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Famous Crackle Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Plath, Sylvia
...afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.

But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.

Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my v...Read more of this...



by Plath, Sylvia
...moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag....Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...is cocked
at a disturbing angle.

His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.

He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.

He is going to show them
how a professional does it....Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...nd return, 
men she cannot imagine. 
Lost in gigantic paper suits, 
they move like sea creatures. 
A voice will crackle from out 
there where no voices are 
speaking of the great theater 
of conquest, of advancing 
beyond the simple miracles 
of flight, the small ventures 
of birds and beasts. The President 
will answer with words she 
cannot remember having 
spoken ever to anyone.

THE PHONE CALL

She calls Chicago, but no one 
is home. The operator asks ...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...e.

"The rustling of ruble notes by the lemon Neva."
Under your exile's tongue, crisp under heel,
the gutturals crackle like decaying leaves,
the phrase from Mandelstam circles with light
in a brown room, in barren Oklahoma.

There is a Gulag Archipelago
under this ice, where the salt, mineral spring
of the long Trail of Tears runnels these plains
as hard and open as a herdsman's face
sun-cracked and stubbled with unshaven snow.

Growing in whispers from the W...Read more of this...



by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks' heads on the andiron...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...e who ought to write.
It's he who should in mystic mood concoct poetic screeds,
And I who ought to drop my crot and crackle sunflower seeds.

A parrot nears a hundred years (or so the legend goes),
So were I he this century I might see to its close.
Then I might swing within my ring while revolutions roar,
And watch a world to ruin hurled - and find it all a bore.
As upside-down I cling and clown, I might with parrot eyes
Blink blandly when excited men are mou...Read more of this...

by Benet, Stephen Vincent
...arven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships -- 
And the firelight wavers and changes about the room, 

As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound; 
Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark of her hair, 
Where she lies, head pillowed on arm, and one hand curved round 
To shield the white face and neck from the faint thin glare. 

Gently she breathes -- and the long limbs lie at ease, 
And the rise and fall of the young, slim, virginal breast 
Is as certain-s...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...
Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?

(Ah, Soul, the sobs of women—the wounded groaning in agony, 
The hiss and crackle of flames—the blacken’d ruins—the embers of cities, 
The dirge and desolation of mankind.) 

4
Now airs antique and medieval fill me! 
I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals:
I hear the minnesingers, singing their lays of love, 
I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages. 

5
Now the great organ so...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...tween with curious art 
The ragged brush; then, hovering near, 
We watched the first red blaze appear, 
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
Until the old, rude-furnished room 
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; 
While radiant with a mimic flame 
Outside the sparkling drift became, 
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 
The crane and pendent trammels showed, 
The Turks' heads on th...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...apprentices, 
The swing of their axes on the square-hew’d log, shaping it toward the shape of a mast, 
The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine, 
The butter-color’d chips flying off in great flakes and slivers, 
The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes;
The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats, stays against the sea; 
—The city fireman—the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack’d square, 
Th...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...hall die in Rome."

Then Alfred, King of England,
Bade blow the horns of war,
And fling the Golden Dragon out,
With crackle and acclaim and shout,
Scrolled and aflame and far.

And under the Golden Dragon
Went Wessex all along,
Past the sharp point of the cloven ways,
Out from the black wood into the blaze
Of sun and steel and song.

And when they came to the open land
They wheeled, deployed and stood;
Midmost were Marcus and the King,
And Eldred on the right-hand...Read more of this...

by Binyon, Laurence
...ittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves! 
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin, and bites 
On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist. 
The last hollyhock’s fallen tower is dust: 
All the spices of June are a bitter reek, 
All the extravagant riches spent and mean. 
All burns! the reddest rose is a ghost. 
Spark whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild 
Fingers of fire are making corruption clean. 
Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare, 
Time...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...passed beyond the Bend.

"Now turn I towards the Shepherd: lo,
An aged Ram, flapp'd, gnarly-horn'd,
With bones that crackle o'er the snow,
Rheum'd, wind-gall'd, rag-fleec'd, burr'd and thorn'd.

"Time takes the third bar off for him,
He totters down the windy lane.
'Tis Winter, still: the Bend lies dim.
O Lamb, would thou wouldst leap again!"

Those seasons out, we talked of these:
And I (with inward purpose sly
To shield my purse from Christmas trees
And stoc...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...It's good the great green earth to roam,
Where sights of awe the soul inspire;
But oh, it's best, the coming home,
The crackle of one's own hearth-fire!
You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past;
You've seen the pageantry of kings;
Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last
The peace and rest of Little Things!

Perhaps you're counted with the Great;
You strain and strive with mighty men;
Your hand is on the helm of State;
Colossus-like you stride . . . and then
There comes a...Read more of this...

by Du Bois, W. E. B.
...hy Name,
I lynched a ******—
(He raved and writhed,
I heard him cry,
I felt the life-light leap and lie,
I saw him crackle there, on high,
I watched him wither!)
Thou?
Thee?
I lynched Thee?
Awake me, God! I sleep!
What was that awful word Thou saidst?
That black and riven thing—was it Thee?
That gasp—was it Thine?
This pain—is it Thine?
Are, then, these bullets piercing Thee?
Have all the wars of all the world,
Down all dim time, drawn blood from Thee?
Have ...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...ch'd away,
And curs'd for ever this Victorious Day.

For lo! the Board with Cups and Spoons is crown'd,
The Berries crackle, and the Mill turns round.
On shining Altars of Japan they raise
The silver Lamp; the fiery Spirits blaze.
From silver Spouts the grateful Liquors glide,
And China's Earth receives the smoking Tyde. 
At once they gratify their Scent and Taste,
While frequent Cups prolong the rich Repast.
Strait hover round the Fair her Airy Band;
Some...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...way,
And curs'd for ever this victorious day.


For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd,
The berries crackle, and the mill turns round.
On shining altars of Japan they raise
The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze.
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,
While China's earth receives the smoking tide.
At once they gratify their scent and taste,
And frequent cups prolong the rich repast.
Straight hover round the fair her airy ba...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Ted
...Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.

Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasphed fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up

From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.

Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down...Read more of this...

by Padel, Ruth
...n, in the mind,

To anyone hurt by littleness. A prayer
For the moment, saved; treachery forgiven.
Flame of the crackle-glaze tangle, amber
Reflected in grey milk-jade. An old song
Remembered, long debt paid.
A painting on silk, which may fade....Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs