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Famous Only Joking Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...How can you, my Lord, thus delight to torment all
The Peers of realm about cheapening their corn,
When you know, if one hasn't a very high rental,
'Tis hardly worth while being very high born?

Why bore them so rudely, each night of your life,
On a question, my Lord, there's so much to abhor in?
A question - like asking one, "How is your wife?" --
At once ...Read more of this...
by Moore, Thomas



...is destiny for their convenience?

It's true that what is morbid is highly valued today,
and so you may think that I am only joking
or that I've devised just one more means
of praising Art with thehelp of irony.

There was a time when only wise books were read
helping us to bear our pain and misery.
This, after all, is not quite the same
as leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.

And yet the world is different from what it seems to be
and we are othe...Read more of this...
by Milosz, Czeslaw
...The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther losing faster:
places and names and where it was your meant
to trav...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth
...ent,
I had recourse to smoking -
"Your AIM," he said, "is excellent:
But - when you call it ARGUMENT -
Of course you're only joking?" 

Stung by his cold and snaky eye,
I roused myself at length
To say "At least I do defy
The veriest sceptic to deny
That union is strength!" 

"That's true enough," said he, "yet stay - "
I listened in all meekness -
"UNION is strength, I'm bound to say;
In fact, the thing's as clear as day;
But ONIONS are a weakness."...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...Three men I saw beside a bar,
Regarding o'er their bottle,
A frog who smoked a rank cigar
They'd jammed within its throttle.

A Pasha frog it must have been
So big it as and bloated;
And from its lips the nicotine
In graceful festoon floated.

And while the trio jeered and joked,
As if it quite enjoyed it,
Impassively it smoked and smoked,
(It could now we...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William



...THREE tailors of Tooley Street wrote: We, the People.
The names are forgotten. It is a joke in ghosts.

Cutters or bushelmen or armhole basters, they sat
cross-legged stitching, snatched at scissors, stole each
other thimbles.

Cross-legged, working for wages, joking each other
as misfits cut from the cloth of a Master Tailor,
they sat and spoke their thou...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...Oh how I'd be gay and glad
If a little house I had,
Snuggled in a shady lot,
With behind a garden plot;
Simple grub, old duds to wear,
A book, a pipe, a rocking-chair . . .
You would never hear me grouse
If I had a little house.

Oh if I had just enough
Dough to buy the needful stuff;
Milk and porridge, toast and tea,
How contented I would be!
You could ha...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things