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Famous Bumping Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...The railway rattled and roared and swung 
With jolting and bumping trucks. 
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung 
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue 
Of the wild-eyed man in the corner told 
This terrible tale of the days of old, 
And the party that ought to have kept the ducks. 
"Well, it ain't all joy bein' on the land 
With an overdraft that'd knock you flat; 
And the rabbits have pretty well ...Read more of this...



by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...g if he minded riding rough -- 
"Oh, not at all," says he, "oh, not at all! 
I heard at Robbo Park, and if it comes 
To bumping I'm your Moses! Strike me blue!" 

Says he, "I'll bump you over either rail, 
The inside rail or outside -- which you choose 
Is good enough for me" -- which settled Ike. 
For he was shaky since he near got killed 
From being sent a buster on the rail, 
When some chap bumped his horse and fetched him down 
At Stony Bridge; so Ikey thought it best...Read more of this...

by Duhamel, Denise
...aight home, like I did, to watch Shirley Temple
on channel 56. I liked to imagine that she slipped
into the screen, bumping Shirley with her hip
so that child actress slid out of frame, into the tubes
and wires that made the TV sputter when I turned it on.
Sometimes when I watched, I'd see Crater Face
tap-dancing with tall black men whose eyes
looked shiny, like the whites of hard-boiled eggs.
I'd try to imagine that her block was full
of friendly folk, with a lig...Read more of this...

by Trethewey, Natasha
...is next to godliness ...

Windows and doors flung wide,
curtains two-stepping
forward and back, neck bones
bumping in the pot, a choir
of clothes clapping on the line.

Nearer my God to Thee ...

She beats time on the rugs,
blows dust from the broom
like dandelion spores, each one
a wish for something better....Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...

into the rock
the sand-claws
the winking eye
and harsh shell
of aden

waiting for the pinch

jagged sun
lumps of heat
bumping on the stunned ship
knuckledustered rock
clenched over steamer point

waiting for the sun to stagger
loaded down the hill
before we bunch ashore

calm
eyes within their windows
we walk
(a town must live
must have its acre of normality
let hate sport
its bright shirt in the shadows)
we shop
collect our duty-murdered goods
compare bargains
laugh grieve...Read more of this...



by Parker, Dorothy
...ding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon-
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell....Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...welded;
 they have broken the old tools and made
 new ones; they are ranging the white
 scarves of cloudland; they are bumping
 the sunken bells of the Carthaginians
 and Phœnicians:
 they are handling
 the strongest sea
 as a thing to be handled.

The earth was a call that mocked;
 it is belted with wires and meshed with
 steel; from Pittsburg to Vladivostok is
 an iron ride on a moving house; from
 Jerusalem to Tokyo is a reckoned span;
 and they talk at night in the s...Read more of this...

by Lawrence, D. H.
...ow, at her pointed, heavy tail
Beneath the low-dropping back-board of her shell.

Their two shells like domed boats bumping,
Hers huge, his small;
Their splay feet rambling and rowing like paddles,
And stumbling mixed up in one another,
In the race of love --
Two tortoises,
She huge, he small.

She seems earthily apathetic,
And he has a reptile's awful persistence.

I heard a woman pitying her, pitying the Mère Tortue.
While I, I pity Monsieur.
"He pesters...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...stately, like ships of the line
bright with canvas.
Prisoners'-base, and its swooping, veering, racing, 
giggling, bumping.
The First Consul runs plump into M. de Beauharnais and falls.
But he picks himself up smartly, and starts after M. Isabey. Too 
late,
M. Le Premier Consul, Mademoiselle Hortense is out after you. Quickly,
my dear Sir! Stir your short legs, she is swift and eager, 
and as graceful
as her mother. She is there, that othe...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...e citizens will dance in folk dances.
 They will thump, they will pump, 
 thudding and shoving 
 elbow and thigh, 
 bumping and laughing, like barrels and bells.

