Famous Mess About Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Mess About poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous mess about poems. These examples illustrate what a famous mess about poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Mac Hammond
The butcher knife goes in, first, at the top
And carves out the round stemmed lid,
The hole of which allows the hand to go
In to pull the gooey mess inside, out -
The walls scooped clean with a spoon.
A grim design decided on, that afternoon,
The eyes are the first to go,
Isosceles or trapezoid, the square nose,
The down-turned mouth with three
Hideous...Read more of this...
by
Bob Hicok
Who cleaned up the Last Supper?
These would be my people.
Maybe hung over, wanting
desperately a better job,
standing with rags
in hand as the window
beckons with hills
of yellow grass. In Da Vinci,
the blue robed apostle
gesturing at Christ
is saying, give Him the check.
What a mess they've made
of their faith. My God
would put a busboy
on earth to...Read more of this...
by
Charles Sorley
I have not brought my Odyssey
With me here across the sea;
But you'll remember, when I say
How, when they went down Sparta way,
To sandy Sparta, long ere dawn
Horses were harnessed, rations drawn,
Equipment polished sparkling bright,
And breakfasts swallowed (as the white
Of eastern heavens turned to gold) -
The dogs barked, swift farewells were told.
The sun springs up, the horses neigh,
Crackles the whip...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Dey had a gread big pahty down to Tom's de othah night;
Was I dah? You bet! I nevah in my life see sich a sight;
All de folks f'om fou' plantations was invited, an' dey come,
Dey come troopin' thick ez chillun when dey hyeahs a fife an' drum.
Evahbody dressed deir fines'—Heish yo' mouf an' git away,
Ain't seen no sich fancy dressin'...Read more of this...
by
Jackie Kay
How they strut about, people in love,
How tall they grow, pleased with themselves,
Their hair, glossy, their skin shining.
They don't remember who they have been.
How filmic they are just for this time.
How important they've become - secret, above
The order of things, the dreary mundane.
Every church bell ringing, a fresh sign.
How dull the lot that are not in love.
Their clothes shabby,...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Three Triangles
TRIANGLE ONE
My husband put some poison in my beer,
And fondly hoped that I would drink it up.
He would get rid of me - no bloody fear,
For when his back was turned I changed the cup.
He took it all, and if he did not die,
Its just because he's heartier than I.
And now I watch and watch him night and...Read more of this...
by
John Masefield
The Loch Achray was a clipper tall
With seven-and-twenty hands in all.
Twenty to hand and reef and haul,
A skipper to sail and mates to bawl
'Tally on to the tackle-fall,
Heave now 'n' start her, heave 'n' pawl!'
Hear the yarn of a sailor,
An old yarn learned at sea.
Her crew were shipped and they said 'Farewell,
So-long, my Tottie, my lovely gell;
We sail to-day...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
In our dainty little kitchen,
Where my aproned wife is queen
Over all the tin-pan people,
In a realm exceeding clean,
Oft I like to loiter, watching
While she mixes things for tea;
And she tasks me, slyly smiling,
“Now just guess what this will be!”
Hidden in a big blue apron,
Her dimpled arms laid bare,
And the love-smiles coyly mingling
With a housewife’s frown of care—
See her beat...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call.
I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
'Ere's ONE they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways;
Them empire-grabbers -- fight for 'em? No fear!
I've seen this mess a-comin' from the days
Of Algyserious and Aggydear:
I've felt me passion rise...Read more of this...
by
William Vaughn Moody
A mile behind is Gloucester town
Where the flishing fleets put in,
A mile ahead the land dips down
And the woods and farms begin.
Here, where the moors stretch free
In the high blue afternoon,
Are the marching sun and talking sea,
And the racing winds that wheel and flee
On the flying heels of June.
Jill-o'er-the-ground is...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
NOW spent the alter'd King, in am'rous Cares,
The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray'rs:
In vain the Alter waits his slow returns,
Where unattended Incense faintly burns:
In vain the whisp'ring Priests their Fears express,
And of the Change a thousand Causes guess.
Heedless of all their Censures He retires,
And in his Palace feeds his secret...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
A hundred years is a lot of living
I've often thought. and I'll know, maybe,
Some day if the gods are good in giving,
And grant me to turn the century.
Yet in all my eighty years of being
I've never known but one ancient man
Who actively feeling, hearing, seeing,
Survived t beyond the hundred span.
Thinking? No, I don't guess he pondered;
He had the brains...Read more of this...
by
Maggie Estep
I am THE SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
so don't mess with me
I've got a big bag full of SEX TOYS
and you can't have any
'cause they're all mine
'cause I'm
the SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.
"Hey," you may say to yourself,
"who the hell's she tryin' to kid,
she's no sex goddess,"
But trust me,
I am...Read more of this...
by
Marriott Edgar
Joe Dunn were a bobby for football
He gave all his time to that sport,
He played for the West Wigan Whippets,
On days when they turned out one short.
He’d been member of club for three seasons
And had grumbled again and again,
Cos he found only time that they’d used him,
Were when it were pouring with...Read more of this...
by
Philip Levine
Still sober, César Vallejo comes home and finds a black ribbon
around the apartment building covering the front door.
He puts down his cane, removes his greasy fedora, and begins
to untangle the mess. His neighbors line up behind him
wondering what's going on. A middle-aged woman carrying
a loaf of fresh bread asks him to step aside so...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Woman's sho' a cur'ous critter, an' dey ain't no doubtin' dat.
She's a mess o' funny capahs f'om huh slippahs to huh hat.
Ef you tries to un'erstan' huh, an' you fails, des' up an' say:
"D' ain't a bit o' use to try to un'erstan' a woman's way."
I don' mean to be complainin', but I 's jes' a-settin' down
Some o' my own...Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!—
Ah well!...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
I 've been watchin' of 'em, parson,
An' I 'm sorry fur to say
'At my mind is not contented
With the loose an' keerless way
'At the young folks treat the music;
'T ain't the proper sort o' choir.
Then I don't believe in Christuns
A-singin' hymns for hire.
But I never would 'a' murmured
An' the matter might 'a' gone
Ef it was n't fur the antics
'At I've...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear,
("It's all one," says the Sapper),
The Lord He created the Engineer,
Her Majesty's Royal Engineer,
With the rank and pay of a Sapper!
When the Flood come along for an extra monsoon,
'Twas Noah constructed the first pontoon
To the plans of Her Majesty's, etc.
But after fatigue in the wet an'...Read more of this...
by
Frank Bidart
The only thing I miss about Los Angeles
is the Hollywood Freeway at midnight, windows down and
radio blaring
bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower
on the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard
blazing
--pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars
--descending through the city
fast as the law would allow
through the lights, then rising to the stack
out of the city
to...Read more of this...
by
John Betjeman
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town—
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
let's all go to the party friends
where left over bottles and stale ***-ends
are proudly on offer from the last time round
and our hosts believe by a ritual sound
fine spirits will flow and new cellophane wrappers
will tingle the fingers of eligible clappers
let's all ignite at the party friends
and burn with the best of the latest trends
which prove that the world...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
(With apologies to the singer of the "Song of the Banjo".)
I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;
I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost;
I haven't got a "vox humana" tone,
And a dime or two will satisfy my cost.
I don't attempt your high-falutin' flights;
I am more or less uncertain on the key;
But I tell you,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
To you who’d read my songs of War
And only hear of blood and fame,
I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)
”War’s Hell!” and if you doubt the same,
Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche;...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--
Presentable, eminently presentable--
shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well...Read more of this...
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