Famous Sucks Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Bunk-House Orchestra

by Badger Clark
  Wrangle up your mouth-harps, drag your banjo out,
  Tune your old guitarra till she twangs right stout,
  For the snow is on the mountains and the wind is on the plain,
  But we'll cut the chimney's moanin' with a livelier refrain.

    _Shinin' 'dobe fireplace, shadows on the wall--_
    _(See...Read more of this...

The Song of the Little Hunter

by Rudyard Kipling
 Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry,
 Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer,
Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh--
 He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear! 
Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,
 And the whisper spreads and widens far and near.
And the sweat...Read more of this...

Good and Evil XXII

by Kahlil Gibran
 And one of the elders of the city said, "Speak to us of Good and Evil." 

And he answered: 

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. 

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? 

Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when...Read more of this...

The Complaint of Lisa

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 There is no woman living who draws breath 
So sad as I, though all things sadden her. 
There is not one upon life's weariest way 
Who is weary as I am weary of all but death. 
Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower 
All day with all his whole soul toward the sun; 
While in the sun's sight...Read more of this...

My Library

by Robert William Service
 Like prim Professor of a College
I primed my shelves with books of knowledge;
And now I stand before them dumb,
Just like a child that sucks its thumb,
And stares forlorn and turns away,
With dolls or painted bricks to play.

They glour at me, my tomes of learning.
"You dolt!" they jibe; "you undiscerning
Moronic oaf, you make a fuss,
With highbrow swank selecting us;
Saying: "I'll...Read more of this...

Three Songs

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,--
The wild waves whist--
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
Bow, wow,
The watch-dogs bark:
Bow, wow.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

--from The Tempest




Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourishèd?
Reply, reply.
It is engender'd...Read more of this...

Aftermath

by Sylvia Plath
 Compelled by calamity's magnet
They loiter and stare as if the house
Burnt-out were theirs, or as if they thought
Some scandal might any minute ooze
From a smoke-choked closet into light;
No deaths, no prodigious injuries
Glut these hunters after an old meat,
Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies.

Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the...Read more of this...

Elegy IV: The Perfume

by John Donne
 Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robed that year,
So am I (by this traiterous means surprized)
By thy hydroptic father catechized.
Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a cockatrice,
Though he...Read more of this...

The Morning Half-Life Blues

by Marge Piercy
 Girls buck the wind in the grooves toward work
in fuzzy coats promised to be warm as fur.
The shop windows snicker
flashing them hurrying over dresses they cannot afford:
you are not pretty enough, not pretty enough.

Blown with yesterday’s papers through the boiled coffee morning
we dream of the stop on the subway without a name,
the door in the heart of the grove...Read more of this...

Sleepyheads

by Carl Sandburg
 SLEEP is a maker of makers. Birds sleep. Feet cling to a perch. Look at the balance. Let the legs loosen, the backbone untwist, the head go heavy over, the whole works tumbles a done bird off the perch.

Fox cubs sleep. The pointed head curls round into hind legs and tail. It is a ball of red hair. It...Read more of this...

A Following

by Charles Bukowski
 the phone rang at 1:30 a.m.
 and it was a man from Denver:

 "Chinaski, you got a following in
 Denver..."
 "yeah?"
 "yeah, I got a magazine and I want some
 poems from you..."
 "**** YOU, CHINASKI!" I heard a voice
 in the background...
 "I see you have a friend,"
 I said.
 "yeah," he answered, "now, I want
 six poems..."
...Read more of this...

Joy and Pleasure

by William Henry Davies
 Now, joy is born of parents poor, 
And pleasure of our richer kind; 
Though pleasure's free, she cannot sing 
As sweet a song as joy confined. 

Pleasure's a Moth, that sleeps by day 
And dances by false glare at night; 
But Joy's a Butterfly, that loves 
To spread its wings in Nature's light. 

Joy's like a Bee that gently...Read more of this...

Mahomed Akram's Appeal to the Stars

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Oh, Silver Stars that shine on what I love,
     Touch the soft hair and sparkle in the eyes,—
   Send, from your calm serenity above,
     Sleep to whom, sleepless, here, despairing lies.

   Broken, forlorn, upon the Desert sand
     That sucks these tears,...Read more of this...

The Fury Of Sunsets

by Anne Sexton
 Something 
cold is in the air, 
an aura of ice 
and phlegm. 
All day I've built 
a lifetime and now 
the sun sinks to 
undo it. 
The horizon bleeds 
and sucks its thumb. 
The little red thumb 
goes out of sight. 
And I wonder about 
this lifetime with myself, 
this dream I'm living. 
I could eat the sky 
like...Read more of this...

202. On the Death of Robert Dundas Esq. of Arniston

by Robert Burns
 LONE on the bleaky hills the straying flocks
Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;
Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,
The gathering floods burst o’er the distant plains;
Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan;
The hollow caves return a hollow moan.
Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,
Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!
Unheard, unseen, by human ear...Read more of this...

Hanging Fire

by Audre Lorde
 I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without 
still sucks his tumb 
in secret
how come my knees are 
always so ashy
what if I die
before the morning comes
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party 
my room is too small for me
suppose I de...Read more of this...

The Flea

by John Donne
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame nor loss of maidenhead,
  Yet this enjoys before it woo,
  And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
...Read more of this...

The Imperfect Enjoyment

by John Wilmot
 Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms,legs,lips close clinging to embrace,
She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightening, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should...Read more of this...

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood

by William Cullen Bryant
 Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs 
No school of long experience, that the world 
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen 
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, 
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood 
And view the haunts of nature. The calm shade 
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the...Read more of this...

The Expiration

by John Donne
 So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
 Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away,
Turn thou ghost that way, and let me turn this,
 And let our selves benight our happiest day,
We ask none leave to love; nor will we owe
 Any, so cheap a death, as saying, Go;
Go; and if that word have not quite kil'd thee,
...Read more of this...

The Drained Cup

by D. H. Lawrence
The snow is witherin' off'n th' gress
    Love, should I tell thee summat?
The snow is witherin' off'n th' gress
An' a thick mist sucks at the clots o' snow,
An' the moon above in a weddin' dress
Goes fogged an' slow--
    Love, should I tell thee summat?

Tha's been snowed up i' this cottage wi' me,
  ...Read more of this...

The Rhyme of the Three Captains

by Rudyard Kipling
 This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious
Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact.


 . . . At the close of a winter day,
Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay;
And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye,
And one was Lord of the Wessex...Read more of this...

In the Home Stretch

by Robert Frost
 SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And...Read more of this...

Fairy Land iv

by William Shakespeare
 WHERE the bee sucks, there suck I: 
In a cowslip's bell I lie; 
There I couch when owls do cry. 
On the bat's back I do fly 
After summer merrily: 
 Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, 
 Under the blossom that hangs on the bough....Read more of this...

Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children

by Ogden Nash
 My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how they tarry,
Eventually they marry.
And, swine among the pearls,
They marry little girls.

Oh, somewhere, somewhere, an infant plays,
With parents...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Sucks poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace