Famous The Blues Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Blues

by William Matthews
 What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet
and boarding a downtown bus, headed for lessons?
I had pieces to learn by heart, but at twelve

you think the heart and memory are different.
"'It's a poor sort of memory that only works
backwards,' the Queen remarked." Alice in Wonderland.

Although I knew the way music can fill a room,
even with loneliness, which is...Read more of this...

The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty

by George William Russell
 I WOULD I could weave in
 The colour, the wonder,
 The song I conceive in
 My heart while I ponder,


 And show how it came like
 The magi of old
 Whose chant was a flame like
 The dawn’s voice of gold;


 Whose dreams followed near them
 A murmur of birds,
 And ear still could hear them
 Unchanted in words.


...Read more of this...

The Weary Blues

by Langston Hughes
 Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
 I heard a ***** play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
 He did a lazy sway . . .
 He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each...Read more of this...

The Blues

by Langston Hughes
 When the shoe strings break
On both your shoes
And you're in a hurry-
That's the blues.

When you go to buy a candy bar
And you've lost the dime you had-
Slipped through a hole in your pocket somewhere-
That's the blues, too, and bad!...Read more of this...

Pink Champagne (for Digby Fairweather)

by Adrian Green
 Not blues in twelve
but there is joy
and pink champagne,

the maker’s music
trading eights
in syncopated synergy
from Dixieland to Rock ‘n’ Roll,

and here the cornet-master
leads in tones
a trumpet cannot blow.

The sidemen nod their harmonies,
engrossed;
their music coursing
through an energy of swing;

piano-player’s fingers
dancing round the tune;
a lover’s touch
caressing melody from bass;
and sax, deep throated tenor
shouting counterpoint
above the drums’
percussive ricochets.

Not blues in twelve,
but upbeat late
and...Read more of this...

Father Death Blues (Dont Grow Old Part V)

by Allen Ginsberg
 Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey poor man, you're all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going

Father Death, Don't cry any more
Mama's there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store

Old Aunty Death Don't hide your bones
Old Uncle Death I hear your groans
O Sister Death how sweet your moans

O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts'll ease your...Read more of this...

Aftermath

by Amy Lowell
 I learnt to write to you in happier days,
And every letter was a piece I chipped
From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped
From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays,
Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise.
To make a pavement for your feet I stripped
My soul for you to walk upon, and slipped
Beneath your steps to soften...Read more of this...

Rain

by Jack Gilbert
 Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
And the browns gone gray
And yellow
A terrible amber.
In the cold streets
Your warm body.
In whatever room
Your warm body.
Among all the people
Your absence
The people who are always
Not you.


I have been easy with trees
Too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
Now
Suddenly
This rain....Read more of this...

Blues

by Derek Walcott
 Those five or six young guys
lunched on the stoop
that oven-hot summer night
whistled me over. Nice
and friendly. So, I stop.
MacDougal or Christopher
Street in chains of light.

A summer festival. Or some
saint's. I wasn't too far from
home, but not too bright
for a ******, and not too dark.
I figured we were all
one, wop, ******, jew,
besides, this wasn't Central Park.
I'm coming on too strong?...Read more of this...

The Tragedy

by Henry Lawson
 Oh, I never felt so wretched, and things never looked so blue 
Since the days I gulped the physic that my Granny used to brew; 
For a friend in whom I trusted, entering my room last night, 
Stole a bottleful of Heenzo from the desk whereon I write. 

I am certain sure he did it (though he never would...Read more of this...

My Indian Summer

by Robert William Service
 Here in the Autumn of my days
My life is mellowed in a haze.
Unpleasant sights are none to clear,
Discordant sounds I hardly hear.
Infirmities like buffers soft
Sustain me tranquilly aloft.
I'm deaf to duffers, blind to bores,
Peace seems to percolate my pores.
I fold my hands, keep quiet mind,
In dogs and children joy I find.
With temper tolerant and mild,
Myself you'd almost think a...Read more of this...

A Man

by Charles Bukowski
 George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T.V. His
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash
from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning.
Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing
it away....Read more of this...

i have found what you are like

by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
i have found what you are like
the rain 

(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike

the air in utterable coolness

deeds of green thrilling light
with thinne
d

newfragile blues

lurch and.press

-in the woods
which
stutter
and

sing

And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost 
your kiss...Read more of this...

