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Famous Discard Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...home.

I was the dirty book you don't leave out
for your mother to see. I was the center-
fold you masturbate with then discard.

Where I came from, the nights I had wandered
and survived, scared them, and where
I would go they never imagined.

Ah, what you wanted for your sons
were little ladies hatched from the eggs
of pearls like pink and silver lizards

cool, well behaved and impervious
to desire and weather alike. Mostly
that's who they married and left.

Oh, mamas, I wo...Read more of this...
by Piercy, Marge



...the peerless grandeur of the modern, 
Out of Thyself—comprising Science—to recast Poems, Churches, Art, 
(Recast—may-be discard them, end them—May-be their work is done—who knows?)

By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead, 
To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present.

(And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain! 
Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long! 
Thou carefully...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...ved, yet never swept away
like fragments of disturbing dreams
we stumble on all day. . .
in ordering our lives, we will discard them,
scrub clean the floorboards of this our home
lest refuse from the lives we did not lead
become, in some strange, frightening way, our own.
And we have plans that will not tolerate
our fears-- a year laid out like rooms
in a new house--the dusty wine glasses
rinsed off, the vases filled, and bookshelves
sagging with heavy winter books.
Seeing th...Read more of this...
by Jong, Erica
...r going without.
 It varies.

This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise --
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
 But it's chess.

And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
 To exist.

And what's the profit? Only that, in time,
We half-identify the blind impress
All our behavings bear, may trace it home.
 But to confess,

On that green evenin...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip
...BARCAROLE ON THE STYX


Fair youth with the rose at your lips, 
A riddle is hid in your eyes; 
Discard conversational quips, 
Give over elaborate disguise.

The rose's funeral breath 
Confirms by intuitive fears; 
To prove your devotion, Sir Death, 
Avaunt for a dozen of years.

But do not forget to array 
Your terror in juvenile charms; 
I shall deeply regret my delay 
If I sleep in a skeleton's arms....Read more of this...
by Wylie, Elinor



...ngs that promised
so much in terms of a human future, no longer
to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands;
to even discard one's own name as easily as a child
abandons a broken toy.
Strange, not to desire to continue wishing one's wishes.
Strange to notice all that was related, fluttering
so loosely in space. And being dead is hard work
and full of retrieving before one can gradually feel a
trace of eternity. -Yes, but the liviing make
the mistake of drawing too sharp a ...Read more of this...
by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...tle cry many new ghosts Worry and grieve alone old man Disorder cloud low dusk Rapid snow dance return wind Gourd ladle discard cup without green Stove remain fire like red Many place news broken Worry sit straight book empty  After the battle, many new ghosts cry, The solitary old man worries and grieves. Ragged clouds are low amid the dusk, Snow dances quickly in the whirling wind. The ladle's cast aside, the cup not green, The stove still looks ...Read more of this...
by Fu, Du
...of Butterfly
Or Opportunity -- Her Lord away?

The lady with the Amulet -- will face --
The Bee -- in Mausoleum laid --
Discard his Bride --
But longer than the little Rill --
That cooled the Forehead of the Hill --
While Other -- went the Sea to fill --
And Other -- went to turn the Mill --
I'll do thy Will --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...ins, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes. 

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free? 

If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead. 

You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them. 

And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you i...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil
...ut to her ancient servant coy and hard) 
Him at that age her favorites rank'd among 
When she her best-lov'd Pompey did discard. 

9

He, private, mark'd the faults of others' sway, 
And set as sea-marks for himself to shun, 
Not like rash monarchs who their youth betray 
By acts their age too late would wish undone. 

10

And yet dominion was not his design; 
We owe that blessing not to him but Heaven, 
Which to fair acts unsought rewards did join, 
Rewards that less to him ...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John
...e him; they are eating him hollow like 
a webbed fly, and his eyes are red-suckled with anger-fear.
He feels hatred and discard of the world, sharper than
his razor, and his gut-feel hangs like a wet polyp; and he 
self-decisions himself defeated trying to shake his
hung beard from razor in water (like life), not warm enough.
Daumier. Rue Transonian, le 15 Avril, 1843. (lithograph.)
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.
"She has a face unlike that of any woman I have ever known."
"W...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles
...n the most.'

'A loony'd boast of such a love,'
He in his rage declared:
But such as he for such as me --
Could we both discard
This beggarly habiliment --
Had found a sweeter word....Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...?
Simmer, summer, summer, simmer.
Mop the floor and suck the finger.
Mop the brow with old potholder.

4. 

Time is up! Discard the cheesecloth.
Force the mixture thru the foodmill
(having first discarded ham bone).
Add the lean meat from the ham bone;
Reheat soup and chop the parsley.
Now that sweating night has fallen,
Try at last the finished product:

5.

Tastes like mud, the finished product.
Looks like mud, the finished product.
Consistency of mud the dinner.
(Was it le...Read more of this...
by Kizer, Carolyn
...nal through
the compact generations 

and except for you

 nothing 
 denotates

its sweet-scented dynamite

Greetings
I discard eloquence
the empty sail
and the swollen sail
which cause the ship 
to lose her course

My ink nicks
and there

and there

 and there

and
there

sleeps 
deep poetry

The mirror-paneled wardrobe 
washing down ice-floes
the little eskimo girl

dreaming
in a heap 
of moist *******
her nose was
 flattened
against the window-pane 
of dreary Christmases

...Read more of this...
by Cocteau, Jean
...e the tools, lad,
And let me help finish the job."

"I'll fit you in somewhere," said Winnie,
"Old soldiers we must not discard."
Then seeing he'd got his own musket,
He sent him to join the Home Guard.

They gave Sam a coat with no stripes on,
In spite of the service he'd seen,
Which considering he'd been a King's sergeant,
Kind of rankled... you know what I mean.

He said "I come back to the Army,
Expecting my country's thanks,
And the first thing I find when I get here,
Is...Read more of this...
by Edgar, Marriott
...LET us twain walk aside from the rest; 
Now we are together privately, do you discard ceremony, 
Come! vouchsafe to me what has yet been vouchsafed to none—Tell me the whole story, 
Tell me what you would not tell your brother, wife, husband, or physician....Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry