Famous Boulevard Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Goodnight

...dream— 

A black fungus springs out about the lonely church doors— 
sleep, sleep. The Night, coming down upon 
the wet boulevard, would start you awake with his 
message, to have in at your window. Pay no 
heed to him. He storms at your sill with 
cooings, with gesticulations, curses! 
You will not let him in. He would keep you from sleeping. 
He would have you sit under your desk lamp 
brooding, pondering; he would have you 
slide out the drawer, take up the ornamented dagg...Read more of this...
by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)


A Man

...ley under the one
o'clock moon. The sky was clear of clouds. The same skyful of clouds was up there. She got
out on the boulevard and walked east and reached the entrance of The Blue Mirror. She
walked in, and there was Walter sitting alone and drunk at the end of the bar. She walked
up and sat down next to him. "Missed me, baby?" she asked. Walter looked up. He
recognized her. He didn't answer. He looked at the bartender and the bartender walked
toward them They all knew eac...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

California Plush

...n and
radio blaring
bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower
on the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard
blazing

--pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars

--descending through the city
 fast as the law would allow

through the lights, then rising to the stack
out of the city
to the stack where lanes are stacked six deep

 and you on top; the air
 now clean, for a moment weightless

 without memories, or
 need for a past.



The need for the p...Read more of this...
by Bidart, Frank

Demolition

...oose ends, I've read biographies, 
Wilde and Robert Lowell, and fallen asleep 
over a fallen hero lurching down a Paris boulevard, 
talking his way to dinner or a drink, 
unable to forget the vain and stupid boy 

he allowed to ruin him. And I dreamed 
I was Lowell, in a manic flight of failing 
and ruthless energy, and understood 
how wrong I was with a passionate exactitude 
which had to be like his. A month ago, 
at Saint-Gauden's house, we ran from a startling downpour 

...Read more of this...
by Doty, Mark

Happy Thirtieth Birthday Carcanet Books

...Benjamin Peret did,

A wind that would unscrew the mountain

Or stars like apricot tarts strolling

Aimlessly along the Boulevard of Broken Dreams....Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry


I Sing The Body Electric

...s better left to die. 
In my black rain coat I go back 
out into the gray morning and dare 
the cars on North Indemnity Boulevard 
to hit me, but no one wants trouble 
at this hour. I have crossed 
a continent to bring these citizens 
the poems of the snowy mountains, 
of the forges of hopelessness, 
of the survivors of wars they 
never heard of and won't believe. 
Nothing is alive in this tunnel 
of winds of the end of winter 
except the last raging of winter, 
the cats peer...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Julot The Apache

...I swear it on the head of her, my little Angeline."

And so, to finish up my tale, this morning as I strolled
Along the boulevard I heard a voice I knew of old.
I saw a rosy little man with walrus-like mustache . . .
I stopped, I stared. . . . By all the gods! 'twas Julot the apache.
"I'm in the garden way," he said, "and doing mighty well;
I've half an acre under glass, and heaps of truck to sell.
Come out and see. Oh come, my friend, on Sunday, wet or shine . . .
Say! -- it...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Lambert Hutchins

...,
With whistling engines and crunching wheels,
And smoke and soot thrown over the city,
And the crash of cars along the boulevard, --
A blot like a hog-pen on the harbor
Of a great metropolis, foul as a sty.
I helped to give this heritage
To generations yet unborn, with my vote
In the House of Representatives,
And the lure of the thing was to be at rest
From the never-ending fright of need,
And to give my daughters gentle breeding,
And a sense of security in life.
But, you se...Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee

Little Exercise

...n may undo his head,
shake up his feathers, make an uncertain comment
when the surrounding water shines. 

Think of the boulevard and the little palm trees
all stuck in rows, suddenly revealed
as fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons. 

It is raining there. The boulevard
and its broken sidewalks with weeds in every crack,
are relieved to be wet, the sea to be freshened. 

