Famous Napkin Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Napkin poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous napkin poems. These examples illustrate what a famous napkin poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Omar Khayyam
A cup of wine is worth the empire of the universe;
the brick which covers the jar is worth a thousand lives.
The napkin with which one wipes lips moistened with
wine is indeed worth a thousand turbans....Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
All the while they were talking the new morality
Her eyes explored me.
And when I rose to go
Her fingers were like the tissue
Of a Japanese paper napkin....Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
Bring the comb and play upon it!
Marching, here we come!
Willie cocks his highland bonnet,
Johnnie beats the drum.
Mary Jane commands the party,
Peter leads the rear;
Feet in time, alert and hearty,
Each a Grenadier!
All in the most martial manner
Marching double-quick;
While the napkin, like a banner,
Waves upon the stick!
Here's enough of...Read more of this...
by
Vernon Scannell
The bar he went inside was not
A place he often visited;
He welcomed anonymity;
No one to switch inquisitive
Receivers on, no one could see,
Or wanted to, exactly what
He was, or had been, or would be;
A quiet brown place, a place to drink
And let thought simmer like good stock,
No mirrors to distract, no...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
The Heavenly Circuit; Berenice's Hair;
Tent-pole of Eden; the tent's drapery;
Symbolical glory of thc earth and air!
The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.
Some found a different pole, and where it stood
A pattern on a napkin dipped in blood....Read more of this...
by
Derek Walcott
A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?
Threshed out by beaters,...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
‘The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room
For love or money. Let us picnic there
At Audley Court.’
I spoke, while Audley feast
Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow quay,
To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
To Francis just alighted from the boat,
And breathing of the sea. ‘With all my heart,’
Said Francis. Then we shoulder’d thro’ the swarm,
And...Read more of this...
by
Henry David Thoreau
Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream-drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
prudence my love
each time you invite me to tea
i wonder do i have the appetite
for what i
hope you are requiring of me
prudence my love
are you really trying to say
over the sickly cream cakes
i can’t eat
that you desire me to stay
prudence my love
what can i read in the signs
your eyes and hands throw out
as we talk
i’m lost in your guide-lines
prudence...Read more of this...
by
Norman Dubie
The flock of pigeons rises over the roof,
and just beyond them, the shimmering asphalt fields
gather their dull colored airliners.
It is the very early night,
a young brunette sits before the long
darkening glass of the airport's west wall.
She smells coffee burning
and something else-- her old mother's
bureau filled with mothballs.
Her nearly silver blouse smells of anise
and the heat of an iron.
She suddenly...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it_____
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-------
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
The bell struck one, and shook the silent tower;
The graves give up their dead: fair Elenor
Walk'd by the castle gate, and look?d in.
A hollow groan ran thro' the dreary vaults.
She shriek'd aloud, and sunk upon the steps,
On the cold stone her pale cheeks. Sickly smells
Of death issue as from a sepulchre,
And all is silent but the sighing vaults.
Chill Death...Read more of this...
by
Paul Muldoon
They're kindly here, to let us linger so late,
Long after the shutters are up.
A waiter glides from the kitchen with a plate
Of stew, or some thick soup,
And settles himself at the next table but one.
We know, you and I, that it's over,
That something or other has come between
Us, whatever we are, or were.
The waiter swabs his plate...Read more of this...
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