Famous Right Down Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Fire-Truck

...Right down the shocked street with a
 siren-blast
That sends all else skittering to the
 curb,
Redness, brass, ladders and hats hurl
 past,
 Blurring to sheer verb,

Shift at the corner into uproarious gear
And make it around the turn in a squall
 of traction,
The headlong bell maintaining sure and
 clear,
 Thought is degraded action!

Beautiful, heavy, unwe...Read more of this...
by Wilbur, Richard


A Sad Child

...
and the ice-cream smear,
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.

My darling, when it comes
right down to it
and the light fails and the fog rolls in
and you're trapped in your overturned body
under a blanket or burning car,

and the red flame is seeping out of you
and igniting the tarmac beside you head
or else the floor, or else the pillow,
none of us is;
or else we all are....Read more of this...
by Atwood, Margaret

America

.... 
America this is the impression I get from looking in 
 the television set. 
America is this correct? 
I'd better get right down to the job. 
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes 
 in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and 
 psychopathic anyway. 
America I'm putting my ***** shoulder to the wheel. 

 Berkeley, January 17, 1956...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Death Of A Naturalist

...ax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it....Read more of this...
by Heaney, Seamus

Disobedience

...Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."

King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Common...Read more of this...
by Milne, Alan Alexander (A A)


Gioconda And Si-Ya-U

...ind of woman!
It struck me this madame who came from the sky
 would never understand
 our seamen's talk and ways.
I got right down and kissed her hand,
 and making like a poet, I cried:
"O you canvas woman who fell from the sky!
Tell me, which goddess should I compare you to?
Why did you descend here? What is your large purpose?"

She replied:
"I fell
 from a 550-horsepower plane.
My name is Gioconda,
 I come from Florence.
I must get to Shanghai
 as soon as possible."


FROM...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim

Head of a White Woman Winking

...oat.
These would be mostly whirling dervishes
out shopping for accessories.
When Lily winks they understand everything,
right down to the particle
of a butterfly's wing lodged
in her last good eye,
so the situation is avoided,
the potential for a cataclysm
is narrowly averted,
and the bumblebee lugs
its little bundle of shaved nerves
forward, on a mission
from some sick, young godhead....Read more of this...
by Taylor, Edward

Head of a White Woman Winking

...oat.
These would be mostly whirling dervishes
out shopping for accessories.
When Lily winks they understand everything,
right down to the particle
of a butterfly's wing lodged
in her last good eye,
so the situation is avoided,
the potential for a cataclysm
is narrowly averted,
and the bumblebee lugs
its little bundle of shaved nerves
forward, on a mission
from some sick, young godhead....Read more of this...
by Tate, James

High Explosive

...nd to go, 
And you'd be surprised at the things I know. 

"There's a wild duck's nest in a sheltered spot, 
And I'll go right down and I'll eat the lot." 
But when he got to his destined prey 
He found that the ducks had flown away. 

But an egg was left that would quench his thirst, 
So he bit the egg and it straightway burst. 
It burst with a bang, and he turned and fled, 
For he thought that the egg had shot him dead. 

"Oh, mother," he said, "let us clear right out 
Or we...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Million Man March Poem

...
Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will.
The night has been long.
This morning I look through your anguish
Right down to your soul.
I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole.
I look through the posture and past your disguise,
And see your love for family in your big brown eyes.

I say, clap hands and let's come together in this meeting ground,
I say, clap hands and let's deal with each other with love,
I say, clap hands and let us get from th...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

Off the Turnpike

...d brazen tramp
Asleep in my laylocks,
I jest stooped down and grabbed th' hand and give it an awful pull.
Then I bumped right down settin' on the ground.
Mis' Priest, ther warn't no body come with the hand.
No, it ain't cold, it's jest that I can't abear thinkin' of it,
Ev'n now.
I'll take a sip o' tea.
Thank you, Mis' Priest, that's better.
I'd ruther finish now I've begun.
Thank you, jest the same.
I dropped the hand's ef it'd be'n red hot
'Stead o' ice cold.
Fer a minit or...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Old Pardon the Son of Reprieve

...come! It was splendid; 
He gained on them yards every bound, 
Stretching out like a greyhound extended, 
His girth laid right down on the ground. 
A shimmer of silk in the cedars 
As into the running they wheeled, 
And out flashed the whips on the leaders, 
For Pardon had collared the field. 

