Best Carcass Poems
The shell remains
picked clean by hungry vultures
ravenous with greed.
Gouged-out eyes
now bare hollow sockets
vacant in their stare.
Morsels of choice parts
deftly stripped or torn away—
and gutted vitals, furtively devoured,
have filled the wanton needs
of scavengers who shared the feast.
The carcass rests
flat on bony frame
supported once by plump, round legs
on which it mightily ran.
There it lies—
a brittle, empty shell—
the poor abandoned Chevy
on the Harlem River Drive.
Sandra M. Haight
~1st Place~
Premiere Contest: Bring To Life
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
Judged: 04/14/2018
~3rd Place~
Contest: East Jesus
Sponsor: Roy Jerden
Judged: 01/02/2015
Note: Inspired by my many trips years ago in the late 70s, to visit my father in a hospital there. I would see so many abandoned cars lined up as 'empty shell carcasses' along the Harlem River Drive in New York City.
Trump Shields The US From Becoming A Carcass Full With Ants
Trumps draws a line in the sand
He's shaken all the trees in the land
Call him whatever, okay an ass
Yet keep in mind his motto USA first
From the civil war to now
No other's brought out the plow
Like how Trump has outlined in his model
In stomping his foot down full throttle
In Trump's twelve days in office
He's raining on the bureaucratic chorus
Telling big business to fear
Of outsourcing jobs from here
He's taken on the pharmaceutical giants
To lower their prices, and be more compliant
He set a visa moratorium on 7 Muslim countries
Prompting protester's chastises, so bluntly
He's opened dialogue for domestic oil exploration
Setting the country's future more self reliant of oil importation
He's befriended the Brits, and hired a cabinet of friends
Some of which are the richest, so one hopes it pays dividends
To this he silences his, what, ... critics?
By calling them, okay, ... idiots !
Trump's IQ some say it's one of the tops
One hope pressure doesn't make it pop
Trump also seen as grandstanding his wall
For the Mexican President to take the fall
Yet he may be right on all of this
For it's a lot of walkovers from the border
That's soaking up the jobs, social and welfare
Taking up space for the ones already here
Trump may be xenophobic and not a tulip or rose
But he can't be accused of tiptoeing in
He needed to stem the colony of ants
Instead of letting them bred and expanse
connie pachecho
2/1/17
The Carcass
The best part of the meal,
the bones, the things others throw away.
The wingtips, the neck, the gizzard, the lizard...
a fowl needs to be cooked and stewed.
A bit of broth, a giant onion, scallions if you have them.
Carrots because they are bright orange...
Celery, long stalks, and short,
for the picky and tough eaters.
Simmer and boil, worth the effort,
like friendship and the kitchen sink.
It makes you question,
"Why do good cooks have so many friends?"
The answer plain and apparent.
They know how to roll dough and make bread.
Both having nothing to do with money.
Yet worth more than a fortune,
to all that need to eat,
all who are hungry.
Chicken noodle, turkey steak,
pork chops and wine in a cave,
held by the rich, while the poor starved.
Buying the votes of the country,
(is it for sale? has it already been sold?)
while holding us/it hostage...
for the holidays.
The New Year gives US(a) promises,
maybe no one can keep.
Black-eyed peas are sold out,
at the store,
in case you want more,
than before.
There will be less for all,
if they change the law,
and no president,
will ever be free...
and for the people...
again.
The shell remains, picked clean by
Hungry vultures, ravenous with greed-
Eyes, gouged out, now vacant in their stare.
Raw morsels of choice bits and parts,
Unsparingly stripped or torn away, and
Soft gutted vitals furtively devoured,
Totally filled the needs of scavengers who
Yielded to hunger and shared the feast.
Cruelly, the carcass rests on bony frame
Although once supported by plump,
Round parts, on which it mightily ran-
Crushed and crumpled, now an empty shell.
Abandoned, there it lies- the scavenged,
Shattered, rusty, ravaged Chevy-
Staring- lifeless, amid the weeds and grass.
