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Famous Dinners Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Thomas, Dylan
...wo furling
smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle ...Read more of this...



by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...ints and a song for the sinners,
You go and are welcome wherever you please;
You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners,
You've a seat on the platform among the grandees.

At length your mere presence becomes a sensation,
Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim 
With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration,
As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That's him!"

But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous,
So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched,
Though ...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...an reading until he annoyed the shoulder.
A fat woman yawned and felt the liquid drops
Drip down the fleece of many dinners.

And the bird flew parallel and parallel flew
The black pencil lines of telephone posts, crucified,
At regular intervals, post after post
Of thrice crossed, blue-belled, anonymous trees.

And then the bird cried as if to all of us:

 0 your life, your lonely life
 What have you ever done with it,
 And done with the great gift of consciousnes...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...me are visited.

Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,

And sense the solving emptiness
That lies just under all we do,
And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.
The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;

For borne away in deadened ...Read more of this...

by Edson, Russell
...he table every night; the same fractured 
skull, the same singed fur; like someone who died horribly. These 
aren't dinners, these are post-mortem dissections.

 Try a piece of its gum, I've stuffed its mouth with bread, 
said mother.

 Ugh, it looks like a mouth full of vomit. How can I bite into 
its cheek with bread spilling out of its mouth? cried father.

 Break one of the ears off, they're so crispy, said mother.

 I wish to hell you'd put underp...Read more of this...



by Sandburg, Carl
...ffice the mayor himself told me he was
happy though it is a hard job to satisfy all the office-
seekers and eat all the dinners he is asked to eat.
Down in Gilpin Place, near Hull House, was a man with
his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache,
And he had it all over the butter millionaire, Jim Kirch
and the mayor when it came to happiness.
He is a maker of accordions and guitars and not only
makes them from start to finish, but plays them
after he makes them.
And he ha...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...
Novotel, Valley Park Motel, the Hilton:

Hot tubs, saunas, swim spas, en suite 

Satellite TV, conference rooms, disco dinners.

I knew Len, the tubby taxi man

With his retirement dreams of visiting

The world’s great galleries:

‘Titian, Leonardo, Goya,

I’ve lived all my life in the house I was born in

All my life I’ve saved for this trip’ 

The same house he was done to death in

Tortured by three fourteen year olds,

Made headlines for one night, another

Murder to...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...ths to little girls
And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower
And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs
Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among the tufts of motling may
The young girls whisper things of love
And from the old dames hearing move
Oft making 'love knotts' i...Read more of this...

by Moore, Thomas
...- those cormorant sinners,
The Bankrupt-Commissioners bolt very nearly
A moderate-siz'd bankrupt, tout chaud, for their dinners![2]
Nota bene - a rumour to-day, in the City,
"Mr. R-b-ns-n just has resign'd" - what a pity!
The Bulls and the Bears all fell a sobbing,
When they heard of the fate of poor Cock Robin;
While thus, to the nursery tune, so pretty,
A murmuring Stock-dove breath'd her ditty: --

"Alas, poor Robin, he crow'd as long
And as sweet as a prosperous Cock ...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...n Hutchinson, a greater saint?
Was there a parson used to pray,
At times more regular, twice a day;
As folks exact have dinners got,
Whether they've appetites or not?
Was there a zealot more alarming
'Gainst public vice to hold forth sermon,
Or fix'd at church, whose inward motion
Roll'd up his eyes with more devotion?
What puritan could ever pray
In godlier tone, than Treasurer Gray,
Or at town-meetings speechifying,
Could utter more melodious whine,
And shut his eyes, and v...Read more of this...

by Lux, Thomas
...b of ice cream,
or just pop one in your mouth. Not once.
The same jar there through an entire
childhood of dull dinners -- bald meat,
pocked peas and, see above,
boiled potatoes. Maybe
they came over from the old country,
family heirlooms, or were status symbols
bought with a piece of the first paycheck
from a sweatshop,
which beat the pig farm in Bohemia,
handed down from my grandparents
to my parents
to be someday mine,
then my child's?
They were beautiful
and, ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...around them before it is night! 
 When flourish the trumpets, etc. 
 
 We're the Emperor's winners 
 Of right royal dinners, 
 Where cities are served up and flanked by estates, 
 While we wallow in claret, 
 Knowing not how to spare it, 
 Though beer is less likely to muddle our pates— 
 While flourish the trumpets, etc. 
 
 Gods of battle! red-handed! 
 Wise it was to have banded 
 Such arms as are these for embracing of gain! 
 Hearken to each war-vulture 
 ...Read more of this...

by Parker, Dorothy
...stock;
Passing by a fountain,
Wringing at a rock;

Devil-gotten sinners,
Throwing back their heads,
Fiddling for their dinners,
Kissing for their beds.

Not a one had seen us
Wouldn't help him flee.
Angry ran between us
Blood of him and me.

How shall I be mating
Who have looked above-
Living for a hating,
Dying of a love?...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...toner -- 
"See, my Lord! ain't he fine! 
How is that for a swine!" 
When it isn't a patch on its owner! 

We fix up the dinners 
For parsons and sinners 
And lawyers and bishops and showmen, 
And a judge of the court 
We put next to a "sport", 
And an Orangeman next to a Roman. 

We send invitations 
To all celebrations, 
Some Nobody's presence entreating, 
And the old folks of all 
We invite to a ball, 
And the young -- to a grandmothers' meeting. 

And when we go da...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...aying.

Out in the plowed ground in the cold a digger,
Among unearthed potatoes standing still,
Was counting winter dinners, one a hill,
With half an ear to the piano's vigor.

All that piano and new paint back there,
Was it some money suddenly come into?
Or some extravagance young love had been to?
Or old love on an impulse not to care--

Not to sink under being man and wife,
But get some color and music out of life?...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...please, my thousand guilders!"

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare havoc
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gypsy coat of red and yellow!
"Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,
"Our business was done at the river's brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...James Scrymgeour trying
To rescue fallen creatures from the paths of vice? 

And in the winter he tries to provide
Hot dinners for the poor children of Dundee,
Who are starving with hunger no doubt,
And in the most abject poverty. 

He is a little deaf, no doubt,
But not deaf to the cries of hungry men,
No! he always tries to do his best
To procure bread for them. 

And at the Sabbath-morning free-breakfasts
He is often seen there,
Administering to the wants of the h...Read more of this...

by Brecht, Bertolt
...And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me tho...Read more of this...

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