Famous Tighten Up Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tighten Up poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tighten up poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tighten up poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Jerome Rothenberg
All erasure of pain
is like the contrary of
dust that weighs
dark in my lungs
when I am
feckless with disgust.
I stroke & poke
my loins before
they tighten.
My feet stomp
fields of color
reminding me of
something I once knew.
Dying frees
the spirit
from the mind.
We plod along
regardless of
the pain.
Soon we grow
big & fat.
We stop
forgetting, far off
from whatever
binds us
mindlessly
to empty space.
Beginning here
we reignite
desire.
We will surrender
what...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is not wrong.
The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded
down starch halls with the other unnested throng
in wheeling baskets. You...Read more of this...
by
Dejan Stojanovic
The most complicated skill
Is to be simple.
To say more while saying less
Is the secret of being simple.
To not say all that can be said
Is the secret of discipline and economy.
To leave out beautiful sunsets
Is the secret of good taste.
To hide feelings when you are near crying
Is the secret of dignity.
To...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
The room is full of you!—As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!—
Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed
Each other room's dear personality.
The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,—
The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death—
Has strangled that habitual breath of home
Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;
And...Read more of this...
by
Wilfred Owen
Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept. But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Henry, edged, decidedly, made up stories
lighting the past of Henry, of his glorious
present, and his hoaries,
all the bight heals he tamped-” -”Euphoria,
Mr Bones, euphoria. Fate clobber all.
-”Hand me back my crawl,
condign Heaven. Tighten into a ball
elongate & valved Henry. Tuck him peace.
Render him sightless,
or ruin at high rate his crampon focus,
wipe out his need. Reduce him to the rest...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Forth upon the Gitche Gumee,
On the shining Big-Sea-Water,
With his fishing-line of cedar,
Of the twisted bark of cedar,
Forth to catch the sturgeon Nahma,
Mishe-Nahma, King of Fishes,
In his birch canoe exulting
All alone went Hiawatha.
Through the clear, transparent water
He could see the fishes swimming
Far down in the depths below him;
See the yellow...Read more of this...
by
W S Merwin
Moored to the same ring:
The hour, the darkness and I,
Our compasses hooded like falcons.
Now the memory of you comes aching in
With a wash of broken bits which never left port
In which once we planned voyages,
They come knocking like hearts asking:
What departures on this tide?
Breath of land, warm breath,
You tighten the cold around the navel,
Though all shores but the first...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Stretch towards the moonless midnight of the trees,
As though that hand could reach to where they stand,
And they but famous old upholsteries
Delightful to the touch; tighten that hand
As though to draw them closer yet.
Rammed full
Of that most sensuous silence of the night
(For since the horizon's bought strange dogs are still)
Climb to your chamber full of books and wait,
No...Read more of this...
by
Wendell Berry
The ewes crowd to the mangers;
Their bellies widen, sag;
Their udders tighten. Soon
The little voices cry
In morning cold. Soon now
The garden must be worked,
Laid off in rows, the seed
Of life to come brought down
Into the dark to rest,
Abide awhile alone,
And rise. Soon, soon again
The cropland must be plowed,
For the years promise now
Answers the years desire,
Its hunger and its hope.
This goes...Read more of this...
by
Marilyn L Taylor
Your boy once touched me, yes. I knew you knew
when your wet, reddened gaze drilled into me,
groped through my clothes for signs, some residue
of him—some lusciousness of mine that he
had craved, that might have driven his desire
for things perilous, poisonous, out-of-bounds.
Could I have been the beast he rode to war?
The battle mounted in his sleep, the rounds
of ammunition...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
Be patient with you?
When the stooping sky
Leans down upon the hills
And tenderly, as one who soothing stills
An anguish, gathers earth to lie
Embraced and girdled. Do the sun-filled men
Feel patience then?
Be patient with you?
When the snow-girt earth
Cracks to let through a spurt
Of sudden green, and from the muddy dirt
A snowdrop leaps, how mark its worth
To eyes frost-hardened, and do weary...Read more of this...
by
Maya Angelou
When I was young, I used to
Watch behind the curtains
As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men.
Young men sharp as mustard.
See them. Men are always
Going somewhere.
They knew I was there. Fifteen
Years old and starving for them.
Under my window, they would pauses,
Their shoulders high like the
Breasts of a young girl,
Jacket tails slapping over
Those behinds,
Men.
One day they hold...Read more of this...
by
Galway Kinnell
At intermission I find her backstage
still practicing the piece coming up next.
She calls it the "solo in high dreary."
Her bow niggles at the string like a hand
stroking skin it never wanted to touch.
Probably under her scorn she is sick
that she can't do better by it. As I am,
at the dreary in me, such as the disparity
between all the tenderness...Read more of this...
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