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Famous Headlights Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Berryman, John
...er all, had got him ready.
However things hurt, men hurt worse. He's stark
to be jerked onward?
Yes. In the headlights he got' keep him steady,
leak not, look out over. This' hard work,
boss, wait' for The Word....Read more of this...



by Schwartz, Delmore
...In the naked bed, in Plato's cave, 
Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall,
Carpenters hammered under the shaded window,
Wind troubled the window curtains all night long,
A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding,
Their freights covered, as usual.
The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram
Slid slowly forth.
 Hearing the milkman's clop,
his striving up the stair, the bottle's chink,
...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...fate of want and woe.

How happily he hurried home to me,
Bringing a new-baked, crisp-brown loaf of bread.
The headlights of the car he did not see,
And when help came they thought that he was dead.
He stared with wonder from a face so wan . . .
A long, last look and he was gone,--was gone.

We've comfort now, and yet it hurts to know
We owe our joy to little, laughing Joe....Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...teady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.

Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before apopleptic streetcars—
Misfit in any space. And never on time.

A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease;
In traffic of wit expertly maneuver
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.

Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstic...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...thing swinging in the cage of my heart
except the faint hope that I might
catch a glimpse of the thing
in the fan of my headlights,
maybe perched on a road sign or a street lamp,
poor unwritten bird, its wings folded,
staring down at me with tiny illuminated eyes....Read more of this...



by Voznesensky, Andrei
...e is a dog. His eyes are phosphorescent. 
 Are you a friend? I see you're not complacent... 

 Some headlights push the darkness off the drive. 
 My friend is to arrive. 

 He said that he would come at nine or so. 
 People are watching a TV show. 

 Should animosity drop in I'll turn it out, -- 
 I'll wait around. 

 Months, years go by, but Herman's not in sight. 
 The whole of nature is cut off from light. 

 I'll see my frie...Read more of this...

by Justice, Donald
...all things then were oracle and secret.
Remember the night when, lost, returning, we turned back
Confused, and our headlights singled out the fox?
Our thoughts went with it then, turning and turning back
With the same terror, into the deep thicket
Beside the highway, at home in the dark thicket.

3
I say the wood within is the dark wood,
Or wound no torn shirt can entirely bandage,
But the sad hand returns to it in secret
Repeatedly, encouraging the bandage
To speak ...Read more of this...

by Wright, James
...nd take strange wing. Many
Of the dead never moved, but many
Of the dead are alive forever in the split second
Auto headlights more sudden
Than their drivers know.
The drivers burrow backward into dank pools
Where nothing begets
Nothing.

Across the road, tadpoles are dancing
On the quarter thumbnail
Of the moon. They can't see,
Not yet....Read more of this...

by Wylie, Elinor
...The headlights raced; the moon, death-faced, 
Stared down on that golden river. 
I saw through the smoke the scarlet cloak 
Of a boy who could not shiver.

His father's hand forced him to stand, 
The traffic thundered slaughter; 
One foot he thrust in the whirling dust 
As it were running water.

As in a dream I saw the stream 
Scatter in drops that ...Read more of this...

by Roethke, Theodore
...ce to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,
Where the car stalls,
Churning in a snowdrift
Until the headlights darken. 

II

At the field's end, in the corner missed by the mower,
Where the turf drops off into a grass-hidden culvert,
Haunt of the cat-bird, nesting-place of the field-mouse,
Not too far away from the ever-changing flower-dump,
Among the tin cans, tires, rusted pipes, broken machinery, --
One learned of the eternal;
And in the shrunken fa...Read more of this...

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