Famous Slug Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Casualty

by Seamus Heaney
 I

He would drink by himself
And raise a weathered thumb
Towards the high shelf,
Calling another rum
And blackcurrant, without
Having to raise his voice,
Or order a quick stout
By a lifting of the eyes
And a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;
At closing time would go
In waders and peaked cap
Into the showery dark,
A dole-kept breadwinner
But a natural for work.
I loved his whole manner,
Sure-footed but too...Read more of this...

Beak-Bashing Boy

by Robert William Service
 But yesterday I banked on fistic fame,
Figgerin' I'd be a champion of the Ring.
Today I've half a mind to quit the Game,
For all them rosy dreams have taken wing,
Since last night a secondary bout
I let a goddam ****** knock me out.

It must have been that T-bone steak I ate;
They might have doped it, them smart gambling guys,
For round my...Read more of this...

The Doctor Of The Heart

by Anne Sexton
 Take away your knowledge, Doktor.
It doesn't butter me up.

You say my heart is sick unto.
You ought to have more respect!

you with the goo on the suction cup.
You with your wires and electrodes

fastened at my ankle and wrist,
sucking up the biological breast.

You with your zigzag machine
playing like the stock market up and down.

Give me the Phi Beta key you always...Read more of this...

Statuary

by Nick Flynn
 Bees may be trusted, always, 
 to discover the best, nay, the only 

human, solution. Let me cite 

 an instance; an event, that, 

though occurring in nature, is still 
 in itself wholly abnormal. I refer 

to the manner in which the bees 

 will dispose of a mouse 
 or a slug 

 that may happen to...Read more of this...

The Cup On The Battle-field

by Victor Hugo
 ("Mon pére, ce héros au sourire.") 
 
 {Bk. XLIX. iv.} 


 My sire, the hero with the smile so soft, 
 And a tall trooper, his companion oft, 
 Whom he loved greatly for his courage high 
 And strength and stature, as the night drew nigh 
 Rode out together. The battle was done; 
 The dead...Read more of this...

Deaths Way

by Robert William Service
 Old Man Death's a lousy heel who will not play the game:
Let Graveyard yawn and doom down crash, he'll sneer and turn away.
But when the sky with rapture rings and joy is like a flame,
Then Old Man Death grins evilly, and swings around to slay.

Jack Duval was my chosen pal in the ranks of the Reckless Men.
Thick as thieves...Read more of this...

Names Of Horses

by Donald Hall
All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding
and steerhide over the ash hames, to haul
sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer,
for the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range.

In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields,
dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs of your own clustered with oats.
All summer you mowed the...Read more of this...

Corinnas Going A-Maying

by Robert Herrick
 Get up, get up for shame! the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air!
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangled herb and tree.
Each flower has wept and bowed toward the east
Above an hour since,—yet you not dressed;
Nay! not so much as out of bed?
When all the birds have...Read more of this...

Drumnotes

by Carl Sandburg
 DAYS of the dead men, Danny.
Drum for the dead, drum on your
 remembering heart.

Jaurès, a great love-heart of France,
 a slug of lead in the red valves.
Kitchener of Khartoum, tall, cold, proud,
 a shark’s mouthful.
Franz Josef, the old man of forty haunted
 kingdoms, in a tomb with the Hapsburg
 fathers, moths eating a green uniform
 to tatters, worms taking...Read more of this...

Justice Denied In Massachusetts

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Let us abandon then our gardens and go home
And sit in the sitting-room
Shall the larkspur blossom or the corn grow under this cloud?
Sour to the fruitful seed
Is the cold earth under this cloud,
Fostering quack and weed, we have marched upon but cannot
conquer;
We have bent the blades of our hoes against the stalks of them.

Let us go home, and sit...Read more of this...

Name of Horses

by Donald Hall
 All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding 
and steerhide over the ash hames, to haul 
sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer, 
for the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range.

In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields, 
dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs of your own clustered with...Read more of this...

Butterflies

by Rudyard Kipling
 Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
The children follow the butterflies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,
And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,
They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father
And stills the riot of pain...Read more of this...

Garden Francies

by Robert Browning
 I. THE FLOWER'S NAME

Here's the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the...Read more of this...

Our New Horse

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The boys had come back from the races 
All silent and down on their luck; 
They'd backed 'em, straight out and for places, 
But never a winner they's struck. 
They lost their good money on Slogan, 
And fell most uncommonly flat 
When Partner, the pride of the Bogan, 
Was beaten by Aristocrat. 
And one said, "I move that instanter...Read more of this...

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

by Robert Browning
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who...Read more of this...

Motel Seedy

by Thomas Lux
 The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
must have been abused in art class
as children, forced to fingerpaint
with a nose, or a tongue. To put this color
green--exhausted grave grass--to cinder blocks
takes an understanding of loneliness
and/or institutions that terrifies.
It would seem...Read more of this...

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