Famous Soap Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Soap poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous soap poems. These examples illustrate what a famous soap poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ike seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.
Iridescent, watery
prismatics: think abalone,
the wildly rainbowed
mirror of a soap-bubble sphere,
think sun on gasoline.
Splendor, and splendor,
and not a one in any way
distinguished from the other
--nothing about them
of individuality. Instead
they're all exact expressions
of the one soul,
each a perfect fulfillment
of heaven's template,
mackerel essence. As if,
after a lifetime arriving
at this enameling, the jeweler's
...Read more of this...
by
Doty, Mark
...
Little bits of dried blood. One hundred marks
upon the sheet. One hundred kisses in the dark.
White sheets smelling of soap and Clorox
have nothing to do with this night of soil,
nothing to do with barred windows and multiple locks
and all the webbing in the bed, the ultimate recoil.
I have slept in silk and in red and in black.
I have slept on sand and, on fall night, a haystack.
I have known a crib. I have known the tuck-in of a child
but inside my hair waits the night I ...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...ed sheets fly in the sun,
The pillow cases are sweetening.
It is a blessing, it is a blessing:
The long coffin of soap-colored oak,
The curious bearers and the raw date
Engraving itself in silver with marvelous calm.
(5)
The gray sky lowers, the hills like a green sea
Run fold upon fold far off, concealing their hollows,
The hollows in which rock the thoughts of the wife----
Blunt, practical boats
Full of dresses and hats and china and married daught...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...a magnolia tree. A lock of straw-colored hair
wedged between the mottled pages of a Victor Hugo novel. A
crescent of soap. A spider the color of a fingernail. The black nets
beneath the sea of olive trees. A skein of blue wool. A tea saucer
wrapped in newspaper. An empty cracker tin. A bowl of blueber-
ries in heavy cream. White wine in a green-stemmed glass.
And when you opened your wings to wind, across the punched-
tin sky above a prison courtyard, those condem...Read more of this...
by
Cisneros, Sandra
...yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.
By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot 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...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was tr...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan
For making a separate sally;
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,
A dismal and desolate valley.
But the very same plan to the Beaver occurred:
It had chosen the very same place:
Yet neither betrayed, by a sign or a word,
The disgust that appeared in his face.
Each thought he was thinking of ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new
It was matter for general remark,
Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view
In his zeal to discover the Snark.
But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,
A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh
And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,
For he knew it was useless to fly.
He offered larg...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...e Kenneth Koch
If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my dirty Iran
I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap,
scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in
the jungle,
I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico,
Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska,
Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos, Flush that sparkly
Cesium out of Love Canal
Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx...Read more of this...
by
Ginsberg, Allen
...underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
(1962)...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...In its peculiar silence, an integer
Fixed in the middle of the fall of things,
Perfected and casual as to a child's eye
Soap bubbles are, and skipping stones....Read more of this...
by
Nemerov, Howard
...erbank leans my Myfanwy,
White o’er the playpen the sheen of her dress,
Fresh from the bathroom and soft in the nursery
Soap scented fingers I long to caress.
Were you a prefect and head of your dormit'ry?
Were you a hockey girl, tennis or gym?
Who was your favourite? Who had a crush on you?
Which were the baths where they taught you to swim?
Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,
Home and Colonial, Star, International,
Bal...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...am good.
The last mistaken,
Ecstatic, accidental bliss, the blind
Happiness that, bursting, leaves upon the palm
Some soap and water--
It was so long ago, back in some Gay
Twenties, Nineties, I don't know . . . Today I miss
My lovely daughter
Away at school, my sons away at school,
My husband away at work--I wish for them.
The dog, the maid,
And I go through the sure unvarying days
At home in them. As I look at my life,
I am afraid
Only that it will change, as I am changin...Read more of this...
by
Jarrell, Randall
...Islands and the Kuomintang
in China.
The mansion burned down years ago.
The actor died.
His mules were made into soap.
His mistresses became bird nests of wrinkles.
Now only the fireplace remains as a sort of Carthaginian
homage to Hollywood.
I was down there a few weeks ago to see my friend's roof.
I wouldn't have passed up the chance for a million dollars,
as they say. The roof looked like a colander to me. If that
roof and the rain were running against eac...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...ng or Albania.
Sometimes when he goes down there, they don't even have
enough lead for him. They buy their lead like soap, a bar or
two at a time.
Pard's girlfriend is a Jew. Twenty-four years old, getting
over a bad case of hepatitis, she kids Pard about a nude pho-
tograph of her that has the possibility of appearing in Playboy
magazine.
"There's nothing to worry about, " she says. "If they use
that photograph, it only means that 12, 000, 000 men will look
at m...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...rticular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap
navigates the tidal slosh of seas
breaking on legendary beaches; in faith
we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail
among sacred islands of the mad till death
shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real....Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.
Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born.
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the ...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
You may charm it with smiles and soap--' "
("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")
" 'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again!'
"It is this, it is...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...y to me!'
He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
'A fact so dread,' he faintly said,
'Extinguishes all hope!'...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...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
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