10 Best Famous Disappearing Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Disappearing poems. This is a select list of the best famous Disappearing poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Disappearing poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of disappearing poems.

• All Famous Disappearing Poems

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness
of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"

Clay comes out to meet Liston 
and Liston starts to retreat, 
if Liston goes back an inch farther 
he'll end up in a ringside seat. 
Clay swings with his left, 
Clay swings with his right, 
Look at young Cassius 
carry the fight 
Liston keeps backing, but there's not enough room, 
It's a matter of time till Clay lowers the boom. 
Now Clay lands with a right, 
What a beautiful swing, 
and the punch raises the Bear 
clean out of the ring. 
Liston is still rising and the ref wears a frown, 
For he can't start counting 
till Sonny goes down. 
Now Liston is disappearing from view, 
The crowd is going frantic, 
But radar stations have picked him up, 
Somewhere over the Atlantic. 
Who would have thought 
when they came to the fight? 
That they'd witness the launching 
of a human satellite. 
Yes the crowd did not dream, 
when they put up the money, 
That they would see 
a total eclipse of the Sonny. 

Muhammad Ali Quotes Poems

Ding! Ali comes out to meet Frazier 
But Frazier starts to retreat 
If Frazier goes back any further 
He'll wind up in a ringside seat 

Ali swings to the left 
Ali swings to the right 
Look at the kid 
Carry the fight 

Frazier keeps backing 
But there's not enough room 
It's a matter of time 
Then Ali lowers the boom 

Now Ali lands to the right 
What a beautiful swing! 
And deposits Frazier 
Clean out of the ring 

Frazier's still rising 
But the referee wears a frown 
For he can't start counting 
Till Frazier comes down 

Now Frazier disappears from view 
The crowd is getting frantic 
But our radar stations have picked him up 
He's somewhere over the Atlantic 

Who would have thought that 
When they came to the fight 
That they would have witnessed 
The launching of a coloured satellite! 

 You've heard of "Casey at The Bat,"
 And "Casey's Tabble Dote";
 But now it's time
 To write a rhyme
 Of "Casey's Billy-goat."

Pat Casey had a billy-goat he gave the name of Shamus,
Because it was (the neighbours said) a national disgrace.
And sure enough that animal was eminently famous
For masticating every rag of laundry round the place.
For shirts to skirts prodigiously it proved its powers of chewing;
The question of digestion seemed to matter not at all;
But you'll agree, I think with me, its limit of misdoing
Was reached the day it swallowed Missis Rooney's ould red shawl.

Now Missis Annie Rooney was a winsome widow women,
And many a bouncing boy had sought to make her change her name;
And living just across the way 'twas surely only human
A lonesome man like Casey should be wishfully the same.
So every Sunday, shaved and shined, he'd make the fine occasion
To call upon the lady, and she'd take his and coat;
And supping tea it seemed that she might yield to his persuasion,
But alas! he hadn't counted on that devastating goat.

For Shamus loved his master with a deep and dumb devotion,
And everywhere that Casey went that goat would want to go;
And though I cannot analyze a quadruped's emotion,
They said the baste was jealous, and I reckon it was so.
For every time that Casey went to call on Missis Rooney,
Beside the gate the goat would wait with woefulness intense;
Until one day it chanced that they were fast becoming spooney,
When Shamus spied that ould red shawl a-flutter on the fence.

Now Missis Rooney loved that shawl beyond all rhyme or reason,
And maybe 'twas an heirloom or a cherished souvenir;
For judging by the way she wore it season after season,
I might have been as precious as a product of Cashmere.
So Shamus strolled towards it, and no doubt the colour pleased him,
For he biffed it and he sniffed it, as most any goat might do;
Then his melancholy vanished as a sense of hunger seized him,
And he wagged his tail with rapture as he started in to chew.

"Begorrah! you're a daisy," said the doting Mister Casey
to the blushing Widow Rooney as they parted at the door.
"Wid yer tinderness an' tazin' sure ye've set me heart a-blazin',
And I dread the day I'll nivver see me Anniw anny more."
"Go on now wid yer blarney," said the widow softly sighing;
And she went to pull his whiskers, when dismay her bosom smote. . . .
Her ould red shawl! 'Twas missin' where she'd left it bravely drying -
Then she saw it disappearing - down the neck of Casey's goat.

