Famous Joked Poems by Famous Poets

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

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American Beauty

...high

not to crash. When the cancer caught you
you went on talk shows to say you had no fear
or faith.
In Baltimore we joked on your bed as you turned into
a witty wraith.

When you died I cleaned out your bureau drawers:
your usual disorder; an assortment of gorgeous wigs
and prosthetic breasts
tossed in garbage bags, to spare your gentle spouse.
Then the bequests

you had made to every friend you had!
For each of us a necklace or a ring.
A snapshot for me:
We two, barefoot...Read more of this...
by Kizer, Carolyn


Death In The Arctic

...sloughed off, his fingers died,
His hands shrunk up and mummified.
I had to feed him like a child;
Yet he was valiant, joked and smiled,
Talked of his wife and little one
(Thanks be to God that I have none),
Passed in the night without a moan,
Passed, and I'm here, alone, alone. . . .

"I've got to kill you, Dick.
Your life for mine, you know.
Better to do it quick,
A swift and sudden blow.
See! here's my hand to lick;
A hug before you go --
God! but it makes me sick:
Old do...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

For Lew Welch In A Snowfall

...w reading a thesis
About you. Your poems, your life.

The author's my student,
He even quotes me.

Forty years since we joked in a kitchen in Portland
Twenty since you disappeared.

All those years and their moments—
Crackling bacon, slamming car doors,
Poems tried out on friends,
Will be one more archive,
One more shaky text.

But life continues in the kitchen
Where we still laugh and cook,
Watching snow....Read more of this...
by Snyder, Gary

Like A Flower In The Rain

...lling into the mass
of red hair that overflowed
from her head 
and my flattened cock entered
into the miracle.
later we joked about the lotion
and the cigarette and the apple.
then I went out and got some chicken
and shrimp and french fries and buns
and mashed potatoes and gravy and 
cole slaw,and we ate.she told me
how good she felt and I told her
how good I felt and we 
ate the chicken and the shrimp and the
french fries and the buns and the
mashed potatoes and the gravy an...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

The Bistro Styx

.... . ."Fruit
and cheese appeared, arrayed on leaf-green dishes.

I stuck with café crème."This Camembert's
so ripe," she joked, "it's practically grown hair,"
mucking a golden glob complete with parsley sprig
onto a heel of bread.Nothing seemed to fill

her up: She swallowed, sliced into a pear,
speared each tear-shaped lavaliere
and popped the dripping mess into her pretty mouth.
Nowhere the bright tufted fields, weighted

vines and sun poured down out of the south.
"But are ...Read more of this...
by Dove, Rita


The Division Of Parts

...nce
forgot how long it took.
I read to you
from The New Yorker, ate suppers
you wouldn't eat, fussed
with your flowers,
joked with your nurses, as if I
were the balm among lepers,
as if I could undo
a life in hours
if I never said goodbye.
But you turned old,
all your fifty-eight years sliding
like masks from your skull;
and at the end
I packed your nightgowns in suitcases,
paid the nurses, came riding
home as if I'd been told
I could pretend
people live in places.

3.
Since ...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Everlasting Mercy

...me another cup," said Riley. 
A dozen more were in their glories 
With laughs and smokes and smutty stories; 
And Jimmy joked and took his sup 
And sang his song of "Up, come up." 
Jane brought the bowl of stewing gin 
And poured the egg and lemon in, 
And whisked it up and served it out 
While bawdy questions went about. 
Jack chucked her chin, and Jim accost her 
With bits out of the "Maid of Gloster." 
And fifteen arms went round her waist. 
(And then men ask, Are Barmaids...Read more of this...
by Masefield, John

The Smoking Frog

...en
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 ring of fire its lips were nigh
Yet it seemed all unwitting;
It could not spit, like you and I,
Who've learned the art of spitting.

It did not wink, it did not shrink,
As there serene it squatted'
Its eyes were clear, it did not fear
The fate the Gods allott...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

To Any Dead Officer

...perate keen to live: 
You were all out to try and save your skin, 
Well knowing how much the world had got to give.
You joked at shells and talked the usual ‘shop,’ 
Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine: 
With ‘Jesus Christ! when will it stop? 
Three years ... It’s hell unless we break their line.’ 

So when they told me you’d been left for dead
I wouldn’t believe them, feeling it must be true. 
Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said 
‘Wounded and missing’—(That’s the th...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried

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