[Suzerain of Sheol]

I'll be using this thread to post some of the poems I've written. Comments are very welcome, as is criticism. I love being criticized. I must be a masochist. :p

I wrote these two in creative writing today (while ignoring the teacher's banal assignment).

My poems tend to be not very direct. I don't like just stating what I'm trying to say. It actually bothers me when I hear/read poems that need no dissection to be understood. Admittedly... I may go too far, at times.

Beyond Recall

I am left with an effigy of electricity,
an image graven in abstract,
too fluid for the fetters of a still-life,
too hollow to remain a moment in motion.
I am left with a confluence of humors,
too real to stand the strain of time,
soon to be diluted by the memorial solvent,
replaced by simulacrum, pretending emotion
as another glass gem of the past.

Choking on Roses

I am supplicant to the cruelest of mercies,
enthralled by the wonder of bereavement,
mystified by tears,
wearing wounds like splendor,
bleeding water and dust, finding fine company,
as I stroll through dying nurtures,
studying the marvels of decay.

I am burdened with a beating heart,
weighed down with sympathy,
abandoned by fire,
clutching tight to handfuls of ashes, begging for life,
as I stand beneath a sun-filled sky,
contrasting exile and salvation.

I am enamored of sensual murder,
infatuated by the romance of death,
sworn to love,
haunted by the reverie of wings, disconsolate and proud,
molting to a new persona
for the necromancy of compassion.

I am given to the grief of solace,
deluded by the specter of faith,
lost to despair,
sleeping easier in twilight hours, comfortably cold,
blessed with unremarkable dreams
and an abyss to inherit.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

One of my more religiously-themed poems, and also one of my favorites.

Thaumatology

I stood and watched Megiddo go to seed,
yet still I found the world unworthy of the taste of light.
And following no star as the night loomed empty,
I wandered in ruins, wondering at the fantasies of dust.

I stood amid the rainfall on the Dies Irae,
bleeding steam as Heaven's water lashed my wounds.
And with no murmured prayer for all that would be lost,
I closed my eyes to deny the day its witness.

I stood and marveled in the avenues of Eden,
recalling awe in the silence of a sigh.
And for no purpose than my own succession,
I knelt and searched the earth for a surviving blade of grass.

I stood alone with the Chiliasm's dusk,
finding no friend in the nomad wind.
And uncaring for the cost, for things I had cherished,
I breathed deep of the new creation's ivory air.

I stood and studied the horizons of Gehenna,
hoping for the company of saints.
And looking north, I saw two trees,
with branches gnarled like lovers' hands.

And between them,
like the cords of an angel's harp,
were hung all the children of God.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I just found this buried on my hard drive. I can't even remember when or why I wrote it, but I like it, as short as it is. Sort of prose poem.

A Mirror for the Stars

I am among dear friends – the gasping stones, the faceless effigies of martyrs made faithless in their vigil. Time is relative, and I'm predisposed to see the remnants: hollow hopes transitioning to dreamless dust, blessed sentiment eroded to the blankness of slate. Surrounded by bodies, I am alive and alone, a face for the legion, conversing with the moon.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

A couple more, religious themed again, though fairly twisted.

Salvation

I grant you this gift.
I answer your pain.
My fingers,
spiders for your sake.
Your throat,
my door, my dear, soft prey.

No more crying.
No prayers to spurn.
I'm here for you.
Here to help.

I heard you calling.
I'll carry your guilt.
Your siren voice,
my widow muse.
My will, your wish,
our iron hands in folded bliss.

An end to your sorrow.
An end for the hate.
Lay down, be still.
This won't be long.

I promise Hell.
I hold your hope.
I take it all.
I ask for naught.
Your soul. Your shame. Your sin. Your faith.
Release repaid. Even exchange.

Cardiophage

I am nothing
if not a lover of life,
but I am no friend to you.

My hands grasp with knives.
My gaze devours.
My lips speak only light.

But I am a bearer of gifts,
possessed of a singular compassion
begging your assent.

It is enough.

I want you.

Give me your agony.
Give me the nails that pierce your bone.
Give me your shrieking love,
the quivering kiss of a thousand tongues.

It will be enough,
and I'll hold it all in.

I'll hold it in.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Hi there! Read through some of your poems last night but my brain wasn't working so well so I ran away from the longer ones. I will state though that "Choking on Roses" was the title that caught my attention the most.

