Famous Unexplained Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Consorting With Angels

...at dream there was a city made of chains
where Joan was put to death in man's clothes
and the nature of the angels went unexplained,
no two made in the same species,
one with a nose, one with an ear in its hand,
one chewing a star and recording its orbit,
each one like a poem obeying itself,
performing God's functions,
a people apart.

"You are the answer,"
I said, and entered,
lying down on the gates of the city.
Then the chains were fastened around me
and I lost my common g...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne


Crossing The Atlantic

...them, I cannot toss in the cabin
as in childbirth.
Now always leaving me in the West
is the wake,
a ragged bridal veil, unexplained,
seductive, always rushing down the stairs,
never detained, never enough.

The ship goes on
as though nothing else were happening.
Generation after generation,
I go her way.
She will run East, knot by knot, over an old bloodstream,
stripping it clear,
each hour ripping it, pounding, pounding,
forcing through as through a virgin.
Oh she is so quic...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

Do not weep maiden for war is kind

...d.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the Battle-God, great, and his Kingdom -
A field wher a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men wer...Read more of this...
by Crane, Stephen

My Lady

...r will.

    Please do not reproach me
if the course I have maintained
in the eagerness of my love
left my silence unexplained.

    I love you with so much passion,
neither rudeness nor neglect
can explain why I tied my tongue,
yet left my heart unchecked.

    The matter to me was simple:
love for you was so strong,
I could see you in my soul
and talk to you all day long.

    With this idea in mind,
I lived in utter delight,
pretending my subterfuge
fou...Read more of this...
by Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor

No one has had access behind the curtain of destiny;

...idence. For
seventy-two years I have reflected day and night, I have
learned nothing anywhere, and the enigma remains unexplained....Read more of this...
by Khayyam, Omar


Phyllis

...r will.

    Please do not reproach me
if the course I have maintained
in the eagerness of my love
left my silence unexplained.

    I love you with so much passion,
neither rudeness nor neglect
can explain why I tied my tongue,
yet left my heart unchecked.

    The matter to me was simple:
love for you was so strong,
I could see you in my soul
and talk to you all day long.

    With this idea in mind,
I lived in utter delight,
pretending my subterfuge
fou...Read more of this...
by Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor

The New Ergonomics

...believes in alien abduction 
and Roberta does not, 
although she has had 
several lost weekends lately 
and one or two unexplained scars 
on her buttocks. I thought 
I recognized someone
from my childhood 
at a table across the room, 
the same teeth, the same hair, 
but when he stood-up,
I wasn't sure, Squid with a red tie? 
Impossible. I finished 
my quiche lorraine 
and returned my thoughts 
to Jack's new jag:
"Well, I guess anything's 
possible. People disappear 
all the ...Read more of this...
by Taylor, Edward

The New Ergonomics

...believes in alien abduction 
and Roberta does not, 
although she has had 
several lost weekends lately 
and one or two unexplained scars 
on her buttocks. I thought 
I recognized someone
from my childhood 
at a table across the room, 
the same teeth, the same hair, 
but when he stood-up,
I wasn't sure, Squid with a red tie? 
Impossible. I finished 
my quiche lorraine 
and returned my thoughts 
to Jack's new jag:
"Well, I guess anything's 
possible. People disappear 
all the ...Read more of this...
by Tate, James

The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain

...ifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home....Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

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