Best Carcasses 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.
Categories:
carcasses, imagery, urban,
Form:
Free verse
Note:***This poem is meant to be read from the bottom to the top, left to right
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Never Again
and you remain—
For the World has gone from me and fled
The stairway of my mind shall never end
I accept the fate with the grinning dead
Hello again demons, hello friends
I remain
Alas! I fall and I am done
Tell me where have you fled, my love, my friend?
For a moment I gaze upon the sun
Here I am on earth again
1 Stair Remains
Why can’t I be free?
Tell me, why aren’t they looking at thee?
Why are they looking at me?
2 Stairs Remain
The garments of comfort I long to wear
Knowing in my heart that I’ll never win
I skip that grimy third stair
Like most of my life has been
3 Stairs Remain
Though my infected feet leave bloodstains
I can’t release even a single tear
The poisons encompass my river of veins
I step on thorns of wrath and fear
Enshrouded with pain!
4 Stairs Remain
Oh, how am I to survive?
Relieve me from this ever-fixed sadness
Why can’t you just be alive?
Cease this madness!
5 Stairs Remain
As you breathe your very last breath
The devilish fiends laugh at me
They are blaming me for your death
The deaths of the masses are calling me
6 Stairs Remain
The carcasses you feed upon are glaring
Oh! vulturous world so full of greed
When everyone is staring
God, redeem me!
I just can’t succeed
7 Stairs Remain
Of other fiendish sins
And I feel the shivers
Drowned by the turbulent wind
My stale breath quivers
8 Stairs Remain
Though we all aren’t free
They laugh below in the hole where I fell
The demons are haunting, taunting me
Alone I wander blindly out of hell
9 Stairs Remain
And my will is close to gone…
The stairway continues on
Forever hungry, forever stale
I toil through death’s dark vale
10 Stairs Remain
Why can’t we be free?
My resistance is nearly gone
The wretches are watching, stalking me
I’m too exhausted to move on
Categories:
carcasses, confusion, death, depression, inspirational,
Form:
Rhyme
Rising
sprawled
amid the carcasses
of demons quelled
strewn
like soldiers slain
spent munitions
drained of all their fire
their bloodshed pooled
puddles
of watered down
egos and woes
glisten
in the morning light
as hangover destined
in reflection
one half dead
and addicted
vain plan to abstain
finds itself
shot down
again
8/3/2019
Eight Word Challenge Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Emile Pinet
Categories:
carcasses, addiction, drink,
Form:
Free verse
CORONALITY (1)
Polyneuropathy of a poisonous dark child,
Weapon of mass destruction,
Born to the family called Earth,
Name Corona, last name Virus,
Nickname Covid, aged nineteen (19),
Nationality China, who premeditatedly planned
The glint of bodies: naked, suited or adorned,
Down by the old soul (earth).
International terrorism at it's best,
Who is going to be the jury
To hear and decide this infliction of life's injury.
Death fashionably attired with a face new
And name, Corona, reminiscent of something I knew,
Now the ghost of life that begins
Can freely travel from Italy to America,
From United kingdom to Faroe island
Even without aviation and documents
To waver in arms of loved ones or pen pals.
What's going on with our beloved Earth?
Carcasses; I smell a rat,
Chinese government wears the aroma
And Wuhan Institute of Virology,
I see Shi Zengli's lab oozes 'the dead rat'
And Major General Chen Wei's hands stained
With tactics, strategies and blood
Like a small red circle on a white flag.
Welcome to the apocalypse, age of Ragnarok.
VickWizzy
Vick Manuel Poetry {VMP}
Copyright © 2020
Categories:
carcasses, death, earth, grief, solitude,
Form:
Free verse
On a parched outback plain,
there is a winding course.
Red gums line the banks
of a once water source.
But sand is creeping quickly,
through drought and failing rain,
so the flora must adapt,
on a parched outback plain.
The black box struggles on;
desert pea seed needs rain.
Quandong wants the wattle
to fight through the dry again,
but when it gets too parched,
life finds the boiling sun,
can be a bridge too far,
so many do succumb.
The living and the dead
keep standing side by side.
One is dressed in green;
one gray with life denied.
One shade for a traveler;
one hollowed out instead;
and accompany one another -
The living and the dead.
On the floodplain of an anabranch
where the soil is dry and dust.
The salt bush remains prolific
where beneath them is a crust.
Parts of nitre bush are dying,
but the rest keeps struggling on.
There’s skeletons of invadors;
sun seered now dead and gone.
Skeletons line the shrinking water
of carp that are deceased,
and carcasses of kangaroos
from starvation has increased.
A feast for roaming goannas,
who scavange on the dead,
beside ravens and the eagles,
until the living are well fed.
The living leave the dead
in their struggle to survive
as they search for greener pasture
once the rain does finally arrive.
The cycle starts it’s journey
that’s been hanging by a thread,
and new life that’s in the ouback
to keep living needs the dead.
Categories:
carcasses, environment, nature,
Form:
Rhyme
Before the blast in April's darkened sky. . .
before the electrifying surge of insurgency -
when trucks and tanks were used to block the roads, and
when men and even boys were sought to aid in one malicious purpose. . .
before the rampant slaughter -
the raining of machetes down on flesh and bones
and the cornucopia of corpses left like butchered carcasses
on highways, nearby houses and in churches. . .
before the plundering, the rapes and mutilations
and the exodus of thousands to death-infested camps,
there were whisperings -
insidious and portentous to the ears of the wisely suspicious -
and a voice on the airwaves spewing hate.
Before it all,
there was a brewing of resentment
of a people with a history of poverty and
of transitory freedom and capricious politics.
And through it all, with such grave consternation,
governments debated. . . waited. . . . . . . and waited,
playing with semantics
while thousands dead became the hundred thousand,
and three long months - unrivaled for its number of atrocities -
came to its completion.
Seemingly, peace has been restored
and punishment stingily doled out.
Time moves on . . .
except for half a million
for whom compassion by the world
was spared.
Categories:
carcasses, history,
Form:
Free verse
Darkness in the horizon,
one Sun seems to be not enough;
distant cries of vultures dig out
carcasses of haunting days
from the grave of my memory.
Those mascara eyed women,
whom I once adored and gave my heart
without getting back theirs'...
for whom I had many toddling nights
with slipping peg from my hand...
are the causes of what I am today.
They never cared to look back,
but how much did I long for them!
Even today,standing on the brink
of my life,I know I love them!
So I created Raven,
this mascara eyed beautiful,mystical woman,
for,I always wanted my death
to be beautiful and mystical;
and Raven is my death!
I kept her waiting in the mistful graveyard
among those ghost like gravestones,
with the vultures crying and circling above
in the leaden gloomy sky.
I know this will be my perfect end;
the final moment has come,
I will approach her,kneel down
and pray for her hand.
This time she will not refuse me,
I will take her hand and kiss it..
she will come in my arms and embrace me;
how I longed for this...
the eternal embrace of life and death!
Wait Raven.......... I am coming......
========================
By:kash poet
Categories:
carcasses, death
Form:
Free verse
The carcasses of rockets litter grass
dark hours advanced since midnight bells have chimed
and revellers stood watching seconds pass
to cheer and kiss to strains of 'Auld Lang Syne'.
Outside, from morbid black to pleasing blue
the day pulls off the sheets, the low sun yawns,
the same as yesterday but somehow new
as from last year the final page is torn.
We, too, like this new day must follow suit
rise from our east and shine in hopes afresh
as dreams and aspirations now take root
and words in resolutions become flesh.
New year, blank page, fresh start with open mind
look forward, onwards, up, but not behind.
Categories:
carcasses, new year,
Form:
Sonnet
Canvas, calm, grinning. . .blank
Had words screamed, scarecrows trapped on the poles of their creators,
Had words formed psalms that barricaded the strongholds of the heart,
Divine despair would desperately take hold again,
Embellishing the muse
To smile, the impassive smile. . .confuse
Enraptured by your tail,
Coiling, boiling in the hot and hungry sun
The eyes, clouded, caught in a moment of inexorable suffering
Death glistening in the confirmation of tears and groans,
Shading the dialogue that never surfaces
Justice in pale focus. . .constant, still held in out-of-the-blue faith
Please,
Do not allow your perspectives to dull
Waiting so long, I deafened the cries
The very cries I so blindly expressed. . .
Words etching existences imagined
I want you to take the hand of uncertainty
For as I have, I forever feel the tremors that have given me shape
Those very hands create what you dream,
And not what you fear
Take that hand,
Squeeze it tightly
I promise you, once you touch. . .I will never let you go
For I love you,
Oh, unexplained hold. . .
Help me escape the newborn deaths of today
Teach me how to step over the carcasses of calamity
Where the innocent die to inspire the remaining
Learn how to lead me into the lights of your eyes
Please,
Give me your beautiful hand,
I will take you to places you will never understand
And it will be okay
Because where I go,
The scarecrows roam with the roaring ravens
Making music with the pulse of their wings
With the sharp click of their beaks
Where I go,
Psalms of serenity's back way make love with impending day,
Spinning despair into the golden hairs of suspended May
Where I go,
innocent flowers freely giggle arrays of life
And his tail whips mightily,
His black velvet purrs arousing breaths of caramel verisimilitude
Where we stay,
In the forever grip of the trust you and I made,
Justice is pure water,
Cool and refreshing. . .ever smiling
Please,
My love, please
Hold onto this world with me
Give me your needs that I need. . .
And I promise perspective will prosper
The canvas, one blank, filled with detailed destiny of Color Surety
October 19th, 2014
Categories:
carcasses, animal, beautiful, change, fantasy,
Form:
Free verse
Black ship, kick the door!
