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Famous Shots Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Sassoon, Siegfried
...me posting by with chilly gusts 
And buffeting at the corners, piping thin. 
And dreary through the crannies; rifle-shots 
Would split and crack and sing along the night, 
And shells came calmly through the drizzling air 
To burst with hollow bang below the hill.

Three hours ago, he stumbled up the trench; 
Now he will never walk that road again: 
He must be carried back, a jolting lump 
Beyond all needs of tenderness and care.

He was a young man with a meagre w...Read more of this...



by Estep, Maggie
...d so I go home and get my best panties. Suzee lends me some 6 inch pumps,
paints my lips bright red, and gives me 7 shots of Jack Daniels to relax
me. 

8pm that night I take the stage.

I'm bald, 
I'm drunk,
and by god,
I'm naked.


HOLY **** I'M NAKED IN A ROOM FULL OF STRANGERS THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE
RECURRING NIGHTMARES WE ALL HAVE ABOUT BEING BUTT NAKED IN PUBLIC, I AM
NAKED, I DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE, THIS REALLY SUCKS.

A few guys feel sorry for m...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...men, and Black Beard with fourteen,
Made the most desperate and bloody conflict that ever was seen. 

At last with shots and wounds the pirate fell down dead,
Then from his body Maynard severed the pirate's head,
And suspended it upon his bowsprit-end,
And thanked God Who so mercifully did him defend. 

Black Beard derived his name from his long black beard,
Which terrified America more than any comet that had ever appeared;
But, thanks be to God, in this age we need...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
..., 
But The Swagman rose with a mighty spring 
At the fence, and the trooper fired too late 
As they raced away, and his shots flew wide, 
And Ryan no longer need care a rap, 
For never a horse that was lapped in hide 
Could catch The Swagman in Conroy's Gap. 

And that's the story. You want to know 
If Ryan came back to his Kate Carew; 
Of course he should have, as stories go, 
But the worst of it is this story's true: 
And in real life it's a certain rule, 
Whatever ...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...hroat of the world,
everybody feels angry,
short-changed, cheated,
everybody is despondent,
dissillusioned)

I welcomed shots of
peace, tattered shards of
happiness.

I embraced that stuff
like the hottest number,
like high heels,breasts,
singing,the
works.

(dont get me wrong,
there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism
that overlooks all
basic problems justr for
the sake of
itself-
this is a sheild and a 
sickness.)

The knife got near my
throat again,
I almost t...Read more of this...



by Lowell, Amy
...holler
Fer as you could see.
It was so quiet
The snappin' o' the branches back in the wood-lot
Sounded like pistol shots.
Ed was out all day
Same as usual.
An' it seemed he talked less'n ever.
He didn't even say `Good-mornin'', once or twice,
An' jest nodded or shook his head when I asked him things.
On Monday he said he'd got to go over to Benton
Fer some oats.
I'd oughter ha' gone with him,
But 'twas washin' day
An' I was afeared the fine weather'd ...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...my eyes
When two are three and four,
And guzzle reality's rise and cries
And praise the truth beyond surmise
When small shots shout: More! More! More! More!

III Rabbi to Preach

Rabbi Robert Raaba will preach
 on "An Eye for an Eye"
 (an I for an I?)
(Two weeks from this week: "On the Sacred Would")
At Temple Sholem on Lake Shore Drive
- Pavel Slavensky will chant the liturgical responses
And William Leon, having now thirteen years
 will thank his parents that he exists
To c...Read more of this...

by Twain, Mark
...o; such was not the fate of
Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
'Twas not from sickness' shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
Nor measles drear, with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...im.

So when the cruel march is done, an' when the roads is blind,
An' when we sees the camp in front an' 'ears the shots be'ind,
Ho! then we strips 'is saddle off, and all 'is woes is past:
'E thinks on us that used 'im so, and gets revenge at last.
 O the oont, O the oont, O the floatin', bloatin' oont!
 The late lamented camel in the water-cut 'e lies;
 We keeps a mile be'ind 'im an' we keeps a mile in front,
 But 'e gets into the drinkin'-casks, and then o' course...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...ut they hurry to their hole
down in the yard of day.

They dance between their arclamps and our skull,
Impose their shots, showing the nights away;
We watch the show of shadows kiss or kill
Flavoured of celluloid give love the lie.

III

Which is the world? Of our two sleepings, which
Shall fall awake when cures and their itch
Raise up this red-eyed earth?
Pack off the shapes of daylight and their starch,
The sunny gentlemen, the Welshing rich,
Or drive the night-gear...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...wall! 
 
