Famous Op Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Op poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous op poems. These examples illustrate what a famous op poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ndow
Then six inches down and six feet
Of snow lay against the POW’s as they
Marched with hefted shovels from
Knostrop’s cottage camp with curling
Smoke signalling from crooked stacks.
2
Yards from where I lay Hendry and
Moore sat in their attic conceiving
The Apocalypse and my natal stars
Were their ineffable words.
Shut off the telephone, I hear
Another bell, it is Saint Hilda’s
Tinny tone, one note repeated, tolling
Birth and death and all that lies
Be...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...Darkened his eye, his wild smile disappeared,
inapprehensible his studies grew,
nourished he less & less
his subject body with good food & rest,
something bizarre about Henry, slowly sheared
off, unlike you & you,
smaller & smaller, till in question stood
his eyeteeth and one block of memories
These were enough for him
implying commands from upstairs & fr...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...Whence flew the litter whereon he was laid?
Of what heroic stuff was warlock Henry made?
and questions of that sort
perplexed the bulging cosmos, O in short
was sandalwood in good supply when he
flared out of history
& the obituary in The New York Times
into the world of generosity
creating the air where are
& can be, only, heroes? Statues & rhymes
signal...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...t.
O happies before & during & between the times it got married.
I hate the love of leaving it behind,
deteriorating & hopeless that.
The great Uh climbed above me, far above me,
doing the north face, or behind it. Does He love me?
over, & flout.
Goodness is bits of outer God. The house-guest
(slimmed-down) with one eye open & one breast
out.
Slimmed-down from by-blow; adoptive-up; was white.
A daughter of a friend. His soul is a sight.
—Mr Bones, what's all about?
Girl h...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...ou can't draw breath.
But this is death—
which in some vain strive many to avoid,
many. It's on its way, where you drop at
who stood up, scrunch down small.
It wasn't so much after all to lose, was, Boyd?
A body.—But, Mr Bones, you needed that.
Now I put on my tall hat....Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...Maskt as honours, insult like behaving
missiles homes. I bow, & grunt 'Thank you.
I'm glad you could come
so late.' All loves are gratified. I'm having
to screw a little thing I have to screw.
Good nature is over.
Herewith ill-wishes. From a cozy grave
rainbow I scornful laughings. Do not do,
Father, me down.
Let's shuck an obligation. O I have
done. Is t...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...
soming no deadline—is all ancient nonsense—
no typewriters—ha! ha!—no typewriters—
alas!
For I have much to open, I know immense
troubles & wonders to their secret curse.
Yet when erect on my ass,
pissed off, I sat two-square, I kept shut my mouth
and stilled my nimble fingers across keys.
That is I stood up.
Now since down I lay, void of love & ruth,
I'd howl my knowings, only there's the earth
overhead. Plop!...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...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 swine,—
p...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...ating. The cold is cold.
I am—I should be held together by—
but I am breaking up
and Henry now has come to a full stop—
vanisht his vision, if there was, & fold
him over himself quietly....Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...The conclusion is growing . . . I feel sure, my lord,
this august court will entertain the plea
Not Guilty by reason of death.
I can say no more except that for the record
I add that all the crimes since all the times he
died will be due to the breath
of unknown others, sweating in theri guilt
while my client Henry's brow of stainless steel
rests free, as...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...e of his wife
to the foothills of the cult
will come in silence this distinguished one
essaying once again the lower slopes
in triumph, keeping up our hopes,
and heading not for the highest we have done
but enigmatic faces, unsurveyed,
calm as a forest glade
for him. I only speak of what I hear
and I have said too much. He may be there
or he may groan in hospital
resuming, as the fates decree, our lot.
I would not interrupt him in whatever, in what
he's bracing him to at al...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...is stagnant, dear of Henry's friends,
yellow with cancer, paper-thin, & bent
even in the hospital bed
racked with high hope, on whom death lay hands
in weeks, or Yeats in the London spring half-spent,
only the grand gift in his head
going for him, a seated ruin of a man
courteous to a junior, like one of the boarders,
or Dylan, with more to say
now there's no hurry, and we're all a clan.
You'd think off here one would be free from orders.
I didn't hear a single word. I obeye...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...eech like an old sacrament
in deaf ears lying down,
blazing through darkness till he feels the cold
& blindness of his hopeless tenement
while his black arms unfold....Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...In the night-reaches dreamed he of better graces,
of liberations, and beloved faces,
such as now ere dawn he sings.
It would not be easy, accustomed to these things,
to give up the old world, but he could try;
let it all rest, have a good cry.
Let Randall rest, whom your self-torturing
cannot restore one instant's good to, rest:
he's left us now.
The pani...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...lected & dug henry up
saying 'You are a sight.'
Chilly, he muttered for a double rum
waving the mikes away, putting a stop
to rumors, pushing his fright
off with the now accumulated taxes
accustomed in his way to solitude
and no bills.
Wives came forward, claiming a new Axis,
fearful for their insurance, though, now, glued
to disencumbered Henry's many ills.
A fortnight, sense a single man
upon the trampled scene at 2 a.m.
insomnia-plagued, with a shovel
digging like mad, L...Read more of this...
by
Berryman, John
...'is pride;
But day by day they kicks 'im, which 'elps 'im on a bit,
Till 'e finds 'isself one mornin' with a full an' proper kit.
Gettin' clear o' dirtiness, gettin' done with mess,
Gettin' shut o' doin' things rather-more-or-less;
Not so fond of abby-nay, kul, nor hazar-ho,
Learns to keep 'is ripe an "isself jus'so!
The young recruit is 'appy -- 'e throws a chest to suit;
You see 'im grow mustaches; you 'ear 'im slap' is boot.
'E learns to drop the "bloodies" from ever...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...' she replied,
'I 'ad one on order for 'Orace,
But poor dear got impatient and died.'
She said, 'You'd best try the Co-Op shop,
They'll have one in stock I dare say;
' Fact I think I saw one in the winder
Last time I was passing that way.'
So round they went to the Co-Op shop,
And at the counter for household supplies;
Pa asked for a recumbent posture
And the shopman said 'Yes sir... what size?'
Said Ma, 'It's for our little Albert,
I don't know what size he would use,
I k...Read more of this...
by
Edgar, Marriott
...adding poetry to their beef, beer and bread.
With Byron three graves on I'll not go short
of company, and Wordsworth's opposite.
That's two peers already, of a sort,
and we'll all be thrown together if the pit,
whose galleries once ran beneath this plot,
causes the distinguished dead to drop
into the rabblement of bone and rot,
shored slack, crushed shale, smashed prop.
Wordsworth built church organs, Byron tanned
luggage cowhide in the age of steam,
and knew their place ...Read more of this...
by
Harrison, Tony
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