2013 Vincent Price Memorial Death Poetry Challenge

[GuiltyPleasure]

The curse of the west coast means it will Nov. 1st before my death appears.

 

[Angeline]

The curse of the west coast means it will Nov. 1st before my death appears.

You can post it EST if you want. I think I shoulda just said post it on Halloween. Sorry. I had a teacher who beat us up if we were not specific.

 

[sexnovella]

Happy Halloween!

In my black light


a gust of dry leaves sighing in the blank dark

my fingers characters filled the trench walls with blood tears

honesty, sadness followed me into the black

breathed the last breath of life

I wanted to die

I wanted to love

death dance tones took me, in my cold body

death broken heart filled my wheezing lungs

hunted by happiness memories

in my monuments of sorrows

a gust of wind in dry leaves breathed in spring scents

scattered reluctantly air in my musty coffin

the tracks of my tears, blood paled in light gentle glow

filled my exhausted mind with quiet whispers of life

I wanted to live

I wanted to love

life's playful tones took me, in my stiff body

my lungs were filled with life's cautious breath

was filled with memories of happiness

My sunny crypt

a gust by delicate foliage

breath full of careful sake of life

I want to live

I want to love

 

[UnderYourSpell]

She came at about 2.30 in the afternoon
rather early I'd say, but then
I really didn't have any say in it.
She whispered my name and I looked up
to see her smiling down.
She looked to be a young woman
but her eyes as old as time
betrayed her age
"Already"? I asked, "but it's too soon",
she nodded, her eyes full of sadness.
As I rose to leave, my labouring heart
fluttered one more time,
and without a backward glance we left together.

 

[Angeline]

The Old Order of Things

At Colleville-Sur-Mer the plain
makes cross of bar from star to
shield soldiers at rest beneath
the bluff above the sea many
brave men are asleep in the
deep so beware the copse
beware a sunstruck glen
birch and birdsong where
they gather

mushrooms there black
berries beckon still Kiev
Lwow choose a town and think
on tangled horror breeding
tender grass.

The dead

will speak without
a sound with mute stone
lips beseech the wind the
lichen studded wings are
bent in reverie the stoic

names and dates
meaningless time
in the maw of void.

Where’s Beethoven? He’s decomposing.
The Caesars less than dust
their monuments have crumbled or
conserved and pinned to steel or
glass their calling cards announce

This was

the day I said goodbye
to nothing more than
rain soaked earth the
stumbling bearers final
hollow thud.

How bright the morning
kitchen once on Saturday
an open door.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

No Escape

Foolish little man
with your top of the
line treadmill and your
personal dietician, your daily
work out and your healthy food.

::

Delusional little woman. Tummy-tucks, face-
lifts and Botox shots only give you the illusion
of time before I get round to gathering in your
coddled body. I watch your dance of defiance

::

knowing it is futile, will not prevent my lips
from closing over your waxy mouth, my
scythe cutting you down mid-marathon.
I laugh a hollow laugh while planning

::

my next visitation, car crash, heart
attack, in a hospice or hospital
depending on my mood. You
will not see me coming unless

::

you are one of the lucky few
who invite me to their end,
shunning a painful one,
the drawn out finale.

::

I love my job, your
destination. All
it is is sanit-
ation.

​

 

[Angeline]

Sexnovella, Annie and Tess that you all for your death-defying death poems. I hope we'll see a few more before the day in done.

I want to comment on them individually but y'all need to give me a day or so as I seem to have pulled a muscle in my back and need to not be hanging over a keyboard too much for now.

You'd think I'd have screamed myself hoarse over Boston winning the big ball game, but no. But hey I'm not yknow dead.

Thanks to all who have participated (and in advance to those who will). I shall return when slightly less sore!

Ghoulish

 

[butters]

just waiting for all the entrants before adding my comments. what a start!

 

[todski28]

work has decided to try and kill me, so will be late sorry

 

[butters]

work has decided to try and kill me, so will be late sorry

it'll be worth waiting for. and, yanno, with the theme an' all, that whole 'work's tryin' to kill me' thing's pretty apt, no?

 

[todski28]

it'll be worth waiting for. and, yanno, with the theme an' all, that whole 'work's tryin' to kill me' thing's pretty apt, no?

hahaha fair point, will post asap!!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

As usual, varied approaches and styles, bring it on goblins and ghouls. <<<think orange.

 

[champagne1982]

I haven't got one. May try tomorrow. I just finished a night shift so ... I really did warn, dead in the water. <sigh> sorry.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I haven't got one. May try tomorrow. I just finished a night shift so ... I really did warn, dead in the water. <sigh> sorry.

Oh Hell I feel like I let you down now, so sorry when you asked I had nothing, in fact pages of nothing where I tried and failed and I didn't feel I had anything to offer you

 

[butters]

She came at about 2.30 in the afternoon
rather early I'd say, but then
I really didn't have any say in it.
She whispered my name and I looked up
to see her smiling down.
She looked to be a young woman
but her eyes as old as time
betrayed her age
"Already"? I asked, "but it's too soon",
she nodded, her eyes full of sadness.
As I rose to leave, my labouring heart
fluttered one more time,
and without a backward glance we left together.

hi, annie
something very domestic about this, conjured by your opening lines, placing us as observers maybe somewhen between hanging out the laundry and finishing that cup of tea with a biscuit whilst watching telly.

like the simplicity of the ending; i keep reading the 'As I...' line without a comma: 'As I rose to leave my labouring heart/ (it) fluttered one more time...'

this challenge seems to have stumped many (myself included), so it's good to see you offered us this

 

[butters]

No Escape

Foolish little man
with your top of the
line treadmill and your
personal dietician, your daily
work out and your healthy food.

::

Delusional little woman. Tummy-tucks, face-
lifts and Botox shots only give you the illusion
of time before I get round to gathering in your
coddled body. I watch your dance of defiance

::

knowing it is futile, will not prevent my lips
from closing over your waxy mouth, my
scythe cutting you down mid-marathon.
I laugh a hollow laugh while planning

::

my next visitation, car crash, heart
attack, in a hospice or hospital
depending on my mood. You
will not see me coming unless

::

you are one of the lucky few
who invite me to their end,
shunning a painful one,
the drawn out finale.

::

I love my job, your
destination. All
it is is sanit-
ation.



Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and, yes, I must.​

hey, tess

uncompromisingly honest title

the layout . . . is it meant to represent an urn?

coddled body and your dance of defiance/knowing it is futile, will not prevent my lips/from closing over your waxy mouth are memorable.

 

[champagne1982]

Oh Hell I feel like I let you down now, so sorry when you asked I had nothing, in fact pages of nothing where I tried and failed and I didn't feel I had anything to offer you

Noooooo! I haven't had enough energy to be creative, lately. Since the poem didn't happen within the 2 days of me inviting you to partner up it wasn't going to burn through me. Don't feel guilty, I have been burnt out and I'm blaming life, not any one individual.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

hey, tess

uncompromisingly honest title

the layout . . . is it meant to represent an urn?

coddled body and your dance of defiance/knowing it is futile, will not prevent my lips/from closing over your waxy mouth are memorable.

An urn? Could be but I was going for coffin. urn works too, just on a different scale.

 

[butters]

looks like this challenge stumped many of us

i hope a few more might yet come forward to post their pieces, and want to thank Angeline for throwing the challenge out there for us

 

[todski28]

looks like this challenge stumped many of us

i hope a few more might yet come forward to post their pieces, and want to thank Angeline for throwing the challenge out there for us

Im writing the last of mine now hope to be posted in about half an hour, got up at 3am on a sunday so I could finish, I'm either really stupid, or stupidly dedicated.......

I'm going with really stupid!

 

[todski28]

An urn? Could be but I was going for coffin. urn works too, just on a different scale.

I thought urn too, merely because the last lines look like a base stand

 

[butters]

saving my place to come comment on this one!

if not tonight, then tomorrow

edit: you know, i remember now why i commented on the others first - this one rendered me speechless. deeply moved, but unable to form the right words. there's so much going on in it, not least the skills involved in its technical play.

returned:
there's a grand, solemn sweep to this piece - vistas of cross-studded green, bluff and sea, a broader reach encompassing more fields of death whose horrors breed tangled grass.... *sigh*

and then you rein us back in, bring us to focus on the point in your painting: amidst that vast expanse reaching across continents, across time, there's one girl, a single coffin, a doorway into the light. poetry like this is so far beyond my own abilities i cannot help but be blown away by the skills. thankyou.

The Old Order of Things

At Colleville-Sur-Mer the plain
makes cross of bar from star to
shield soldiers at rest beneath
the bluff above the sea many
brave men are asleep in the
deep so beware the copse
beware a sunstruck glen
birch and birdsong where
they gather

mushrooms there black
berries beckon still Kiev
Lwow choose a town and think
on tangled horror breeding
tender grass.

The dead

will speak without
a sound with mute stone
lips beseech the wind the
lichen studded wings are
bent in reverie the stoic

names and dates
meaningless time
in the maw of void.

Where’s Beethoven? He’s decomposing.
The Caesars less than dust
their monuments have crumbled or
conserved and pinned to steel or
glass their calling cards announce

This was

the day I said goodbye
to nothing more than
rain soaked earth the
stumbling bearers final
hollow thud.

How bright the morning
kitchen once on Saturday
an open door.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I thought urn too, merely because the last lines look like a base stand

I took out that line but it still looks like an urn, so an urn it is.

 

[todski28]

I took out that line but it still looks like an urn, so an urn it is.

I thought that last line was a fitting end cap, and an urn is a constant reminder of the person inside and death transpired, where as coffins tend to go in the ground, I think an urn is more befitting the poem.
all in all visually appealing, the writing is cold emotionless death, you underpin the unpredictability of it all in the narration, as well as point out the natural human condition, that aware of death we try all in our power to thwart it, but nothing we do is good enough. you get my tick of approval, which is worth as much as a jet pilots license purchased in a cereal box

 

[corndog_]

Sorry I'm late, I had some stuff.

Home

After ten long years they let him out of the home
“Excitable boy,” they all said
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
“Excitable boy,” they all said
.... Warren Zevon​

Behind my bars I bayed
for you. “Come!” I commanded,
and come I did, nightly,
in mother-of-pearl arcs. A moonbeam
pours through a high window, its pale gaze
flooding my crooked hand. Drip, drip,
drip of salt upon the seeded earth. An idea
takes root: in my grip not flesh not
steel but bone, your bones, a cage
of bones, a calcified carnal nest. Remember
“Caged Heat”? That was a movie
that gave me a boner. A decade later
I hunted for you, eyebeams probing
dark spaces. I know you felt me
penetrate the dirt. Sieve
of ribs, cradle of pelvis. Home
at last, in you, on you, our log cabin
home of fibula, tibia and ulna. Phalanx
to zygomatic arch, feel
how hard we’ve become. Come.


....