 By Leghorn, twenty caravels 
 Came 'cross our lonely sail— 
 Spinoza's Sea-Invincibles! 
 But, whew! our shots like hail 
 Made shortish work of galley long 
 And chubby sailing craft— 
 Our making ready first to close 
 Sent them a-spinning aft. 
 
 Off Marseilles, ne'er by sun forsook 
 We friends fell-to as foes! 
 For Lucca Diavolo mistook 
 Angelo's wife for Rose, 
 
 And hang me! soon the angel slid 
 The devil in the sea, 
 And would of lass...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...love."

"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
Did ye see no more o' my true love?"
"I seed 'im runnin' by when the shots begun to fly --
But you'd best go look for a new love."

"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
Did aught take 'arm to my true love?"
"I couldn't see the fight, for the smoke it lay so white --
An' you'd best go look for a new love."

"Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
I'll up an' tend to my true love!"
"'E's lying on the dead with a bullet t...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...cannon responsive. 

I take part—I see and hear the whole; 
The cries, curses, roar—the plaudits for well-aim’d shots; 
The ambulanza slowly passing, trailing its red drip; 
Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs;
The fall of grenades through the rent roof—the fan-shaped explosion; 
The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air. 

Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general—he furiously waves with his
 hand; 
He gasps...Read more of this...

by Campbell, Thomas
...Again! again! again! 
And the havoc did not slack, 
Till a feeble cheer the Dane 
To our cheering sent us back;— 
Their shots along the deep slowly boom:— 
Then ceased—and all is wail, 
As they strike the shatter'd sail, 
Or in conflagration pale 
Light the gloom. 

Out spoke the victor then 
As he hail'd them o'er the wave: 
'Ye are brothers! ye are men! 
And we conquer but to save:— 
So peace instead of death let us bring: 
But yield, proud foe, thy fleet, 
With the cre...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...ittle dried up blood clots.
And the heart too, that cripple, how it sang
once. How it thought it could call the shots!

Understand what happened the day I fell.
My heart had stammered and hungered at
a marriage feast until the angel of hell
turned me into the punisher, the acrobat.

My bones are loose as clothespins,
as abandoned as dolls in a toy shop
and my heart, old hunger motor, with its sins
revved up like an engine that would not stop.

And now I sp...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...my guns in hand,
And one of them, in a panic,
 Shot the officer in command.

He hit him in three places;
 The other shots went wild.
The soldier had hysterics
 And sobbed like a little child.

The dying man said, "Finish
 The job we came here for."
he committed his soul to God
 And his sons to the Governor.

They ran and got a priest,
 And he died in hope of Heaven
--A man from Pernambuco,
 The youngest of eleven.

They wanted to stop the search,
 but ...Read more of this...

by Butler, Ellis Parker
...gton.
 And our time on earth is almost run,
 But when we are gone our children will tell
 How we rode through rebel shots and shell.
 How we rode on the guns with a mighty shout,
 And saved Paine’s army from utter route.
 And carved in the temple of glory will be
 The roll of the 2nd Iowa Cavalry.
 The brave old 2nd, that never knew
 A deed too hard or rash to do.
 The dear old 2nd, that would have spurred
 Into Hell itself, if Hatch said the word....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...cost to slay,
And few there live to tell the story . . .
Yet look! there's one so swift to fly,
Despite the shots a course he's steering . . .
Brave little bird! he's winging high,
He's gained the trees - I feel like cheering.

In Monte Carlo's garden glades
With dreamful bliss one softly lingers,
And lazily in leafy shades
The doves pick breadcrumbs from one fingers . . .
Bang! Bang! Farewell, oh sylvan courts!
Where peace and joy are ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw.)
They had not run a mile from shore -- they heard no shots behind --
When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind:
"Bluffed -- raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall,
You must set a thief to catch a thief -- and a thief has caught us all!
By every butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine,
The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was the hand of Reuben Paine!
...Read more of this...

by Harrison, Tony
...oo many people in,
starts on the TV logo as a taw,
then ping-pong, tennis, football; then one spin
to show us all, then shots of the Gulf War.

As the coal with reddish dust cools in the grate
on the late-night national news we see
police v. pickets at a coke-plant grate,
old violence and old disunity.

The map that's colour-coded Ulster/Eire's
flashed on again as almost every night.
Behind a tiny coffin with two bearers
men in masks with arms show off their m...Read more of this...

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