Famous Bike Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Bike poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous bike poems. These examples illustrate what a famous bike poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...t, for we’re twenty-nine —
Any other time.
Not to-morrow, for cook’s on strike,
Not next day, I’ll be out on the bike —
Just drop in whenever you like —
Any other time!”
Seasick passengers like the sea—
Any other time.
“Something . . I ate . . disagreed . . with me!
Any other time
Ocean-trav’lling is . . simply bliss,
Must be my . . liver . . has gone amiss . .
Why, I would . . laugh . .<...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...ry 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 at each other's sex.
Pop-gunning the street lights like crows.
Not knowing what to do with funny Kotex
so wearing it in our school shoes. Friend, friend,
spooking my lonely hours you were there, but pretend....Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...s in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.
Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
comver your he...Read more of this...
by
Giovanni, Nikki
...>i haven't written a poem in so long i may have forgotten how unless writing a poem is like riding a bike or swimming upstream or loving you it may be a habit that once aquired is never lost but you say i'm foolish of course you love me but being loved of course is not the same as being loved because or being loved despite or being loved if you love me why do i feel so lonely and...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...to myself. I study
the way the snow remains, gray
and damp, in the deep shadows of the firs.
I wonder if the bike is safe hidden
just off the highway. Up ahead
the road, black and winding, falls
away, and there is the valley where
I lived half of my life, spectral
and calm. I sigh with gratitude,
and then I feel an odd pain rising
through the back of my head,
and my eyes go dark. I bend forward
and place my palms on something rough,
the black ...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...e yowl across
The gap from eye to page. So I am left
To mourn (without a chance of consequence)
You, balanced on a bike against a fence;
To wonder if you'd spot the theft
Of this one of you bathing; to condense,
In short, a past that no one now can share,
No matter whose your future; calm and dry,
It holds you like a heaven, and you lie
Unvariably lovely there,
Smaller and clearer as the years go by....Read more of this...
by
Donaghy, Michael
...Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.
The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.
So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gad...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...
With little to say but kind words.
I had a father once, the records say,
Who carried me on the cross-bar of his bike
Down Knostrop: we saw the white bells
Of bindweed crawling with ants
Strangle the rusty railings.
My father, a quiet man, never knew what
To say, which is why he was taken
And I was not told and the records say
It was pneumonia that took him
And I was not told why the anti-biotics
Were not given....Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...just to much pride
To lick the arses of the poetry-of-earthers
Or the sad lady who runs KATABASIS from the back
Of a bike, gets shouted at by rude parkies
And writing huffy poems to prove it...
Oh to be acceptable and
IN THE POETRY REVIEW
Like Lavinia or Jo
With double spreads
And a glossy colour photo
Instead I’m stuck in a bus queue at Morden
London’s meridian point of zero imagination
Actually it’s a bit like ACUMEN with the Oxleys
Boasting about...Read more of this...
by
Nesbitt, Kenn
...
She’s the best you’ve ever seen.
She speeds across the swimming pool
To slake the summer heat.
On BMX and mountain bike
She simply can’t be beat.
She’s highest in the high jump,
And a champ at hammer throwing,
Magnificent in marathons,
Remarkable at rowing.
She beats the best at boxing.
At the pole vault she is peerless.
Her fencing is the finest;
She is positively fearless.
She’s masterful at basketball,
She truly rules the court,
And equally incredible
At ...Read more of this...
by
Hudgins, Andrew
...autiful. But why? What makes
them beautiful? I haven't shot one yet.
I might. When I was twelve I'd ride my bike
out to the dump and shoot the rats. It's hard
to kill your rats, our Father. You have to use
a hollow point and hit them solidly.
A leg is not enough. The rat won't pause.
Yeep! Yeep! it screams, and scrabbles, three-legged, back
into the trash, and I would feel a little bad
to kill something that wants to live
more savagely than I d...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...Do you recall that happy bike
With bundles on our backs?
How near to heaven it was like
To blissfully relax!
In cosy tavern of good cheer
To doff our heavy packs,
And with a mug of foamy beer
Relax.
Learn to relax: to clean the mind
Of fear and doubt and care,
And in vacuity to find
The perfect peace that's there.
With lassitude of heart and hand,
When every sinew sl...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...girl of sunny curl
I would not mention him,
That English lad with grin so glad,
And racing togs so trim.
His motor bike was painted like
A postal box of ed.
'Twas gay to view . . . "We bought it new,"
A voice beside me said.
"Our little bit we blew on it
The day that we were wed.
"We took a chance: through sunny France
We flashed with flaunting power.
With happy smiles a hundred miles
Or more we made an hour.
Like flame we hurled into a w...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...ne
all alone
too proud
to cry aloud
scoffed cake
great ache
at work
went beserk
in a funk
did a bunk
hitch hike
stole a bike
empty car
not too far
flat tyre
on fire
skid swerve
lost his nerve
bang crash
frantic dash
turned bend
pond at end
police whistle
fall on thistle
jump in air
pond there
shocked scream
can't swim
hold breath
certain death
police leap
foot deep
soaking wet
vow they'll get
sam swill
off up hill
put in prison
doesn't listen
wooded park
hide till dark
cold a...Read more of this...
by
Viorst, Judith
...The tires on my bike are flat.The sky is grouchy gray.At least it sure feels like thatSince Hanna moved away.Chocolate ice cream tastes like prunes.December's come to stay.They've taken back the Mays and JunesSince Hanna moved away.Flowers smell like halibut.Velvet feels like hay.Every handsome dog's a muttSince Hanna move...Read more of this...
by
Dunn, Stephen
...hile,
the early morning sunlight
in the trees was sufficient,
replaced by a hello
from a long-limbed woman
pedaling her bike,
whereupon the wind came up,
dispersing the mosquitoes.
Blessings, all.
I'd come so far, it seemed,
happily looking for so little.
But then I saw a cow in a room
looking at the painting of a cow
in a field -- all of which
was a painting itself --
and I felt I'd been invited
into the actual, someplace
between the real and the real.
The ...Read more of this...
by
Roethke, Theodore
...s called the Golden Rhule,—
But that's enough for any man
What's not a proper fool.
I took the pledge cards on my bike;
I helped out with the books;
The stingy members when they signed
Made with their stingy looks,—
The largest contributors came
From the town's biggest crooks.
In Saginaw, in Saginaw,
There's never a household fart,
For if it did occur,
It would blow the place apart,—
I met a woman who could break wind
And she is my sweet-heart.
O, I'm th...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...on every hand;
"If these were only levelled down," they said, "it would be grand."
"If every bloke that rides a bike put in a half-a-crown,
Do you suppose," the Scorcher said, "that that would cut them down?"
"I doubt it," said the Howling Swell, and frowned a doleful frown.
"Oh, ladies, come and ride with us," the Scorcher did entreat,
"A little ride across the park and down the smoothest street,
And you will have a chance to show your very dainty feet....Read more of this...
by
Davidson, John
...y good and evil angels if you like.
And both of them together in every kind of weather
Ride me like a double-seated bike.
That's rough a bit and needs its meaning curled.
But I have a high old hot un in my mind --
A most engrugious notion of the world,
That leaves your lightning 'rithmetic behind:
I give it at a glance when I say 'There ain't no chance,
Nor nothing of the lucky-lottery kind.'
And it's this way that I make it out to be:
No fathers, mothers, c...Read more of this...
by
Williams, Hugo
...The smell of ammonia in the entrance hall.
The racing bike. The junk mail.
The timer switch whose single naked bulb
allowed us as far as the first floor.
The backs of your legs
as you went ahead of me up the stairs.
The landing where we paused for breath
and impatient key searching.
The locks which would never open quickly enough
to let us in.
The green of the paintwork we slid down
as...Read more of this...
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