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Famous Slabs Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...
down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on
fishmonger's slabs.
"He wagged his bag like a frozen camel's hump, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was
gone."

"Get back to the Presents."
"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths;
zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan



...rusty iron locks and shouldering till at last the door gives and we are in a new room … forever and ever violet petals, slabs, the Christ face, brass keys and new rooms.

are we near or far?… is there anything else?… who comes back?… and why does love ask nothing and give all? and why is love rare as a tailed comet shaking guesses out of men at telescopes ten feet long? why does the mystery sit with its chin on the lean forearm of women in gray eyes and women in hazel eyes? 
...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...d to let’

Is what you get on the Hollows

Thousands of half-burned tyres

The rusty barrel of a Trumix lorry

Concrete slabs, foxgloves and condoms,

The Go-Kart Arena’s signboards,

Half the wall of Ellerby Lane School.





40



There is a mermaid singing

On East Street on an IBM poster

Her hair is lack-lustre

Her breasts are facing the camera

Her tail is like a worn-out brush.



Chimney stacks

Blind black walls

Of factories

Grimy glass

Flickering firelight

 In ...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry
...ent in quite cool and slow, 
And then (the trick had been played before) 
The girl outside gave the wall a blow. 
Three slabs fell out of the stable wall -- 
'Twas done 'fore ever the trooper knew -- 
And Ryan, as soon as he saw them fall, 
Mounted The Swagman and rushed him through. 

The trooper heard the hoof-beats ring 
In the stable yard, and he jammed the gate, 
But The Swagman rose with a mighty spring 
At the fence, and the trooper fired too late 
As they raced away, ...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...eyes are wet and urgent,
And his body is taut and shaking.
It is cold on the terrace;
A pale wind licks along the stone slabs,
But the dog gazes through the glass
And is content.
The Beloved is writing a letter.
Occasionally she speaks to the dog,
But she is thinking of her writing.
Does she, too, give her devotion to one
Not worthy?...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy



...thland, which the Lady Lyonors 
Had sent her coming champion, waited him. 

Anon they past a narrow comb wherein 
Where slabs of rock with figures, knights on horse 
Sculptured, and deckt in slowly-waning hues. 
'Sir Knave, my knight, a hermit once was here, 
Whose holy hand hath fashioned on the rock 
The war of Time against the soul of man. 
And yon four fools have sucked their allegory 
From these damp walls, and taken but the form. 
Know ye not these?' and Gareth lookt an...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...THIN sheets of blue smoke among white slabs … near the shingle mill … winter morning.
Falling of a dry leaf might be heard … circular steel tears through a log.
Slope of woodland … brown … soft … tinge of blue such as pansy eyes.
Farther, field fires … funnel of yellow smoke … spellings of other yellow in corn stubble.
Bobsled on a down-hill road … February snow mud … horses steaming … Oscar the...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...t.
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?
There are three stones of slate and one of marble,
Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight
On the sidehill. We haven't to mind those.
But I understand: it is not the stones,
But the child's mound --'
'Don't, don't, don't, don't,' she cried.
She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm
That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;
And turned on him with such a daunting look,
He said twice over before he knew himself:
...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert
...times leisure ever short
That crick and catch the bouncing ball
And run along the church yard wall
Capt wi rude figured slabs whose claims
In times bad memory hath no names
Oft racing round the nookey church
Or calling ecchos in the porch
And jilting oer the weather cock
Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock
Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights
Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights
The green grass swelld in many a heap
Where kin and friends and parents sleep
Unthinking in their jovia...Read more of this...
by Clare, John
...see Egypt and the Egyptians—I see the pyramids and obelisks;
I look on chisel’d histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on
 granite-blocks; 
I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalm’d, swathed in linen cloth, lying
 there
 many centuries; 
I look on the fall’n Theban, the large-ball’d eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands
 folded
 across the breast. 