Vast fields of tulips in full bloom,
 the reproduction of a miniature Dutch village, 
 part of a gigantic flower show....Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...turn of her lover's key
In the lock, and pretends to be asleep
When he enters the room, trying to be
Quiet but clumsy, bumping into things,
And she can smell the liquor on his breath
But forgives him because she has him back
And doesn't have to sleep alone.

The happiest moment is a man's life
Is when he climbs out of bed
With a woman, after an hour's sleep,
After making love, and pulls on
His trousers, and walks outside,
And pees in the bushes, and sees
The high August ...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...e seasons are no longer what they once were,
But it is the nature of things to be seen only once,
As they happen along, bumping into other things, getting along
Somehow. That's where Orpheus made his mistake.
Of course Eurydice vanished into the shade;
She would have even if he hadn't turned around.
No use standing there like a gray stone toga as the whole wheel
Of recorded history flashes past, struck dumb, unable to 
utter an intelligent
Comment on the most thou...Read more of this...

by Joyce, James
...m,
 Hideous in form.

Arrah, why, says you, couldn't he manage it?
I'll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
 (Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
 Butter his horns!

(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt
 on ye,
Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!


Balbaccio, balbuccio!

We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chicken-pox
 and china chambers
Universally prov...Read more of this...

by Edgar, Marriott
...the Tugboat along.

On and on through the darkness he paddled
Till he knew he were very near in 
By the way he kept bumping the bottom
And hitting the stones with his chin.

Was it Grisniz he'd reached?... No, it wasn't, 
The treacherous tide in its track 
Had carried him half-way to Blackpool 
And he had to walk all the way back....Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...th Evensong.

Remove those cottages, a huddled throng!
 Too many babies have been born in there,
 Too many coffins, bumping down the stair,
Carried the old their garden paths along.

I have a Vision of the Future, chum,
 The workers' flats in fields of soya beans
 Tower up like silver pencils, score on score:
And Surging Millions hear the Challenge come
 From microphones in communal canteens
 "No Right! No Wrong! All's perfect, evermore!"...Read more of this...

by Blunden, Edmund
...snorts
In bundling gallop for the cottage door,
With hungry hubbub begging crusts and orts,
Then like the whirlwind bumping round once more;
Nuzzling the dog, making the pullets run,
And sulky as a child when her play's done....Read more of this...

by Subraman, Belinda
...ile away,
the occasional Friday nighter
coming home 2:00 a.m. Saturday, 
the appliances with two-tone hums,
the bumping and grinding
of an old swamp cooler,
a distant train,
forces what has been pushed back
to break through.

My father needs O 2
all the time now. 
His innocence 
in countering the surgeons’ truth
with his wishes and beliefs
stabs me in the heart 
with love
while his every movement
is pain.

He says he is ready
but I feel his fear.

The ...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...he men 
Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light.
Hark! There’s the big bombardment on our right 
Rumbling and bumping; and the dark’s a glare 
Of flickering horror in the sectors where 
We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled, 
Or crawling on their bellies through the wire.
‘What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?’ 
Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire: 
Why did he do it? ... Starlight overhead— 
Blank stars. I’m wide-awake; ...Read more of this...

by Newbolt, Sir Henry
...There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night -- 
Ten to make and the match to win -- 
A bumping pitch and a blinding light, 
An hour to play and the last man in. 
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, 
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, 
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote 
"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 

The sand of the desert is sodden red, -- 
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; -- 
The Gatling's jam...Read more of this...

by Slessor, Kenneth
...a stream; 
You find this ugly, I find it lovely 

Ghosts' trousers, like the dangle of hung men, 
in pawn-shop windows, bumping knee by knee, 
but none inside to suffer or condemn; 
You find this ugly, I find it lovely. 

Smells rich and rasping, smoke and fat and fish 
and puffs of paraffin that crimp the nose, 
of grease that blesses onions with a hiss; 
You find it ugly, I find it lovely. 

The dips and molls, with flip and shiny gaze 
(death at their elbows, hunge...Read more of this...

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