Famous Poke Out Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Free Verse

by Robert Graves
 I now delight 
In spite 
Of the might 
And the right 
Of classic tradition, 
In writing 
And reciting 
Straight ahead, 
Without let or omission, 
Just any little rhyme
In any little time 
That runs in my head; 
Because, I’ve said, 
My rhymes no longer shall stand arrayed
Like Prussian soldiers on parade
That march, 
Stiff as starch, 
Foot to foot, 
Boot to...Read more of this...

Lady Lazarus

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...

Bush Christening

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few, 
And men of religion are scanty, 
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost, 
One Michael Magee had a shanty. 
Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad, 
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned; 
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had...Read more of this...

Off the Turnpike

by Amy Lowell
 Good ev'nin', Mis' Priest.
I jest stepped in to tell you Good-bye.
Yes, it's all over.
All my things is packed
An' every last one o' them boxes
Is on Bradley's team
Bein' hauled over to th' depot.
No, I ain't goin' back agin.
I'm stoppin' over to French's fer to-night,
And goin' down first train in th' mornin'.
Yes, it do seem kinder *****
Not to be goin' to...Read more of this...

Childrens Party

by Ogden Nash
 May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party's over.
Since three o'clock I've done my best
To entertain each tiny guest. My conscience now I've left behind me,
And if they want me, let them find me.
I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats,
I kept them from each other's throats. I told them tales of magic...Read more of this...

Layover

by Charles Bukowski
 Making love in the sun, in the morning sun
in a hotel room
above the alley
where poor men poke for bottles;
making love in the sun
making love by a carpet redder than our blood,
making love while the boys sell headlines
and Cadillacs,
making love by a photograph of Paris
and an open pack of Chesterfields,
making love while other men- poor folks-
work.
That moment- to this. ....Read more of this...

The Division Of Parts

by Anne Sexton
 1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my...Read more of this...

A Bush Christening

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
 And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
 One Michael Magee had a shanty. 

Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad,
 Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
...Read more of this...

The Benefactors

by Rudyard Kipling
 Ah! What avails the classic bent
 And what the cultured word,
Against the undoctored incident
 That actually occurred?


And what is Art whereto we press
 Through paint and prose and rhyme--
When Nature in her nakedness
 Defeats us every time?


It is not learning, grace nor gear,
 Nor easy meat and drink,
But bitter pinch of pain and fear
 That makes creation think.


When in...Read more of this...

The Fiddling Wood

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron, 
Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked 
Over the rough crest of the hairy wood 
In angry scorn; the grey road twisted, kinked, 
Like a sick serpent, seeming to environ 
The trees with magic. All the wood was still -- 

Cracked, crannied pines bent like malicious cripples...Read more of this...

Inner Man

by Charles Simic
 It isn't the body
That's a stranger.
It's someone else.

We poke the same
Ugly mug 
At the world.
When I scratch
He scratches too.

There are women
Who claim to have held him.
A dog
Follows me about.
It might be his.

If I'm quiet, he's quieter.
So I forget him.
Yet, as I bend down
To tie my shoelaces,
He's standing up.

We caste a single shadow.
Whose shadow?

I'd like to say:
"He was un the...Read more of this...

in search of milk and paradise

by Rg Gregory
 heeley (sheffield) autumn 1988

dodging the broken bottles
dog-**** the pavement spew
i wheel my young son matthew
through the heeley streets
shop to shop this early
morning (short of milk)
unsettled day - the sun
comes through the clouds in
ragged strips where windy
rain has had the night
to puff and piddle

puddles idle in
the dips of surfaces
neglected for decades

another place where caring's
lost a public vision
only detritus of hope
dares...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin

by Robert William Service
 I

There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,
When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name;
Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came.

His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow;
Deep in their dark, sin-calcined pits were his sombre eyes aglow;
They knew...Read more of this...

The Prospector

by Robert William Service
 I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,
A-purpose to revisit the old claim.
I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate,
And the lads who once were with me in the game.
Poor boys, they're down-and-outers, and there's scarcely one to-day
Can show a dozen colors in his poke;
And me, I'm still prospecting, old and battered, gaunt and...Read more of this...

Bad Day At The Beauty Salon

by Maggie Estep
 I was a 20 year old unemployed receptionist with
dyed orange dreadlocks sprouting out of my skull. I needed a job, but first,
I needed a haircut.

So I head for this beauty salon on Avenue B.
I'm gonna get a hairdo.
I'm gonna look just like those hot Spanish haircut models, become brown
and bodacious, grow some 7 inch fingernails painted ***** red and...Read more of this...

Alberts Return

by Marriott Edgar
 You've `eard `ow young Albert Ramsbottom 
At the zoo up at Blackpool one year 
With a stick with an `orse's `ead `andle
Gave a lion a poke in the ear? 

The name of the lion was Wallace, 
The poke in the ear made `im wild 
And before you could say "Bob's yer uncle" 
E'd upped and `e'd swallowed the child....Read more of this...

The Fury Of Hating Eyes

by Anne Sexton
 I would like to bury 
all the hating eyes 
under the sand somewhere off 
the North Atlantic and suffocate 
them with the awful sand 
and put all their colors to sleep 
in that soft smother. 
Take the brown eyes of my father, 
those gun shots, those mean muds. 
Bury them. 
Take the blue eyes of my mother, 
naked as...Read more of this...

The Shooting Of Dan McGrew

by Robert William Service
 A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and...Read more of this...

Tortoise Family Connections

by D. H. Lawrence
 On he goes, the little one,
Bud of the universe,
Pediment of life.
Setting off somewhere, apparently.
Whither away, brisk egg?

His mother deposited him on the soil as if he were no more than droppings,
And now he scuffles tinily past her as if she were an old rusty tin.

A mere obstacle,
He veers round the slow great mound of her --
Tortoises always foresee obstacles.

It...Read more of this...

Size and Tears

by Lewis Carroll
 When on the sandy shore I sit,
Beside the salt sea-wave,
And fall into a weeping fit
Because I dare not shave -
A little whisper at my ear
Enquires the reason of my fear.

I answer "If that ruffian Jones
Should recognise me here,
He'd bellow out my name in tones
Offensive to the ear:
He chaffs me so on being stout
(A thing that always puts me out)."

Ah...Read more of this...

Faces

by Walt Whitman
 1
SAUNTERING the pavement, or riding the country by-road—lo! such faces! 
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality; 
The spiritual, prescient face—the always welcome, common, benevolent face, 
The face of the singing of music—the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges, broad
 at
 the
 back-top; 
The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows—the shaved blanch’d faces
 of
 orthodox...Read more of this...

Feckless With Disgust

by Jerome Rothenberg
 All erasure of pain
is like the contrary of
dust that weighs
dark in my lungs
when I am 
feckless with disgust.
I stroke & poke
my loins before 
they tighten.
My feet stomp
fields of color
reminding me of
something I once knew.
Dying frees
the spirit
from the mind.
We plod along
regardless of
the pain.
Soon we grow
big & fat.
We stop
forgetting, far off
from whatever 
binds us
mindlessly
to empty space.
Beginning here
we reignite
desire.
We will surrender 
what...Read more of this...

The Return of Albert

by Marriott Edgar
 You've 'eard 'ow young Albert Ramsbottom,
In the Zoo up at Blackpool one year,
With a stick and 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
Gave a lion a poke in the ear.

The name of the lion was Wallace,
The poke in the ear made 'im wild;
And before you could say 'Bob's your Uncle,'
'E'd up and 'e'd swallered the child.

'E were sorry the moment 'e'd done it,
With...Read more of this...

A Tribute to Henry M. Stanley

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Welcome, thrice welcome, to the city of Dundee,
The great African explorer Henry M Stanley,
Who went out to Africa its wild regions to explore,
And travelled o'er wild and lonely deserts, fatigued and footsore. 

And what he and his little band suffered will never be forgot,
Especially one in particular, Major Edmund Barttelot,
Alas! the brave heroic Officer by a savage was shot,
The...Read more of this...

The Dreamer

by Robert William Service
 The lone man gazed and gazed upon his gold,
His sweat, his blood, the wage of weary days;
But now how sweet, how doubly sweet to hold
All gay and gleamy to the campfire blaze.
The evening sky was sinister and cold;
The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow;
The uncommiserating land, so old,
So worn, so grey, so niggard in its woe,
Peered through its ragged...Read more of this...

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