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Famous Positions Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...rearing so beauteous a system,
One trifling particular, Truth, should have miss’d him;
For, spite of his fine theoretic positions,
Mankind is a science defies definitions.


 Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,
And think human nature they truly describe;
Have you found this, or t’other? There’s more in the wind;
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you’ll find.
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan,
In the make of that wonderful creature called Ma...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...devilish
 exultation,
 and
 all the old mad joy, in the depths of my soul;)
And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions—batteries, cavalry, moving
 hither
 and
 thither; 
(The falling, dying, I heed not—the wounded, dripping and red, I heed not—some
 to the
 rear
 are hobbling;) 
Grime, heat, rush—aid-de-camps galloping by, or on a full run; 
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles, (these in my vision
 I
 hear or
 see,) 
And bombs busting in ...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...on."
Shorn of the batting crown, says, "We";
robbed by a technicality.

When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
the massive run need not be everything.
"Going, going . . . "Is
it?Roger Maris
has it, running fast.You will
never see a finer catch.Well . . .
"Mickey, leaping like the devil"--why
gild it, although deer sounds better--
snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest,
one-handing the sou...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...s dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
 Whatever they are,
As bribes to teach them how to execute
Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and
On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
 By private car.

Such uncorrected visions end in church
 Or registrar:
A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
Nippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme
With money; illness; age. So absolute
Mat...Read more of this...

by Milosz, Czeslaw
...roared in
paroxysms of pain.
We, saved by our own cunning and knowledge.

By sending others to the more exposed positions
Urging them loudly to fight on
Ourselves withdrawing in certainty of the cause lost.

Having the choice of our own death and that of a friend
We chose his, coldly thinking: Let it be done quickly.

We sealed gas chamber doors, stole bread
Knowing the next day would be harder to bear than the day before.

As befits human beings, we explo...Read more of this...



by McGonagall, William Topaz
...e of the hill
In hundreds,driven by sheer force sore against their will;
And helter-skelter they did run,
For all their positions were carried and the victory won. 

Then on the 8th of August again Lord Roberts' march began
For to fight the rebel Ayoob Khan;
And with an army about seven thousand strong
On his way to Candahar he fearlessly marched along. 

And the battle that followed at Candahar was a complete victory,
And Lord Roberts' march to Candahar stands unriva...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...the young Australian brain. 
They blaze the track for a forward run, where the scrub is everywhere, 
And they mark positions for every gun and every unit there. 

They trace the track for a quick retreat – and the track for the other way round, 
And they mark the spot in the summer heat where the water is always found. 
They note the chances of cliff and tide, and where they can move, and when, 
And every point where a man might hide in the days when they'll figh...Read more of this...

by Amichai, Yehuda
...br>

But he who loves Jerusalem
By the tourist book or the prayer book
is like one who loves a women
By a manual of sex positions....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...et superb children, 
To speak readily and clearly—to feel at home among common people, 
And to hold our own in terrible positions, on land and sea. 

Not for an embroiderer;
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers—I welcome them also;) 
But for the fibre of things, and for inherent men and women. 

Not to chisel ornaments, 
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous Supreme Gods, that The
 States
 may realize them, walking and talking. 

...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...unto Feel Gate,
 John Bunyan showed them all.


All enemy divisions,
 Recruits of every class,
And highly-screened positions
 For flame or poison-gas;
The craft that we call modern,
 The crimes that we call new,
John Bunyan had 'em typed and filed
 In sixteen Eighty-two.


Likewise the Lords of Looseness
 That hamper faith and works,
The Perseverance-Doubters,
 And Present-Comfort shirks,
With brittle intellectuals
 Who crack beneath a strain--
John Bunyan met that h...Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...gave that Smile a Grace; 
And through the Marble reigns 
(Which well the Artist's Skill cou'd trace, 
And in their due Positions place) 
A Thread of purple Veins. 

The Parasites about it came, 
(Whose Praises were too large to name) 
And to each other said; 
The Man so well had reach'd his Aim, 
Th' Original cou'd o'er it claim 
Only a native Red. 

Mean while a Sage, amidst the Croud, 
Thus, with a Precept wise and loud, 
Check'd the Vain-glorious Boy; 
By telling ...Read more of this...

by Crane, Stephen
...im, two images:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
He turned away.
Then a cunning pupil
Changed the positions.

Turned the sage again:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
The pupils sat, all grinning,
And rejoiced in the game.
But the sage was a sage....Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...OF persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth, scholarships, and the like; 
To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks away from them, except as it results
 to
 their
 Bodies and Souls, 
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked; 
And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself, 
And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness, ...Read more of this...

by Montague, John
...calmly on,
Your example of courtesy
Compelling me to reply.
When we reached the last
Syllable, nearly accepting
Our positions, I saw that
The floorboards were gone:
It was clay we stood upon....Read more of this...

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