Fiercely flamed her Irish temper, "Look!" says she, "The thavin' divvle!
Sure he's made me shawl his supper. Well, I hope it's to his taste;
But excuse me, Mister Casey, if I seem to be oncivil,
For I'll nivver wed a man wid such a misbegotten baste."
So she slammed the door and left him in a state of consternation,
And he couldn't understand it, till he saw that grinning goat:
Then with eloquence he cussed it, and his final fulmination
Was a poem of profanity impossible to quote.

So blasting goats and petticoats and feeling downright sinful,
Despairfully he wandered in to Shinnigan's shebeen;
And straightway he proceeded to absorb a might skinful
Of the deadliest variety of Shinnigan's potheen.
And when he started homeward it was in the early morning,
But Shamus followed faithfully, a yard behind his back;
Then Casey slipped and stumbled, and without the slightest warning
like a lump of lead he tumbled - right across the railroad track.

And there he lay, serenely, and defied the powers to budge him,
Reposing like a baby, with his head upon the rail;
But Shamus seemed unhappy, and from time to time would nudge him,
Though his prods to protestation were without the least avail.
Then to that goatish mind, maybe, a sense of fell disaster
Came stealing like a spectre in the dim and dreary dawn;
For his bleat of warning blended with the snoring of his master
In a chorus of calamity - but Casey slumbered on.

Yet oh, that goat was troubled, for his efforts were redoubled;
Now he tugged at Casey's whisker, now he nibbled at his ear;
Now he shook him by the shoulder, and with fear become bolder,
He bellowed like a fog-horn, but the sleeper did not hear.
Then up and down the railway line he scampered for assistance;
But anxiously he hurried back and sought with tug and strain
To pull his master off the track . . . when sudden! in the distance
He heard the roar and rumble of the fast approaching train.

Did Shamus faint and falter? No, he stood there stark and splendid.
True, his tummy was distended, but he gave his horns a toss.
By them his goathood's honour would be gallantly defended,
And if their valour failed him - he would perish with his boss
So dauntlessly he lowered his head, and ever clearer, clearer,
He heard the throb and thunder of the Continental Mail.
He would face the mighty monster. It was coming nearer, nearer;
He would fight it, he would smite it, but he'd never show his tail.

Can you see that hirsute hero, standing there in tragic glory?
Can you hear the Pullman porters shrieking horror to the sky?
No, you can't; because my story has no end so grim and gory,
For Shamus did not perish and his master did not die.
At this very present moment Casey swaggers hale and hearty,
And Shamus strolls beside him with a bright bell at his throat;
While recent Missis Rooney is the gayest of the party,
For now she's Missis Casey and she's crazy for that goat.

You're wondering what happened? Well, you know that truth is stranger
Than the wildest brand of fiction, so Ill tell you without shame. . . .
There was Shamus and his master in the face of awful danger,
And the giant locomotive dashing down in smoke and flame. . . .
What power on earth could save them? Yet a golden inspiration
To gods and goats alike may come, so in that brutish brain
A thought was born - the ould red shawl. . . . Then rearing with elation,
Like lightning Shamus threw it up - AND FLAGGED AND STOPPED THE TRAIN.

 I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

 We were smoking some of this knockout weed when
Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed
Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred
With a needle in his arm. And there I was, in the middle
Of a recession, in the middle of a strange city, between jobs
And apartments and wives. Nobody told me the gun was loaded.

We'd been drinking since early afternoon. I was loaded.
The doctor made me recite my name, rank, and serial number when
I woke up, sweating, in my civvies. All my friends had jobs
As professional liars, and most had partners who were good in bed.
What did I have? Just this feeling of always being in the middle
Of things, and the luck of looking younger than fifty.

At dawn I returned to draft headquarters. I was eighteen
And counting backwards. The interviewer asked one loaded
Question after another, such as why I often read the middle
Of novels, ignoring their beginnings and their ends. when
Had I decided to volunteer for intelligence work? "In bed
With a broad," I answered, with locker-room bravado. The truth was, jobs

Were scarce, and working on Operation Memory was better than no job
At all. Unamused, the judge looked at his watch. It was 1970
By the time he spoke. Recommending clemency, he ordered me to go to bed
At noon and practice my disappearing act. Someone must have loaded
The harmless gun on the wall in Act I when
I was asleep. And there I was, without an alibi, in the middle

Of a journey down nameless, snow-covered streets, in the middle
Of a mystery--or a muddle. These were the jobs
That saved men's souls, or so I was told, but when
The orphans assembled for their annual reunion, ten
Years later, on the playing fields of Eton, each unloaded
A kit bag full of troubles, and smiled bravely, and went to bed.

