Famous Fingers Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Monosyllabic

by Carl Sandburg
 LET me be monosyllabic to-day, O Lord.
Yesterday I loosed a snarl of words on a fool,
 on a child.
To-day, let me be monosyllabic … a crony of old men
 who wash sunlight in their fingers and
 enjoy slow-pacing clocks....Read more of this...

My Mouth Hovers Across Your Breasts

by Adrienne Rich
 My mouth hovers across your breasts
in the short grey winter afternoon
in this bed we are delicate
and touch so hot with joy we amaze ourselves
tough and delicate we play rings
around each other our daytime candle burns
with its peculiar light and if the snow
begins to fall outside filling the branches
and if the night falls without announcement
there are the pleasures of winter
sudden,...Read more of this...

These potters who constantly plunge their fingers into

by Omar Khayyam
These potters who constantly plunge their fingers into
the clay, who employ all their mind, all their intelligence,
all their faculties to mould it, even to the crushing of
it with their feet and striking with their hands, of what
think they? It is the same clay as the human body that
they are treating thus....Read more of this...

In The Secular Night

by Margaret Atwood
 In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It's two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen,
when the others were out somewhere, having a good time,
or so you suspected,
and you had to baby-sit.
You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream
and filled up the glass with grapejuice
and ginger ale, and put on Glenn...Read more of this...

The Fingers of the Light

by Emily Dickinson
 The Fingers of the Light
Tapped soft upon the Town
With "I am great and cannot wait
So therefore let me in."

"You're soon," the Town replied,
"My Faces are asleep --
But swear, and I will let you by,
You will not wake them up."

The easy Guest complied
But once within the Town
The transport of His Countenance
Awakened Maid and Man

The Neighbor in the Pool
Upon His Hip...Read more of this...

Mystery

by George William Russell
 WHY does this sudden passion smite me?
I stretch my hands, all blind to see:
I need the lamp of the world to light me,
 Lead me and set me free.


Something a moment seemed to stoop from
The night with cool, cool breath on my face:
Or did the hair of the twilight droop from
 Its silent wandering ways?


About me in the thick...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Departure

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing In the sunshine.
Bright above him shone the...Read more of this...

after the parties

by Rg Gregory
 let's all go to the party friends
where left over bottles and stale ***-ends
are proudly on offer from the last time round
and our hosts believe by a ritual sound
fine spirits will flow and new cellophane wrappers
will tingle the fingers of eligible clappers

let's all ignite at the party friends
and burn with the best of the latest trends
which prove that the world...Read more of this...

Death In Leamington

by John Betjeman
 She died in the upstairs bedroom
By the light of the ev'ning star
That shone through the plate glass window
From over Leamington Spa

Beside her the lonely crochet
Lay patiently and unstirred,
But the fingers that would have work'd it
Were dead as the spoken word.

And Nurse came in with the tea-things
Breast high 'mid the stands and chairs-
But Nurse was alone with her own little...Read more of this...

Face Lift

by Sylvia Plath
 You bring me good news from the clinic,
Whipping off your silk scarf, exhibiting the tight white
Mummy-cloths, smiling: I'm all right.
When I was nine, a lime-green anesthetist
Fed me banana-gas through a frog mask. The nauseous vault
Boomed with bad dreams and the Jovian voices of surgeons.
Then mother swam up, holding a tin basin.
O I was sick.

They've changed all that. Traveling
Nude as...Read more of this...

Pau-Puk-Keewis

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,
He, the handsome Yenadizze,
Whom the people called the Storm-Fool,
Vexed the village with disturbance;
You shall hear of all his mischief,
And his flight from Hiawatha,
And his wondrous transmigrations,
And the end of his adventures.
On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water
Stood the lodge of Pau-Puk-Keewis.
It was he who in his frenzy
Whirled these...Read more of this...

The Three Voices

by Robert William Service
 The waves have a story to tell me,
 As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
 The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
 I cannot put into speech.

The waves tell of ocean spaces,
 Of hearts that are wild and brave,
Of populous city places,
 Of desolate shores they lave,
Of men...Read more of this...

I held a jewel in my fingers

by Emily Dickinson
I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: " 'T will keep."

I woke and chid my honest fingers, --
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own....Read more of this...

