Famous Crippled Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Crippled poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous crippled poems. These examples illustrate what a famous crippled poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Paterson, Andrew Barton
...smackin' against the wall,
Tap, tap, tap, on the window pane,
And they'd rise and jump at the house again
Till their crippled carcasses piled outside.
But what did it matter if thousands died --
A million wouldn't be missed at all.
"We were drinkin' grasshoppers -- so to speak --
Till we skimmed their carcasses off the spring;
And they fell so thick in the station creek
They choked the waterholes all the week.
There was scarcely room for a trout to rise...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...each heavy 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, th...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...full often with his "cheating yard-wand" home!
This is a song of brave men, ever, the wide world o'er –
Starved and crippled and murdered by the land they are fighting for.
Left to freeze in the trenches, sent to drown by the Cape,
Throttled by army contractors, and strangled bv old red-tape.
Fighting for "Home" and "Country", or "Glory", or what you choose –
Sacrificed for the Syndicates, and a monarch "in" with the Jews.
Australia! your trial is coming...Read more of this...
by
Piercy, Marge
...o have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch....Read more of this...
by
Piercy, Marge
...br> Take truckloads
to Boston. Give to your Red Cross.
Beg on the highway: please
take my zucchini, I have a crippled
mother at home with heartburn.
Sneak out before dawn to drop
them in other people's gardens,
in baby buggies at churchdoors.
Shot, smuggling zucchini into
mailboxes, a federal offense.
With a suave reptilian glitter
you bask among your raspy
fronds sudden and huge as
alligators. You give and give
too much, like summer day...Read more of this...
by
Zaran, Lisa
...ease.
He loved you, at least you think so.
Go on.
Drink, smoke, do drugs.
Go on.
Drag your crippled bones
to work. Hate your boss
behind her back. Smile
to her face. Go on.
Eat. Don't eat. Get fat.
Get skinny. Go on.
Time fragments.
Space fractures.
Lives intersect.
Wombs bloom
with new life. Go on.
Wait.
Hold on.
Originally published by Dicey Brown, Winter 2006
Cop...Read more of this...
by
Simic, Charles
...I liked my little hole,
Its window facing a brick wall.
Next door there was a piano.
A few evenings a month
a crippled old man came to play
"My Blue Heaven."
Mostly, though, it was quiet.
Each room with its spider in heavy overcoat
Catching his fly with a web
Of cigarette smoke and revery.
So dark,
I could not see my face in the shaving mirror.
At 5 A.M. the sound of bare feet upstairs.
The "Gypsy" fortuneteller,
Whose storefront is on ...Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...are our little shallop's fate,
Rather than travel in the hell-bound ship, --
Too good an English seaman to desert
These crippled comrades, -- try to make them rest
More easy on the thwarts. And John, my son,
My little shipmate, come and lean your head
Against your father's knee. Do you recall
That April morn in Ethelburga's church,
Five years ago, when side by side we kneeled
To take the sacrament with all our men,
Before the Hopewell left St. Catherine's docks...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...who fell it were better to fight
as they did when the world was wide.
Boast as you will of your mateship now -- crippled and mean and sly --
The lines of suspicion on friendship's brow
were traced since the days gone by.
There was room in the long, free lines of the van
to fight for it side by side --
There was beating-room for the heart of a man
in the days when the world was wide.
. . . . .
With its dull, brown days of a-shillin...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...rength, and lost their wits.
Thus now while hoary years prevail,
Good mother Britain seem'd to fail;
Her back bent, crippled with the weight
Of age, and debts, and cares of state.
For debts she owed, and those so large,
As twice her wealth could ne'er discharge,
And now 'twas thought, so high they'd grown,
She'd come upon the parish soon.
Her arms, of nations once the dread,
She scarce could lift above her head;
Her deafen'd ears, 'twas all their hope,
The final t...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...be,
And pass serenely all their days
In snug security.
That duty done, I leave behind
The all I have to give
To crippled children and the blind
Who lamentably live;
Hoping my withered hand may freight
To happiness a few
Poor innocents whom cruel fate
Has cheated of their due.
A am no grey philanthropist,
Too humble is my lot
Yet how I'm glad to give the grist
My singing mill has brought.
For I have had such lyric days,
So rich, so full, so sweet,
That I...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...Sot can 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 Ac...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...Then through the dell his horn resounds,
From vain pursuit to call the hounds.
Back limped, with slow and crippled pace,
The sulky leaders of the chase;
Close to their master's side they pressed,
With drooping tail and humbled crest;
But still the dingle's hollow throat
Prolonged the swelling bugle-note.
The owlets started from their dream,
The eagles answered with their scream,
Round and around the sounds were cas...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...my meat;
But the others -- the misfits, the failures -- I trample under my feet.
Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,
Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters -- Go! take back your spawn again.
"Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway;
From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone for a million years and a day;
Hugging my mighty treasure, waiting for man to come,
Till he swept like a turbid torrent, and after him swept -- ...Read more of this...
by
Taylor, Ann
...br>
And, when morning beams return,
Still no comfort beams for me:
Still my limbs with fever burn,
Painful still my crippled knee.
And another tedious day
Passes slow and sad away.
From my chamber-window high,
Lifted to my easy-chair,
I the village-green can spy,
Once I used to frolic there,
March, or beat my new-bought drum;
Happy times! no more to come.
There I see my fellows gay,
Sporting on the daisied turf,
And, amidst their cheerful play,
Stopp...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there's really been no change,
And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching the light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange;
Why aren't they screaming?
At death you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It's only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
An...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...picture back, my little girl,
And run and run. . . .
I'm talking wild again;
A crab can't run. I'm crippled, withered, lame,
Palsied, as good as dead all down one side.
No warning had I when the evil came:
It struck me down in all my strength and pride.
Triumph was mine, I thrilled with perfect power;
Honor was mine, Fame's laurel touched my brow;
Glory was mine -- within a little hour
I was a god and . . . what you find me now.
M...Read more of this...
by
Johnson, Samuel
...unextinguish'd Av'rice still remains,
284 And dreaded losses aggravate his pains;
285 He turns, with anxious heart and crippled hands,
286 His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands;
287 Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes,
288 Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies.
289 But grant, the virtues of a temp'rate prime
290 Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime;
291 An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay,
292 And glides in modest innocence away;
293 Whose pe...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
...He's an old man. Used up and bent,
crippled by time and indulgence,
he slowly walks along the narrow street.
But when he goes inside his house to hide
the shambles of his old age, his mind turns
to the share in youth that still belongs to him.
His verse is now recited by young men.
His visions come before their lively eyes.
Their healthy sensual minds,
their shapely taut bodi...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...ird
About the most tender, in delight.
I'm happy. But the way,
Forest and smooth, is to me most dear,
The crippled bridge, curved a bit here,
And that remain only several days.
x x x
She came up. I did not show my worry,
Calmly looking outside the windows.
She sat down, like ceramic idol
In a long-ago-chosen pose.
To be happy -- is well-accustomed,
But attentive -- is harder just might.
Or the dark shadow has been overpow...Read more of this...
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