Famous Omaha Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Omaha poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous omaha poems. These examples illustrate what a famous omaha poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...neighbors, mapped and marred
Like all the wars ahead, and R.
Insane, B. with his throat cut,
Fifteen years from now, in Omaha.
I did not know them then.
My airedale scratches at the door.
And I am back from seeing Milton Sills
And Doris Kenyon. Twelve years old.
The porchlight coming on again....Read more of this...
by
Kees, Weldon
...ies, many borders, many wrangles between Alaska and the Isthmus, between the Isthmus and the Horn, and east and west of Omaha, and east and west of Paris, Berlin, Petrograd.
The blood in his right wrist and the blood in his left wrist run with the right wrist wisdom of the many and the left wrist wisdom of the many.
It is the many he knows, the gaunt strong hunger of the many....Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...join in the toast,
From mesquite and yucca to sagebrush and pine,
From Canada down to the Mexican Line,
From Omaha out to the coast!
...Read more of this...
by
Clark, Badger
...Twitch and lie still. Is Hitler now in the Himalayas?
We are in Cleveland, or Sioux Falls. The architecture
Seems like Omaha, the air pumped in from Düsseldorf.
Cold rain keeps dripping just outside the bars. The testicles
Burst on the table as the commissar
Untwists the vise, removes his gloves, puts down
Izvestia. (Old saboteurs, controlled by Trotsky's
Scheming and unconquered ghost, still threaten Novgorod.)
--And not far from the pits, these bones of ours,
Burned, bl...Read more of this...
by
Kees, Weldon
...Omaha, Nebraska They do not sleep nights
but stand between
rows of glowing corn and
cabbages grown on acres past
the edge of the city.
Surrendered flags,
their nightgowns furl and
unfurl around their legs.
Only women could be this
white. Like mules,
they are sterile
and it appears that
their mouths are always
open. Because they are thin
as weeds, the ...Read more of this...
by
Belieu, Erin
...laughing in the diners and sleepers shall
pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he
answers: "Omaha."...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...par Emporheben
Au grand air de Bergsteigleben;
J’erre toujours de-ci de-là
A divers coups de tra là là
De Damas jusqu’à Omaha.
Je célébrai mon jour de fête
Dans une oasis d’Afrique
Vetu d’une peau de girafe.
On montrera mon cénotaphe
Aux côtes brulantes de Mozambique....Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...RED barns and red heifers spot the green
grass circles around Omaha—the farmers
haul tanks of cream and wagon loads of cheese.
Shale hogbacks across the river at Council
Bluffs—and shanties hang by an eyelash to
the hill slants back around Omaha.
A span of steel ties up the kin of Iowa and
Nebraska across the yellow, big-hoofed Missouri River.
Omaha, the roughneck, feeds armies,
Eats and swears from a dirty face.
Oma...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...ome again.. . .
Towns on the Soo Line,
Towns on the Big Muddy,
Laugh at each other for cubs
And tease as children.
Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up.. . .
Out of prairie-brown grass crossed with a streamer of wigwam smoke—out of a smoke pillar, a blue promise—out of wild ducks woven in greens and pur...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...n foundations of sand -
and any given cause,
no matter how unrelated:
the death of a boy in Hong Kong
or a blizzard in Omaha ...
can serve as your undoing.
all your chinaware crashing to the
kitchen floor, your girl will enter
and you'll be standing, drunk,
in the center of it and she'll ask:
my god, what's the matter?
and you'll answer: I don't know,
I don't know ......Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...The red sun runners go
And the long sand changes
And to-day is a goner
And to-day is not worth haggling over.
Here in Omaha
The gloaming is bitter
As in Chicago
Or Kenosha.
The long sand changes.
To-day is a goner.
Time knocks in another brass nail.
Another yellow plunger shoots the dark.
Constellations
Wheeling over Omaha
As in Chicago
Or Kenosha.
The long sand is gone
and all the talk is stars.
They circle in a dome over Nebraska....Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...
in Part II.
This text comes from the source available at
Project Gutenberg, originally prepared by Judy Boss
of Omaha, NE.
THE HOUSE OF DUST
PART I.
I.
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
Th...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...
in Part II.
This text comes from the source available at
Project Gutenberg, originally prepared by Judy Boss
of Omaha, NE....Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas;
Gloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!
Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's
Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers
Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their
footprints.
What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the
footprints?
How canst thou w...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...state and caught a meat truck
heading west, and came to over beer,
hashbrowns, and fried eggs in a cafe
northwest of Omaha. I could write
how the radio spoke of war, how
the century was half its age, how
dark clouds gathered in the passes
up ahead, the dispossessed had clogged
the roads, but none the less I alone
made my way to the western waters,
a foreign ship, another life, and disappeared
from all Id known. In fact I
come home every year, I walk the same stree...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...ver in Utah
Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles
Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere
An orchestra onstage in Omaha
keeps on playing Handel's Water Music
Horns fill with water
ans bass players float away on their instruments
clutching them like lovers horizontal
Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster
Skyscrapers filled like water glasses
Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine
Great Books watered down in Evanston
Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam
Beau Fleuve of Buff...Read more of this...
by
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
...ng on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.
I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with watermelons from Mississippi next year.
Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the s...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
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