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Famous Carcass Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Walcott, Derek
...right man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum, 
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.

Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the ve...Read more of this...



by Donne, John
...ilt go,
 The whole world vapors with thy breath.

Or if, when thou, the world's soul, goest,
 It stay, 'tis but thy carcass then,
The fairest woman, but thy ghost,
 But corrupt worms, the worthiest men.

O wrangling schools, that search what fire
 Shall burn this world, had none the wit
Unto this knowledge to aspire,
 That this her fever might be it?

And yet she cannot waste by this,
 Nor long bear this torturing wrong,
For much corruption needful is
 To fuel such a ...Read more of this...

by Shakespeare, William
...d a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of beauty spent and done:
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often ...Read more of this...

by Wilmot, John
...y sot can pierce
The limits of the boundless universe;
So charming ointments make an old witch fly,
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
'Tis the exalted power whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities.
This made a whimsical philosopher
Before the spacious world his tub prefer,
And we have modern cloistered coxcombs, who
Retire to think 'cause they have nought to do.
But thoughts are given for action's government;
Where action ceases, thought's i...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...know what waters steal and stand
 Where seldom water stood. 
 Yet who will note, 
 Till fields afloat, 
And washen carcass and the returning well,
Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell? 

Ye know who use the Crystal Ball 
 (To peer by stealth on Doom), 
The Shade that, shaping first of all, 
 Prepares an empty room. 
 Then doth it pass 
 Like breath from glass,
But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, 
No man considers why It came or went.

Before the y...Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...ed frame, the sure death dealing ball.



LIV.
With minds intent upon the morrow's feast, 
The men surround the carcass of the beast.
Rolled on his back, he lies with lolling tongue, 
Soon to the saddle savory steaks are hung.
And from his mighty head, great tufts of hair
Are cut as trophies for some lady fair.
To vultures then they leave the torn remains
Of what an hour ago was monarch of the plains.



LV.
Far off, two bulls in jealous war engage...Read more of this...

by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...uying it, lived here fifteen years, 
attained a final loneliness and—

If you can bring nothing to this place 
but your carcass, keep out....Read more of this...

by Corso, Gregory
...ity a sudden furnace
 spread thy multitudinous encompassed Sweep
 set forth awful agenda
 Carrion stars charnel planets carcass elements
 Corpse the universe tee-hee finger-in-the-mouth hop
 over its long long dead Nor
 From thy nimbled matted spastic eye
 exhaust deluges of celestial ghouls
 From thy appellational womb
 spew birth-gusts of of great worms
 Rip open your belly Bomb
 from your belly outflock vulturic salutations
 Battle forth your spangled hyena finger stumps
 ...Read more of this...

by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...I 
When does this hundred years draw to its close? 
The hedge of thorns before me gives no clue. 
My predecessor's carcass, shrunk and dry, 
Stares at me through the spikes. Oh well, here goes! 
I have this thing, and only this, to do....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...rom path or road of men, who pass
In troop or caravan? for single none
Durst ever, who returned, and dropt not here
His carcass, pined with hunger and with droughth.
I ask the rather, and the more admire,
For that to me thou seem'st the man whom late
Our new baptizing Prophet at the ford
Of Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son
Of God. I saw and heard, for we sometimes 
Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth
To town or village nigh (nighest is far),
Wh...Read more of this...

by Lux, Thomas
...vault -- you pull the handle out
and on the shelves: not a lot,
and what there is (a boiled potato
in a bag, a chicken carcass
under foil) looking dispirited,
drained, mugged. This is not
a place to go in hope or hunger.
But, just to the right of the middle
of the middle door shelf, on fire, a lit-from-within red,
heart red, sexual red, wet neon red,
shining red in their liquid, exotic,
aloof, slumming
in such company: a jar
of maraschino cherries. Three-quarters...Read more of this...

by Wilmot, John
...pierce, 
The limits of the boundless Universe. 
So charming Oyntments, make an Old Witch flie, 
And bear a Crippled Carcass through the Skie. 
'Tis this exalted Pow'r, whose bus'ness lies, 
In Nonsense, and impossibilities. 
This made a Whimsical Philosopher, 
Before the spacious World, his Tub prefer, 
And we have modern Cloysterd Coxcombs, who 
Retire to think, cause they have naught to do. 
But thoughts, are giv'n, for Actions government, 
Where Action ceas...Read more of this...

by Hammond, Mac
...rising and falling. And so on,
Till all the guests are served, the turkey
Now a wreck, the carver exhausted, a
Mere carcass of his former self. Everyone
Says thanks to the turkey carver and begins
To eat, thankful for the cold turkey
And the Republic for which it stands....Read more of this...

by Kinnell, Galway
...rise 
and go on running. 

4
On the seventh day, 
living by now on bear blood alone, 
I can see his upturned carcass far out ahead, a scraggled, 
steamy hulk, 
the heavy fur riffling in the wind. 

I come up to him 
and stare at the narrow-spaced, petty eyes, 
the dismayed 
face laid back on the shoulder, the nostrils 
flared, catching 
perhaps the first taint of me as he 
died. 

I hack 
a ravine in his thigh, and eat and drink, 
and tear him...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...ull
Breeds honey by the bellyful.

The egregious rustic put to death
A bull by stopping of its breath,
Disposed the carcass in a shed
With fragrant herbs and branches spread,
And, having well performed the charm,
Sat down to wait the promised swarm.

Nor waited long. The God of Day
Impartial, quickening with his ray
Evil and good alike, beheld
The carcass--and the carcass swelled.
Big with new birth the belly heaves
Beneath its screen of scented leaves.
Pa...Read more of this...

by Crashaw, Richard
..., and wise souls be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! show here thy art,
Upon this carcass of a hard cold heart,
Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combin'd against this breast, at once break in
And take away from me my self and sin;
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.
O thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dow'r of l...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...t to and fro; 
And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall 
Hold o'er the dead their carnival, 
Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb! 
They were too busy to bark at him! 
From a Tartar's skull they had stripp'd the flesh, 
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh; 
And their white tusks crunch'd o'er the whiter skull, [4] 
As it slipped through their jaws, when their edge grew dull, 
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead, 
When they scarce could rise from the spo...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...d frantic hurry of the chase;
To start, pursue, and bring to bay,
Rush in, drag down, and rend my prey,
Then - from the carcass turn away!
Mine ireful mood had sweetness tamed,
And soothed each wound which pride inflamed: -
Yes, God and man might now approve me
If thou hadst lived and lived to love me!...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...d mother milk was stiff as sand,
I sent my own ambassador to light;
By trick or chance he fell asleep
And conjured up a carcass shape
To rob me of my fluids in his heart.

Awake, my sleeper, to the sun,
A worker in the morning town,
And leave the poppied pickthank where he lies;
The fences of the light are down,
All but the briskest riders thrown
And worlds hang on the trees....Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...d in his palace park and with him walked his troubles. And over his head hovered worries as a vulture hovers over a carcass, until he reached a beautiful lake surrounded by magnificent marble statuary. 

He sat there pondering the water which poured from the mouths of the statues like thoughts flowing freely from a lover's imagination, and contemplating heavily his palace which stood upon a knoll like a birth-mark upon the cheek of a maiden. His fancy revealed to ...Read more of this...

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