Famous Slap Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Slap poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous slap poems. These examples illustrate what a famous slap poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...tately swan majestic swims,
And ev’ry thing is blest but I.
And maun I still, &c.
The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap,
And o’er the moorlands whistles shill:
Wi’ wild, unequal, wand’ring step,
I meet him on the dewy hill.
And maun I still, &c.
And when the lark, ’tween light and dark,
Blythe waukens by the daisy’s side,
And mounts and sings on flittering wings,
A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide.
And maun I still, &c.
Come winter, with thine angry howl,
And ragin...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...of sturt and strife:
And other poets sing of wars,
The plagues of human life:
Shame fa’ the fun, wi’ sword and gun
To slap mankind like lumber!
I sing his name, and nobler fame,
Wha multiplies our number.
Great Nature spoke, with air benign,
“Go on, ye human race;
This lower world I you resign;
Be fruitful and increase.
The liquid fire of strong desire
I’ve pour’d it in each bosom;
Here, on this had, does Mankind stand,
And there is Beauty’s blossom.”
The Hero of t...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling
smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the
dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a
snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of
a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself.
I hated him on sight and sound, and...Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Dylan
...orus.
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
...ods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it....Read more of this...
by
Heaney, Seamus
...hing smiles from shiny domes and polished eye-lenses,
The men are glossy all over, snapping mortgages and scores
They slap fellow-souls at a distance, gun down the abusive
Clacking conductress, apologise over-loudly for 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...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...ne: garroted,
chest-choked, cheap. A sparrow’s,
beggar’s, a foghorn’s call.
For the kind of song only morning
can slap on love-stained sheets —
that’s what I sold my mother’s
bed for. The one she died in. Sold it
for a song....Read more of this...
by
Bosselaar, Laure-Anne
...ow a thing,
Still going every which way in the joints, though,
So that it looked like lightning or a scribble,
From the slap I had just now given its hand.
I listened till it almost climbed the stairs
From the hall to the only finished bedroom,
Before I got up to do anything;
Then ran and shouted, -œShut the bedroom door,
Toffile, for my sake!- -œCompany?- he said,
-œDon-™t make me get up; I-™m too warm in bed.-
So lying forward weakly on the handrail
I pushed myself upsta...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...ts were piled in lakes at Berne.
Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,
Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;
Still we let our business slide--as we dropped the half-dressed
hide--
To show a fellow-savage how to work.
Still the world is wondrous large,--seven seas from marge to
marge--
And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;
And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Ma...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...d his tongue:
"To investigate my Flora!
Oh, you howlin' Brigham Young!
Why, you've two-and-twenty wimmen --
Reg'lar slap-up wimmen, too!
And you're after little Flora!
And a crawlin' thing like you!
Oh, you Mormonite gorilla!
Well, I've heard it from the first
That you wizened little fellers
Is a hundred times the worst!
But a dried-up ape like you are,
To be marchin' through the land
With a pack of lovely wimmen --
Well, I cannot understand!"
"You mistake," s...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...iver,
the river moving
east, the heavy light
sifts down driving
the sparrows for
cover, and the women
bow as they slap
the life out
of sheets and pants
and worn hands....Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...rkening
below as the early light comes on.
Something flashes across his sight,
a double vision of such horror
he has to slap both his hands across
his mouth to keep from screaming.
Let's not be frivolous, let's
not pretend the two poets gave
each other wisdom or love or
even a good time, let's not
invent a dialogue of such eloquence
that even the ants in your own
house won't forget it. The two
greatest poetic geniuses alive
meet, and what happens? A vision
comes to an ordinar...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...ppers ready,
And I wriggle out to the chosen place,
When I hear a rustle . . . Steady! . . . Steady!
Who am I staring slap in the face?
There in the dark I can hear him breathing,
A foot away, and as still as death;
And my heart beats hard, and my brain is seething,
And I know he's a Hun by the smell of his breath.
Then: "Will you surrender?" I whisper hoarsely,
For it's death, swift death to utter a cry.
"English schwein-hund!" he murmurs coarsely.
"Then we'll fight i...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...ur duty;
You didn't get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
You didn't slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
Let's all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round
of unwritten letters is on me.
No, you never get any fun
Out of things you haven't done,
But they are the things that I do not like to be amid,
Because the suitable things you didn't do give you a lot more trouble than ...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...y,
Bloomin' good pay --
Lucky to touch it, a shillin' a day!
Oh, it drives me half crazy to think of the days I
Went slap for the Ghazi, my sword at my side,
When we rode Hell-for-leather
Both squadrons together,
That didn't care whether we lived or we died.
But it's no use despairin', my wife must go charin'
An' me commissairin' the pay-bills to better,
So if me you be'old
In the wet and the cold,
By the Grand Metropold, won't you give me a letter?
(Full chorus) Give 'im...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...e whole of life that still remained in him
34 Dwindled to one sound strumming in his ear,
35 Ubiquitous concussion, slap and sigh,
36 Polyphony beyond his baton's thrust.
37 Could Crispin stem verboseness in the sea,
38 The old age of a watery realist,
39 Triton, dissolved in shifting diaphanes
40 Of blue and green? A wordy, watery age
41 That whispered to the sun's compassion, made
42 A convocation, nightly, of the sea-stars,
43 And on the cropping foot...Read more of this...
by
Stevens, Wallace
...e street.
Out of this bright intentness into the mulberry shade
Musca domestica (housefly) swung from the August light
Slap into slithery rigging by the waiting spider made
Which spun the lithe elastic till the fly was shrouded tight.
Down came the hairy talons and horrible poison blade
And none of the garden noticed that fizzing, hopeless fight.
Say in what Cottage Hospital whose pale green walls resound
With the tap upon polished parquet of inflexible nurses' feet
Shall I...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...e an "isself jus'so!
The young recruit is 'appy -- 'e throws a chest to suit;
You see 'im grow mustaches; you 'ear 'im slap' is boot.
'E learns to drop the "bloodies" from every word 'e slings,
An 'e shows an 'ealthy brisket when 'e strips for bars an' rings.
The cruel-tyrant-sergeants they watch 'im 'arf a year;
They watch 'im with 'is comrades, they watch 'im with 'is beer;
They watch 'im with the women at the regimental dance,
And the cruel-tyrant-sergeants send 'is name...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...ees
it all and never blinks. But for now
there is water settling in a clean glass
on the shelf beside the razor, the slap
of bare feet on the floor above. Soon
the scent of rivers borne across roof
after roof by winds without names,
the aroma of opened beds better left
closed, of mouths without teeth, of light
rustling among the mice droppings
at the back of a bin of potatoes.
*
The old man who sleeps among the cases
of empty bottles in a little nest of rags
a...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...loves of our different children?
When I think of your young face washed by the wind
and your voice that chuckles in the slap of the sea?
The lights are out on La Toc promontory,
except for the hospital. Across at Vigie
the marina arcs keep vigil. I have kept my own
promise, to leave you the one thing I own,
you whom I loved first: my poetry.
We here for one night. Tomorrow, the Flight will be gone.
8 Fight with the Crew
It had one ***** on board, like he had me mark -
that...Read more of this...
by
Walcott, Derek
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