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Famous Surgery Poems by Famous Poets

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

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...ss rails were clumps of bananas,

Tins of under-the-counter Grade ‘A’ salmon and their

Aunt Mary had her chiropodist’s surgery over the shop;

When I got a verucca at the baths she scraped it away

Week after week till it bled into nothing.



Up Easy Road was the Maypole with its tiled tapestry of

Village Green, flower-decked maypole and dancing children

Like little Shirley Temples with bows in their hair and

Bows tied to their shepherds’ crooks. There were biscu...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry



...s, learn’d professor, 
Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope, observer keen—beyond all mathematics, 
Beyond the doctor’s surgery, anatomy—beyond the chemist with his chemistry, The
 entities of entities, Eidólons. 
 Unfix’d, yet fix’d; 
Ever shall be—ever have been, and are,
Sweeping the present to the infinite future, Eidólons, Eidólons,
 Eidólons. 
 The prophet and the bard, 
Shall yet maintain themselves—in higher stages yet, 
Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democra...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt
...thes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pal...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia
...f Nought --
Of Action -- sicker far --
To simulate -- is stinging work --
To cover what we are
From Science -- and from Surgery --
Too Telescopic Eyes
To bear on us unshaded --
For their -- sake -- not for Ours --
'Twould start them --
We -- could tremble --
But since we got a Bomb --
And held it in our Bosom --
Nay -- Hold it -- it is calm --

Therefore -- we do life's labor --
Though life's Reward -- be done --
With scrupulous exactness --
To hold our Senses -- on --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily
...It knew no Medicine --
It was not Sickness -- then --
Nor any need of Surgery --
And therefore -- 'twas not Pain --

It moved away the Cheeks --
A Dimple at a time --
And left the Profile -- plainer --
And in the place of Bloom

It left the little Tint
That never had a Name --
You've seen it on a Cast's face --
Was Paradise -- to blame --

If momently ajar --
Temerity -- drew near --
And sickened -- ever afterward
For Somewhat...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily



...possibly indict me for perjury
When I swear that I wish the Wright brothers had gone in for silver
fox farming or tree surgery....Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden
...ar death you don't believe it,
 because living, I mean, weighs heavier.


 II

Let's say you're seriously ill, need surgery--
which is to say we might not get
 from the white table.
Even though it's impossible not to feel sad
 about going a little too soon,
we'll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we'll look out the window to see it's raining,
or still wait anxiously
 for the latest newscast ...
Let's say we're at the front--
 for something worth fightin...Read more of this...
by Hikmet, Nazim
...anged on the shores of Little

Redfish Lake, and as that chub had discovered, it was not a

good place to have cosmetic surgery done.

 "I worked three years ago for a union in Southern Utah

that had a health plan, " the surgeon said. "I would not care

to practice medicine under such conditions. The patients

think they own you and your time. They think you're their

own personal garbage can.

 "I'd be home eating dinner and the telephone would ring,

'H...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard
...in me--
the legal rift--
as on might do with the daisies
but does not
for they stand for a love
undergoihng open heart surgery
that might take
if one prayed tough enough.
And yet I demand,
even in prayer,
that I am not a thief,
a mugger of need,
and that your heart survive
on its own,
belonging only to itself,
whole, entirely whole,
and workable
in its dark cavern under your ribs.

I pray it will know truth,
if truth catches in its cup
and yet I pray, as a child woul...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...
part way back
from her sterile suite
of doctors, the seasick
cruise of the X-ray,
the cells' arithmetic
gone wild. Surgery incomplete,
the fat arm, the prognosis poor, I heard
them say.

During the sea blizzards
she had here
own portrait painted.
A cave of mirror
placed on the south wall;
matching smile, matching contour.
And you resembled me; unacquainted
with my face, you wore it. But you were mine
after all.

I wintered in Boston,
childless bride,
...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne
...elain.

With us there was a DOCTOR OF PHYSIC;
In all this worlde was there none him like
To speak of physic, and of surgery:
For he was grounded in astronomy.
He kept his patient a full great deal
In houres by his magic natural.
Well could he fortune* the ascendent *make fortunate
Of his images for his patient,.
He knew the cause of every malady,
Were it of cold, or hot, or moist, or dry,
And where engender'd, and of what humour.
He was a very perfect prac...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...a gradual bud
still white; though dead in its warm bloom;
always the enemy is the foe at home.
And I wondered what surgery could recover
our lost, long stride of indolence and leisure
which is labor in reverse; what physic recall the smile
not of lips, but of eyes as of the sea bemused.
We, when we disperse from common sleep to several
tasks, we gather to despair; we, who assembled
once for hopes from common toil to dreams
or sickish and hurting or triumphal rapture;...Read more of this...
by García Lorca, Federico
...a gradual bud
still white; though dead in its warm bloom;
always the enemy is the foe at home.
And I wondered what surgery could recover
our lost, long stride of indolence and leisure
which is labor in reverse; what physic recall the smile
not of lips, but of eyes as of the sea bemused.
We, when we disperse from common sleep to several
tasks, we gather to despair; we, who assembled
once for hopes from common toil to dreams
or sickish and hurting or triumphal rapture;...Read more of this...
by Wheelwright, John
...ds this silent solemn Sunday

Tempest Road is clear of all

But wistful birds, parked cars

And vagrant trees.

The surgery and pharmacy are shuttered tight

"Get your medication straight into your bag",

The friendly GP gravely warned, "The junks

Lay in wait to grab and run from those no longer young

The building site’s scaffolding of bone

Masks pristine piles of bricks where

May winds mourn and moan among

The gaping frames beneath a bannered

Street-wide invitation...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

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