Famous Stinks Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed

...aica seems transported,
Alone, and by no Planter courted;
Or, near Fleet-Ditch's oozy Brinks,
Surrounded with a Hundred Stinks,
Belated, seems on watch to lie,
And snap some Cull passing by;
Or, struck with Fear, her Fancy runs
On Watchmen, Constables and Duns,
From whom she meets with frequent Rubs;
But, never from Religious Clubs;
Whose Favour she is sure to find,
Because she pays them all in Kind.
CORINNA wakes. A dreadful Sight!
Behold the Ruins of the Night!
A wicked Rat...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan


At The Smithville Methodist Church

...'s serious. 

Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes. 
You can't say to your child 
"Evolution loves you." The story stinks 
of extinction and nothing 

exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have 
a wonderful story for my child 
and she was beaming. All the way home in the car 
she sang the songs, 

occasionally standing up for Jesus. 
There was nothing to do 
but drive, ride it out, sing along 
in silence....Read more of this...
by Dunn, Stephen

Big Night On The Town

...weak.
you order a bottle of beer.
Madame Death walks up to you
wearing a dress.
she sits down, you buy her a
beer, she stinks of swamps, presses
a leg against you.
the bar tender sneers.
you've got him worried, he doesn't
know if you're a cop, a killer, a
madman or an
Idiot.
you ask for a vodka.
you pour the vodka into the top of
the beer bottle.
It's one a.m. In a dead cow world.
you ask her how much for head,
drink everything down, it tastes
like machine oil.

you leave Ma...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

Cologne

...erous stones
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks!
Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
 But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
 Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?...Read more of this...
by Celan, Paul

Enemy Conscript

...

It isn't much fun being dead.
Better to le in bed,
Cuddle up to the wife,
Making, not taking life.
To the corpse that stinks in the clay,
Does it matter who wins the day?
What odds if tyrants reign?
They can't put irons on the brain.
One always can eat one's grub,
Smoke and drink in a pub.
There's happiness in a glass,
A pipe and the kiss of a lass.
It's the best we get anyhow,
In the life we are living now.

Who's wanting a hero's fate?
To the dead cheers come too late.
Fl...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

...feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'r enjoys,
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

...ulks amid gray, rubbery nettles. The Liard's
Reflexes are slow, and the Arkansas erodes
Anthracite hummocks. The Paraná stinks.
The Ottawa is light emerald green
Among grays. Better that the Indus fade
In steaming sands! Let the Brazos
Freeze solid! And the Wabash turn to a leaden
Cinder of ice! The Marañón is too tepid, we must
Find a way to freeze it hard. The Ural
Is freezing slowly in the blasts. The black Yonne
Congeals nicely. And the Petit-Morin
Curls up on the solid e...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

Root Cellar

...
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath....Read more of this...
by Roethke, Theodore

Sestina: Altaforte

...rte. "Papiols" is his
jongleur. "The Leopard," the device of Richard Coeur de Lion.

I

Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let's to music!
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.

II

In hot summer I have great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth's foul peace,
And the l...Read more of this...
by Pound, Ezra

The Comedian As The Letter C

...lumber, emanations blown 
265 From warehouse doors, the gustiness of ropes, 
266 Decays of sacks, and all the arrant stinks 
267 That helped him round his rude aesthetic out. 
268 He savored rankness like a sensualist. 
269 He marked the marshy ground around the dock, 
270 The crawling railroad spur, the rotten fence, 
271 Curriculum for the marvellous sophomore. 
272 It purified. It made him see how much 
273 Of what he saw he never saw at all. 
274 He gripped mor...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Ladys Dressing Room

...oddess never sleeping,
Soon punished Strephon for his peeping:
His foul Imagination links
Each dame he see with all her stinks;
And, if unsavory odors fly,
Conceives a lady standing by.
All women his description fits,
And both ideas jump like wits
By vicious fancy coupled fast,
And still appearing in contrast.
I pity wretched Strephon blind
To all the charms of female kind.
Should I the Queen of Love refuse
Because she rose from stinking ooze?
To him that looks behind the sce...Read more of this...
by Swift, Jonathan

Time Stands Still over Govandi Station

...e no need for time.”

Children toss rubber ball —
In cricketing passion.
Jagged slum roofs puncture the sky,
Open drain stinks.

Mother and son —
Hungry, disowned, dispossessed —
Govandi platform is home.
A plastic bag, clothes muddy brown,
He extends a hand,
A black plastic watch on wrist,
“God will do miracles,
Give this man a meal.”

The kite flutters;
Time stands still over Govandi Station....Read more of this...
by Matthew, John

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