Then right through the ruck he was sailing -- 
I knew that the battle was won -- 
The son of Haphazard was failing, 
The Yattendon filly was done; 
He cut down The Don and The Dancer, 
...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...hem to acquaint 
With these successes, and with them rejoice; 
You two this way, among these numerous orbs, 
All yours, right down to Paradise descend; 
There dwell, and reign in bliss; thence on the earth 
Dominion exercise and in the air, 
Chiefly on Man, sole lord of all declared; 
Him first make sure your thrall, and lastly kill. 
My substitutes I send ye, and create 
Plenipotent on earth, of matchless might 
Issuing from me: on your joint vigour now 
My hold of this new ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Part 10 of Trout Fishing in America

...ill and put the window in. Now he has a panoramic

view of the San Francisco County Hospital.

 He can practically look right down into the wards and see

old magazines eroded like the Grand Canyon from endless

readings. He can practically hear the patients thinking about

breakfast: I hate milk and thinking about dinner: I hate peas,

and then he can watch the hospital slowly drown at night,

hopelessly entangled in huge bunches of brick seaweed.

 He bought that window at ...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Part 9 of Trout Fishing in America

...or

 go to the Goodwill in Fairfax.

 So here we are, living in the California bush above Mill

 Valley. We could look right down on the main street of Mill

 Valley if it were not for the eucalyptus tree. We have to park

 the car a hundred yards away and come here along a tunnel-

 like path.

 If all the Germans Pard killed during the war with his

 machine-gun were to come and stand in their uniforms around

 this place, it would make us pretty nervous.

 There's the war...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty

...u and I ere night be sped
Will reck no more of eve or dawn.”


Swift as the swallow to its nest
I leaped: my body dropt right down:
A silver star I rose and flew.
A flame burned golden at his breast:
I entered at the heart and knew
My Brother-Self who roams the deep,
Bird of the wonder-world of sleep.


The ruby vesture wrapped us round
As twain in one; we left behind
The league-long murmur of the shore
And fleeted swifter than the wind.


The distance rushed upon the bark:
W...Read more of this...
by Russell, George William

The Lung Fish

...

"These barramundi are the blokes 
To give you all the sport you need: 
For when the big lagoons and soaks 
Are dried right down to mud and weed 
They don't sit there and raise a roar, 
They pack their traps and come ashore. 

"And all these rods and reels you lump 
Along the creek from day to day 
Would only give a man the hump 
Who does his fishing Queensland way. 
For when the barramundi's thick 
We knock 'em over with a stick. 

"The black boys on the Darwin side 
Will ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

The Poet in the Nursery

...nking, 
Remorsefully he died, his bedclothes biting. 

But suddenly I saw the bright green cover 
Of a thin pretty book right down below; 
I snatched it up and turned the pages over,
To find it full of poetry, and so 
Put it down my neck with quick hands like a lover, 
And turned to watch if the old man saw it go. 

The book was full of funny muddling mazes, 
Each rounded off into a lovely song,
And most extraordinary and monstrous phrases 
Knotted with rhymes like a slave-dr...Read more of this...
by Graves, Robert

The Song Of The Widow

...was----.
But suddenly it was just year on year,
no more good, no more new, no more wonderful.
Life had been torn in two right down the middle.

That was not his fault nor mine
since both of us had nothing but patience;
but death has none.
I saw him coming (how rotten he looked),
and I watched him as he took and took:
and nothing was mine.

What, then, belonged to me; was mine, my own?
Was not even this utter wretchedness
on loan to me by fate?
Fate does not only claim your ha...Read more of this...
by Rilke, Rainer Maria

The Wanderlust

...Then it's down to chewing muclucs, to the water you can eat,
To fish you bolt with nose held in your hand.
When you get right down to cases, it's King's Grub that rules the races,
And the Wanderlust will help you understand.

Haunting, taunting, that is the spell of it;
Mocking, baulking, that is the hell of it;
But I'll shoulder my pack in the morning, boys,
And I'm going because I must;
For it's so-long to all
When you answer the call
 Of the Wan-der-lust.

The Wanderlust h...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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