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Famous Smirk Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...of the street and you waited
for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And
then it was breakfast under the balloons."

"Were there Uncles like in our house?"
"There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle
and sugar fags, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird
by the Post Office or by the white ...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan



...a clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon
(where once good lips stalked or eyes firmly stir
red)
my mirror gives me on this afternoon;
i am a shape that can but eat and turd
ere with the dirt death shall him vastly gird 
a coward waiting clumsily to cease
whom every perfect thing meanwhile doth miss;
a hand's impression in an empty glove 
a soon forgotten tune...Read more of this...
by Cummings, Edward Estlin (E E)
...nd
Of thy glad table; not a dish more known
To thee, than unto any one:
But as thy meat, so thy immortal wine
Makes the smirk face of each to shine,
And spring fresh rose-buds, while the salt, the wit,
Flows from the wine, and graces it;
While Reverence, waiting at the bashful board,
Honours my lady and my lord.
No scurril jest, no open scene is laid
Here, for to make the face afraid;
But temp'rate mirth dealt forth, and so discreet-
Ly, that it makes the meat more sweet,
And...Read more of this...
by Herrick, Robert
..., and know
Recesses for it from the fury of the street,
Or warm torn elbow coverts.

We will sidestep, and to the final smirk
Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb
That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us,
Facing the dull squint with what innocence
And what surprise!

And yet these fine collapses are not lies
More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane;
Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise.
We can evade you, and all else but the heart:
What blame to us if the h...Read more of this...
by Crane, Hart
...ompose
The furtive, lone
Pillar of bone
To some repose.

To let hands shirk
Utterance behind
A pocket's blind
Deceptive smirk.

To mask, belie
The undue haste
Of breast for breast
Or thigh for thigh.

To screen, conserve
The pose, when death
Half strips the sheath
And leaves the nerve.

To edit, glose
Lyric desire
And slake its fire
In polished prose....Read more of this...
by Tessimond, A S J



...Of course you have faced the dilemma: it is announced, they all smirk and rise. If they are ultra, they remove their hats and look ecstatic; then they look at you. What shall you do? Noblesse oblige; you cannot be boorish, or ungracious; and too, after all it is your country and you do love its ideals if not all of its realities. Now, then, I have thought of a way out: Arise, gracefully remove your hat, and tilt your hea...Read more of this...
by Du Bois, W. E. B.
...Faith! for such a chit as that 
Strong men must kill and die. 
She'll back to her embroideree, 
And fools that bow and smirk, 
And we must sail across the sea 
And go to other work. 

"And wherefore? Wherefore," Withen said, 
"Is this red quarrel sought? 
Because of clacking painted hags 
And foreign fops at Court! 
Because 'tis said a drunken king, 
In lands we've never seen, 
Said something foolish in his cups 
Of our young silly queen! 

"Good faith! in her old great-aunt...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry
...ave time and theories; old men work.
He has painted countless portraits. Sallow
nameless faces, made glistening in oil, smirk
above anonymous mantelpieces.
The turpentine has a familiar smell,
but his hand trembles with odd, new palsies.
Perched on the maulstick, it nears the easel.

He has come to like his resignation.
In his sketch books, ink-dark cossacks hear
the snorts of horses in the crunch of snow.
His pen alone recalls that years ago,
one horseman set his teeth and a...Read more of this...
by Jong, Erica
...est 
Were looking like the worst. 

Enkindled by my votive work 
No burnng faith I find; 
The deeper thinkers sneer and smirk, 
And give my toil no mind; 
From nod and wink 
I read they think 
That I am fool and blind. 

My gift to God seems futile, quite; 
The world moves as erstwhile; 
And powerful Wrong on feeble Right 
Tramples in olden style. 
My faith burns down, 
I see no crown; 
But Cares, and Griefs, and Guile. 

So now, the remedy? Yea, this: 
I gently swing the doo...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas
...e Duke, and his mother like him:
The lady hardly got a rebuff---
That had not been contemptuous enough,
With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,
And kept off the old mother-cat's claws.

IX.

So, the little lady grew silent and thin,
Paling and ever paling,
As the way is with a hid chagrin;
And the Duke perceived that she was ailing,
And said in his heart, ``'Tis done to spite me,
``But I shall find in my power to right me!''
Don't swear, friend! The old one, many a year...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...ow, Alice,
`Disgrace' is a mite strong.
Why, the jail was a joke.
Art's all right."
"All right!
All right to dance, and smirk, and lie
For a livin',
And then in the end
Lead a silly girl to give you
What warn't hers to give
By pretendin' you'd marry her --
And she a pupil."
"He'd ha' married her right enough,
Her folks was millionaires."
"Yes, he'd ha' married her!
Thank God, they saved her that."
"Art's a fine feller.
I wish I had his luck.
Swellin' round in Hart, Schaffner ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...we'll fathom the deeps of pain:
But the hardest bit of it all will be -- when we come back home again.

For some of us smirk in a chiffon shop, and some of us teach in a school;
Some of us help with the seat of our pants to polish an office stool;
The merits of somebody's soap or jam some of us seek to explain,
But all of us wonder what we'll do when we have to go back again....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...st be
To hear you lisp of "Poesie"!
A heavy-handed blow, I think,
Would make your veins drip scented ink.
You strut and smirk your little while
So mildly, delicately vile!

Your tiny voices mock God's wrath,
You snails that crawl along His path!
Why, what has God or man to do
With wet, amorphous things like you?
This thing alone you have achieved:
Because of you, it is believed
That all who earn their bread by rhyme
Are like yourselves, exuding slime.
Oh, cease to write, for ...Read more of this...
by Kilmer, Joyce

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry