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Famous Sniff Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...
each joke, 
which his scorching mouth spews, 
jumps like a naked prostitute 
from a burning brothel. 

People sniff 
the smell of burnt flesh! 
A brigade of men drive up. 
A glittering brigade. 
In bright helmets. 
But no jackboots here! 
Tell the firemen 
to climb lovingly when a heart¡¯s on fire. 
Leave it to me. 
I¡¯ll pump barrels of tears from my eyes. 
I¡¯ll brace myself against my ribs. 
I¡¯ll leap out! Out! Out! 
They¡...Read more of this...
by Mayakovsky, Vladimir



...s-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam;
 You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear;
You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam;
 The very breath of it is ripe with cheer.
You're awful cold and dirty, and a-cursin' of your lot;
 You scoff the blushin' 'alf of it, so rich and rippin' 'ot;
It bucks you up like anythink, just seems to touch the spot:
 God bless the man that first discovered Tea!

Since I came out to fight in France, which ain't the other day...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...evitability of death.

Not wholly wretched, yet knowing absolutely
That I shall never reacquaint myself with joy,
I sniff the smell of ink and chalk and my mortality
And think of when I rolled, a gormless boy,

And rollicked round the playground of my hours,
And wonder when precisely tolled the bell
Which summoned me from summer liberties
And brought me to this chill autumnal cell

From which I gaze upon the april faces
That gleam before me, like apples ranged on shelves,...Read more of this...
by Scannell, Vernon
...ssing, yet it brings him off his perch, 
For it stirs him like a message from his station friends afar 
And he seems to sniff the ranges in the scent of wool and tar; 
And it takes him back in fancy, half in laughter, half in tears, 
to a sound of other voices and a thought of other years, 
When the woolshed rang with bustle from the dawning of the day, 
And the shear-blades were a-clicking to the cry of "Wool away!" 

Then his face was somewhat browner, and his frame was fir...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...her mother's belly, all furry 
and hoarse skimming over the houses, the armies. 
That's why the dogs of your house sniff me. 
They know I'm something to be caught 
somewhere in the cemetery hanging upside down 
like a misshapen udder....Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne



...ste smooth, and Rosehip-
round, the center bud I suck.
I milknip your two Blue-skeined
blown Rose beauties, too, to sniff
their berries' blood, up stiff
pink tips. You're white in 
patches, only mostly Rose,
buckskin and saltly, speckled
like a sky. I love your spots,
your white neck, Rose, your hair's
wild straw splash, silk spools
for your ears. But where white
spouts out, spills on your brow
to clear eyepools, wheel shafts
of light, Rose, you are Blue....Read more of this...
by Swenson, May
...In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off ...Read more of this...
by García Lorca, Federico
...ot and scaly grip; 
By those two red redundant eyes 
That weep like woeful April skies; 
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff; 
By handkerchief after handkerchief; 
This cold you wave away as naught 
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught! 

Give ear, you scientific fossil! 
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal; 
The Cold of which researchers dream, 
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme. 
This honored system humbly holds 
The Super-cold to end all colds; 
The Cold Crusading for...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden
...Foes I sniff, when I have less to shout
or murmur. Pals alone enormous sounds
downward & up bring real.
Loss, deaths, terror. Over & out,
beloved: thanks for cabbage on my wounds:
I'll feed you how I feel:—

of avocado moist with lemon, yea
formaldehyde & rotting sardines O
in our appointed time
I would I could a touch more fully say
my consentless mi...Read more of this...
by Berryman, John
...yote scent on the trigger (prob-

ably the smell of a coyote snatch) and then a coyote comes

along and gives it a good sniff, a fast feel and BLAM! That's

all, brother.

 I went fishing up on Salt Creek and caught a nice little

Dolly Varden trout, spotted and slender as a snake you'd ex-

pect to find in a jewelry store, but after a while I could think

only of the gas chamber at San Quentin.

 O Caryl Chessman and Alexander Robillard Vistas ! as if

they were name...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...ver 

Take it between their teeth 
Run out as fast as they can 
Cover it up with earth 

The others scatter everywhere 
Sniff look sniff look 
Dig up the whole earth 

If they are lucky and find an arm 
Or leg or whatever 
It's their turn to bite 

The game continues at a lively pace 

As long as there are arms 
As long as there are legs 
As long as there is anything...Read more of this...
by Popa, Vasko
...r and, wondering, find
the path of least resistance, the earth's orbit
around the sun's delirious clarity. Once you sniff
the aphrodisiac of disaster, you know: there's no reason
for the anxiety--or for expecting to be free of it;
try telling Franz Kafka he has no reason to feel guilty;
or so I say to well-meaning mongers of common sense.
They way I figure, you start with the names
which are keys and then you throw them away
and learn to love the locked rooms, with or...Read more of this...
by Lehman, David
...vine; 
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood
 and air through my lungs;
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and
 dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn; 
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies
 of the wind; 
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms; 
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag; 
The delight alone, or in t...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...And do they sing with gusto when
 Springtime is sappy?
Although I am of snow-white hair
 And nighly mortal,
Each time I sniff the April air
 I chortle.

I wonder if a millionaire
 Jigs with enjoyment,
Having such heaps of time to spare
 For daft employment.
For as I dance the Highland Fling
 My glee is muckle,
And doping out new songs to sing
 I chuckle.

I wonder why so soon forgot
 Are fame and riches;
Let cottage comfort be my lot
 With well-worn britches.
...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...gs,
 And behind each coup we make,
We feel there's Something Waiting,
 And -- we meet It when we wake.

Ah God! One sniff of England --
 To greet our flesh and blood --
To hear the traffic slurring
 Once more through London mud!
Our towns of wasted honour --
 Our streets of lost delight!
How stands the old Lord Warden?
 Are Dover's cliffs still white?...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...hildren to dance;    But they were so stiff,    She sent them home in a sniff,This sprightly old woman from France. ...Read more of this...
by Goose, Mother
...the skies, 
Whereon they look, disconsolate,
With scared, reactionary eyes. 

A shadow falls upon the land,— 
They sniff, and they are like to roar; 
For they will never understand 
What they have never seen before.
They march in order to the door, 
Not knowing the best thing to seek, 
Nor caring if the gods restore 
The lost composite of the Greek. 

The shadow fades, the light arrives,
And ills that were concealed are seen; 
The combs of long-defended hives 
No...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...Making his advances
He does not look at her, nor sniff at her,
No, not even sniff at her, his nose is blank.
Only he senses the vulnerable folds of skin
That work beneath her while she sprawls along
In her ungainly pace,
Her folds of skin that work and row
Beneath the earth-soiled hovel in which she moves.

And so he strains beneath her housey wall,
And catches her trouser-legs in his beak
Suddenly...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.
...le closing her eyes to food 
hungry, always hungry: 
a woman made of pain. 

A cat or dog approaches another, 
they sniff noses. They sniff asses. 
They bristle or lick. They fall 
in love as often as we do, 
as passionately. But they fall 
in love or lust with furry flesh, 
not hoop skirts or push up bras 
rib removal or liposuction. 
It is not for male or female dogs 
that poodles are clipped 
to topiary hedges. 

If only we could like each other...Read more of this...
by Piercy, Marge
...e the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … I sniff and guess … I pick things out of the wind and air … I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers … I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me … a snout and a belly … a machinery for eating and grunting … a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wildernes...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things