Famous Convicts Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Convicts poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous convicts poems. These examples illustrate what a famous convicts poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...dashing about and groaning!
We,
our face like a crumpled sheet,
our lips pendulant like a chandelier;
we,
the convicts of the City Leprous,
where gold and filth spawned leper¡¯s sores,
we are purer than the azure of Venice,
washed by both the sea and the sun!
I spit on the fact
that neither Homer nor Ovid
invented characters like us,
pock-marked with soot.
I know
the sun would dim, on seeing
the gold fields of our souls!
Sinews and muscles ...Read more of this...
by
Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...of bars.
I wince to see dogs chained,
Or horses bit restrained;
Or men of feeble mind
In straight-jackets confined;
Or convicts in black cells
Enduring earthly hells:
To me not to be free
Is fiendish cruelty.
To me not to be kind
Is evil of the mind.
No need to pray or preach,
Let us our children teach
With every fond caress
Pity and gentleness:
So in the end may we
God's Kingdom bring to be....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...Dick's dead! It was the Polack guard
Put powdered glass into his cage
When I was tramping round the yard,--
I could have killed him in my rage.
I slugged him with that wrench I stole:
That's why I'm rotting in the Hole.
Dick's dead! Sure I wish I was too.
His honey breast, his lacy claws
I kissed and cried, for well I knew
They murdered him. I cursed beca...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
..., hollow,
their milky bodies tan
to the colour of annas.
The wind changes their identity:
slender Giacomettis, Doré's convicts,
Rodin's burghers of Calais
with five bowed heads
and the weight of serrated keys . . .
They wither into mystery, waiting
to find out why they are,
patiently, before nirvana
when the rain comes down like vitriol....Read more of this...
by
Raine, Craig
...hameful scenes, the digger hunt begins.
The men are seized who are too poor the heavy tax to pay,
Chained man to man as convicts were, and dragged in gangs away.
Though in the eyes of many a man the menace scarce was hid,
The diggers' blood was slow to boil, but scalded when it did.
But now another match is lit that soon must fire the charge
"Roll up! Roll up!" the poignant cry awakes the evening air,
And angry faces surge like waves around the speakers there.
"What are our ...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...tical they shrieked and sang: --
"Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
Hallelujah! It was ***** to see
Bull-necked convicts with that land make free.
Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare
On, on upward thro' the golden air!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
II
[Bass drum slower and softer.]
Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,
Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.
Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief
Eagle countenance in sharp relief...Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...,
While her gown touch’d them, rustling in the silence,
She vanish’d with her children in the dusk.
5While upon all, convicts and armed keepers, ere they stirr’d,
(Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)
A hush and pause fell down, a wondrous minute,
With deep, half-stifled sobs, and sound of bad men bow’d, and moved to weeping,
And youth’s convulsive breathings, memories of home,
The mother’s voice in lullaby, the sister’s care, the happy childhood,
The ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ering;
See myself in prison shaped like another man,
And feel the dull unintermitted pain.
For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch;
It is I let out...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...elly displayed.
The street becomes more dreary from its shade,
And vagrant breezes touch its walls and die.
Here sullen convicts in their chains might lie,
Or slaves toil dumbly at some dreary trade.
How worse than folly is their labor made
Who cleft the rocks that this might rise on high!
Yet, as I look, I see a woman's face
Gleam from a window far above the street.
This is a house of homes, a sacred place,
By human passion made divinely sweet.
How all the building thrills w...Read more of this...
by
Kilmer, Joyce
...Ye mountains and glens of fair Scotland I'm with ye once again,
During my absence from ye my heart was like to break in twain;
Oh! How I longed to see you and the old folks at home,
And with my lovely Jeannie once more in the green woods to roam.
Now since I've returned safe home again
I will try and be content
With my lovely Jeannie at home,
And forget ...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...Ye mountains and glens of Old Ireland,
I've returned home to ye again;
During my absence from ye
My heart always felt great pain.
Oh, how I long'd to see you dear Nora,
And the old folks at home;
And the beautiful Lakes o' Killarney,
Where we oft together did roam.
Ye beautiful Lakes of Killarney,
Ye are welcome to me again;
I will now reform my charac...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...re tracks run high,
Where waits the lonely horseman, cut clear against the sky;
Past haunted half-way houses--where convicts made the bricks---
Scrub-yards and new bark shanties, we dash with five and six;
Through stringy-bark and blue-gum, and box and pine we go---
A hundred miles shall see to-night the lights of Cobb and Co!...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...ine --
'Tis this -- invites -- appalls -- endows --
Flits -- glimmers -- proves -- dissolves --
Returns -- suggests -- convicts -- enchants --
Then -- flings in Paradise --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...or regret,
dismissive, free
to roam the street,
no matter how
the visions meet.
Remembrance is
a neighborhood
where convicts live
with great and good,
its roads of red,
uneven brick,
whose surfaces –
both rough and slick –
spread out into
a patchwork plan.
Sometimes at night
I hear a man
vault past the fence,
and cross the yard,
my door chain down,
and me off-guard.
He curses, threatens,
pounds the door.
I’m wedged between
the couch and floor,
ungainly, bar...Read more of this...
by
Reeser, Jennifer
...YOU felons on trial in courts;
You convicts in prison-cells—you sentenced assassins, chain’d and
hand-cuff’d
with
iron;
Who am I, too, that I am not on trial, or in prison?
Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain’d with iron, or my
ankles
with
iron?
You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs, or obscene in your rooms,
Who am I, that I should call you more ob...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
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