Famous Breakfast Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Breakfast poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous breakfast poems. These examples illustrate what a famous breakfast poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas, Dylan
...s, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."
"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar fags, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perha...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...e was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T.V. His
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash
from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning.
Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing
it away. There was a knock on the trailer door. He got slowly to his feet and answered the
door. It w...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...pped its applause.
Only my grandfather was allowed there. Or the maid
who came with a scullery pan to pick for breakfast.
She of the rols that floated in the air, she of the inlaid
woodwork all greasy with lemon, she of the feather and dust,
not I. Nonetheless I came sneaking across the salt lawn
in bare feet and jumping-jack pajamas in the spongy dawn.
Oh Angel of the blizzard and blackout, Madam white face,
take me back to that red mouth, that July 21s...Read more of this...
by
Sidney, Sir Philip
...wound and heale,
The prettie death, while each in other liue.
Poore hopes first wealth, ostage of promist weale;
Breakfast of loue. But lo, lo, where she is,
Cease we to praise; now pray we for a kisse.
LXXX
Sweet-swelling lip, well maist thou swell in pride,
Since best wits thinke it wit thee to admire;
Natures praise, Vertues stall; Cupids cold fire,
Whence words, not words but heau'nly graces slide;
The new Parnassus, where the Muses bide;
Sweetn...Read more of this...
by
Collins, Billy
...he morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.
And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car
as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off
down a roa...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...as replaced
The crackling firelog.
All that glitters is sold as gold,
And our daily diet grows odder and odder,
And breakfast foods are dusty and cold -
It's a wise child
That knows its fodder.
Someone invented the automobile,
And good Americans took the wheel
To view American rivers and rills
And justly famous forests and hills -
But someone equally enterprising
Had invented billboard advertising.
You linger at home
In dark despair,
And wistfully try the electric...Read more of this...
by
Kinnell, Galway
...I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it.
I eat it alone.
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that is better for your mental health
if somebody eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have
breakfast with.
Possibly it is even worse to eat ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...magazines eroded like the Grand Canyon from endless
readings. He can practically hear the patients thinking about
breakfast: I hate milk and thinking about dinner: I hate peas,
and then he can watch the hospital slowly drown at night,
hopelessly entangled in huge bunches of brick seaweed.
He bought that window at the Cleveland Wrecking Yard.
My other friend bought an iron roof at the Cleveland Wreck-
ing Yard and took the roof down to Big Sur in an old st...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...t bulb. I'd
put my clothes on and go down to the restaurant where my
stepfather cooked all night.
"I'd have breakfast, hot cakes, eggs and whatnot. Then
he'd make my lunch for me and it would always be the same
thing: a piece of pie and a stone-cold pork sandwich. After-
wards I'd walk to school. I mean the three of us, the Holy
Trinity: me, a piece of pie, and a stone-cold pork sandwich.
This went on for months.
"Fortunately it stopped ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...er,
Of when she was a nearly grown girl, living home with her parents on the old homestead.
A red squaw came one breakfast time to the old homestead,
On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming chairs,
Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop’d her face,
Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely as she spoke.
My mother look’d in delight and amazement at the stranger,
She look’d at the freshness of...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ained
The picture of a dusty worm so dry
That even the early bird would shake his head
And fly on farther for another breakfast?”
“But why forget the fortune of the worm,”
I said, “if in the dryness you deplore
Salvation centred and endured? Your Norcross
May have been one for many to have envied.”
“Salvation? Fortune? Would the worm say that?
He might; and therefore I dismiss the worm
With all dry things but one. Figures away,
Do you begin to see this man a...Read more of this...
by
Dove, Rita
...doubt,
plus beared African drums and the occasional miniature
gargoyle from Notre Dame the Great Artist had
carved at breakfast with a pocket knife.
"Tourists love us.The Parisians, of course"--
she blushed--"are amused, though not without
a certain admiration . . ."
The Chateaubriand
arrived on a bone-white plate, smug and absolute
in its fragrant crust, a black plug steaming
like the heart plucked from the chest of a worthy enemy;
one touch with her ...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...in intent,
462 If not in will, to track the knaves of thought.
463 But the quotidian composed as his,
464 Of breakfast ribands, fruits laid in their leaves,
465 The tomtit and the cassia and the rose,
466 Although the rose was not the noble thorn
467 Of crinoline spread, but of a pining sweet,
468 Composed of evenings like cracked shutters flung
469 Upon the rumpling bottomness, and nights
470 In which those frail custodians watched,
471 Indifferent t...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...chops a log---
Like so much wool for colour and bulkiness;
And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness,
Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily,
And a sinking at the lower abdomen
Begins the day with indifferent omen.
And lo, as he looked around uneasily,
The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder
This way and that from the valley under;
And, looking through the court-yard arch,
Down in the valley, what should meet him
But a troop of Gipsies on their mar...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...ike a flag of death. We enjoined and made slow and somber and
wonderful love. In the morning Cass was up making breakfast. She seemed quite calm and
happy. She was singing. I stayed in bed and enjoyed her happiness. Finally she came over
and shook me,
"Up, bastard! Throw some cold water on your face and pecker and come enjoy the
feast!"
I drove her to the beach that day. It was a weekday and not yet summer so things were
splendidly deserted. ...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
...ams of my burning children,
I ate the brains of mushrooms, the fungi
of devil's parasols under white, leprous rocks;
my breakfast was leaf mold in leaking forests,
with leaves big as maps, and when I heard noise
of the soldiers' progress through the thick leaves,
though my heart was bursting, I get up and ran
through the blades of balisier sharper than spears:
with the blood of my race, I ran, boy, I ran
with moss-footed speed like a painted bird;
then I fall, but I fall by a...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...r, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest -
I too awaited the expected guest.Read more of this...
by
Ondaatje, Michael
...nt goalies are your ideal.
Threats of being traded
cuts and wounds
--all this pleases you.
O my god! you say at breakfast
reading the sports page over the Alpen
as another player breaks his ankle
or assaults the coach.
When I thought of daughters
I wasn't expecting this
but I like this more.
I like all your faults
even your purple moods
when you retreat from everyone
to sit in bed under a quilt.
And when I say 'like'
I mean of course 'love'
but that embar...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...erfalls of night.
The next day I would go trout fishing for the first time. I would get up
early and eat my breakfast and go.
I had heard that it was better to go trout fishing
early in the morning. The trout were better for it. They had something
extra in the morning. I went home to prepare for trout fishing in America.
I didn't have any fishing tackle, so I had to fall back on
corny fishing tackle. Like a joke.
Why did the chicken cr...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...ir world back
together again,
trying to forget that
awful sadness that
gripped them,
wondering what they could
fix for
breakfast.
and on the radio
we were told that
school was now
open.
and
soon
there I was
on the way to school,
massive puddles in the
street,
the sun like a new
world,
my parents back in that
house,
I arrived at my classroom
on time.
Mrs. Sorenson greeted us
with, "we won't have our
usual recess, the grounds
are too wet."
"AW!" most of t...Read more of this...
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