June 14, 2016
~9th Place~
Contest: Rusted and Busted
Sponsor: Casarah Nance
Judged: 06/27/2016
1st Place
Contest: A Brian Strand July 3
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Judged: 07/03/2021
The country is at war again
War of hustle and bustle for power
Power for self aggrandizement
All in the name of democracy
Birds of prey are in full flight
Hunting for the Carcass
Of the comatose nation
All in the name democracy
Friends are turned foes
Adversaries have become strange bedfellows
Scuttling shamelessly from one nest to another
All in the name of democracy
The country is at war again
Tension and pressure everywhere
This is the season of double-speak
All in the name of democracy
Truth stands on its head
Lies of yesterday
Have become truths of today
As mendacity has murdered credibility
All in the name democracy
Do not leave my carcass in the city,
Bury me whole by my grandfather’s side.
Let me repose far from the vanity.
The skyscrapers offer no charity,
and people stay indifferent to plight.
Do not leave my carcass in the city.
There are no modest pledges of fealty
to the men who seek to live by the light.
Let me repose far from the vanity.
I claim no virtue nor feign purity
but I am improved where mother resides.
Do not leave my carcass in the city.
Though decent men are not without pity
The noise alone will swallow them alright.
Let me repose far from the vanity.
Then, my home, forgive my own vanity
and absence-put my remains well and right.
Do not leave my carcass in the city
Let me repose far from the vanity.
In the dark recessions of the corpse canals,
Where the breaking of bones sounds the eerie air like the clanking of bells,
Where the tearing of tendons whistle and hiss,
Echoing across blood water lakes laced with piss.
Found deep within a Carcass Catacomb, where the restless undead candidly roam,
There are, unfortunately, the unlucky few who call this home.
Sunken cadaverous corpses sink restlessly, forever seeking to escape and flee,
If not entrapped within an infernal sea, suffering in blindness with naught to see.
There! Deep below swim the loathsome drowned, cursed to breathe the contagions of innumerable ilk whilst eerily unfound.
And so to the canals are they forever bound, with rotting bones whiter than milk,
flowing in a surrendering of flesh, bleached flags of corpse silk.
I don't want to hurt others with this thought
But my work can hurt others besides myself
I'm spinning, I don't know what to do
Like the ocean of other people's passion
I have a wooden boat wreck
My brain is not made for this world
I hear chattering
An illusion, a nightmare, a disorienting confusion
I am waiting for you to tell me
The voice is loud, there is no heart for me anymore
Someone tells me to run away
go out
when i go out
All eyes follow me
Everyone brings a gift of death
Everyone is coming to celebrate my death
I am tired of this bitter and irrelevant nonsense
Someone is screaming
It's like he's holding a saw and cutting me
I feel light because of my own fear
full of not jumping
In the scene of my death
It is interesting to worry about my future
I just played a game
Like the rest and all who slide
They just act like scary clowns
All become just a naked corpse
Everyone just wakes up
They are playing a role
Everything becomes just a naked corpse, that's all
I'm just tired of this bitter and irrelevant nonsense
Honoured is our kin
fed with a sliver spoon
bred and reared in Elysium.
Swith is he, an ironic typhoean _
(he 'l be)- Our immerse hero..
So will he slump a thousand times
but not like a coward.
I will tirelessly mull over
how long he lives
like a mammoth,
how great he'l emerge like pharaoh..
Tender is his flesh at the crematorium
who shall we laud, for this formidable feast.
Welcome the vulnerable kin,
He who stole our sodden hearts.
Who will eep and give fibs?
He! the "vainglorious conqueror" _
Who will loot and share views?
He!
Who wears the prosperous attire?
He..
who rears the gluttonous martyrs?
He! He! He!
praise him Of great evil and flair.
glorify him Of great evil and fear he spares,
Our sardonic Adonis.
Tied are you to winter's wrappers
Harmattan you say is for Americanas
in the savannahs.. there you belong
you scoundrel!our disowned manhattanite,
we your kindreds heart you
'road model' for we yonder ones.
You undo and sojourn
we still value you
We pray you live longer
We pray you age agelessly
And work tirelessly
like a wall clock
When there is nothing left to seek
You know you have attained your peak
Then, pray to be like these carcasses
who takes nothing to heaven _But
good deeds that trades them paradise
away from hell fortressed from yeh
I praise you hence
Turn a new ...
