Famous Chicken Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Ballad of John Silver

...plank. 

O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop) 
We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken coop; 
Then, having washed the blood away, we'd little else to do 
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to. 

O! the fiddle on the fo'c'sle, and the slapping naked soles, 
And the genial "Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!" 
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead, 
And the look-out not a-looking...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John


A Parody on 'A Psalm of Life'

...r lives sublime, 
And when roasted, leave behind us, 
Hen tracks on the sands of time.

Hen tracks that perhaps another
Chicken drooping in the rain, 
Some forlorn and henpecked brother, 
When he sees, shall crow again....Read more of this...
by Holmes, Oliver Wendell

A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor

...who each has slain
And harry him to and fro.
When life is extinct each corpse is linked
To its gibbering murderer,
As a chicken is bound with wire around
The neck of a killer cur.

Handcuffed to Hate come Doctor Waite
(He tastes the poison now),
And Ruth and Judd and a head of blood
With horns upon its brow.
Up sashays Nan with her feathery fan
From Floradora bright;
She never hung for Caesar Young
But she's dancing with him tonight.

Here's the bulging hip and the foam-fleck...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

Bleezers Ice Cream

...do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE
POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL
PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM
PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM
BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER
CHOCOLATE CHOP...Read more of this...
by Prelutsky, Jack

Danny ODare

...ir
And thought he'd do some dancin' there.
He started jumpin' and skippin' and kickin',
He did a dance called the Funky Chicken,
He did the Polka, he did the Twist,
He bent himself into a pretzel like this.
He did the Dog and the Jitterbug,
He did the Jerk and the Bunny Hug.
He did the Waltz and the Boogaloo,
He did the Hokey-Pokey too.
He did the Bop and the Mashed Potata,
He did the Split and the See Ya Later.
And now he's down upon one knee,
Bowin' oh so charmingly,
And wi...Read more of this...
by Silverstein, Shel


Enigma

...e, come riddle-me-ree,
And tell me, what my name may be.
I am nearly one hundred and thirty years old,
And therefore no chicken, as you may suppose; --
Though a dwarf in my youth (as my nurses have told),
I have, ev'ry year since, been outgrowing my clothes;
Till, at last, such a corpulent giant I stand,
That if folks were to furnish me now with a suit,
It would take ev'ry morsel of scrip in the land
But to measure my bulk from the head to the foot.
Hence, they who maintain m...Read more of this...
by Moore, Thomas

For My Son Noah Ten Years Old

...ny years;
the advocate of darkness and night is not lost.

The horse steps up swings on one leg turns its body 
the chicken flapping claws onto the roost its wings whelping and walloping 
but what is primitive is not to be shot out into the night and the dark.
And slowly the kind man comes closer loses his rage sits down at table.

So I am proud only of those days that pass in undivided tenderness 
when you sit drawing or making books stapled with messages to the wor...Read more of this...
by Bly, Robert

Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages

...but the agony abides.
Time the destroyer is time the preserver,
Like the river with its cargo of dead *******, cows and chicken coops,
The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.


III

I sometimes wonder if that is what Kri...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Four Riddles

...ives,
And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:
Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives
Dispense the tongue and chicken. 

Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:
And all is tangled talk and mazy motion -
Much like a waving field of golden grain,
Or a tempestuous ocean. 

And thus they give the time, that Nature meant
For peaceful sleep and meditative snores,
To ceaseless din and mindless merriment
And waste of shoes and floors. 

And One (we name him not) ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

On Turning Ten

...r the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seve...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy

Refrigerator 1957

...e like a vault -- you pull the handle out
and on the shelves: not a lot,
and what there is (a boiled potato
in a bag, a chicken carcass
under foil) looking dispirited,
drained, mugged. This is not
a place to go in hope or hunger.
But, just to the right of the middle
of the middle door shelf, on fire, a lit-from-within red,
heart red, sexual red, wet neon red,
shining red in their liquid, exotic,
aloof, slumming
in such company: a jar
of maraschino cherries. Three-quarters
ful...Read more of this...
by Lux, Thomas

Shit List; Or Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity

...gbird ****

(dive-bombed with the aim of song), robin **** that
oozes white down lawnchairs or down roots under roosts,
chicken **** and chicken mite ****, pelican ****, gannet

**** (wholesome guano), fly **** (periodic), cockatoo
****, dog **** (past catalog or assimilation),
cricket ****, elk (high plains) ****, and

tiny scribbled little shrew ****, whale **** (what
a sight, deep assumption), mandril **** (blazing
blast off), weasel **** (wiles' waste), gazelle ****,

mag...Read more of this...
by Ammons, A R

Snow Whites Acne

...se the mint leaves the tall doctor puts over her face
only make matters worse. Snow and the Queen hope
against hope for chicken pox, measles, something
that would be gone quickly and not plague Snow's whole
adolescence.
 If only freckles were red, she cried, if only
concealer really worked. Soon came the pus, the yellow dots,
multiplying like pins in a pin cushion. Soon came
the greasy hair. The Queen gave her daughter a razor
for her legs and a stick of underarm deodorant.
 ...Read more of this...
by Duhamel, Denise

The Ballad of Persse OReilly

...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 provided by this soffsoaping salesman.
Small wonder He'll Cheat E'erawan our local lads nicknamed him.
When Chimpden first took the floor
 (Chorus) With his bucketshop store
 Down Bargainweg, Lower.

So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we'll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery
And 'tis sh...Read more of this...
by Joyce, James

The Hammers

...day
People come in crowds
(After church-time, of course)
In curricles, and gigs, and wagons,
And some have brought cold chicken and flagons
Of wine,
And beer in stoppered jugs.
"Dear! Dear! But I tell 'ee 'twill be a fine 
ship.
There's none finer in any of the slips at Chatham."
The third Summer's roses have started in to blow,
When the fine stern carving is begun.
Flutings, and twinings, and long slow swirls,
Bits of deal shaved away to thin spiral curls.
Tap! Tap! A cornuc...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Housekeeper

...ve, you know, if he's a day." 
"Aren't you afraid of him? What's that gun for?" 
"Oh, that's been there for hawks since chicken-time. 
John Hall touch me! Not if he knows his friends. 
I'll say that for him, John's no threatener 
Like some men folk. No one's afraid of him; 
All is, he's made up his mind not to stand 
What he has got to stand." 
"Where is Estelle? 
Couldn't one talk to her? What does she say? 
You say you don't know where she is." 
"Nor want to! 
She thinks if...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The White Cliffs

...r 
Know better. Gee, take it away.' 
'Oh, for a drink of ice water! ' 
'They think nut-sundae's a day.' 

'Say, is this chicken feed money?'
'Say, does it rain every day?'
'Say, Lady, isn't it funny
Every one drives the wrong way?'

XXXVII 
How beautiful upon the mountains,
How beautiful upon the downs,
How beautiful in the village post-office,
On the pavements of towns—
How beautiful in the huge print of newspapers,
Beautiful while telegraph wires hum,
While telephone bells ...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

Trout Fishing in America

...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 cross the road?

I bent a pin and tied it onto a piece of white string.

And slept. The next morning I got up
early and ate my breakfast. I took a slice of white bread to use for bait.
I planned on making dough balls from the soft center of the bread
and putting them on my vaudevillian hook. I left the place and walked
down to the different streetCor...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

We Aint Got No Money Honey But We Got Rain

...cans of beans,
bread without butter;fried
eggs, boiled eggs, poached
eggs; peanut butter
sandwiches, and an invisible 
chicken in every pot.
my father, never a good man
at best, beat my mother
when it rained
as I threw myself
between them,
the legs, the knees, the
screams
until they
seperated.
"I'll kill you," I screamed
at him. "You hit her again
and I'll kill you!"
"Get that son-of-a-bitching
kid out of here!"
"no, Henry, you stay with
your mother!"
all the households were...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

Woman Work

...I've got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed
The garden to weed
I've got shirts to press
The tots to dress
The can to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float acro...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

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