Famous Toes Poems by Famous Poets

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

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She sights a Bird -- she chuckles --

by Emily Dickinson
 She sights a Bird -- she chuckles --
She flattens -- then she crawls --
She runs without the look of feet --
Her eyes increase to Balls --

Her Jaws stir -- twitching -- hungry --
Her Teeth can hardly stand --
She leaps, but Robin leaped the first --
Ah, Pussy, of the Sand,

The Hopes so juicy ripening --
You almost bathed your Tongue --
When...Read more of this...

Tortoise Family Connections

by D. H. Lawrence
 On he goes, the little one,
Bud of the universe,
Pediment of life.
Setting off somewhere, apparently.
Whither away, brisk egg?

His mother deposited him on the soil as if he were no more than droppings,
And now he scuffles tinily past her as if she were an old rusty tin.

A mere obstacle,
He veers round the slow great mound of her --
Tortoises always foresee obstacles.

It...Read more of this...

The Munich Mannequins

by Sylvia Plath
 Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.
Cold as snow breath, it tamps the womb

Where the yew trees blow like hydras,
The tree of life and the tree of life

Unloosing their moons, month after month, to no purpose.
The blood flood is the flood of love,

The absolute sacrifice.
It means: no more idols but me,

Me and you.
So, in their sulfur loveliness, in their...Read more of this...

Baby Toes

by Carl Sandburg
 THERE is a blue star, Janet,
Fifteen years’ ride from us,
If we ride a hundred miles an hour.

There is a white star, Janet,
Forty years’ ride from us,
If we ride a hundred miles an hour.

Shall we ride
To the blue star
Or the white star?...Read more of this...

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

by Anne Sexton
 No matter what life you lead
the virgin is a lovely number:
cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,
arms and legs made of Limoges,
lips like Vin Du Rhône,
rolling her china-blue doll eyes
open and shut.
Open to say, 
Good Day Mama,
and shut for the thrust
of the unicorn.
She is unsoiled.
She is as white as a bonefish.

Once there was a lovely virgin
called Snow White.
Say she was...Read more of this...

The Pobble Who Has No Toes

by Edward Lear
 The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said "The World in general knows
There's nothing so good for a Pobble's toes!"

The Pobble who has no toes
Swam across the Bristol Channel;
But before he set...Read more of this...

Philadelphia

by Rudyard Kipling
 "Brother Square-Toes"--Rewards and Fairies.
If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,
 You mustn't take my stories for a guide.
There's little left, indeed, of the city you will read of,
 And all the folk I write about have died.
Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,
 Or remember what his cunning and his skill did;
And the cabmen at the wharf...Read more of this...

The Battle Of The Bulge

by Robert William Service
 This year an ocean trip I took, and as I am a Scot
And like to get my money's worth I never missed a meal.
In spite of Neptune's nastiness I ate an awful lot,
Yet felt as fit as if we sailed upon an even keel.
But now that I am home again I'm stricken with disgust;
How many pounds of fat I've...Read more of this...

The Junior God

by Robert William Service
 The Junior God looked from his place
 In the conning towers of heaven,
And he saw the world through the span of space
 Like a giant golf-ball driven.
And because he was bored, as some gods are,
 With high celestial mirth,
He clutched the reins of a shooting star,
 And he steered it down to earth.

The Junior God, 'mid leaf and bud,
...Read more of this...

Gilhooleys Estate

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, Mr Gilhooley he turned up his toes, 
As most of you know, soon or late; 
And Jones was a lawyer, as everyone knows, 
So they took him to Gilhooley's Estate. 
Gilhooley in life had been living so free 
'Twas thought his possessions were great, 
So Jones, with a smile, says, "There's many a fee 
For me in Gilhooley's...Read more of this...

Off the Ground

by Walter de la Mare
 Three jolly Farmers 
Once bet a pound 
Each dance the others would 
Off the ground. 
Out of their coats 
They slipped right soon, 
And neat and nicesome 
Put each his shoon. 
One--Two--Three! 
And away they go, 
Not too fast, 
And not too slow; 
Out from the elm-tree's 
Noonday shadow, 
Into the sun 
And across the meadow. 
Past the schoolroom,...Read more of this...

Many Inventions

by Rudyard Kipling
 'Less you want your toes trod of you'd better get back at once,
For the bullocks are walking two by two,
The byles are walking two by two, 
And the elephants bring the guns.
Ho! Yuss!
Great-big-long-black-forty-pounder guns.
Jiggery-jolty to and fro,
Each as big as a launch in tow --
Blind-dumb-broad-breeched--beggars o' battering-guns!
 My Lord the Elephant....Read more of this...