Get a new lease on life
William Shakespeare: Carcass
The remnants of virtue used and earned,
eternal and the extent of such,
vainglory is measured thusly so,
so be it, a valued lesson learned.
Should beauty pleasure men so justly,
and fair maidens make their faces glow,
tempestuous journey lies before,
for the wise scorn and fools do wrongly.
Regard the advice that you must prize,
and live your life fulfilled evermore,
that you have no room to be concerned,
for you listened to, words of the wise.
Slight work claimed for natural appeal,
embellishment purpose to conceal,
as innocent charms often reveal,
carcass mention naught for the genteel.
2020 February 17
Lines to Awaken your Muse Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Joseph May
5. The carcass of beauty spent and done - William Shakespeare
Rhyme Scheme;
abca, dced, feaf, hhhh
Howmanysyllables;
16 lines x 9 syllables per = 144 syllables total
Forgotten Poems fill my head,
Though ruined; tattered or destroyed
The Truth I seek, how do I dread-
For this Life I've yet enjoyed!
Arctic Artist, how hard I shiver!
My frozen carcass never found
Lethal Liquor engulfs my liver-
As the snow drifts all around...
The beauty of truth shriveled and spit
Like July 4th snakes, dying on the sidewalk
My eyesight is going, but I don’t think I lie
My shingles are back, expressing anger and pain
My flesh house is crumbling
I will not be sorry when it dies
The smells of old age parade around in my house
Sneering and poking their fingers at me
Reminding me of the smell of garbage piles of Pomona
I always hated old people.
Their wrinkles, age spots, blue veins
Especially their smells
I watch myself turn into a carcass
It is taking longer than I had hoped
I never took a pill before
And now here I am, a pothead
With bad teeth, and black holes
In a mouth no one hears
In this landscape, lies a nest
made of brown brittle leaves,
cracked asphalt,
and tire flattened filters
this creature, stands
broad shouldered and stupid
with a flat face and eyes
open so wide they are windows
offering a glimpse into
the bones of a building.
Yet there is a maw so wide and welcoming,
as if by design
we wanted to be trapped
like Jonah, deep inside
the festering stomach
of a dying Leviathan.
The air inside hangs stagnancy
like meat from a butcher’s hook
For years, no atom has moved
an inch, not even the neon
would dare to appeal to its bright nature.
This cursed Frankenstein,
this ghost of a golem
stays stuck in a vacuum of time,
doomed to the disease
we all lovingly call nostalgia.
Down the throat is a linoleum tract,
the pathway echoed out
Conversations, a background hum
Where Marcy would meet Chaz
at Corndog Palace
Little Marcus would suck
Slimer’s fruit based concentrate
Aerosol spray coated the shelves
full of the endless adolescent days
Here we were meant to forever wade
through the swimming crowd
soaking in drum machines and vaporwave
Now just a concrete carcass,
you suburban eyesore
the corpse of Victor Gruen’s
idea that could have been
so much more.
very early right after I lost everything
that day was born with me scared in the woods
refuge of one who has forgotten the padded way
of his own sanity
feeling cold without sun rays or comforting thoughts
the menacing shadows freeze your soul
every sound is a monster that comes to get you
the falls wounded legs and arms
the back in pain is nothing
when the hunger erupts absurd
on the chaotic horizon of your needs
I fell to the damp ground were dead leaves rot
centennial elm sap flows and writes in its crimp trunk:
"Calm down because you are in your home
you can assume a fetal position and cry alone"
the anthill right there was teeming with life
the ants near my mouth I ate
while the others I chased with my eyes
maybe spend the rest of the worlds here
turning me into an old trunk
in the carcass of a wild animal
in fact I am and we are backbones
I am and we are in our deserved place
I have calluses on the inside of my body.
I am smooth and polished on the outside.
But once you peel away my cocoon, you will find cuts and bruises.
My intestines are knotted, tied in one big bow.
My bones are cracked and discolored.
my muscles are tangled and weak.
My brain has pins in it, i am someone's voodoo doll.
But no one will ever know, i hide it so flawlessly.