Famous Mayor Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Mayor poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous mayor poems. These examples illustrate what a famous mayor poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Whitman, Walt
...
But there is one thing that belongs here—shall I tell you what it is, gentlemen of
Boston?
I will whisper it to the Mayor—he shall send a committee to England;
They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the royal vault—haste!
Dig out King George’s coffin, unwrap him quick from the grave-clothes, box up his
bones
for a
journey;
Find a swift Yankee clipper—here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper,
Up with your anchor! shake out your sails! st...Read more of this...
by
Donne, John
...corn his houshold policies,
His seely plots, and pensionary spies,
As the inhabitants of Thames' right side
Do London's Mayor; or Germans, the Pope's pride....Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...r run to seed
A luncheon and a drink or two, a little savoir faire -
I fix the Planning Officer, the Town Clerk and the Mayor.
And if some Preservationist attempts to interfere
A 'dangerous structure' notice from the Borough Engineer
Will settle any buildings that are standing in our way -
The modern style, sir, with respect, has really come to stay....Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...ss even though
some of the reporters on his newspaper say he is
the living double of Jack London's Sea Wolf.
In the mayor's office the mayor himself told me he was
happy though it is a hard job to satisfy all the office-
seekers and eat all the dinners he is asked to eat.
Down in Gilpin Place, near Hull House, was a man with
his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache,
And he had it all over the butter millionaire, Jim Kirch
and the mayor when it came to happiness.
He is ...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...t'.
And, in those offices, my doggerel
Was not set up in blunt ten-point, nor read
By a distinguished cousin of the mayor,
Who didn't call and tell my father There
Before us, had we the gift to see ahead -
'You look as though you wished the place in Hell,'
My friend said, 'judging from your face.' 'Oh well,
I suppose it's not the place's fault,' I said.
'Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.'...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...We look on the shoulders filling the stage of the Chicago Auditorium.
A fat mayor has spoken much English and the mud of his speech is crossed with quicksilver hisses elusive and rapid from floor and gallery.
A neat governor speaks English and the listeners ring chimes to his clear thoughts.
Joffre speaks a few words in French; this is a voice of the long firing line that runs from the salt sea dunes of Flanders to the whi...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ne and
write upon the stone:
Trout Fishing in America Shorty
20 cent Wash
10 cent Dry
Forever
THE MAYOR
OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
London. On December 1, 1887; July 7, August 8, September
30, one day in the month of October and on the 9th of Novem-
ber, 1888; on the Ist of June, the 17th of July and the IOth
of September 1889
The disguise was perfect.
Nobody ever saw him, except, of course, the victims.
They saw him.
Who ...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ire The Naked Lunch, Krafft-Ebing. We read Krafft-
Ebing aloud all the time as if he were Kraft dinner.
"The mayor of a small town in Eastern Portugal was seen
one morning pushing a wheelbarrow full of sex organs into
the city hall. He was of tainted family. He had a woman's
shoe in his back pocket. It had been there all night. " Things
like this make us laugh.
The woman who owns this cabin will come back in the aut-
umn. She's spendi...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
....
"The proper thing, as you were late,
Was certainly to go:
But, with the roads in such a state,
I got the Knight-Mayor's leave to wait
For half an hour or so."
"Who's the Knight-Mayor?" I cried. Instead
Of answering my question,
"Well, if you don't know THAT," he said,
"Either you never go to bed,
Or you've a grand digestion!
"He goes about and sits on folk
That eat too much at night:
His duties are to pinch, and poke,
And squeeze them till they nearly chok...Read more of this...
by
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor
...uestras amantes penas
a sus libertades alas,
y después de hacerlas malas
las queréis hallar muy buenas.
¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido
en una pasión errada:
la que cae de rogada
o el que ruega de caído?
¿O cuál es más de culpar,
aunque cualquiera mal haga:
la que peca por la paga
o el que paga por pecar?
Pues ¿para quée os espantáis
de la culpa que tenéis?
Queredlas cual las hacéis
o hacedlas cual las buscáis.
Dejad de solicitar,
y despué...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...rich
persons, upon you,
Depends, whoever you are now filling the current Presidentiad, upon you,
Upon you, Governor, Mayor, Congressman,
And you, contemporary America....Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...enters always after the precedence of inside authority;
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal—and President, Mayor, Governor, and what
not,
are
agents for pay;
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves;
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs;
Where speculations on the Soul are encouraged;
Where women walk in public processions in the streets, the same as the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and take places t...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...ing for headlines.
Surely someone should carry a banner on the sidewalk.
If a bridge is constructed doesn't the mayor cut a ribbon?
If a phenomenon arrives shouldn't the Magi come bearing gifts?
Yesterday was the day I bore gifts for your gift
and came from the valley to meet you on the pavement.
That was yesterday, that day.
That was the day of your face,
your face after love, close to the pillow, a lullaby.
Half asleep beside me letting the old fashioned...Read more of this...
by
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...s a neat little fiction,-- of course it's all fudge.
That fellow's the "Speaker,"-- the one on the right;
"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night?
That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff;
There's the "Reverend" What's his name?-- don't make me laugh.
That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true!
So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too!
There's ...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...rent sharps and flats.
At last the people in a body
To the Town Hall came flocking:
"'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy;
And as for our Corporation—shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you pa...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...secretly to himself, What will the people say
at
last?
Of the frivolous Judge—Of the corrupt Congressman, Governor, Mayor—Of such as
these,
standing helpless and exposed;
Of the mumbling and screaming priest—(soon, soon deserted;)
Of the lessening, year by year, of venerableness, and of the dicta of officers, statutes,
pulpits, schools;
Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader, of the intuitions of men and women,
and
of self-esteem, and of personality;...Read more of this...
by
Harrison, Tony
...
so left a lot of space for skins to spray.
The language of this graveyard ranges from
a bit of Latin for a former Mayor
or those who laid their lives down at the Somme,
the hymnal fragments and the gilded prayer,
how people 'fell asleep in the Good Lord',
brief chisellable bits from the good book
and rhymes whatever length they could afford,
to ****, PISS, **** and (mostly) ****!
Or, more expansively, there's LEEDS v.
the opponent of last week, this week, or next,...Read more of this...
by
Graves, Robert
...e populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
Were all assembled. Criccieth's mayor addressed them
First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,
Twisting his fingers in his chain of office,
Welcoming the things. They came out on the sand,
Not keeping time to the band, moving seaward
Silently at a snail's pace. But at last
The most odd, indescribable thing of all
Which hardly one man there could see for wonder
Did something r...Read more of this...
by
McHugh, Heather
...Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. The Italian literati seemed
bewildered by the language of America: they asked us
what does "flat drink" mean? and the mysterious
"cheap date" (no explanation lessened
this one's mystery). Among Italian writers we
could recognize our counterparts: the academic,
the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,
the brazen ...Read more of this...
by
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor
...an vuestras amantes penas
a sus libertades alas,
y después de hacerlas malas
las queréis hallar muy buenas.
¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido
en una pasión errada:
la que cae de rogada
o el que ruega de caído?
¿O cuál es más de culpar,
aunque cualquiera mal haga:
la que peca por la paga
o el que paga por pecar?
Pues ¿para quée os espantáis
de la culpa que tenéis?
Queredlas cual las hacéis
o hacedlas cual las buscáis.
Dejad de solicitar,
y después, con más r...Read more of this...
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