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Famous Lobster Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,
is opaque, but the silver of the benches, 
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered
among the wild jagged rocks,
is of an apparent translucence
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss
growing on their shoreward walls.
The big fish tubs are completely lined 
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered 
with creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth



...IOCA 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 BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE
POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL
PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM
PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM
BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER
CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER
AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT
PERIWINKLE SAUERKRAUT
COTTON CANDY C...Read more of this...
by Prelutsky, Jack
...Plop, plop. The lobster toppled in the pot,
fulfilling, dislike man, his destiny,
glowing fire-red,
succulent, and on the whole becoming what
man wants. I crack my final claw singly,
wind up the grave, & to bed.

—Sound good, Mr Bones. I wish I had me some.
(I spose you got a lessen up your slave.)
—O no no no.
Sole I remember; where no lobster s...Read more of this...
by Berryman, John
...You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with 
 his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent 
 bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me...Read more of this...
by Neruda, Pablo
...His face was like a lobster red,
His legs were white as mayonnaise:
"I've had a jolly lunch," he said,
That Englishman of pleasant ways.
"Thy do us well at our hotel:
In England food is dull these days."

"We had a big langouste for lunch.
I almost ate the whole of it.
And now I'll smoke and read my Punch,
And maybe siesta a bit;
And then I'll plunge into the se...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William



...hoke."
(I said "It serves them right!") 

"And folk who sup on things like these - "
He muttered, "eggs and bacon -
Lobster - and duck - and toasted cheese -
If they don't get an awful squeeze,
I'm very much mistaken! 

"He is immensely fat, and so
Well suits the occupation:
In point of fact, if you must know,
We used to call him years ago,
THE MAYOR AND CORPORATION! 

"The day he was elected Mayor
I KNOW that every Sprite meant
To vote for ME, but did not dare -
He was s...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.

Or, another time, in warm weather, out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots, where they are
 sunk
 with heavy stones, (I know the buoys;) 
O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water, as I row, just before sunrise,
 toward the buoys; 
I pull the wicker pots up slantingly—the dark-green lobsters are desperate with their
 claws, as I take them out—I insert wooden pegs in the joints of their pincers, 
I go to...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...et him who is without my poems be assassinated! 
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—let the mudfish, the lobster, the
 mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—let these, and the like of
 these, be
 put on a perfect equality with man and woman!
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those who have died of the
 most
 filthy of diseases! 
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools! 
Let men among themselves t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...cketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,
 All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below,
 Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray --
 Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay!

One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by;
 Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo'c'sle short;
Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly;
 Left the Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port.
 Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul;
 Clan...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...here I'm suet-strafing in the
 Battle of the Bulge.
No more will sausage, bacon, eggs provide my breakfast fare;
On lobster I will never lunch, with mounds of mayonnaise.
At tea I'll Spartanly eschew the chocolate éclair;
Roast duckling and péche melba shall not consummate my days.
No more nocturnal ice-box raids, midnight spaghetti feeds;
On slabs of pâté de foie gras I vow I won't indulge:
Let bran and cottage cheese suffice my gastronomic needs,
And lettuce be ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...food.
Food,
Yes, food,
Just any old kind of food.
Pheasant is pleasant, of course,
And terrapin, too, is tasty,
Lobster 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 painter...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden
...atoes vomited up their stomachs.
The caviar turned to lave.
The pimentos kissed like cupids.
I moved like a lobster,
slower and slower.
The air was tiny.
The air would not do.
*
I was at the dogs' party.
I was their bone.
I had been laid out in their kennel
like a fresh turkey.

This was my sister's dream
but I remember that quartering;
I remember the sickbed smell
of the sawdust floor, the pink eyes,
the pink tongues and the teeth, those n...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...ll to morn and even-song.
The saint, to which the most he prays
And offers incense nights and days,
The lady of the lobster is,
Whose foot-pace he doth stroke and kiss,
And, humbly, chives of saffron brings
For his most cheerful offerings.
When, after these, he's paid his vows,
He lowly to the altar bows;
And then he dons the silk-worm's shed,
Like a Turk's turban on his head,
And reverently departeth thence,
Hid in a cloud of frankincense;
And by the glow-worm's ligh...Read more of this...
by Herrick, Robert
...sh water
Running down a glass washboard at one end
And siphoned off at the other, and so
Perpetually renewed, a herd of lobster
Is made available to the customer
Who may choose whichever one he wants
To carry home and drop into boiling water
And serve with a sauce of melted butter. 

Meanwhile, the beauty of strangeness marks
These creatures, who move (when they do)
With a slow, vague wavering of claws,
The somnambulist¹s effortless clambering
As he crawls over the shell ...Read more of this...
by Nemerov, Howard
...ink.

It radiates on
terminal vertebra 
a comb of twenty

upright spines 
and curls 
its rocky tail.

Saltflush lobster
bull encrusted swims

backwards from the rock.



From The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi. Copyright © 1986 by Callman Rawley....Read more of this...
by Rakosi, Carl
..." said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won' t you, won' t you join the dance? 

"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out t...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...ure as Dürer changed
the pine green of the Tyrol to peacock blue and guinea
gray. You can see a twenty-five-
 pound lobster; and fish nets arranged
to dry. The

whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt
 marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the
star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so
much confusion. Disguised by what
 might seem the opposite, the sea-
side flowers and

trees are favored by the fog so that you have
 the tropics first hand: ...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne
...''Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a tim...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...the Pizza Hut?
Thank you for telling me your sign.
I'm filled with joy by this sun!
The turtle is advancing but the lobster stays behind. Silence has won the game!
Well, just damn you and the thermometer!
I don't want to ask the doctor.
I didn't know what you meant when you said that to me.
It's getting cold, but I am feeling awfully lazy.
If you want to we can go over there
Where there's a little more light....Read more of this...
by Koch, Kenneth
...It was a Maine lobster town—
each morning boatloads of hands
pushed off for granite
quarries on the islands,

and left dozens of bleak 
white frame houses stuck
like oyster shells
on a hill of rock,

and below us, the sea lapped
the raw little match-stick 
mazes of a weir,
where the fish for bait were trapped.

Remember? We sat on a slab of rock.
>From this distanc...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Robert

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