Your language is dust
Cornered, sacred words
A forgotten sheep
Demanding a shift
Thunderstorm clouds attend
No one will notice, in the end
Incomplete carcasses
Diamond worm domain
In your prism-like universe
Fed on geometric shapes
Rhyme that door!
Run away!
Black ship, sail!
Smashing broccoli heads
Reach the portal in the rain
Floating bowl on cosmic haystacks
Look it up with my velvet spoon
Then join the silk, sonic blast
On the roof
Oh, but your hands are tied!
Symbiosis shall come in hand
Blow my steps way up high
(Balloons and thread look alike
When papered by fish in flight)
Spider my past into the air
And I shall take you there
Categories:
carcasses, confusion, imagination
Form:
RUBBISHITROCKS
rubbish bins rot their
stenchsimmers in dark
lanes
the gluttony of pots
slopslaughters of
remains
rodents hiding behind
verminrocks
stonethrowers
feeble weedywarts
carcasses fried with
flies in the heat
of stillstopping
hearts
who knock at the door with violins unstrung…
to bid enter would force a
stand before their
watercoloured
court
where writes turn
to anaemic
amoebia’s of the
fragileflopfaint
verses of yawn open doors
to drain the wounds
of weary wacko’s
in their wake
@ Kim van Breda
Categories:
carcasses, anger, hurt, poets,
Form:
Personification
A land once lush and green,
Virile and fertile,
Fattened reserves from dignified labour,
Then the discovery,
Greed rears its grotesque head,
In its entourage,
Nepotism, marginalisation, bribery and corruption,
A deprived populace in lack of leadership,
Restive youth clamouring for direction,
Rumpus instigated by mortification,
Balls of fire rage day and night,
Illuminating the sky,
Ripping holes in the stratosphere,
Rain clouds brood in eagerness,
To drench the land with acid,
Sun blazing with vehemence,
Scorching all life,
Floating carcasses in blackened rivers,
Sullied soil rendering no harvest,
In decimation lie the herds of the field,
Mother nature drowned,
In her own bodily fluids,
Life turns to death,
Lush and green becomes dust and ash,
Peace and tranquillity evades,
In its stead,
Ruckus and chagrin,
Swollen earth,
Sated by the blood of innocents
Categories:
carcasses, africa, corruption,
Form:
Prose Poetry
The Perfectionist is Listening
the rich are committing suicide
and taking us with them
the prosthetic limbed bastards
Fort Darwin tottering on fewer stilts
once the masters of the universe
presently picking through garbage
looking for an Icarus to pilot
some way back among the clouds
their telepathic goon squads
armed with the hard on of God
squat in the darkness of doorways
lightning strikes all around
even their machines were clairvoyant
several thousand watts went up my leg
shorting out the only attention span I own
left me perforated but not lacy
wearing all my masks all the time
fragments of self are selves
in a bulemic deconstruction
where form and content
mud wrestle incessantly for attention
on the crazy train to 3 color hell
the protagonists the antagonists
fornicators masturbators liquidators
pariahs and unlicensed poets
preaching hellstone and brimfire
apparently the ancient gods still rule
in their madhouse heaven
petulant and stupid gods
thought their figures included all the angles
sword point conversions gun point perversions
now their carcasses are steppingstones
what quirk of an infinite being
makes this burning plague village
of a planet so alone and necessary
of course none of this is protection
it's psywar out there kids
better find where they hid your dossier
mesmerized of the world unite
you have nothing to lose
but your failed methods of addressing reality
said his twisting tongue
struggling for ratings like any media
the soul cannot erase it can only go sightless
a phantom trapped in melancholy
when we were built to dance
with the twinkling stars
he finally learned to undestroy memory
being an ascended master of non sequitur
carried aloft in the arms of Mother Goose
his metabolic hurricane of why
an inferno of intrigue and superstition
our embryo-headed UFO ruling class
have me inside their fence of skulls
an investment in diagram futures
the idiots
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
Categories:
carcasses, slam, universe,
Form:
Free verse
Flowers wilt
Dead carcasses are buried
Loved ones mourn
Rest in peace,
Your life on earth is no more…
Farewell, friend
Categories:
carcasses, absence, angst, beauty, care,
Form:
Haiku
Gargoyles of deepest night in an island strangest
Preys of mangled bodies they can't digest
Rounded, popping eyes craving with long nails
Caveats of animals eating their own flesh
Villains of Capeesh roaming as beasts
On tables and floors, scratched and feasts
Gobbling maudlin juices of live carmine
Spilling on throat and skins of grapevine
Brutes of cursed and mythical roots
Flutes of cold bodies tootling in boots
Carcasses of narcoleptic nerves in tears
Taunted and pierced by tusks and smears
Categories:
carcasses, scary,
Form:
Vogon Poetry