Famous Getting Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Coffee

by Richard Brautigan
 Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee
affords. I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you;
it stimulates all the organs.
I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but
as time goes by I have found out that it...Read more of this...

Lion and Honeycomb

by Howard Nemerov
 He didn't want to do it with skill,
He'd had enough of skill. If he never saw
Another villanelle, it would be too soon;
And the same went for sonnets. If it had been
Hard work learning to rime, it would be much
Harder learning not to. The time came
He had to ask himself, what did he want?
What did he want when he began
That...Read more of this...

snail and spiral

by Rg Gregory
 i take my property with me says the snail
slow-moving (yes) but packed with sublime thought
the house upon its back some kind of grail
vulnerable to brute boot - and wisdom bought

by barely making it through life’s dull crawl
the pace of it denies technology’s demand
that speed be safety (that getting there is all)
the snail enjoys being aeon’s ampersand

the snail goes round...Read more of this...

The Doctor Will Return

by Weldon Kees
 The surgical mask, the rubber teat
Are singed, give off an evil smell.
You seem to weep more now that heat
Spreads everywhere we look.
It says here none of us is well.

The warty spottings on the figurines
Are nothing you would care to claim.
You seem to weep more since the magazines
Began revivals on the Dundas book.
It says here you were most to blame.

But...Read more of this...

The Wishing-Caps

by Rudyard Kipling
 Life's all getting and giving,
 I've only myself to give.
 What shall I do for a living?
 I've only one life to live.
 End it? I'll not find another.
 Spend it? But how shall I best?
 Sure the wise plan is to live like a man
 And Luck may look after the rest!
 Largesse! Largesse, Fortune!
 Give or hold...Read more of this...

The White Knights Song

by Lewis Carroll
 'Haddock's Eyes' or 'The Aged Aged Man' or
'Ways and Means' or 'A-Sitting On A Gate'

I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
'Who are you, aged man?' I said.
'And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among...Read more of this...

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church

by Emily Dickinson
 Some keep the Sabbath going to Church --
I keep it, staying at Home --
With a Bobolink for a Chorister --
And an Orchard, for a Dome --

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice --
I just wear my Wings --
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton -- sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman --
And the sermon is never long,
So instead...Read more of this...

that precise moment

by Rg Gregory
 however foul the times or difficult the ways are
through those personal morasses this change of age
won’t let a single being (rich or poor) be free from
come spring the trees get on with their blossoming
you’d think they didn’t read the newspapers

you’d think the media hadn’t yet found a way
of getting to them conveying the miserable truths
this creaking into a new...Read more of this...

Cows In Art Class

by Charles Bukowski
 good weather
is like
good women-
it doesn't always happen
and when it does
it doesn't
always last.
man is
more stable:
if he's bad
there's more chance
he'll stay that way,
or if he's good
he might hang
on,
but a woman
is changed
by
children
age
diet
conversation
sex
the moon
the absence or
presence of sun
or good times.
a woman must be nursed
into subsistence
by love
where a man can become
stronger
by being hated. 
I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I...Read more of this...

Beach Glass

by Amy Clampitt
 While you walk the water's edge,
turning over concepts
I can't envision, the honking buoy
serves notice that at any time
the wind may change,
the reef-bell clatters
its treble monotone, deaf as Cassandra
to any note but warning. The ocean,
cumbered by no business more urgent 
than keeping open old accounts
that never balanced,
goes on shuffling its millenniums
of quartz, granite, and basalt.
 It behaves
toward the permutations of...Read more of this...

Round-Pond

by Richard Aldington
 Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind 
Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breaks 
Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. 
The shining of the sun upon the water 
Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals 
In a long wavering irregular flight. 

The water is cold to the eye 
As the wind to the cheek. 

In the budding chestnuts...Read more of this...

Im Scared Of It All

by Robert William Service
 I'm scared of it all, God's truth! so I am;
It's too big and brutal for me.
My nerve's on the raw and I don't give a damn
For all the "hoorah" that I see.
I'm pinned between subway and overhead train,
Where automobillies swoop down:
Oh, I want to go back to the timber again --
I'm scared of the terrible town.

I want to go...Read more of this...

The Recumbent Posture

by Marriott Edgar
 The day after Christmas, young Albert
Were what's called, confined to his bed,
With a tight kind of pain in his stummick
And a light feeling up in his head.

His parents were all in a fluster
When they saw little lad were so sick,
They said, 'Put out your tongue!', When they'd seen it
They said, 'Put it back again - quick!'

Ma made him a...Read more of this...

The Toy-Maker

by Russell Edson
 A toy-maker made a toy wife and a toy child. 
He made a toy house and some toy years.

 He made a getting-old toy, and he made a dying 
toy.

 The toy-maker made a toy heaven and a toy god.

 But, best of all, he liked making toy ****....Read more of this...

California Plush

by Frank Bidart
 The only thing I miss about Los Angeles

is the Hollywood Freeway at midnight, windows down and
radio blaring
bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower
on the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard
blazing

--pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars

--descending through the city
 fast as the law would allow

through the lights, then rising to the stack
out of the city
to...Read more of this...

The World Is Too Much With Us

by William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out...Read more of this...

Toads

by Philip Larkin
 Why should I let the toad work
 Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
 And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils 
 With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
 That's out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:
 Lecturers, lispers,
Losels, loblolly-men, louts-
 They don't end as paupers;

Lots...Read more of this...

The Drovers Sweetheart

by Henry Lawson
 An hour before the sun goes down 
Behind the ragged boughs, 
I go across the little run 
And bring the dusty cows; 
And once I used to sit and rest 
Beneath the fading dome, 
For there was one that I loved best 
Who'd bring the cattle home. 

Our yard is fixed with double bails, 
Round one the grass is...Read more of this...

Our New Horse

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The boys had come back from the races 
All silent and down on their luck; 
They'd backed 'em, straight out and for places, 
But never a winner they's struck. 
They lost their good money on Slogan, 
And fell most uncommonly flat 
When Partner, the pride of the Bogan, 
Was beaten by Aristocrat. 
And one said, "I move that instanter...Read more of this...

Casey At The Bat

by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, 
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play. 

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, 
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game. 

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. 
The rest clung to that...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 04: 02: Death: And A Derisive Chorus

by Conrad Aiken
 The door is shut. She leaves the curtained office,
And down the grey-walled stairs comes trembling slowly
Towards the dazzling street.
Her withered hand clings tightly to the railing.
The long stairs rise and fall beneath her feet.

Here in the brilliant sun we jostle, waiting
To tear her secret out . . . We laugh, we hurry,
We go our way, revolving, sinister, slow.
She blinks...Read more of this...

Getting There

by Sylvia Plath
 How far is it?
How far is it now?
The gigantic gorilla interior
Of the wheels move, they appall me ---
The terrible brains
Of Krupp, black muzzles
Revolving, the sound
Punching out Absence! Like cannon.
It is Russia I have to get across, it is some was or other.
I am dragging my body
Quietly through the straw of the boxcars.
Now is the time for bribery.
What do wheels...Read more of this...

Second Poem

by Peter Orlovsky
 Morning again, nothing has to be done, 
 maybe buy a piano or make fudge.
At least clean the room up for sure like my farther I've done flick 
 the ashes & butts over the bed side on the floor.
But frist of all wipe my glasses and drink the water 
 to clean the smelly mouth.
A nock on the...Read more of this...

Fortune Of War

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 NOUGHT more accursed in war I know

Than getting off scot-free;
Inured to danger, on we go

In constant victory;
We first unpack, then pack again,

With only this reward,
That when we're marching, we complain,

And when in camp, are bor'd.

The time for billeting comes next,--

The peasant curses it;
Each nobleman is sorely vex'd,

'Tis hated by the cit.
Be civil, bad though be thy food,

The clowns politely...Read more of this...

Saturday Night in the Parthenon

by Kenneth Patchen
 Tiny green birds skate over the surface of the room.
A naked girl prepares a basin with steaming water,
And in the corner away from the hearth, the red wheels
Of an up-ended chariot slowly turn.
After a long moment, the door to the other world opens
And the golden figure of a man appears. He stands
Ruddy as a salmon beside the niche where...Read more of this...

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