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Famous Soles Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Masefield, John
...an to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to. 

O! the fiddle on the fo'c'sle, and the slapping naked soles, 
And the genial "Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!" 
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead, 
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red. 

Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played, 
All have since been put a stop to by the naughty Board of Trade; 
The schooners and ...Read more of this...



by Popa, Vasko
...shifts his eyes 
Hangs them on his head 
And whether he wants it or not starts walking 
 backwards 
He puts them on the soles of his feet 
And whether he wants it or not returns walking 
 on his head 

This one turns into an ear 
He hears all that won't let itself be heard 
But he grows bored 
Yearns to turn again into himself 
But without eyes he can't see how 

That one bares all his faces 
One after the other he throws them over the roof 
The last one he throws under his f...Read more of this...

by Matthews, William
...nced fish" were worth,
I thought, a sharp surge of food snobbery,
but she'd grown averse to it all -- the nurses'
crepe soles' muffled squeaks along the hall,
the filtered air, the smothered urge to read,
the fear, the perky visitors, flowers
she'd not been sent when she was well, the room-
mate (what do "semiprivate" and "extra
virgin" have in common?) who died, the nights
she wept and sweated faster than the tubes
could moisten her with lurid poison.
One chemotherapy ve...Read more of this...

by Berryman, John
...y was a mess as though
heavy clubs from below

and from—God save the bloody mark—above
were loosed upon his skull & soles. O love,
what was you loafing of
that fifty put you off, out & away,
leaving the pounding, horrid sleep by day,
nights naught but fits. I pray

the opening decade contravene its promise
to be as bad as all the others. Is
there something Henry miss
in the jungle of the gods whom Henry's prayer to?
Empty temples—a decade of dark-blue
sins, ...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...m now, you and I, being all of us a world of hoodlums, let us take up the cry when the mob sluffs by on a thousand shoe soles, let us too yammer, “Kill him! kill him!…”
Let us do this now … for our mothers … for our sisters and wives … let us kill, kill, kill—for the torsoes of the women are tireless and the loins of the men are strong.Chicago, July 29, 1919....Read more of this...



by Jarrell, Randall
...g the same card.
But twice a day -- except on Saturday --
The wheel stops, there is a crack in Time:
With a hiss of soles, a rattle of tin,
My own gray Daemon pauses on the stair,
My own bald Fortune lifts me by the hair.
Woe's me! woe's me! In Folly's mailbox
Still laughs the postcard, Hope:
Your uncle in Australia
Has died and you are Pope,
For many a soul has entertained
A Mailman unawares --
And as you cry, Impossible,
A step is on the stairs.
One keeps gettin...Read more of this...

by Arp, Jean
...
whirlwind or a teat of black light or a transparent brick in a drum that 
howls for its craggy existence.
now the soles of our feet and the crowns of our heads have dried up and
the fairies are lying half-charred on the funeral piles.
now the black bowling alleys thunder in back of the sun and no one is
setting a compass or spinning the wheelbarrow's wheels.
who will eat with the phosphorized rat on the lonely barefooted table.
who will chase the siroccoco d...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...t like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these smal...Read more of this...

by Trethewey, Natasha
...s, November 1910

Four weeks have passed since I left, and still
I must write to you of no work. I've worn down
the soles and walked through the tightness
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants,
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking
my plain English and good writing would secure
for me some modest position Though I dress each day
in my best, hands covered with the lace gloves
you crocheted--no one needs a girl. How flat
the word sounds, and hea...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...elf in Paradise.
What feelings through his seven senses shoot!

But she looks on with careless eyes.
I lick her soles, and kiss her shoes,

As gently as a bear well may;
Softly I rise, and with a clever ruse

Leap on her knee.--On a propitious day
She suffers it; my ears then tickles she,

And hits me a hard blow in wanton play;
I growl with new-born ecstasy;
Then speaks she in a sweet vain jest, I wot
"Allons lout doux! eh! la menotte!
Et faites serviteur
Comme u...Read more of this...

by Jong, Erica
...w that the house of flesh
is only a sandcastle
built on the shore,
that skin breaks
under the waves
like sand under the soles
of the first walker on the beach
when the tide recedes.

Each of us walks there once,
watching the bubbles
rise up through the sand
like ascending souls,
tracing the line of the foam,
drawing our index fingers
along the horizon
pointing home....Read more of this...

by Agustini, Delmira
...ad, piedadPara todas las vidas que defiendeDe tus maravillosas intemperiesEl mirador enhiesto del Orgullo;Apuntales tus soles o tus rayos!Eros: acaso no sentiste nuncaPiedad de las estatuas?…              English    –Eros: have you never feltPiety for the statues?These chrysalides of stone,Some formidable raceIn an eternal, unutterable hope.The sleeping craters of their mouthsUtter the black ash of silence;A copious shroud of CalmFalls from the columns of their arms,And n...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...eet hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume th...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...my shadow.

IV
When my dream was near the moon,
The white folds of its gown
Filled with yellow light.
The soles of its feet
Grew red.
Its hair filled
With certain blue crystallizations
From stars,
Not far off.

V
Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
Nor the chisels of the long streets,
Nor the mallets of the domes
And high towers,
Can carve
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.

VI
Rationalists, wearing square h...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Robert
...elf am hell;
nobody's here--

only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat.
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church.

I stand on top
of our back steps and breathe the rich air--
a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage

pail.
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not s...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...h its dabbled hair—I note where the pistol has
 fallen.

The blab of the pave, the tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the
 promenaders; 
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the
 shod horses on the granite floor; 
The snow-sleighs, the clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snowballs; 
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs; 
The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside, borne to the hospital;
T...Read more of this...

by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...leasures. 
So, to better his tongue, a rope was bent 
Beneath his oxters, up he was hauled, and fire 
Let singe the soles of his feet, until his legs 
Wriggled like frying eels; then the king's dogs 
Were set to hunt the hirpling man. The king 
Laught greatly and cried, 'But give the dogs words they know, 
And they'll be tame.' -- Have you the Indian speech? 

Thomas 
Not yet: it will be given me, I trust. 

Captain 
You'd best make sure of the gift. Anoth...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...read and mutton-chop;
Or kindly, when his credit's out,
Surprise him with a pint of stout;
Or patch his broken stocking soles;
Or send him in a peck of coals;
Exalted in his mighty mind,
He flies and leaves the stars behind;
Counts all his labours amply paid,
Adores her for the timely aid.
Or, should a porter make inquiries
For Chloe, Sylvia, Phillis, Iris;
Be told the lodging, lane, and sign,
The bowers that hold those nymphs divine;
Fair Chloe would perhaps be found
Wit...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...h at that, 
While your garments hand together and you wear a decent hat; 
You may laugh at their predictions while your soles are wearing low, 
But -- a man's an awful coward when his pants begin to go. 

Though the present and the future may be anything but bright, 
It is best to tell the fellows that you're getting on all right, 
And a man prefers to say it -- 'tis a manly lie to tell, 
For the folks may be persuaded that you're doing very well; 
But it's hard to be a h...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...n the memory longer lives,
The dark-bodied mother autumn
Brought to me the redding leaves

And she sprinkled on her soles
Where we parted in the sun
And from where for land of shadows
You had left, my soothing one.



x x x

I have visions of hilly Pavlovsk,
Meadow circular, water dead,
With most heavy and most shady,
All of this I will never forget.

In the cast-iron gates you will enter,
Blissful tremor the flesh does rile,
You don't live, but ...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things