The Blues Are All The Same

by Lisa Zaran
 ~for Jackson C. Frank
It seems almost too far fetched really, 
too difficult to believe. 
This unassuming moon shining like a copper plate. 
These milkcrate blues. 
This soft trellis of sound 
wobbling through the wind 
as if pouring out from the window 
of some lonely house on the hill. 
How beautiful it is, 
the ghost of your voice, 
haunting this...Read more of this...

Po Boy Blues

by Langston Hughes
 When I was home de
Sunshine seemed like gold.
When I was home de
Sunshine seemed like gold.
Since I come up North de
Whole damn world's turned cold.

I was a good boy,
Never done no wrong.
Yes, I was a good boy,
Never done no wrong,
But this world is weary
An' de road is hard an' long.

I fell in love with
A gal I thought was kind.
Fell in...Read more of this...

Implosions

by Adrienne Rich
 The world's
not wanton
only wild and wavering

I wanted to choose words that even you
would have to be changed by

Take the word
of my pulse, loving and ordinary
Send out your signals, hoist
your dark scribbled flags
but take
my hand

All wars are useless to the dead

My hands are knotted in the rope
and I cannot sound the bell

My hands are frozen to the switch
and I cannot...Read more of this...

Blue Winter

by Robert Francis
 Winter uses all the blues there are.
One shade of blue for water, one for ice,
Another blue for shadows over snow.
The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice-
Both different blues. And hills row after row
Are colored blue according to how for.
You know the bluejay's double-blur device
Shows best when there are no green leaves to show.
And Sirius is a winterbluegreen star....Read more of this...

Swing Shift Blues

by Alan Dugan
 What is better than leaving a bar
in the middle of the afternoon
besides staying in it or not
having gone into it in the first place
because you had a decent woman to be with?
The air smells particularly fresh
after the stale beer and piss smells.
You can stare up at the whole sky:
it's blue and white and does not
stare back at you like...Read more of this...

A Study In Feeling

by Ellis Parker Butler
 To be a great musician you must be a man of moods,
You have to be, to understand sonatas and etudes.
To execute pianos and to fiddle with success,
With sympathy and feeling you must fairly effervesce;
It was so with Paganini, Remenzi and Cho-pang,
And so it was with Peterkin Von Gabriel O’Lang.

Monsieur O’Lang had sympathy to such a great degree.
No virtuoso ever...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...

The Bistro Styx

by Rita Dove
 She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness
as she paused just inside the double
glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape
billowing dramatically behind her.What's this,

I thought, lifting a hand until
she nodded and started across the parquet;
that's when I saw she was dressed all in gray,
from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl

down to the graphite signature of her shoes.
"Sorry I'm late,"...Read more of this...

Winter Milk

by Carl Sandburg
 THE MILK drops on your chin, Helga,
Must not interfere with the cranberry red of your cheeks
Nor the sky winter blue of your eyes.
Let your mammy keep hands off the chin.
This is a high holy spatter of white on the reds and blues.

Before the bottle was taken away,
Before you so proudly began today
Drinking your milk from the rim of a...Read more of this...

Band Concert

by Carl Sandburg
 BAND concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues.

Cowboy rags and ****** rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summer-white dresses. Amid the cornet staccato...Read more of this...

Winter Blues

by Barry Tebb
 For Penny Abraham



I wish I had Auden’s penchant 

For going about in carpet slippers 

Or the late HRH Margaret’s panache-

A chauffered Rolls with six outriders-

This late December day with its sparkle of sun on frost

I’d so much rather be in Haworth’s cobbled street

With cascades of carols in torchlit procession

Or still better with a passionate friend to make love to

By...Read more of this...

Notes For a Speech

by Imamu Amiri Baraka
African blues
does not know me. Their steps, in sands
of their own
land. A country
in black & white, newspapers
blown down pavements
of the world. Does
not feel
what I am.

Strength

in the dream, an oblique
suckling of nerve, the wind
throws up sand, eyes
are something locked in
hate, of hate, of hate, to
walk abroad, they conduct
their deaths apart
from my own. Those
heads, I call
my "people."

(And who are they. People. To...Read more of this...

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