Famous Jam Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Jam poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous jam poems. These examples illustrate what a famous jam poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...nicer zan 'em all,
She calls you, "precious lamb,"
An' let's you roll your ten-pin ball,
An' spreads your bread wiz jam.
An' when you're bad, she ist looks sad,
You fink she's goin' to cry;
An' when she don't you're awful glad,
[Pg 248]An' den you're good, Oh, my!
At night, she takes ze softest hand,
An' lays it on your head,
An' says "Be off to Sleepy-Land
By way o' trundle-bed."
So when you fink what muvver kn...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...s up to Shan
Collecting opium to send to The Man
Pushing junk in Bangkok yesterday
Supported by the CIA
Brought their jam on mule trains down
To Chiang Rai that's a railroad town
Sold it next to the police chief brain
He took it to town on the choochoo train
Trafficking dope to Bangkok all day
Supported by the CIA
The policeman's name was Mr. Phao
He peddled dope grand scale and how
Chief of border customs paid
By Central Intelligence's U.S. A.I.D.
The whole operation, N...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...s and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn's Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle's brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scr...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...essing,
Lead us nobody knows where.
Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.
To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.
Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norm...Read more of this...
by
Lewis, C S
...and lighten; and such joy arrives
Their thick tongues blort, their eyes squeeze grief, a crowd
Of huge unheard answers jam and rejoice -
What's wrong! Moustached in flowered frocks they shake:
By now, all's wrong. In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love.
To some it means the difference they could make
By loving others, but across most it sweeps
As all they might have done had they been loved.
That nothing cures. An immense slackening ache,
As when, ...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...
They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
They set him conundrums to guess.
When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
And excitedly tingled his bell.
There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream,
Scarcely even a howl or a groan,
As the man they called "Ho!" told his stor...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...This is the rainy season.
I am sorrowful in November.
The kettle is whistling.
I must butter the toast.
And give it jam too.
My kitchen is a heart.
I must feed it oxygen once in a while
and mother the mother.
*
Say the woman is forty-four.
Say she is five seven-and-a-half.
Say her hair is stick color.
Say her eyes are chameleon.
Would you put her in a sack and bury her,
suck her down into the dumb dirt?
Some would.
If not, time will.
Ms. Dog, how much time ...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...e final days
She was too busy auxiliary nursing
Or working in the Lakeside Caf?.
It was her wages that put bread and jam
And baked beans into your stomachs.
Her final hospitalisation
Was the arena for your father’s last rage
Her fare interfering with the night’s drinking;
He fought in the Burma Campaign but won no medals.
Some kind of psychiatric discharge- ‘paranoia’
Lurked in his papers. The madness went undiagnosed
Until his sixtieth birthday. You never let ...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...ten by a Lion
There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo--
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which I now relate.
You know--or at least you ought to know,
For I have often told you so--
That Children never are allowed
To leave their Nurse...Read more of this...
by
Belloc, Hilaire
...The day was wet, the rain fell souse
Like jars of strawberry jam, [1] a
sound was heard in the old henhouse,
A beating of a hammer.
Of stalwart form, and visage warm,
Two youths were seen within it,
Splitting up an old tree into perches for their poultry
At a hundred strokes [2] a minute.
The work is done, the hen has taken
Possession of her nest and eggs,
Without a thought of eggs and bacon, [3]
(Or I am very much ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...y cell:
Hid, I say, by waiters
Gorgeous in their gaiters -
I've a Tale to tell.
Little Birds are feeding
Justices with jam,
Rich in frizzled ham:
Rich, I say, in oysters
Haunting shady cloisters -
That is what I am.
Little Birds are teaching
Tigresses to smile,
Innocent of guile:
Smile, I say, not smirkle -
Mouth a semicircle,
That's the proper style!
Little Birds are sleeping
All among the pins,
Where the loser wins:
Where, I say, he sneezes
When and how he pleases -
So t...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...r, like the flakes
In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce
Of multitude, as crowds that in an hour
Of civic tumult jam the doors, and bear
The keepers down, and throng, their rags and the
The basest, far into that council-hall
Where sit the best and stateliest of the land?
³Can I not fling this horror off me again,
Seeing with how great ease Nature can smile
Balmier and nobler from her bath of storm,
At random ravage? and how easily
The mountain there has cast his c...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...nth by any chance.
The office was their haven, for they lived there when hard-up --
A `daily' for a table cloth -- a jam tin for a cup;
And if the landlord's bailiff happened round in times like these
And seized the office-fittings -- well, there wasn't much to seize --
They would leave him in possession. But at other times they shot
The moon, and took an office where the landlord knew them not.
And when morning brought the bailiff there'd be nothing to be seen
Save ...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...ver sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin,
And that seems to say: "You may try all day, but you'll never jam me in"?
I'm not a man of the quitting kind, but I never felt so blue
As I sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what I'd do.
Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs that were nosing round about,
And I lit a roaring fire in the stove, and I started to thaw Bill out.
Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days, but it didn't seem no good;
His ar...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...er I freely endorse,
In pate or patty or pasty.
But there's nothing the matter with butter,
And nothing the matter with jam,
And the warmest greetings I utter
To the ham and the yam and the clam.
For they're food,
All food,
And I think very fondly of food.
Through I'm broody at times
When bothered by rhymes,
I brood
On food.
Some painters paint the sapphire sea,
And some the gathering storm.
Others portray young lambs at play,
But most, the female form.
“Twas trite in that pr...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...
What I see. It's a little, little boy,
As pale and dim as a match flame in the sun;
He's groping in the cellar after jam,
He thinks it's dark and it's flooded with daylight."
"He's nothing. Listen. When I lean like this
I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,--
With his pipe in his mouth and his brown jug--
Bless you, it isn't Grandsir Stark, it's Granny,
But the pipe's there and smoking and the jug.
She's after cider, the old girl, she's thirsty;
Here's hopi...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
They set him conundrums to guess.
When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
And excitedly tingled his bell.
There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream,
Scarcely even a howl or a groan,
As the man they called "Ho!" told his s...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...me and gloated,
Learning the lines that seemed to sound most grand;
So soon the pretty emerald green was coated
With jam and greasy marks from my hot hand,
While round the nursery for long months there floated
Wonderful words no one could understand....Read more of this...
by
Graves, Robert
...ach in a school;
Some of us help with the seat of our pants to polish an office stool;
The merits of somebody's soap or jam some of us seek to explain,
But all of us wonder what we'll do when we have to go back again....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...me. I've given you rope
To hang me: tell me I'm mistaken. You're so much in
The world; while I just live here, bent on jam
And harvest, songs and books. That's not complaint.
We live such different lives. So - this is the end. It's taken
All night. I'm scared to read it back. I'm faint
With shame and fear. But this is what I am. My crumpled bed,
My words, my open self. All I can do is trust
The whole damn lot of it to you."
*
She sighs. The paper trembles as she presses do...Read more of this...
by
Padel, Ruth
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