Famous Footlights Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Footlights poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous footlights poems. These examples illustrate what a famous footlights poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...The white chiselings of flesh that flung themselves in somersaults, straddles, for packed houses:
A memory, a stage and footlights out, an electric sign on Broadway dark.
She belonged to somebody, nobody.
No one man owned her, no ten nor a thousand.
She belonged to many thousand men, lovers of the white chiseling of arms and shoulders, the ivory of a laugh, the bells of song.
Railroad brakemen taking trains across Nebraska prairies, lumbermen jaunting in pine and tamarack o...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...eyes called men to sea dreams and shark’s teeth … in a poem you
pour this like a cup of coffee, Kip.
Marching to the footlights in night robes with spots of blood, marching in white
sheets muffling the faces, marching with heads in the air they come back and
cough and cry and sneer:… in your poems, men, you pour these like cups of coffee....Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...e bright sun rings with a quiet sound
The sound of the bells has quieted
down
This morning the light hits it all
The footlights of my head are lit again
And the room I live in is finally bright
Just one beam is enough
Just one burst of laughter
My joy that shakes the house
Restrains those wanting to die
By the notes of its song
I sing off-key
Ah it's funny
My mouth open to every breeze
Spews mad notes everywhere
That emerge I don't know how
To fly toward other ears
L...Read more of this...
by
Reverdy, Pierre
...usand scenes;
brazen actors mock at him,
multiply pink harlequins and sing
in gay ventriloquy from wing to wing
while footlights flare and houselights dim.
Tell now, we taunq where black or white begins
and separate the flutes from violins:
the algebra of absolutes
explodes in a kaleidoscope of shapes
that jar, while each polemic jackanapes
joins his enemies' recruits.
The paradox is that 'the play's the thing':
though prima donna pouts and critic stings,
there burns...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...around, with every look of thine, a golden world,
Enhuing it with gorgeous hues.
As the chief histrion,
Down to the footlights walks, in some great scena,
Dominating the rest, I see the Admiral himself,
(History’s type of courage, action, faith;)
Behold him sail from Palos, leading his little fleet;
His voyage behold—his return—his great fame,
His misfortunes, calumniators—behold him a prisoner, chain’d,
Behold his dejection, poverty, death.
(Curious, in time, I sta...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...ziest things,
And Billie shouting and spouting, and everyone rapt and still.
Proud as a prince was Billie, bang in the footlights' glare,
And quaking for him was Millie, as she followed every word;
Then just as he reached the climax, ranting and sawing the air -
Ugh! How it makes me shudder! The horrible thing occurred...
'Twas the day when frocks were frilly, and skirts were scraping the ground,
And the snowy flounces of Millie like sea foam round her swept;
Humbly adoring...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
....]
CONGREGATION:
We were the oxen.
BOTH LEADERS:
You shall feel goads no more.
[Here King and Queen pause at the footlights.]
Walk dreadful roads no more,
[They walk backward, throwing off the yoke and rejoicing.]
Free from your loads
For ten thousand years.
BOTH LEADERS:
King Solomon he had four hundred sweethearts.
[The men's leader goes forward, the women's leader dances round him.]
CONGREGATION:
We were the sweethearts.
[Here he pauses at the footlights....Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...a buttercup,
Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings;
And with a silent, gliding step they move
Over the footlights, in familiar glare,
Panther-like in the Tango whirl of love,
He fawning close on her with idiot stare.
Swiftly they cross the stage. O lyric ease!
The drunken music follows the sure feet,
The swaying elbows, intergliding knees,
Moving with slow precision on the beat.
She was a waitress in a restaurant,
He picked her up and taught her how t...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
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