Famous Feckless Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Proud Lady

by Henry Van Dyke
 When Stiivoren town was in its prime
And queened the Zuyder Zee,
Its ships went out to every clime
With costly merchantry. 

A lady dwelt in that rich town,
The fairest in all the land;
She walked abroad in a velvet gown,
With many rings on her hand. 

Her hair was bright as the beaten gold,
Her lips as coral red,
Her roving eyes were blue and...Read more of this...

The Joyous Malingerer

by Ogden Nash
 Who is the happy husband? Why, indeed,
'Tis he who's useless in the time of need;
Who, asked to unclasp a bracelet or a neckless,
Contrives to be utterly futile, fumbling, feckless,
Or when a zipper nips his loved one's back
Cannot restore the zipper to its track.
Another time, not wishing to be flayed,
She will not use him as a lady's maid.

Stove-wise he's the...Read more of this...

42. A Poet's Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter

by Robert Burns
 THOU’S 1 welcome, wean; mishanter fa’ me,
If thoughts o’ thee, or yet thy mamie,
Shall ever daunton me or awe me,
 My bonie lady,
Or if I blush when thou shalt ca’ me
 Tyta or daddie.


Tho’ now they ca’ me fornicator,
An’ tease my name in kintry clatter,
The mair they talk, I’m kent the better,
 E’en let them clash;
An auld wife’s tongue’s...Read more of this...

Feckless With Disgust

by Jerome Rothenberg
 All erasure of pain
is like the contrary of
dust that weighs
dark in my lungs
when I am 
feckless with disgust.
I stroke & poke
my loins before 
they tighten.
My feet stomp
fields of color
reminding me of
something I once knew.
Dying frees
the spirit
from the mind.
We plod along
regardless of
the pain.
Soon we grow
big & fat.
We stop
forgetting, far off
from whatever 
binds us
mindlessly
to empty space.
Beginning here
we reignite
desire.
We will surrender 
what...Read more of this...

Memory

by Siegfried Sassoon
 When I was young my heart and head were light, 
And I was gay and feckless as a colt 
Out in the fields, with morning in the may, 
Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom. 
O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free
And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time 
Across the carolling meadows into June....Read more of this...

A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices

by Stephen Crane
 A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices
Which, bawled by boys from mile to mile,
Spreads its curious opinion
To a million merciful and sneering men,
While families cuddle the joys of the fireside
When spurred by tale of dire lone agony.
A newspaper is a court
Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried
By a squalor of honest men.
A newspaper is a market
Where wisdom sells...Read more of this...

Our Son

by Barry Tebb
 Quarter to three: I wake again at the hour of his birth

Thirty years ago and now he paces corridors of dark

In nightmares of self-condemnation where random thoughts

Besiege his fevered imagination – England’s 

Imminent destruction, his own, the world’s…

Sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, unavailing depot injections,

Failed abscondings, failed everything: Eton and Balliol

Hold no sway on ward one, nor even...Read more of this...

Big Hair

by David Lehman
 Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie
tear, wanting to look like a moll
in a Chandler novel. Dinner, consisting of three parts gin 
and one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair.
There are, she said, poems that can be written 
only when the poet is clad in black underwear. 

But that's Jorie for you. Always cracking...Read more of this...

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