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Famous Gonna Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Silverstein, Shel
...and gray and old
and I looked at him and my blood ran cold,
and I said, "My name is Sue. How do you do?
Now you're gonna die." Yeah, that's what I told him.

Well, I hit him right between the eyes and he went down
but to my surprise he came up with a knife
and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair
right across his teeth. And we crashed through
the wall and into the street kicking and a-gouging
in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell y...Read more of this...



by Knight, Etheridge
...d blues.
Going back to Mississippi
This time to stay for good
Going back to Mississippi
This time to stay for good-
Gonna be free in Mississippi
Or dead in the Mississippi mud....Read more of this...

by Giovanni, Nikki
...All I Gotta Doall i gotta do  is sit and wait  sit and wait  and it's gonna find  me  all i gotta do  is sit and wait  if i can learn how    what i need to do  is sit and wait  cause i'm a woman  sit and wait  what i gotta do  is sit and wait  cause i'm a woman  it'll find me    you get yours  and i'll get mine  if i learn  to sit and wait  you got y...Read more of this...

by Angelou, Maya
...make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone....Read more of this...

by Estep, Maggie
...my skull. I needed a job, but first,
I needed a haircut.

So I head for this beauty salon on Avenue B.
I'm gonna get a hairdo.
I'm gonna look just like those hot Spanish haircut models, become brown
and bodacious, grow some 7 inch fingernails painted ***** red and rake
them down the chalkboard of the job market's soul.

So I go in the beauty salon.

This beautiful Puerto Rican girl in tight white spandex and a push-up bra
sits me down and starts chopp...Read more of this...



by Hammad, Suheir
...for my belly
i got a new name
secret nobody knows
the cold can't call me
leaving won't know 
where to find me 
october gonna hide me
in her harvest in
her seasons
happy birthday daughter
of the falling...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the...Read more of this...

by Berryman, John
...of dusks, made up
by some ol' writer-man, got right forgot
& the greennesses of ours.
Springwater grow so thick it gonna clot
and the pleasing ladies cease. I figure, yup,
you is bad powers....Read more of this...

by Cohen, Leonard
...s that the naked man and woman 
Are just a shining artifact of the past 
Everybody knows the scene is dead 
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed 
That will disclose 
What everybody knows 
And everybody knows that you're in trouble 
Everybody knows what you've been through 
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary 
To the beach of Malibu 
Everybody knows it's coming apart 
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart 
Before it blows 
And everybody knows 
Everybody knows, everyb...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...jack-knife in his heart,
Laughin' to see the hot blood start;
Laughin' still, though it's long ago,
And nobody's ever a-gonna know.

Nobody's ever a-gonna tell
How Ol' Man Shay went straight to hell;
nobody's gonna make me confess -
And what is a killin' more or less.
My skin may be black, but by Christ! I fight;
I've slain a dozen, and each was white,
And none of 'em ever did me no harm,
And my conscience is clear - I've no alarm;
So I'll go where I sank Ol' Man Shay...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...he dumb dirt? 
Some would. 
If not, time will. 
Ms. Dog, how much time you got left? 
Ms. Dog, when you gonna feel that cold nose? 
You better get straight with the Maker 
cuz it's coming, it's a coming! 
The cup of coffee is growing and growing 
and they're gonna stick your little doll's head 
into it and your lungs a gonna get paid 
and your clothes a gonna melt. 
Hear that, Ms. Dog! 
You of the songs, 
you of the classroom, 
you of the pocketa-pocke...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...-
But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

 Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...humm-m! . . . Yes!
You say I gave my O.K.?
Well, that O.K. you may keep--

But I sure ain't gonna pay!...Read more of this...

by Tusa, Chris
...maine, 
even got Creoles two-stepping with pythons 
along the banks of Bayou St. John.

They say soon my powers gonna fade,
that there’s a noose aloose in the streets
looking for a neck to blame. 
But I’m just a lowly colored woman 
and ain’t nobody gonna blame a worm
for scaring a catfish onto a hook....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...nvite his partner to behold.
"Look hard," says he; "It's all you'll see in this god-blasted land;
But you fret, I'm gonna let you hold them i your hand.
Yeah! Watch 'em gleam, then go and dream they're yours to have and hold."
Then Hank the Finn would scratch his chin and . . . do as he was told.

But every night by camp-fire light, he'd incubate his woes,
And fan the hate of mate for mate, the evil Artic knows.
In dreams the Lapland withes glo...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...hold! I've mixed some strychnine in a cup;
Enough to kill a dozen men - believe me it's no bluff;
Now watch me, for I'm gonna drink it up.
You've seen me bludgeoned by despair through bitter days and nights,
And now you'll see me squirming as I die.
You're not to blame, you've played the game according to your lights...
But how would Christ have played it? - Well, good-bye..."

With that I raised the deadly drink and laid it to my lips,
But he ...Read more of this...

by Field, Edward
...go right to it:
He has been well prepared for coupling
by his pinching leering keeper who's been saying for weeks,
"Ya gonna get a little nookie, kid,"
or "How do you go for some poontang, baby?"
All the evil in him is focused on this one thing now
as he is led into her very presence.

She awakens slowly,
she bats her eyes,
she gets up out of the equipment,
and finally she stands in all her seamed glory,
a monster princess with a hairdo like a fright wig,
lightning flash...Read more of this...

by Estep, Maggie
...obsessed with
has pants on that perfectly define his well-shaped ass
to the point where I'm thoroughly frantic
I'm just gonna go home 
and stick my head in the oven
overdose on nutmeg and aspirin
and sit in the bathtub reading The Executioner's Song
and being completely confounded by the fact
that I can see
the stupid jerk I'm obsessed with's face
defining itself in the peeling plaster of the wall
grinning and winking
and I start to yell,
Get the hell out of there
You're just...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Ruth L
...oking away her days off in her dirty kitchen,
Her kid with asthma watching TV,
The boyfriend who doesn't know yet she's gonna
Leave him, washing his car out back--and 
He's a runty little guy, and drinks too much, and
It's not his kid anyway, but he loves her, he
Really does, he loves them both--
That's the kind of swan this is....Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...ne man 
sharing a heart that always labours, hands 
yellowed and cracked, a mouth that gasps 
for breath and asks, Am I gonna make it? 

All night at the ice plant he had fed 
the chute its silvery blocks, and then I 
stacked cases of orange soda for the children 
of Kentucky, one gray boxcar at a time 

with always two more waiting. We were twenty 
for such a short time and always in 
the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt 
and sweat. I think now we were never twenty.<...Read more of this...

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