Famous Joke Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Joke poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous joke poems. These examples illustrate what a famous joke poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Alan Dugan
The river brought down
dead horses, dead men
and military debris,
indicative of war
or official acts upstream,
but it went by, it all
goes by, that is the thing
about the river. Then
a soldier on a log
went by. He seemed drunk
and we asked him Why
had he and this junk
come down to us so
from the past upstream.
''Friends,'' he said, ''the great
Battle of Granicus
has just been won
by...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog
By the troopers of the upper Murray side,
They had searched in every gully -- they had looked in every log,
But never sight or track of him they spied,
Till the priest at Kiley's Crossing heard a knocking very late
And a whisper "Father Riley --...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Stripping an almond tree in flower
The wise apothecary's skill
A single drop of lethal power
From perfect sweetness can distill
From bitterness in efflorescence,
With murderous poisons packed therein;
The poet draws pellucid essence
Pure as a drop of metheglin....Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THREE tailors of Tooley Street wrote: We, the People.
The names are forgotten. It is a joke in ghosts.
Cutters or bushelmen or armhole basters, they sat
cross-legged stitching, snatched at scissors, stole each
other thimbles.
Cross-legged, working for wages, joking each other
as misfits cut from the cloth of a Master Tailor,
they sat and spoke their thoughts of the glory of
The People, they met...Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
You young friskies who today
Jump and fight in Father’s hay
With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers,
Happy though these hours you spend,
Have they warned you how games end?
Boys, from the first time you prod
And thrust with spears of curtain-rod,
From the first time you tear and slash
Your long-bows from the...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The shearers sat in the firelight, hearty and hale and strong,
After the hard day's shearing, passing the joke along:
The "ringer" that shore a hundred, as they never were shorn before,
And the novice who, toiling bravely, had tommy-hawked half a score,
The tarboy, the cook and the skushy, the sweeper that swept the board,
The picker-up, and...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Out of my heart, one day, I wrote a song,
With my heart's blood imbued,
Instinct with passion, tremulously strong,
With grief subdued;
Breathing a fortitude
Pain-bought.
And one who claimed much love for what I wrought,
Read and considered it,
And spoke:
"Ay, brother,—'t is well writ,
But where's the joke?"
...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there
poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
for Daniel Weissbort
Some poems meant only for my eyes
About a grief I can’t let go
But I want to, want to throw
It away like an old worn-out cloak
Or screw up like a ball of over-written
Trash and toss into the corner bin.
I said it must come up or out
I don't know which but either way
Will do, I know I can't write...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die--
Whether he die in the light o' day or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;
On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift or draw;
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, by...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows ' flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs ' they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, ' wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long ' lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ' ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
She does not mind a good cigar
(The kind, that is, I smoke);
She thinks all men quite stupid are,
(But laughs whene’er I joke).
She says she does not care for verse
(But praises all I write);
She says that punning is a curse,
(But then mine are so bright!)
She does not like a big moustache
(You see that mine is...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
NOW, Kennedy, if foot or horse
E’er bring you in by Mauchlin corse,
(Lord, man, there’s lasses there wad force
A hermit’s fancy;
An’ down the gate in faith they’re worse,
An’ mair unchancy).
But as I’m sayin, please step to Dow’s,
An’ taste sic gear as Johnie brews,
Till some bit callan bring me news
That ye are there;
An’ if we dinna hae a...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
'Nay; I don't need a hearing aid'
I told Mama-in-law;
'For if I had I'd be afraid
Of your eternal jaw;
Although at me you often shout,
I'm undisturbed;
To tell the truth I can't make out
A single word.'
And it's the same with others who
Attempt to gab at me;
I listen to their point of view
And solemnly agree.
To story stale...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of...Read more of this...
by
Christopher Smart
In ev'ry age, and each profession,
Men err the most by prepossession;
But when the thing is clearly shown,
And fairly stated, fully known,
We soon applaud what we deride,
And penitence succeeds to pride.--
A certain Baron on a day
Having a mind to show away,
Invited all the wits and wags,
Foot, Massey, Shuter, Yates, and Skeggs,...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee,
His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free;
But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing,
Them flowin' locks jest disappeared like snow-balls in the Spring;
Jest seemed to wilt an' fade away like dead leaves in the Fall,
An' left old Chewed-ear balder than a white-washed cannon ball.
Now Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins,...Read more of this...
by
Anna Akhmatova
Under her dark veil she wrung her hands.
"Why are you so pale today?"
"Because I made him drink of stinging grief
Until he got drunk on it.
How can I forget? He staggered out,
His mouth twisted in agony.
I ran down not touching the bannister
And caught up with him at the gate.
I cried: 'A joke!
That's all it was. If you leave, I'll die.'
He...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I Laugh at Life: its antics make for me a giddy games,
Where only foolish fellows take themselves with solemn aim.
I laugh at pomp and vanity, at riches, rank and pride;
At social inanity, at swager, swank and side.
At poets, pastry-cooks and kings, at folk sublime and small,
Who fuss about a thousand things that matter not at all;
At those who dream...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
1. The Poet
Someone awake when others are sleeping,
Asleep when others are awake.
An illiterate who signs everything with an X.
A man about to be hanged cracking a joke.
2. The Poem
It is a piece of meat
Carried by a burglar
To distract a watchdog....Read more of this...
by
Sir Thomas Wyatt
MY mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That for because her livelood was but thin [livelihood]
Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endured to much pain:
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse
That when the furrows swimmed with the rain...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear;
Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow;
And I, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year,
Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow.
They're playing a tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there
(God!...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on a Monday morning, and in the year of 1884,
That a fire broke out in Bailie Bradford's store,
Which contained bales of jute and large quantities of waste,
Which the brave firemen ran to extinguish in great haste.
They left their wives that morning without any dread,
Never thinking, at the burning pile, they would be killed dead
By the falling of...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Orphée au bois du Caystre.")
{Bk. I. ii.}
Orpheus, through the hellward wood
Hurried, ere the eve-star glowed,
For the fauns' lugubrious hoots
Followed, hollow, from crookèd roots;
Aeschylus, where Aetna smoked,
Gods of Sicily evoked
With the flute, till sulphur taint
Dulled and lulled the echoes faint;
...Read more of this...
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