Ogden Nash Poems
A collection of select Ogden Nash famous poems that were written by Ogden Nash or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
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by
Ogden Nash
From whence arrived the praying mantis?
From outer space, or lost Atlantis?
glimpse the grin, green metal mug
at masks the pseudo-saintly bug,
Orthopterous, also carnivorous,
And faintly whisper, Lord deliver us....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
The summer like a rajah dies,
And every widowed tree
Kindles for Congregationalist eyes
An alien suttee....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Let's straighten this out, my little man,
And reach an agreement if we can.
I entered your door as an honored guest.
My shoes are shined and my trousers are pressed,
And I won't stretch out and read you the funnies
And I won't pretend that we're Easter bunnies.
If you must get somebody down on the floor,
What in the hell are your parents for?
I...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
There here are words of radical advice for a young man looking for a job;
Young man, be a snob.
Yes, if you are in search of arguments against starting at the bottom,
Why I've gottem.
Let the personnel managers differ;
It,s obvious that you will get on faster at the top than at the bottom because
there are more people at the bottom than...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
A child need not be very clever
To learn that "Later, dear" means "Never."...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
There was a young belle of Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes,
She drawled, When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez!...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Toward a better world I contribute my modest smidgin;
I eat the squab, lest it become a pigeon....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
The ant has made herself illustrious
By constant industry industrious.
So what? Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
O all ye exorcizers come and exorcize now, and ye clergymen draw nigh and clerge, For I wish to be purged of an urge. It is an irksome urge, compounded of nettles and glue, And it is turning all my friends back into acquaintances, and all my acquaintances into people who look the other way when I heave into...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
When people aren't asking questions
They're making suggestions
And when they're not doing one of those
They're either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes
And then as if that weren't enough to annoy you
They employ you.
Anybody at leisure
Incurs everybody's displeasure.
It seems to be very irking
To people at work to see other...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
I find it very hard to be fair-minded
About people who go around being air-minded.
I just can't see any fun
In soaring up up up into the sun
When the chances are still a fresh cool orchid to a paper geranium
That you'll unsoar down down down onto your (to you) invaluable
cranium.
I know the constant refrain
About how safer up in God's trafficless heaven...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Bring down the moon for genteel Janet;
She's too refined for this gross planet.
She wears garments and you wear clothes,
You buy stockings, she purchases hose.
She say That is correct, and you say Yes,
And she disrobes and you undress.
Confronted by a mouse or moose,
You turn green, she turns chartroose.
Her speech is new-minted, freshly quarried;
She has a fore-head, you have a forehead.
Nor...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
In Baltimore there lived a boy.
He wasn't anybody's joy.
Although his name was Jabez Dawes,
His character was full of flaws.
In school he never led his classes,
He hid old ladies' reading glasses,
His mouth was open when he chewed,
And elbows to the table glued.
He stole the milk of hungry kittens,
And walked through doors marked NO ADMITTANCE.
He said he acted thus because
There wasn't...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Middle-aged life is merry, and I love to
lead it,
But there comes a day when your eyes
are all right but your arm isn't long
enough
to hold the telephone book where you can read it,
And your friends get jocular, so you go
to the oculist,
And of all your friends he is the joculist,
So over his facetiousness let us skim,
Only noting that he has...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
People live forever in Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and Tampa,
But you don't have to live forever to become a grampa.
The entrance requirements for grampahood are comparatively mild,
You only have to live until your child has a child.
From that point on you start looking both ways over your shoulder,
Because sometimes you feel thirty years younger and sometimes
thirty years older.
Now you...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens,
Bears have cubs,
Bats have bittens,
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms ups....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party's over.
Since three o'clock I've done my best
To entertain each tiny guest. My conscience now I've left behind me,
And if they want me, let them find me.
I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats,
I kept them from each other's throats. I told them tales of magic...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
I sit in the dusk. I am all alone.
Enter a child and an ice-cream cone.
A parent is easily beguiled
By sight of this coniferous child.
The friendly embers warmer gleam,
The cone begins to drip ice cream.
Cones are composed of many a vitamin.
My lap is not the place to bitamin.
Although my raiment is not chinchilla,
I flinch to see it become vanilla.
Coniferous child,...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Being a father
Is quite a bother.
You are as free as air
With time to spare,
You're a fiscal rocket
With change in your pocket,
And then one morn
A child is born.
Your life has been runcible,
Irresponsible,
Like an arrow or javelin
You've been constantly travelin'.
But mostly, I daresay,
Without a chaise percée,
To which by comparison
Nothing's embarison.
But all children matures,
Maybe even yours.
You improve them mentally
And straighten them dentally,
They...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
I didn't go to church today,
I trust the Lord to understand.
The surf was swirling blue and white,
The children swirling on the sand.
He knows, He knows how brief my stay,
How brief this spell of summer weather,
He knows when I am said and done
We'll have plenty of time together....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me Us....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
He tells you when you've got on
too much lipstick
And helps you with your girdle
when your hips stick....Read more of this...