Famous Tickets Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Lays of Sorrow

by Lewis Carroll
 The day was wet, the rain fell souse
Like jars of strawberry jam, [1] a
sound was heard in the old henhouse,
A beating of a hammer. 
Of stalwart form, and visage warm,
Two youths were seen within it,
Splitting up an old tree into perches for their poultry
At a hundred strokes [2] a minute. 
The work is done, the hen has taken
Possession of...Read more of this...

Are You Drinking?

by Charles Bukowski
 washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
 out again
 I write from the bed
 as I did last
 year.
 will see the doctor,
 Monday.
 "yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-
 aches and my back 
 hurts."
 "are you drinking?" he will ask.
 "are you getting your
exercise, your
 vitamins?"
 I think that I am just ill 
 with life, the...Read more of this...

Endanger it and the Demand

by Emily Dickinson
 Endanger it, and the Demand
Of tickets for a sigh
Amazes the Humility
Of Credibility --

Recover it to Nature
And that dejected Fleet
Find Consternation's Carnival
Divested of its Meat....Read more of this...

Totem

by Sylvia Plath
 The engine is killing the track, the track is silver,
It stretches into the distance. It will be eaten nevertheless.

Its running is useless.
At nightfall there is the beauty of drowned fields,

Dawn gilds the farmers like pigs,
Swaying slightly in their thick suits,

White towers of Smithfield ahead,
Fat haunches and blood on their minds.

There is no mercy in the glitter of cleavers,
The butcher's...Read more of this...

Crossroads

by Joyce Sutphen
  The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and who
my friends are. I will dress for the
occasion, and my hair shall be
whatever...Read more of this...

Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs

by Carl Sandburg
 RUM tiddy um,
 tiddy um,
 tiddy um tum tum.
My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves.
I feel like tickling you under the chin—honey—and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road?
When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you—honey—put new potatoes and gravy on the table, and there ain’t too much rain or...Read more of this...

Unit like Death for Whom?

by Emily Dickinson
 Unit, like Death, for Whom?
True, like the Tomb,
Who tells no secret
Told to Him --
The Grave is strict --
Tickets admit
Just two -- the Bearer --
And the Borne --
And seat -- just One --
The Living -- tell --
The Dying -- but a Syllable --
The Coy Dead -- None --
No Chatter -- here -- no tea --
So Babbler, and Bohea -- stay...Read more of this...

Provisions

by Margaret Atwood
 What should we have taken
with us? We never could decide
on that; or what to wear,
or at what time of
year we should make the journey

So here we are in thin
raincoats and rubber boots

On the disastrous ice, the wind rising

Nothing in our pockets

But a pencil stub, two oranges
Four Toronto streetcar tickets

and an elastic band holding a bundle
of small white filing cards
printed...Read more of this...

Traveling Dream

by Marge Piercy
 I am packing to go to the airport 
but somehow I am never packed. 
I keep remembering more things 
I keep forgetting. 

Secretly the clock is bolting 
forward ten minutes at a click 
instead of one. Each time 
I look away, it jumps. 

Now I remember I have to find 
the cats. I have four cats 
even when I...Read more of this...

An Evening With John Heath-stubbs

by Barry Tebb
 Alone in Sutton with Fynbos my orange cat

A long weekend of wind and rain drowning

The tumultuous flurry of mid-February blossom

A surfeit of letters to work through, a mountain

Of files to sort, some irritation at the thought

Of travelling to Kentish Town alone when

My mind was flooded with the mellifluous voice

Of Heath-Stubbs on tape reading ‘The Divided Ways’

In memory of Sidney...Read more of this...

Vita Nova

by Louise Gluck
"You saved me, you should remember me.

The spring of the year; young men buying tickets for the ferryboats.
Laughter, because the air is full of apple blossoms.

When I woke up, I realized I was capable of the same feeling.

I remember sounds like that from my childhood,
laughter for no cause, simply because the world is beautiful,
something like that."...Read more of this...

The Star-Splitter

by Robert Frost
 `You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To...Read more of this...

The King

by Rudyard Kipling
 "Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;
 "With bone well carved he went away,
Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,
 And jasper tips the spear to-day.
Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,
And he with these. Farewell, Romance!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed;
 "We lift the weight of flatling years;
The caverns of the mountain-side
 Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.
Lost hills whereby we...Read more of this...

Jimmy Dooleys Army

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 There's a dashin' sort of boy 
Which they call his Party's Joy, 
And his smile-that-won't-come-off would quite disarm ye; 
And he played the leadin' hand 
In the Helter-Skelter Band, 
Known as Jimmy Dooley's Circulating Army. 
When the rank and file they found, 
They were marchin' round and round, 
They one and all began to act unruly; 
And the letter...Read more of this...

Mazies Ghost

by Robert William Service
 In London City I evade
For charming Burlington Arcade -
For thee in youth I met a maid
 By name of Mazie,
Who lost no time in telling me
The Ritz put up a topping tea,
But having only shillings three
 My smile was hazy.

:Instead," said I, "it might be sport
To take a bus to Hampton Court,"
(Her manner, I remarked, was short,)
 But she...Read more of this...

Infelice

by Stevie Smith
 Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess,
He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand,
He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming,
Leaving my alone with a private meaning,
He loves me so much, my heart is singing.
Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening
They said: Sir Rat is dining, is dining, is dining,
No madam, he...Read more of this...

The Sins of Kalamazoo

by Carl Sandburg
 THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.

The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab.

And the people who sin the sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.

They run to drabs and grays—and some of them sing they shall be washed whiter than snow—and some: We should worry.

Yes, Kalamazoo is a spot on the map
And...Read more of this...

Unto Us..

by Spike Milligan
 Somewhere at some time
They committed themselves to me
And so, I was!
Small, but I WAS!
Tiny, in shape
Lusting to live
I hung in my pulsing cave.
Soon they knew of me
My mother --my father.
I had no say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho' I couldn't think
Each part of me was saying
A silent 'Wait for me
I will bring you love!'
I was taken
Blind, naked,...Read more of this...

Autobiography At An Air-Station

by Philip Larkin
 Delay, well, travellers must expect 
Delay. For how long? No one seems to know. 
With all the luggage weighed, the tickets checked, 
It can't be long... We amble too and fro, 
Sit in steel chairs, buy cigarettes and sweets 
And tea, unfold the papers. Ought we to smile, 
Perhaps make friends? No: in the race for seats 
You're best...Read more of this...

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

by Anne Sexton
 If you danced from midnight
to six A.M. who would understand?

The runaway boy
who chucks it all
to live on the Boston Common
on speed and saltines,
pissing in the duck pond,
rapping with the street priest,
trading talk like blows,
another missing person,
would understand.

The paralytic's wife
who takes her love to town,
sitting on the bar stool,
downing stingers and peanuts,
singing "That ole Ace down in the hole,"
would understand.

The...Read more of this...

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