Five Toes

by Mother Goose
This little pig went to market;
This little pig stayed at home;
This little pig had roast beef;
This little pig had none;
This little pig said, "Wee, wee!
I can't find my way home."...Read more of this...

Snail Poem

by Peter Orlovsky
 Make my grave shape of heart so like a flower be free aired
 & handsome felt,
Grave root pillow, tung up from grave & wigle at
 blown up clowd.
Ear turnes close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound
 of rain dribble thru this layer
 down to the roots that will tickle my ear.
Hay grave, my toes need cutting so...Read more of this...

New England

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Here where the wind is always north-north-east
And children learn to walk on frozen toes,
Wonder begets an envy of all those
Who boil elsewhere with such a lyric yeast
Of love that you will hear them at a feast
Where demons would appeal for some repose,
Still clamoring where the chalice overflows
And crying wildest who have drunk the least.

Passion is here a soilure of...Read more of this...

Mask

by Carl Sandburg
 Fling your red scarf faster and faster, dancer.
It is summer and the sun loves a million green leaves,
 masses of green.
Your red scarf flashes across them calling and a-calling.
The silk and flare of it is a great soprano leading a
 chorus
Carried along in a rouse of voices reaching for the heart
 of the world.
Your toes are singing to meet...Read more of this...

I cannot dance upon my Toes

by Emily Dickinson
 I cannot dance upon my Toes --
No Man instructed me --
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,

That had I Ballet knowledge --
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe --
Or lay a Prima, mad,

And though I had no Gown of Gauze --
No Ringlet, to my Hair,
Nor hopped to Audiences -- like Birds,
One Claw upon the Air,

Nor tossed...Read more of this...

The Fury Of Abandonment

by Anne Sexton
 Someone lives in a cave
eating his toes,
I know that much.
Someone little lives under a bush
pressing an empty Coca-Cola can against
his starving bloated stomac,
I know that much.
A monkey had his hands cut off
for a medical experiment
and his claws wept.
I know tht much.

I know that it is all
a matter of hands.
Out of the mournful sweetness of touching
comes love
like breakfast.
Out of the...Read more of this...

High Talk

by William Butler Yeats
 Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that
 catches the eye.
What if my great-granddad had a pair that were
 twenty foot high,
And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks
 upon higher,
Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence
 or a fire.

Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, ake
 but poor shows,
Because children demand Daddy-long-legs...Read more of this...

Of The Ever-Changing Agitation In The Air

by Jorie Graham
 The man held his hands to his heart as
 he danced.
He slacked and swirled.
The doorways of the little city
blurred. Something
leaked out,
kindling the doorframes up,
making each entranceway
less true.
And darkness gathered
although it does not fall . . . And the little dance,
swinging this human all down the alleyway,
nervous little theme pushing itself along,
braiding, rehearsing,
constantly incomplete so turning and tacking -- 
oh...Read more of this...

For Lucy Who Came First

by Marilyn L Taylor
 She simply settled down in one piece right where she was,
    in the sand of a long-vanished lake edge or stream--and died.
       —Donald C. Johanson, paleoanthropologist


When I put my hand up to my face
I can trace her heavy jawbone and the sockets
of her eyes under my skin. And in the...Read more of this...

Scamp

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ain't it nice to have a mammy
W'en you kin' o' tiahed out
Wid a-playin' in de meddah,
An' a-runnin' roun' about
Till hit's made you mighty hongry,
An' yo' nose hit gits to know
What de smell means dat 's a-comin'
F'om de open cabin do'?
She wash yo' face,
An' mek yo' place,
You's hongry as a tramp;
Den hit's eat you suppah right away,
You sta'vin' little scamp.
W'en you's...Read more of this...

The two little skeezucks

by Eugene Field
 There were two little skeezucks who lived in the isle
Of Boo in a southern sea;
They clambered and rollicked in heathenish style
In the boughs of their cocoanut tree.
They didn't fret much about clothing and such
And they recked not a whit of the ills
That sometimes accrue
From having to do
With tailor and laundry bills.

The two little skeezucks once heard of a Fair
Far...Read more of this...

A Little Christmas Basket

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
De win' is hollahin' "Daih you" to de shuttahs an' de fiah,
De snow's a-sayin' "Got you" to de groun',
Fu' de wintah weathah 's come widout a-askin' ouah desiah,
An' he 's laughin' in his sleeve at whut he foun';
Fu' dey ain't nobody ready wid dey fuel er dey food,
An' de money bag look timid lak, fu' sho',
So we want ouah Chrismus...Read more of this...

Troll Sat Alone on His Seat of Stone

by J R R Tolkien
 Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.

Up came Tom with his big boots on.
Said he to Troll: 'Pray, what is...Read more of this...

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