Famous Coax Poems by Famous Poets

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

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O We Are The Outcasts

by Charles Bukowski
 ah, christ, what a CREW:
more
poetry, always more
P O E T R Y .

if it doesn't come, coax it out with a 
laxative. get your name in LIGHTS,
get it up there in
8 1/2 x 11 mimeo.

keep it coming like a miracle.

ah christ, writers are the most sickening
of all the louts!
yellow-toothed, slump-shouldered,
gutless, flea-bitten and
obvious . . . in tinker-toy rooms
with their...Read more of this...

Seein Things

by Eugene Field
I ain't afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I'm pretty brave, I guess; an' yet I hate to go to bed,
For, when I'm tucked up warm an' snug an' when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me "Happy dreams!" and takes away the light,
An' leaves me...Read more of this...

Talking to Grief

by Denise Levertov
 Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before...Read more of this...

The Death of the Hired Man

by Robert Frost
 Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. 'Silas is back.'
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. "Be kind,' she said.
She took the market things...Read more of this...

Underground System

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Set the foot down with distrust upon the crust of the
 world—it is thin.
Moles are at work beneath us; they have tunneled the
 sub-soil
With separate chambers; which at an appointed knock
Could be as one, could intersect and interlock. We walk
 on the skin
Of life. No toil
Of rake or hoe, no lime, no phosphate, no rotation of
 crops, no irrigation...Read more of this...

It would have starved a Gnat --

by Emily Dickinson
 It would have starved a Gnat --
To live so small as I --
And yet I was a living Child --
With Food's necessity

Upon me -- like a Claw --
I could no more remove
Than I could coax a Leech away --
Or make a Dragon -- move --

Not like the Gnat -- had I --
The privilege to fly
And seek a Dinner for...Read more of this...

The Trout

by Amy Lowell
 Naughty little speckled trout,
Can't I coax you to come out?
Is it such great fun to play
In the water every day?
Do you pull the Naiads' hair
Hiding in the lilies there?
Do you hunt for fishes' eggs,
Or watch tadpoles grow their legs?
Do the little trouts have school
In some deep sun-glinted pool,
And in recess play at tag
Round that bed of purple flag?
I have...Read more of this...

Grief is a Mouse --

by Emily Dickinson
 Grief is a Mouse --
And chooses Wainscot in the Breast
For His Shy House --
And baffles quest --

Grief is a Thief -- quick startled --
Pricks His Ear -- report to hear
Of that Vast Dark --
That swept His Being -- back --

Grief is a Juggler -- boldest at the Play --
Lest if He flinch -- the eye that way
Pounce on His...Read more of this...

Garden-Spot

by Dorothy Parker
 God's acre was her garden-spot, she said;
She sat there often, of the Summer days,
Little and slim and sweet, among the dead,
Her hair a fable in the leveled rays.

She turned the fading wreath, the rusted cross,
And knelt to coax about the wiry stem.
I see her gentle fingers on the moss
Now it is anguish to remember them.

And once I saw her...Read more of this...

Insomnia

by Robert William Service
 Heigh ho! to sleep I vainly try;
Since twelve I haven't closed an eye,
And now it's three, and as I lie,
From Notre Dame to St. Denis
The bells of Paris chime to me;
"You're young," they say, "and strong and free."

I do not turn with sighs and groans
To ease my limbs, to rest my bones,
As if my bed were stuffed with stones,
No...Read more of this...

Three Quatrains

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I

As long as Fame's imperious music rings 
Will poets mock it with crowned words august; 
And haggard men will clamber to be kings 
As long as Glory weighs itself in dust. 

II

Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled, 
Nor shudder for the revels that are done: 
The wines that flushed Lucullus are all spilled, 
The strings that Nero fingered...Read more of this...

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