more of this...



by Benet, Stephen Vincent
...pipes and cigarettes, 
Curling in endless shapes, in blue rings wheeling, 
As formless as our talk. Phil, drawling, bets 
Cornell will win the relay in a walk, 
While Bob and Mac discuss the Giants' chances; 
Deep in a morris-chair, Bill scowls at "Falk", 
John gives large views about the last few dances. 

And so it goes -- an idle speech and aimless, 
A few chance phrases; yet I see behind 
The empty words the gleam of a beauty tameless, 
Friendship and peace and fi...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...mas was having words with Goss, 
He "wouldn't pay, the fight was cross." 
And Goss told Tom that "cross or no, 
The bets go as the verdicts go, 
By all I've ever heard or read of. 
So pay, or else I'll knock your head off." 
Jim Gurvil said his smutty say 
About a girl down Bye Street way, 
And how the girl from Froggatt's circus 
Died giving birth in Newent work'us. 
And Dick told how the Dymock wench 
Bore twins, poor things, on Dog Hill bench; 
And how he'd...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...Who never drinks and never bets, 
But loves his wife and pays his debts 
And feels content with what he gets? 
Tom Collins. 

Who has the utmost confidence 
That all the banks now in suspense 
Will meet their paper three years hence? 
Tom Collins. 

Who reads the Herald leaders through, 
And takes the Evening News for true, 
And thought the Echo's jokes were new? 
Tom Collins....Read more of this...

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