Thanks to Operation Memory, each of us woke up in a different bed
Or coffin, with a different partner beside him, in the middle
Of a war that had never been declared. No one had time to load
His weapon or see to any of the dozen essential jobs
Preceding combat duty. And there I was, dodging bullets, merely one
In a million whose lucky number had come up. When

It happened, I was asleep in bed, and when I woke up,
It was over: I was 38, on the brink of middle age,
A succession of stupid jobs behind me, a loaded gun on my lap.

 All actors look for them-the defining moments
When what a character does is what he is.
The script may say, He goes to the door
And exits or She goes out the door stage left.

But you see your fingers touching the doorknob,
Closing around it, turning it
As if by themselves. The latch slides
Out of the strike-plate, the door swings on its hinges,
And you're about to take that step
Over the threshold into a different light.

For the audience, you may simply be
Disappearing from the scene, yet in those few seconds
You can reach for the knob as the last object on earth
You wanted to touch. Or you can take it
Warmly like the hand your father offered
Once in forgiveness and afterward
Kept to himself.

Or you can stand there briefly, as bewildered
As by the door of a walk-in time-lock safe,
Stand there and stare
At the whole concept of shutness, like a rat
Whose maze has been rebaffled overnight,
Stand still and quiver, unable to turn
Around or go left or right.

Or you can grasp it with a sly, soundless discretion,
Open it inch by inch, testing each fraction
Of torque on the spindles, on tiptoe
Slip yourself through the upright slot
And press the lock-stile silently
Back into its frame.

Or you can use your shoulder
Or the hard heel of your shoe
And a leg-thrust to break it open.

Or you can approach the door as if accustomed
To having all barriers open by themselves.
You can wrench aside
This unauthorized interruption of your progress
And then leave it ajar
For others to do with as they may see fit.

Or you can stand at ease
And give the impression you can see through
This door or any door and have no need
To take your physical self to the other side.

Or you can turn the knob as if at last
Nothing could please you more, your body language
Filled with expectations of joy at where you're going,
Holding yourself momentarily in the posture
Of an awestruck pilgrim at the gate-though you know
You'll only be stepping out against the scrim
Or a wobbly flat daubed with a landscape,
A scribble of leaves, a hint of flowers,
The bare suggestion of a garden.

 There sandy seems the golden sky
And golden seems the sandy plain.
No habitation meets the eye
Unless in the horizon rim,
Some halfway up the limestone wall,
That spot of black is not a stain
Or shadow, but a cavern hole,
Where someone used to climb and crawl
To rest from his besetting fears.
I see the callus on his soul
The disappearing last of him
And of his race starvation slim,
Oh years ago -- ten thousand years.

 Part One - The Calling


Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and 
Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights; 
Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and 
Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body; 
Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume, 
And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead. 


Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired; 
Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit; 
Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart. 


Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for 
It's magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests. 


Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers 
Raise their crowns to greet the dawn. 
Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light 
Between my bed and the infinite; 
Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of 
Her white wings. 


Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips. 
Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers; 
Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me; 
Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes, 
And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath. 



Part Two - The Ascending


I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the 
Firmament of complete and unbound freedom; 
I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are 
Hiding the hills from my eyes. 
The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the 
Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses; 
The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter 
That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight 
And red as the twilight. 


The songs of the waves and the hymns of the streams 
Are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence; 
And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity 
In exact harmony with the spirit's desires. 
I am cloaked in full whiteness; 
I am in comfort; I am in peace. 



Part Three - The Remains


Unwrap me from this white linen shroud and clothe me 
With leaves of jasmine and lilies; 
Take my body from the ivory casket and let it rest 
Upon pillows of orange blossoms. 
Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy; 
Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress; 
Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with your 
Finger the symbol of Love and Joy. 
Disturb not the air's tranquility with chanting and requiems, 
But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life; 
Mourn me not with apparel of black, 
But dress in color and rejoice with me; 
Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts; close 
Your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore. 


Place me upon clusters of leaves and 
Carry my upon your friendly shoulders and 
Walk slowly to the deserted forest. 
Take me not to the crowded burying ground lest my slumber 
Be disrupted by the rattling of bones and skulls. 
Carry me to the cypress woods and dig my grave where violets 
And poppies grow not in the other's shadow; 
Let my grave be deep so that the flood will not 
Carry my bones to the open valley; 
Let my grace be wide, so that the twilight shadows 
Will come and sit by me. 