Now the storm goes away again in a series
of small, badly lit battle-scenes,
each in "Another part of the field...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth

On The Boulevard

...ind my demi-tasse.
Chatting of no matter what.
You the Mummer, I the Bard;
Oh, it's jolly, is it not? --
Sitting on the Boulevard.

More amusing than a book,
If a chap has eyes to see;
For, no matter where I look,
Stories, stories jump at me.
Moving tales my pen might write;
Poems plain on every face;
Monologues you could recite
With inimitable grace.

(Ah! Imagination's power)
See yon demi-mondaine there,
Idly toying with a flower,
Smiling with a pensive air . . .
Well, her ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace

...One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand cafe in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.

One fine day....Read more of this...
by Ferlinghetti, Lawrence

The Absinthe Drinkers

...readful dream
Of portly men with each a wen, and woke up with a scream.
And sure enough, next morning, as I prowled the Boulevard,
A portly man with wenny nose roamed into my regard;
Then like a flash I ran to him and clutched him by the arm:
"Oh, sir," said I, "I do not wish to see you come to harm;
But if your life you value aught, I beg, entreat and pray --
Don't pass before the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix."
That portly man he looked at me with such a startled air,
Then...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me

...lways early.
He was late. That evening he was later.
They wrapped the fan. He looked at his watch.

She looked down the Boulevard des Capucines.
She ordered more coffee. She stood up.
The streets were emptying. The heat was killing.
She thought the distance smelled of rain and lightning.

These are wild roses, appliqued on silk by hand,
darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly.
The rest is tortoiseshell and has the reticent clear patience 
 of its element. It is
a worn-out, un...Read more of this...
by Boland, Eavan

The Dead

...belief in the power
of my yearning. The dead are every-

where, crowding the narrow streets
that jut out from the wide boulevard
on which we take our morning walk.
They stand in the cold shadows
of men and women come to sell
themselves to anyone, they stride
along beside me and stop when I
stop to admire the bright garlands
or the little pyramids of fruit,
they reach a hand out to give
money or to take change, they say
"Good morning" or "Thank you," they
turn with me and ret...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

The Death Of Marie Toro

...the blossoms heaping high upon her coffin lid.
A week ago she roamed the street, a draggle and a ****,
A by-word of the Boulevard and everybody's butt;
A week ago she haunted us, we heard her whining cry,
We brushed aside the broken blooms she pestered us to buy;
A week ago she had not where to rest her weary head . . .
But now, oh, follow, follow on, for Marie Toro's dead.

Oh Marie, she was once a queen -- ah yes, a queen of queens.
High-throned above the Carnival she held ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The house where I was born (07)

...ings of childhood.
Who was he, who had he been in the light,
I did not know, I still do not.

But I also see him on the boulevard,
Walking slowly, so much weariness
Weighing down the way he now moved,
He was going back to work, while I
Was wandering about with some of my classmates
At the beginning of an afternoon still free from time.
To this figure, seen from afar, moving on its way,
I dedicate the words that cannot say what they would.

(In the dining room
Of the Sunday af...Read more of this...
by Bonnefoy, Yves

The Lovers of the Poor

...ies from the Ladies' Betterment
League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall. 
Cutting with knives served by their softest care,
Served by their love, so barbarously fair.
Whose mothers taught: You'd better not be cruel!
You had better not ...Read more of this...
by Brooks, Gwendolyn

Then

...A solitary apartment house, the last one 
before the boulevard ends and a dusty road 
winds its slow way out of town. On the third floor 
through the dusty windows Karen beholds 
the elegant couples walking arm in arm 
in the public park. It is Saturday afternoon, 
and she is waiting for a particular young man 
whose name I cannot now recall, if name 
he ever had. She runs the thumb of her left hand 
across he...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

White Ash

...THERE is a woman on Michigan Boulevard keeps a parrot and goldfish and two white mice.

She used to keep a houseful of girls in kimonos and three pushbuttons on the front door.

Now she is alone with a parrot and goldfish and two white mice … but these are some of her thoughts:

The love of a soldier on furlough or a sailor on shore leave burns with a bonfire red and saffron.

The love ...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

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