Famous Jerked Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Black Moran

by Robert William Service
 The mule-skinner was Bill Jerome, the passengers were three;
Two tinhorns from the dives of Nome, and Father Tim McGee.
And as for sunny Southland bound, through weary woods they sped,
The solitude that ringed them round was silent as the dead.

Then when the trail crooked crazily, the frost-rimed horses reared,
And from behind a fallen tree a grim galoot appeared;
He wore a...Read more of this...

On The Meeting Of García Lorca And Hart Crane

by Philip Levine
 Brooklyn, 1929. Of course Crane's
been drinking and has no idea who
this curious Andalusian is, unable
even to speak the language of poetry.
The young man who brought them
together knows both Spanish and English,
but he has a headache from jumping
back and forth from one language
to another. For a moment's relief
he goes to the window to look
down on the East River, darkening
below as...Read more of this...

What Happened

by Rudyard Kipling
 Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,
Owner of a native press, "Barrishter-at-Lar,"
Waited on the Government with a claim to wear
Sabres by the bucketful, rifles by the pair.

Then the Indian Government winked a wicked wink,
Said to Chunder Mookerjee: "Stick to pen and ink.
They are safer implements, but, if you insist,
We will let you carry arms wheresoe'er you list."

Hurree Chunder Mookerjee...Read more of this...

Fishermen

by James A Emanuel
 When three, he fished these lakes,
Curled sleeping on a lip of rock,
Crib blankets tucked from ants and fishbone flies,
Twitching as the strike of bass and snarling reel
Uncoiled my shouts not quit
Till he jerked blinking up on all-fours,
Swaying with the winking leaves.
Strong awake, he shook his cane pole like a spoon
And dipped among the wagging perch
Till, tired, he drew his...Read more of this...

The Fawn

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 There it was I saw what I shall never forget
And never retrieve.
Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to
 believe,
He lay, yet there he lay,
Asleep on the moss, his head on his polished cleft
 small ebony hoves,
The child of the doe, the dappled child of the deer.

Surely his mother had never said, "Lie here
Till I return," so spotty and...Read more of this...

In The Virgins

by Derek Walcott
 You can't put in the ground swell of the organ
from the Christiansted, St.Croix, Anglican Church
behind the paratrooper's voice: "Turned cop
after Vietnam. I made thirty jumps."
Bells punish the dead street and pigeons lurch
from the stone belfry, opening their chutes,
circling until the rings of ringing stop.
"Salud!" The paratrooper's glass is raised.
The congregation rises to its feet
like a patrol, with scuffling shoes...Read more of this...

The Fruit Shop

by Amy Lowell
 Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown,
High-waisted, girdled with bright blue;
A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown
She pluckered her little brows into
As she picked her dainty passage through
The dusty street. "Ah, Mademoiselle,
A dirty pathway, we need rain,
My poor fruits suffer, and the shell
Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain
Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
The baker down...Read more of this...

The Revenge Of Hamish

by Sidney Lanier
 It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.

Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;
In the print of her velvet flank on the...Read more of this...

The Smoking Frog

by Robert William Service
 Three men I saw beside a bar,
Regarding o'er their bottle,
A frog who smoked a rank cigar
They'd jammed within its throttle.

A Pasha frog it must have been
So big it as and bloated;
And from its lips the nicotine
In graceful festoon floated.

And while the trio jeered and joked,
As if it quite enjoyed it,
Impassively it smoked and smoked,
(It could now well avoid it).

A...Read more of this...

Bridge Over The Aire Book 3

by Barry Tebb
 THE KINGDOM OF MY HEART





1



The halcyon settled on the Aire of our days

Kingfisher-blue it broke my heart in two

Shall I forget you? Shall I forget you?



I am the mad poet first love

You never got over

You are my blue-eyed

Madonna virgin bride

I shall carve ‘MG loves BT’

On the bark of every 

Wind-bent tree in 

East End Park



2



The park itself will blossom

And...Read more of this...

Toms Little Dog

by Walter de la Mare
 Tom told his dog called Tim to beg, 
And up at once he sat, 
His two clear amber eyes fixed fast, 
His haunches on his mat.Tom poised a lump of sugar on 
His nose; then, "Trust!" says he; 
Stiff as a guardsman sat his Tim; 
Never a hair stirred he. 

"Paid for!" says Tom; and in a trice 
Up...Read more of this...

Dream Song 10: There were strange gatherings. A vote would come

by John Berryman
 There were strange gatherings. A vote would come
that would be no vote. There would come a rope.
Yes. There would come a rope.
Men have their hats down. "Dancing in the Dark"
will see him up, car-radio-wise. So many, some
won't find a rut to park.

It is in the occasions, that-”not the fathomless heart-”
the thinky death consists;
his chest is pinched. The enemy are...Read more of this...

The Sharks Parlor

by James Dickey
 Memory: I can take my head and strike it on a wall on Cumberland Island 
Where the night tide came crawling under the stairs came up the first 
Two or three steps and the cottage stood on poles all night 
With the sea sprawled under it as we dreamed of the great fin circling 
Under the bedroom floor. In...Read more of this...

Flounder

by Natasha Trethewey
 Here, she said, put this on your head.
She handed me a hat.
you 'bout as white as your dad,
and you gone stay like that.
Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down
around each bony ankle,
and I rolled down my white knee socks
letting my thin legs dangle,
circling them just above water
and silver backs of minnows
flitting here then there between
the sun spots and the shadows.
This...Read more of this...

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