An Alphabet of Famous Goops

by Gelett Burgess
 AN ALPHABET OF FAMOUS GOOPS.
Which you 'll Regard with Yells and Whoops.
Futile Acumen! 
For you Yourselves are Doubtless Dupes
Of Failings Such as Mar these Groups --
We all are Human!

1 ABEDNEGO was Meek and Mild; he Softly Spoke, he Sweetly Smiled.
2 He never Called his Playmates Names, and he was Good in Running Games;
3 But he was Often in Disgrace...Read more of this...

Interim

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 The room is full of you!—As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!—

Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,—
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death—
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
And...Read more of this...

Crimson Changes People

by Carl Sandburg
 DID I see a crucifix in your eyes
and nails and Roman soldiers
and a dusk Golgotha?

Did I see Mary, the changed woman,
washing the feet of all men,
clean as new grass
when the old grass burns?

Did I see moths in your eyes, lost moths,
with a flutter of wings that meant:
we can never come again.

Did I see No Man’s Land in your eyes
and...Read more of this...

Turns And Movies: The Cornet

by Conrad Aiken
 When she came out, that white little Russian dancer, 
With her bright hair, and her eyes, so young, so young, 
He suddenly lost his leader, and all the players, 
And only heard an immortal music sung,—

Of dryads flashing in the green woods of April, 
On cobwebs trembing over the deep, wet grass: 
Fleeing their shadows with laughter, with hands...Read more of this...

Making Love To Concrete

by Audre Lorde
 An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
sleek leather boots on the pavement
rat-a-tat-tat best intentions
going down for the third time
stuck in the particular

You cannot make love to concrete
if you care about being
non-essential wrong or worn thin
if you fear ever becoming
diamonds or lard
you cannot make love to concrete
if you...Read more of this...

Faces In A Crowd

by Barry Tebb
 The women are all wearing imitation silk scarves,

Blackpool or Biarritz, sipping Woman, masticating

The morning’s post, new babies and bathrooms, going

To file, snip, fiddle and smile through fish-eyes,

Crinkly green gloss, store it in stocking-tops

For next year abroad, that Pill, so perfect!



Flashing smiles from shiny domes and polished eye-lenses,

The men are glossy all over, snapping mortgages and scores

They slap fellow-souls at...Read more of this...

Rosalinds Scroll

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I LEFT thee last a child at heart  
A woman scarce in years: 
I come to thee a solemn corpse 
Which neither feels nor fears. 
I have no breath to use in sighs; 5 
They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes 
To seal them safe from tears. 

Look on me with thine own calm look: 
I meet it calm...Read more of this...

Easter Week

by Joyce Kilmer
 See the land, her Easter keeping, 
Rises as her Maker rose. 
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping, 
Burst at last from winter snows. 
Earth with heaven above rejoices; 
Fields and gardens hail the spring; 
Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices, 
While the wild birds build and sing. 

You, to whom your Maker granted 
Powers to those sweet birds unknown,...Read more of this...

My Soul is Dark

by George (Lord) Byron
 My soul is dark - Oh! quickly string 
The harp I yet can brook to hear; 
And let thy gentle fingers fling 
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear. 
If in this heart a hope be dear, 
That sound shall charm it forth again: 
If in these eyes there lurk a tear, 
'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain....Read more of this...

Arms And The Boy

by Wilfred Owen
 Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads
Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads.
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.

For his...Read more of this...

June Sick Room

by A S J Tessimond
 The birds' shrill fluting
Beats on the pink blind,
Pierces the pink blind
At whose edge fumble the sun's
Fingers till one obtrudes
And stirs the thick motes.
The room is a close box of pink warmth.
The minutes click.
A man picks across the street
With a metal-pointed stick.
Three clocks drop each twelve pennies
On the drom of noon.
The birds end.
A child's cry pricks the hush.
The wind plucks...Read more of this...

Music

by A S J Tessimond
 This shape without space,
This pattern without stuff,
This stream without dimension
Surrounds us, flows through us,
But leaves no mark.

This message without meaning,
These tears without eyes
This laughter without lips
Speaks to us but does not
Disclose its clue.

These waves without sea
Surge over us, smooth us.
These hands without fingers
Close-hold us, caress us.
These wings without birds
Strong-lift us, would carry us
If only the one thread broke....Read more of this...

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