Famous Waking Up Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Waking 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 waking up poems. These examples illustrate what a famous waking up poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Wright, James
...nd the chassis on the bank,
The wreck of someone's Ford:
I was afraid to come and wake you drunk:
You told me once the waking up was hard,
The daylight beating at you like a board.
Blood in my stomach sank.
Beside, you told him never to go out
Along the river-side
Drinking and singing, clattering about.
You might have thrown a rock at me and cried
I was to blame, I let him fall in the road
And pitch down on his side.
Well, I'll get hell enough when I get...Read more of this...
by
Milosz, Czeslaw
...rrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.
Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation....Read more of this...
by
Carver, Raymond
...h my mother in her old age, and mine.
Fear of confusion.
Fear this day will end on an unhappy note.
Fear of waking up to find you gone.
Fear of not loving and fear of not loving enough.
Fear that what I love will prove lethal to those I love.
Fear of death.
Fear of living too long.
Fear of death.
I've said that....Read more of this...
by
Matthews, William
...he worked, a sort of sleep
with a purpose, so far as I could tell.
How he got from the dark of sleep
to the dark of waking up I'll never know;
the lax sprawl sleep allowed him
began to set from the edges in,
like a custard, and then he was awake,
me too, of course, wriggling my ears
while he unlocked his bladder and stream
of dopey wake-up jokes. The one
about the wine-dark pee I hated instantly.
I stood at the ready, like a god
in an epic, but there was never muc...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...r bodies, he held the lure
in his hand and gave it a name. He called it "The Last Supper."
Then he went about waking up his bosses.
In a matter of months that trout fishing lure was the sen-
sation of the twentieth century, far outstripping such shallow
accomplishments as Hiroshima or Mahatma Gandhi. Millions
of "The Last Supper" were sold in America. The Vatican or-
dered ten thousand and they didn't even have any trout there.
Testimonials p...Read more of this...
by
Parker, Dorothy
...n treasure-house the money due to my king.
When sleep overcame me I lay upon the bed that was for my lord,
and on waking up I found I was a prisoner in my own treasure-house.'
`Prisoner, tell me, who was it that wrought this unbreakable chain?'
`It was I,' said the prisoner, `who forged this chain very carefully.
I thought my invincible power would hold the world captive
leaving me in a freedom undisturbed.
Thus night and day I worked at the chain
wi...Read more of this...
by
Schwartz, Delmore
...and be
The other's audience, the other's state,
Each to the other his sonorous fame.
Now you will be afraid, when, waking up,
Before familiar morning, by my mute side
Wan and abandoned then, when, waking up,
You see the lion or lamb upon my face
Or see the daemon breathing heavily
His sense of ignorance, his wish to die,
For I am nothing because my circus self
Divides its love a million times.
I am the octopus in love with God,
For thus is my desire inconclusible,
U...Read more of this...
by
Berman, David
...rf.
As a way of getting in touch with my origins
every night I set the alarm clock
for the time I was born so that waking up
becomes a historical reenactment and the first thing I do
is take a reading of the day and try to flow with it like
when you're riding a mechanical bull and you strain to learn
the pattern quickly so you don't inadverantly resist it.
II two
I can't remember being born
and no one else can remember it either
even the doctor who I met years l...Read more of this...
by
Moure, Erin
...Courageous lair "might prevail"
Waking up to her your "yellow coal"
Steals a its way
harm's imbrogliatic murmur
to concatenate
has been "said"
a mortal habitation or cut in air
that air leaks through
here too
***
Tricked again out of
hope's chord
The oscillatory hum in the head, or
amygdala
continual reaction in the wet mouth to
old oranges, or
mistakes in form
"I retain a clear ...Read more of this...
by
Popa, Vasko
...With a belly full of mice and nails
If in a dream you had anything to do
With the little box
You'd be better off never waking up again...Read more of this...
by
Lehman, David
...less, like
my footprints in the snow leading to you, wou would be my father
if this were a dream and I on the verge of waking up somewhere
other than home: but the hours remain ours, though they
were gone almost as soon as they arrived, hat and coat in hand.
[Glare is a book of poetry by A. R. Ammons.]...Read more of this...
by
Buson, Yosa
...hort night-
a watery moon
stands alone over the hill
Maggie
The short night--
just as I'm falling asleep
my wife's waking up
Larry Bole...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Waking Up poems.