Famous Thirteenth Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Thirteenth poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous thirteenth poems. These examples illustrate what a famous thirteenth poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Nash, Ogden
...d ship
Doth neither fall nor rise,
But Maxie the elevator boy
Regards him with burning eyes.
"First, to explore the thirteenth floor,"
Says Maxie, "would be wise."
Quoth the bum, "There is moss on your double cross,
I have been this way before,
I have cased the joint at every point,
And there is no thirteenth floor.
The architect he skipped direct
From twelve unto fourteen,
There is twelve below and fourteen above,
And nothing in between,
For the vermin who dwell...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...daughter Briar Rose
and because he had only twelve gold plates
he asked only twelve fairies
to the grand event.
The thirteenth fairy,
her fingers as long and thing as straws,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes,
her uterus an empty teacup,
arrived with an evil gift.
She made this prophecy:
The princess shall prick herself
on a spinning wheel in her fifteenth year
and then fall down dead.
Kaputt!
The court fell silent.
The king looked like Munch's Scream
Fairies' prop...Read more of this...
by
Tebb, Barry
...m Dawson of Hackney, Nov.7th 1704
“The repressed becomes the poem”
Louise Bogan
1
Well it’s Friday the thirteenth
So I’d better begin with luck
As I prepare for a journey to
The north, the place where I began
And I was lucky even before I
Was born for the red-hot shrapnel fell
And missed my mother by an inch
As she walked through the Blitz
In Bradford in nineteen forty-one.
Sydney Graham this poem is for you,
Although we never met, your feet
...Read more of this...
by
Mueller, Lisel
...You have read War and Peace.
Now here is Sister Carrie,
not up to Tolstoy; still
it will second the real world:
predictable planes and levels,
pavement that holds you,
stairs that lift you,
ice that trips you,
nights that begin after sunset,
four lunar phases,
a finite house.
I give you Dreiser
although (or because)
I am no longer sure.
Lately...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...age.
For I this day made over my inheritance to my mother in consideration of her poverty.
For I bless the thirteenth of August, in which I had the grace to obey the voice of Christ in my conscience.
For I bless the thirteenth of August, in which I was willing to run all hazards for the sake of the name of the Lord.
For I bless the thirteenth of August, in which I was willing to be called a fool for the sake of Christ.
For I lent my flocks and m...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...e more letters in all languages not communicated.
For there are some that have the power of sentences. O rare thirteenth of march 1761.
For St Paul was caught up into the third heavens.
For there he heard certain words which it was not possible for him to understand.
For they were constructed by uncommunicated letters.
For they are signs of speech too precious to be communicated for ever.
For after ? there follows another letter in the ...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...take the hand
of a toad or a toad princess or to stand
in line for food stamps. One quiet morning
at the end of my thirteenth year a little bird
with a dark head and tattered tail feathers
had come to the bedroom window and commanded
me to pass through the winding miles
of narrow dark corridors and passageways
of my growing body the filth and glory
of the palatable world. Since then I've
been going out and coming back
the way a swallow does with unerring grace
and fo...Read more of this...
by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...g there,
So innocent and plump!
You don't suppose that she would care
To wed an outlawed man who'd dare
To lead the thirteenth trump!
"If you had drawn their leading spade
It meant a certain win!
But no! By Pembroke's mighty shade
The thirteenth trump you went and played
And let their diamonds in!
"My girl, return at my command
His presents in a lump!
Return his ring! For, understand,
No man is fit to hold your hand
Who leads a thirteenth trump!
"But hold! G...Read more of this...
by
Gillan, Maria Mazziotti
...ly today
have torn into bloom.
Imagine: my cousin at 19, tall,
slender. She worked in New York City.
For my thirteenth birthday she took me
to New York. We ate at the Russian Tea Room
where I was uncertain about which fork to use,
intimidated by the women in their hats and furs,
by the waiters who watched me
as I struggled with the huge hunk of bread
in the center of the onion soup in its steep bowl.
When we were ready to leave, I tried to give the tip
bac...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...is the twelfth.
And yet, twice born, twice buried, grow he must,
Before the full moon, helpless as a worm.
The thirteenth moon but sets the soul at war
In its own being, and when that war's begun
There is no muscle in the arm; and after,
Under the frenzy of the fourteenth moon,
The soul begins to tremble into stillness,
To die into the labyrinth of itself!
Aherne. Sing out the song; sing to the end, and sing
The strange reward of all that discipline.
Robart...Read more of this...
by
Murray, Les
...ven in running shoes worn
with mink and a nose ring. That is Society. That's Style.
Sprawl is more like the thirteenth banana in a dozen
or anyway the fourteenth.
Sprawl is Hank Stamper in Never Give an Inch
bisecting an obstructive official's desk with a chain saw.
Not harming the official. Sprawl is never brutal,
though it's often intransigent. Sprawl is never Simon de Montfort
at a town-storming: Kill them all! God will know His own.
Knowi...Read more of this...
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