Famous Pot Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Capture

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Duck come switchin' 'cross de lot
Hi, oh, Miss Lady!
Hurry up an' hide de pot
Hi, oh, Miss Lady!
Duck's a mighty 'spicious fowl,
Slick as snake an' wise as owl;
Hol' dat dog, don't let him yowl!
Hi, oh, Miss Lady!
Th'ow dat co'n out kind o' slow
Hi, oh, Miss Lady!
Keep yo'se'f behin' de do'
Hi, oh, Miss Lady!
Lots o' food'll kill his feah,
Co'n is cheap but...Read more of this...

United Front Song

by Bertolt Brecht
 And because a man is human
He'll want to eat, and thanks a lot
But talk can't take the place of meat
or fill an empty pot.

So left, two, three!
So left, two, three!
Comrade, there's a place for you.
Take your stand in the workers united front
For you are a worker too.

And because a man is human
he won't care for a kick in the...Read more of this...

Wheres the Poker?

by Christopher Smart
 The poker lost, poor Susan storm'd, 
And all the rites of rage perform'd; 
As scolding, crying, swearing, sweating, 
Abusing, fidgetting, and fretting. 
"Nothing but villany, and thieving; 
Good heavens! what a world we live in! 
If I don't find it in the morning, 
I'll surely give my master warning. 
He'd better far shut up his doors, 
Than keep such...Read more of this...

Albert Down Under

by Marriott Edgar
 Albert were what you'd call “thwarted”. 
He had long had an ambition, which... 
Were to save up and go to Australia, 
The saving up that were the hitch. 

He'd a red money box on the pot shelf, 
A post office thing made of tin, 
But with him and his Dad and the bread knife, 
It never had anything in....Read more of this...

Old Tom

by Robert William Service
 The harridan who holds the inn
 At which I toss a pot,
Is old and uglier than sin,--
 I'm glad she knows me not.
Indeed, for me it's hard to think,
 Although my pow's like snow,
She was the lass so fresh and pink
 I courted long ago.

I wronged her, yet it's sadly true
 She wanted to be wronged:
They mostly do, although...Read more of this...

Ode To Conger Chowder

by Pablo Neruda
 In the storm-tossed
Chilean
sea
lives the rosy conger,
giant eel
of snowy flesh.
And in Chilean
stewpots,
along the coast,
was born the chowder,
thick and succulent,
a boon to man.
You bring the conger, skinned,
to the kitchen
(its mottled skin slips off
like a glove,
leaving the
grape of the sea
exposed to the world),
naked,
the tender eel
glistens,
prepared
to serve our appetites.
Now
you take
garlic,
first, caress
that precious
ivory,
smell
its irate fragrance,
then
blend the minced garlic
with onion
and tomato
until the onion
is the color...Read more of this...

A Pot Of Tea

by Robert William Service
 You make it in your mess-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam;
 You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear;
You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam;
 The very breath of it is ripe with cheer.
You're awful cold and dirty, and a-cursin' of your lot;
 You scoff the blushin' 'alf of it, so rich and rippin'...Read more of this...

The Call

by Robert William Service
 (France, August first, 1914)

 Far and near, high and clear,
 Hark to the call of War!
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
 War! War! War!

 High and low, all must go:
 Hark to the shout of War!
Leave to the women the harvest yield;
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field;
A...Read more of this...

Soup Song

by Russell Edson
 How I make my soup: I draw water from a tap . . .

 I am not an artist. And the water is not so much 
drawn as allowed to fall, and to capture itself in a pot.

 Perhaps not so much captured, as allowed to gather 
itself from its stream; the way it falls that the drain 
would...Read more of this...

Smoke and Steel

by Carl Sandburg
 SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with a smokestack,
Or they twist … in the slow twist … of the wind.

If the north wind comes they run to the south.
If the west wind comes they run to the...Read more of this...

For My Lover Returning To His Wife

by Anne Sexton
 She is all there. 
She was melted carefully down for you 
and cast up from your childhood, 
cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies. 
She has always been there, my darling. 
She is, in fact, exquisite. 
Fireworks in the dull middle of February 
and as real as a cast-iron pot. 
Let's face it, I have been momentary. 
vA...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Bolivar

by Rudyard Kipling
 Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away --
We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!

We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
 We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted;
We put out from Sunderland -- met the...Read more of this...

Spring and Winter ii

by William Shakespeare
 WHEN icicles hang by the wall, 
 And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, 
And Tom bears logs into the hall, 
 And milk comes frozen home in pail, 
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, 
Then nightly sings the staring owl, 
 To-whit! 
To-who!--a merry note, 
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

When all aloud the...Read more of this...

Philosophy

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I been t'inkin' 'bout de preachah; whut he said de othah night,
'Bout hit bein' people's dooty, fu' to keep dey faces bright;
How one ought to live so pleasant dat ouah tempah never riles,
Meetin' evahbody roun' us wid ouah very nicest smiles.
Dat 's all right, I ain't a-sputin' not a t'ing dat soun's lak fac',
But you don't ketch folks a-grinnin' wid...Read more of this...

The Christmas Trail

by Badger Clark
  The wind is blowin' cold down the mountain tips of snow
    And 'cross the ranges layin' brown and dead;
  It's cryin' through the valley trees that wear the mistletoe
    And mournin' with the gray clouds overhead.
  Yet it's sweet with the beat of my little hawse's feet
   ...Read more of this...

The Man Who Had Naught

by Mother Goose
There was a man and he had naught,
    And robbers came to rob him;
He crept up to the chimney pot,
    And then they thought they had him.

But he got down on t'other side,
    And then they could not find him;
He ran fourteen miles in fifteen days,
    And never...Read more of this...

My Mate

by Robert William Service
 I've been sittin' starin', starin' at 'is muddy pair of boots,
 And tryin' to convince meself it's 'im.
(Look out there, lad! That sniper -- 'e's a dysey when 'e shoots;
 'E'll be layin' of you out the same as Jim.)
Jim as lies there in the dug-out wiv 'is blanket round 'is 'ead,
 To keep 'is brains from mixin' wiv...Read more of this...

The Joy Of Being Poor

by Robert William Service
 I

Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich;
But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch!
When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare,
And I had but a single coat, and not a single care;
When I would feast right royally on bacon, bread and beer,
And dig into a stack...Read more of this...

A Work Of Artifice

by Marge Piercy
 The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to...Read more of this...

88. The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer

by Robert Burns
 YE Irish lords, ye knights an’ squires,
Wha represent our brughs an’ shires,
An’ doucely manage our affairs
 In parliament,
To you a simple poet’s pray’rs
 Are humbly sent.


Alas! my roupit Muse is hearse!
Your Honours’ hearts wi’ grief ’twad pierce,
To see her sittin on her ****
 Low i’ the dust,
And scriechinh out prosaic verse,
 An like to brust!


Tell them wha hae the...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Proverbs

by Francois Villon
 So rough the goat will scratch, it cannot sleep.
So often goes the pot to the well that it breaks.
So long you heat iron, it will glow;
so heavily you hammer it, it shatters.
So good is the man as his praise;
so far he will go, and he's forgotten;
so bad he behaves, and he's despised.
So loud you cry Christmas, it comes.

So glib...Read more of this...

Poets Path

by Robert William Service
 My garden hath a slender path
With ivy overgrown,
A secret place where once would pace
A pot all alone;
I see him now with fretted brow,
Plunged deep in thought;
And sometimes he would write maybe,
And sometimes he would not.

A verse a day he used to say
Keeps worry from the door;
Without the stink of printer's ink
How life would be a bore!
And so from chime...Read more of this...

My Hour

by Robert William Service
 Day after day behold me plying
My pen within an office drear;
The dullest dog, till homeward hieing,
Then lo! I reign a king of cheer.
A throne have I of padded leather,
A little court of kiddies three,
A wife who smiles whate'er the weather,
A feast of muffins, jam and tea.

The table cleared, a romping battle,
A fairy tale, a "Children, bed,"
A kiss, a hug,...Read more of this...

To the Muse

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Resign the rhapsody, the dream,
To men of larger reach;
Be ours the quest of a plain theme,
The piety of speech. 

As monkish scribes from morning break
Toiled till the close of light,
Nor thought a day too long to make
One line or letter bright: 

We also with an ardent mind,
Time, wealth, and fame forgot,
Our glory in our patience find
And skim, and skim...Read more of this...

Rosemary

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 For the sake of some things
That be now no more
I will strew rushes
On my chamber-floor,
I will plant bergamot
At my kitchen-door.

For the sake of dim things
That were once so plain
I will set a barrel
Out to catch the rain,
I will hang an iron pot
On an iron crane.

Many things be dead and gone
That were brave and gay;
For the sake of these things
I...Read more of this...

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