I see the menials of the earth, laboring; 
I see the prisoners in the prisons;
I see ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...tor, the Jewish dancer,
die of AIDS, the Boston seminary's
dean succumbs "after brief illness" to cancer.
I like mossed slabs in country cemeteries
with wide-paced dates, candles in jars, whose tallow
glows on summer evenings, desk-lamp yellow.

Aglow in summer evening, a desk-lamp's yellow
moonlight peruses notebooks, houseplants, texts,
while an aging woman thinks of sex
in the present tense. Desire may follow,
urgent or elegant, cut raw or mellow
with wine and ripe black f...Read more of this...
by Hacker, Marilyn
...st duckling and péche melba shall not consummate my days.
No more nocturnal ice-box raids, midnight spaghetti feeds;
On slabs of pâté de foie gras I vow I won't indulge:
Let bran and cottage cheese suffice my gastronomic needs,
And lettuce be my ally in the
 Battle of the Bulge.

To hell with you, ignoble paunch, abhorrent in my sight!
I gaze at your rotundity, and savage is my frown.
I'll rub you and I'll scrub you and I'll drub you day and night,
But by the gods of symmetry...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...re poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not laguage...Read more of this...
by Gilbert, Jack
...nd passed in
To a strange Temple and a God they feared
But knew not.

 From the crevices the grass
Had thrust the altar-slabs apart, the walls
Were gray with stains unclean, the roof-beams swelled
With many-coloured growth of rottenness,
And lichen veiled the Image of Taman
In leprosy. The Basin of the Blood
Above the altar held the morning sun:
A winking ruby on its heart: below,
Face hid in hands, the maid Bisesa lay.

Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
Bears witness to th...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...hat law? 
 In their last sad embrace, 'midst their honor and awe, 
 Of this mighty volcano the drift. 
 'Neath great slabs of marble they hid them in vain, 
 'Gainst this everliving fire, God's own flaming rain! 
 'Tis the rash whom God seeks out the first; 
 They call on their gods, who were deaf to their cries, 
 For the punishing flame caused their cold granite eyes 
 In tears of hot lava to burst! 
 Thus away in the whirlwind did everything pass, 
 The man and t...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire;
Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine,
Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire,
Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.
Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack;
Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with my ardent wings of flame;
I will kindle them to glory, I will beat the darkness back;
Streaming, gleaming,...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...peated stabs, 
 Sprang to his feet, while from him pealed a fearful shout, 
 And, furious, flung down upon the marble slabs 
 The richly carved and golden Lamp, whose light went out— 
 Then glided in a form strange-shaped, 
 In likeness of a woman, moulded in dense smoke, 
 Veiled in thick, ebon fog, in utter darkness draped, 
 A glimpse of which, in short, one's inmost fears awoke. 
 Zim was alone with her, this Goddess of the Night. 
 The massy walls of stone like ...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor
...arp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Again...Read more of this...
by McKay, Claude
...ped castors
Of grey pepper and grey-white salt.
Grey-white placards: "Oyster Stew, Cornbeef Hash, Frankfurters":
Marble slabs veined with words in meandering lines.
Dropping on the white counter like horn notes
Through a web of violins,
The flat yellow lights of oranges,
The cube-red splashes of apples,
In high plated `epergnes'.
The electric clock jerks every half-minute:
"Coming! -- Past!"
"Three beef-steaks and a chicken-pie,"
Bawled through a slide while the clock jerks h...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...er. Quietly she says, 
You're a ****, I'll get you for it. 

3 

Money's the same, he says. 
He brings it home in white slabs 
that smell like soap. 

Throws them down 
on the table as though 
he didn't care. 

The children hear 
and come in from play glowing 
like honey and so hungry. 

4 

With it all we have 
such a talent for laughing. 
We can laugh at anything. 

And we forget no one. 
She listens to mother 
on the phone, and he remembers 

the exact phrasing of a child'...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry