Famous Lava Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

How good his Lava Bed

by Emily Dickinson
 How good his Lava Bed,
To this laborious Boy --
Who must be up to call the World
And dress the sleepy Day --...Read more of this...

Volcanoes be in Sicily

by Emily Dickinson
 Volcanoes be in Sicily
And South America
I judge from my Geography --
Volcanos nearer here
A Lava step at any time
Am I inclined to climb --
A Crater I may contemplate
Vesuvius at Home....Read more of this...

Bleezers Ice Cream

by Jack Prelutsky
 I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER...Read more of this...

Communism

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 When my blood flows calm as a purling river, 
When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway, 
It is then that I vow we must part for ever, 
That I will forget you, and put you away
Out of my life, as a dream is banished
Out of the mind when the dreamer awakes; 
That I know it will...Read more of this...

Sounds of Imagination

by Dejan Stojanovic
I imagined I was a mountain 
Then I became a cloud over that mountain 
Lightning and thunder pummeled the mountain 
Pierced the heart of the earth, 
Becoming lava and exploding as a volcano. 

I imagined I was a star 
Light traveling into space 
Then I grew as a tree 
With leaves of galaxies eating the light 
Becoming the angel of...Read more of this...

All All And All The Dry Worlds Lever

by Dylan Thomas
 I

All all and all the dry worlds lever,
Stage of the ice, the solid ocean,
All from the oil, the pound of lava.
City of spring, the governed flower,
Turns in the earth that turns the ashen
Towns around on a wheel of fire.

How now my flesh, my naked fellow,
Dug of the sea, the glanded morrow,
Worm in the scalp, the staked and fallow.
All all...Read more of this...

The Eruption Of Vesuvius

by Victor Hugo
 ("Quand longtemps a grondé la bouche du Vésuve.") 
 
 {I. vii.} 


 When huge Vesuvius in its torment long, 
 Threatening has growled its cavernous jaws among, 
 When its hot lava, like the bubbling wine, 
 Foaming doth all its monstrous edge incarnadine, 
 Then is alarm in Naples. 
 
 With dismay, 
 Wanton and wild...Read more of this...

Jug

by Carl Sandburg
 THE SHALE and water thrown together so-so first of all,
Then a potter’s hand on the wheel and his fingers shaping the jug; out of the mud a mouth and a handle;
Slimpsy, loose and ready to fall at a touch, fire plays on it, slow fire coaxing all the water out of the shale mix.
Dipped in glaze more fire plays...Read more of this...

Tor House

by Robinson Jeffers
 If you should look for this place after a handful 
 of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast 
 cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers 
 had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you...Read more of this...

The Old Arm-chair

by Eliza Cook
 I LOVE it, I love it ; and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old Arm-chair ?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize ;
I've bedewed it with tears, and embalmed it with sighs.
' Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart ;
Not a tie will break, not a link will start.
Would ye learn the spell...Read more of this...

The Dream Of Wearing Shorts Forever

by Les Murray
 To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass, 

to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches, 

or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
on the plank verandah -...Read more of this...

The Death Baby

by Anne Sexton
 1. DREAMS

I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.

My sister at six
dreamt nightly of my death:
"The baby turned to ice.
Someone put her in the refrigerator
and she turned as hard as a Popsicle."

I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How...Read more of this...

Pompeii And Herculaneum

by Friedrich von Schiller
 What wonder this?--we ask the lympid well,
O earth! of thee--and from thy solemn womb
What yieldest thou?--is there life in the abyss--
Doth a new race beneath the lava dwell?
Returns the past, awakening from the tomb?
Rome--Greece!--Oh, come!--Behold--behold! for this!
Our living world--the old Pompeii sees;
And built anew the town of Dorian Hercules!
House upon house--its silent halls once more
Opes the broad portico!--Oh, haste...Read more of this...

netley 47

by Rg Gregory
 army hospital
rheumatic fever
bed-tied many weeks
too embarrassed to ask for bedpan
the rigmarole of screens and knowing attention
- for my pains
severe constipation
and bleeding piles

am led away to be injected

crouching
waist-down undressed
upon a marble table

being shaved the wrong end
(easy talk between doctor and nurse)

the needle takes its time
feeling for entrance
(gentle talk between fingers and tongue)

JAB
searing lava
stuck pig

bouquets in white coats

sorely to bed
time
evaporates the...Read more of this...

A Farewell to Agassiz

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 How the mountains talked together,
Looking down upon the weather,
When they heard our friend had planned his
Little trip among the Andes
How they'll bare their snowy scalps
To the climber of the Alps
When the cry goes through their passes,
"Here comes the great Agassiz!"
"Yes, I'm tall," says Chimborazo,
"But I wait for him to say so,--
That's the only thing that lacks,-- he
Must see me,...Read more of this...

Not Fear

by Rafael Guillen
 Not fear. Maybe, out there somewhere,
the possibility of fear; the wall
that might tumble down, because it's for sure
that behind it is the sea.
Not fear. Fear has a countenance;
It's external, concrete,
like a rifle, a shot bolt,
a suffering child,
like the darkness that's hidden
in every human mouth.
Not fear. Maybe only the brand
of the offspring of fear.

It's a narrow, interminable street
with all the...Read more of this...

The First Black Flag

by Victor Hugo
 ("Avez-vous oui dire?") 
 
 {LES BURGRAVES, Part I., March, 1843.} 


 JOB. Hast thou ne'er heard men say 
 That, in the Black Wood, 'twixt Cologne and Spire, 
 Upon a rock flanked by the towering mountains, 
 A castle stands, renowned among all castles? 
 And in this fort, on piles of lava built, 
 A burgrave...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Lava poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace