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Famous Shave Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Bukowski, Charles
...ck, watching a small portable T.V. His
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash
from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning.
Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing
it away. There was a knock on the trailer door. He got slowly to his feet and answered the
door. It was Constance. She had a fifth of unope...Read more of this...



by Sexton, Anne
...What can I do with this bayonet?
Make a rose bush of it?
Poke it into the moon?
Shave my legs with its silver?
Spear a goldfish?
No. No.

It was made
in my dream
for you.
My eyes were closed.
I was curled fetally
and yet I held a bayonet
that was for the earth of your stomach.
The belly button singing its puzzle.
The intestines winding like alpine roads.
It was made to enter you
as you have entered me
and to ...Read more of this...

by Tate, James
..."And if we put the statue of the rhinoceros
next to the tweezers, and walk around the room three times,
learn to yodel, shave our heads, call 
our ancestors back from the dead--" 
poetrywise it's still a bust, bankrupt.
You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
You're a nowhere man misfiring
the very essence of your life, flustering
nothing from nothing and back again.
The hereafter may not last all that long.
Radiant childhood sweetheart,
secret code of everlas...Read more of this...

by Taylor, Edward
..."And if we put the statue of the rhinoceros
next to the tweezers, and walk around the room three times,
learn to yodel, shave our heads, call 
our ancestors back from the dead--" 
poetrywise it's still a bust, bankrupt.
You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
You're a nowhere man misfiring
the very essence of your life, flustering
nothing from nothing and back again.
The hereafter may not last all that long.
Radiant childhood sweetheart,
secret code of everlas...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...r their too

Quiet cars. Plump fingers stroke smooth cheeks - bounce

Bounce, bouncing baby- faces, so manly to wet-shave!



Head heavy from dreams of bronze-fleshed centaurs

Tense with ‘The New Poets’ - no rhythm, failure of connection,

Who slept with who to get in. Aargh!

Forty rose-bearing ten-year old faces are waiting

And behind them in the staff-room corpses are coffined

In eternal celluloid faces....Read more of this...



by Gregory, Rg
...ars older
  then i had the curtains drawn over recluse fears
  today the sun comes in and instantly it's colder

  must shave and get dressed - i'm being nagged
  to shove my suspicions in a corner and get out
  what use the sun if being plagued with new life
  i can't throw off this centrally-heated doubt

  accept people with ice in their brows
  are the new spartans - they wait
      shall i go with them
  indoor delights that slowly breed into lies
  need to be dumped out...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...and such a tempting sight 
Swells his old veins with fresh blood, fresh delight. 
Like am'rous victors he begins to shave, 
And his new face looks in the English wave. 
His sporting navy all about him swim 
And witness their complacence in their trim. 
Their streaming silks play through the weather fair 
And with inveigling colours court the air, 
While the red flags breathe on their topmasts high 
Terror and war, but want an enemy. 
Among the shrouds the seam...Read more of this...

by Murray, Les
...The paddocks shave black
with a foam of smoke that stays,
welling out of red-black wounds.

In the white of a drought
this happens. The hardcourt game.
Logs that fume are mostly cattle,

inverted, stubby. Tree stumps are kilns.
Walloped, wiped, hand-pumped,
even this day rolls over, slowly.

At dusk, a family drives sheep 
out through the yellow
o...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
 Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It's like looking down
 From long French windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
 In the evening sun. It is intensely sad....Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...r-porch,
The church's apsis, aisle or nave,
Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch,
Its face set full for the sun to shave.

VI.

Wherever a fresco peels and drops,
Wherever an outline weakens and wanes
Till the latest life in the painting stops,
Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains:
One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick,
Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster,
---A lion who dies of an ass's kick,
The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.Read more of this...

by Orlovsky, Peter
...yes
like the endurance of a red star on a cigerate
makes me feel life splits faster than sissors.
I know if I could shave myself the bugs around my face would 
 disappear forever.
The holes in my shues are only temporary, I understand that.
My rug is dirty but whose that isent?
There comes a time in life when everybody must take a piss in 
 the sink -here let me paint the window black for a minute.
Thro a plate & brake it out of naughtiness-or maybe just 
 inn...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...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 me! I see him on the cliff!
Farewell, farewell to hope,
If he should look this way, and if
He's got ...Read more of this...

by Hikmet, Nazim
...to sing sad songs,
or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling
 is sweet but dangerous.
Look at your face from shave to shave,
forget your age,
watch out for lice
 and for spring nights,
 and always remember
 to eat every last piece of bread--
also, don't forget to laugh heartily.
And who knows,
the woman you love may stop loving you.
Don't say it's no big thing:
it's like the snapping of a green branch
 to the man inside.
To think of roses and gardens in...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave
Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)

Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
..., and doesn't brag himself.

O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
At the little place in What'hitsname where folks are rich and clever;
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse forever;
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
There is a game of April Fool that's played behi...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...ce he had as small as hath a goat.
No beard had he, nor ever one should have.
As smooth it was as it were new y-shave;
I trow he were a gelding or a mare.
But of his craft, from Berwick unto Ware,
Ne was there such another pardonere.
For in his mail* he had a pillowbere**, *bag  **pillowcase
Which, as he saide, was our Lady's veil:
He said, he had a gobbet* of the sail *piece
That Sainte Peter had, when that he went
Upon the sea, till Jesus Christ him hent...Read more of this...

by Lovelace, Richard
...d;
Ceres and Bacchus bid good-night;
Sharp frosty fingers all your flow'rs have topped,
And what schythes spared, winds shave off quite.

Poor verdant fool! and now green ice!—thy joys,
Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass,
Bid us lay in 'gainst winter rain, and poise
Their floods with an o'erflowing glass.

Thou best of men and friends! we will create
A genuine summer in each other's breast;
And spite of this cold time and frozen fate,
Thaw us a warm seat to ou...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...he blossom on the rise*. *twig 
A merry child he was, so God me save;
Well could he letten blood, and clip, and shave,
And make a charter of land, and a quittance.
In twenty manners could he trip and dance,
After the school of Oxenforde tho*, *then
And with his legges caste to and fro;
And playen songes on a small ribible*; *fiddle
Thereto he sung sometimes a loud quinible* *treble
And as well could he play on a gitern.* *guitar
In all the town was brewhou...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...hey made a bond between the three, as rock against the wave, 
That they'd go to the barber's shop and each have a clean shave, 
To show the people how they looked when they were young and brave. 

They had the shave and bought three suits (and startling suits in sooth), 
And three white shirts and three red ties (to tell the awful truth), 
To show the people how they looked in their hilarious youth. 

They burnt their old clothes in the yard, and their old hats as wel...Read more of this...

by Gordon, Adam Lindsay
...you roll'd together when the chestnut rear'd; 
He blazed away and missed you in that shallow water-course -- 
A narrow shave -- his powder singed your beard! 

In these hours when life is ebbing, how those days when life was young 
Come back to us; how clearly I recall 
Even the yarns Jack Hall invented, and the songs Jem Roper sung; 
And where are now Jem Roper and Jack Hall? 
Ay! nearly all our comrades of the old colonial school, 
Our ancient boon companions, Ned, are gon...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs