Thread: The Prisoners' Sexton

A smile so big
it chomps through coal-stained skulls
in the crimson puddle
spreading beneath cliche inmate's wardrobe.
Shattered eye socket lamenting
it's mandible lost
somewhere before the manufacturer's warehouse.
Thin white stitches from amateur hands
hold lopsided remains together.

The morticiankeeper stands guard here
with fire on his tongue,
contemplating indecisive rain.
Empty the glass and breathe deeply
'cuz the second round's coming early tonight.
The disdainful, yet comforting,
discontentment zone is tangible
and in full form tonight,
as he refills his glass it's time to work.

Lots to accomplish.
Lots to say.

Finally the pent-up want
pent-up need
to expunge his too-crowded consciousness
pukes black and wet onto the snow white page.
There are no tremors here,
a strange change for this hour's productivity.
Yet an odd taste lingers
in the ambivalent weather.

Possibly Poe's spirit finally at rest
taking its final vengeance before fading
one last time into raven black nights,
whispering "Lenore" with its final breath.
The last memory: the greatest horror obsession.

These are the cleanest bones to be penned yet.
Glowing pristine with raw energy.
Something to show off to those friends left behind.
Something finally to be proud of
for his humbling excursion to return.
Not brief enough,
but a remedy lies surely in a soon-seen sunrise.

Under ghastly bootfalls
remembrance bouquets die unadmired,
rotting into disdainful granite pillows.
Epitaphs once carved with care
fail to draw a low-brimmed glance
for tonight's icy sentry beckons:

An overseer of resting peaceful
and not so peaceful alike.

-----

[I'm thinking I should cut out S1 and S3. While the first fits the tone of the whole piece, I don't know if it contributes anything except motivation for the choice of title. I'm sure there are other bits that could be snipped/dropped as well, but I'll leave that to you.]

Well I've cut out the less important articles, and took a bit more care with S7 so hopefully it's more worth saving now. I hope I matched the tone fairly well, since the original was written a while ago.

Hello,

Interesting piece, as for S1 and S3 I like both, but maybe in S3 L2 can go. but again as the writer it is ultimately up to you.

some nice working of words here. I think it could be stronger with a tighten, but mostly its 'the' 'their' and such which to me diminish the power of those lines. Not overly so, but I think without it makes the emotions more compact to the scene.

in S1 - L3-L4 = is there a way to combine them into one image?

other than those thoughts, which again are my own and need no changing by you, I thought the piece was nicely written. I'd say surreal but that isn't it, noir? something disturbingly refined, which is great.

if there was a stanza I'd say could be let go, it would be S7-S8, but that's just me, it seems to take away the atmosphere you drew prior.

thanks for the read.

Sync

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Looks like I had it all backwards when I was looking at what was good and what didn't contribute. Looking at it now, I can really see the change that happens after S6. Maybe if I just took more time with S7 to give it the same quality language of the earlier bits, it might fit better. As for S3 and S8, I can probably do without 8, but I've a personal hangup against one line stanzas, so 3 will probably remain as is.

I'll try to get a re-write up tonight or tomorrow, and maybe think of a better title. hah

I was on a site not long ago where they would not bother with titles. To be honest, they are a pain and waste good words that can be used in the poem.

what they did was use the first few lines of their poem as the title. I did this in a poem I posted here, as an example, because sometimes a title can be too telly of what the poem is about.

hard to say.

yeah 1 line stanzas, they need a hard-line impact in order for me to accept them. it can be done, but like similes, they have to have good reason.

I'm sure you'll sort it out to where you, the writer, are happy.

Hi ODaly

It took a couple of reads to see this poem. The first verse is very vivid and surreal almost like a nightmare. It is only when I got to the next verse did I realise it was a writer in his room trying to write.

I loved the lines

to expunge his too-crowded consciousness
pukes black and wet onto the snow white page.

but felt the last two verses had a different feel to the rest. More abstract and more like what he's writing than his angst.

Well thanks for the input, shadows.

I sometimes like to joke that I've said "I don't know what to write," in more ways than almost anyone else, and in a sense this is just another, haha. I rarely think about where I'm going with my writing until I get there; however, his one was written after I'd heard that Poe had finally gotten a funeral 160 late and I just went from there. I've been reading some Lovecraft lately, and I hope combined with my affinity for EAP I hope I captured a good amount of nightmarishness without coming off as emo or something.

I freaking love this, OD. I, personally, wouldn't change a single word. Writing about writing can spell disaster, and this is, by far, the best piece I've read regarding same. Your imagery is deliciously dark and fairly has me salivating. I had no problem with the slight switch in voice in the final stanzas, I think it works. I bow to you, sir, and will be returning to this one time and again.

Best,
Lisa

No nits at all, I simply enjoyed this one. Good work.

Thanks for the kind words, both of you.

The words reflect the speaker's intent like mirror-glass water. Straight dark mental snapshots get hold of the reader's imagination. Great work, OD.

Imo, the first stanza does not belong to the rest of the piece. I liked it, but it does not fit in terms of content. If by S3 you meant the two line break, it works as a breather before the dense intricasy of the following stanzas.

You describe the act of writing well. Particularly that odd quality of transcendence that can occur during the process. Like the time that elapses between when anesthesia is administered and when it wears off, or the loss of peripheral vision when the eye focuses on a single, almost imperceptible detail. Everything in the external environment is irrelevant until what needs to be written has run its course. The world on the page becomes the only world. A prisoners cell is necessarily the heart of the prisoners world. An authors page is necessarily the heart of the authors world. I read the piece as a description of what an author might use to populate the empty spaces.

Well it's a little bit of a confidence booster on the critique side to know my initial thoughts on S1 have some merit. Thank you.

You and shadows are quite perceptive to pick up on it not only being about writing, but about what is written, that is, if I understand your response correctly. Which parts are which will probably be different for most readers, so I'll not interfere with those interpretations by imposing my own. Besides, that's part of the fun, right?