Take from me all earthly raiment and place me deep in my 
Mother Earth; and place me with care upon my mother's breast. 
Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed 
With seeds of jasmine, lilies and myrtle; and when they 
Grow above me, and thrive on my body's element they will 
Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space; 
And reveal even to the sun the secret of my peace; 
And sail with the breeze and comfort the wayfarer. 


Leave me then, friends - leave me and depart on mute feet, 
As the silence walks in the deserted valley; 
Leave me to God and disperse yourselves slowly, as the almond 
And apple blossoms disperse under the vibration of Nisan's breeze. 
Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there 
That which Death cannot remove from you and me. 
Leave with place, for what you see here is far away in meaning 
From the earthly world. Leave me.

 for Audre Lorde and Sonny Wainwright

Twice in my quickly disappearing forties
someone called while someone I loved and I were
making love to tell me another woman had died of cancer.

Seven years apart, and two different lovers:
underneath the numbers, how lives are braided,
how those women's death and lives, lived and died, were
interleaved also.

Does lip touch on lip a memento mori?
Does the blood-thrust nipple against its eager
mate recall, through lust, a breast's transformations
sometimes are lethal?

Now or later, what's the enormous difference?
If one day is good, is a day sufficient?
Is it fear of death with which I'm so eager
to live my life out

now and in its possible permutations
with the one I love? (Only four days later,
she was on a plane headed west across the
Atlantic, work-bound.)

Men and women, mortally wounded where we
love and nourish, dying at thirty, forty,
fifty, not on barricades, but in beds of
unfulfilled promise:

tell me, senators, what you call abnormal?
Each day's obits read as if there's a war on.
Fifty-eight-year-old poet dead of cancer:
warrior woman

laid down with the other warrior women.
Both times when the telephone rang, I answered,
wanting not to, knowing I had to answer,
go from two bodies'

infinite approach to a crest of pleasure
through the disembodied voice from a distance
saying one loved body was clay, one wave of
mind burst and broken.

Each time we went back to each other's hands and
mouths as to a requiem where the chorus
sings death with irrelevant and amazing
bodily music.

 Out on the high "bird islands," Ciboux and Hertford, 
the razorbill auks and the silly-looking puffins all stand 
with their backs to the mainland 
in solemn, uneven lines along the cliff's brown grass-frayed edge, 
while the few sheep pastured there go "Baaa, baaa." 
(Sometimes, frightened by aeroplanes, they stampede 
and fall over into the sea or onto the rocks.) 
The silken water is weaving and weaving, 
disappearing under the mist equally in all directions, 
lifted and penetrated now and then 
by one shag's dripping serpent-neck, 
and somewhere the mist incorporates the pulse, 
rapid but unurgent, of a motor boat. 

The same mist hangs in thin layers 
among the valleys and gorges of the mainland 
like rotting snow-ice sucked away 
almost to spirit; the ghosts of glaciers drift 
among those folds and folds of fir: spruce and hackmatack-- 
dull, dead, deep pea-cock colors, 
each riser distinguished from the next 
by an irregular nervous saw-tooth edge, 
alike, but certain as a stereoscopic view. 

The wild road clambers along the brink of the coast. 
On it stand occasional small yellow bulldozers, 
but without their drivers, because today is Sunday. 
The little white churches have been dropped into the matted hills 
like lost quartz arrowheads. 
The road appears to have been abandoned. 
Whatever the landscape had of meaning appears to have been abandoned, 
unless the road is holding it back, in the interior, 
where we cannot see, 
where deep lakes are reputed to be, 
and disused trails and mountains of rock 
and miles of burnt forests, standing in gray scratches 
like the admirable scriptures made on stones by stones-- 
and these regions now have little to say for themselves 
except in thousands of light song-sparrow songs floating upward 
freely, dispassionately, through the mist, and meshing 
in brown-wet, fine torn fish-nets. 

A small bus comes along, in up-and-down rushes, 
packed with people, even to its step. 
(On weekdays with groceries, spare automobile parts, and pump parts, 
but today only two preachers extra, one carrying his frock coat on a
 hanger.) 
It passes the closed roadside stand, the closed schoolhouse, 
where today no flag is flying 
from the rough-adzed pole topped with a white china doorknob. 
It stops, and a man carrying a bay gets off, 
climbs over a stile, and goes down through a small steep meadow, 
which establishes its poverty in a snowfall of daisies, 
to his invisible house beside the water. 

The birds keep on singing, a calf bawls, the bus starts. 
The thin mist follows 
the white mutations of its dream; 
an ancient chill is rippling the dark brooks.