I was intrigued by "A Mirror for the Stars," but ultimatley I couldn't focus on it well because -and here's my gripe- the "Time is relative" just screams cliche' to the point where it bounces me right out of the poem. One, I'm not sure how it fits into the poem at all given that the perception of time doesn't seem to be a major point, and two, I have no idea how relative time connects to remnants of any kind. Blah! Don't get it. It's also a little annoying in the sense that it's this sort of 'no &@^$' line in the middle of an otherwise fairly interpretive poem.

Okay, so that's wasn't as civil as I normally am but that really was my first impression of that particular phrase. Otherwise, I did like the lines and ideas, particularly the first half sentence at "stones."

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I'm curious as to whether you mean "caught my attention" positively or negatively. I was iffy on using that title.

As for the rest, well, for one thing, I seem to have gotten confused. I meant to post a different prose poem, I've never been terribly fond of that one. I wrote it on a whim in class and never really went back to it.

And I understand what you're saying. I'm not even sure what I meant by that line. The two clauses don't seem to fit together at all, and it's trite and, as you said, obvious, while at the same time making little sense.

As a very simple fix, what immediately springs to mind is to reword it to "Time is a fractured frieze..." though that still leaves it feeling somewhat disconnected from the rest. I'll have to think on it.

Thanks for commenting. :)

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Ah, yes. I'd say the title caught my attention in a good way. In one part, it's the usual contrast between pretty roses and choking nastiness, and as far as poetry titles go, it's graphic and direct, rather than vague or smokey with efforts to be mysterious. It made me curious to read it, though as I said, I ran away from the length. I will get to it, really!

"Fractured freeze" works better, but I'm not entirely sure what role time has in the poem in general. I'll have to read it again with a little attention on the rest of it.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I wouldn't bother looking to deeply into 'A Mirror for the Stars,' if I was really going to work on it, I'd expand it to fit the concept of that line in better.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Brachiation

We have towers,
and the memory of trees.
We have our limbs of steel,
our leaves of glass,
ceramic bark and rubber sap;
concrete roots and cold cores
for the thought of hardwood hearts.

We have synthesis, prosthesis,
a red hand-stamp denying provenance.
Glory without precedence,
our very own uncaused causes
raising miracles from dead earth,
inert pasts and petrified origins.

All ours.

We have our forests filled with mirrors,
crawling with mechanical spiders,
our domestic swarm.
Gunmetal birds with L.E.D. eyes
watching from the canopy,
watching us surge along
with all our godlike muscle.
Forward.

Always forward.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Ah, found it. This is the prose poem I meant to post above.

Savor This

What is left, when the divide grows so vast, that we forget there is another side? An island here, in cold gloaming, drifting among the ravages, out of sight of the only shore I seek. I did not notice at first, but the air is foul, and there are cankers on my hands. I leave a mottled trail as I walk within my little circle, molting to the fire. It seems it has always been thus.

At first, I would grasp, blind without the light I have shed, but there is no purchase here, only the distant drone of hungers unfed. I cannot see the scars for the scales bequeathed my skin. I am... fulfilled, the sovereign of my own isolate realm, with only the wind, singing the rumor of Hell, to observe my reign.

Something crawls in the abyss below, but it cannot reach me. Not yet.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Originally Posted by Suzerain of Sheol

I wouldn't bother looking to deeply into 'A Mirror for the Stars,' if I was really going to work on it, I'd expand it to fit the concept of that line in better.

No discouraging people from reading into poetry! :p Comes with the territory of being a poet. ;)

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Well, yeah, I'm just saying, if you read too much into that one, you're likely not to find anything too special. :p

[8bit]

ur poetry is awesome! aha makes me want to write one now, but i'm not soo good at it xD

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Oh, thank you. I have more, I just haven't gotten around to digging it out of the recesses of my hard-drive yet.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Practice can do a lot, Sakura. Sounds funny but one doesn't have to be brilliant at poetry from the get go. My old stuff is generally cringe-worthy but I did gradually refine what I did and work out what I liked best about writing and stuff got better.

I suppose I could share too, so that it's not so lonely out here. I'm really not sure if I should post on other threads that have been around so long. Are they considered dead?

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I assumed they were dead, but what do I know? :p

Anyway, for me, I still keep the first poem I ever wrote in my "Poems I like" folder, but the next... 30 or so are all very firmly in "Poems I Don't Like" awaiting cannibalization whenever I see fit.

I guess I can include it here. It's certainly not my favorite, but I don't hate it. It's a bit more direct than I usually am, though, and seems a bit... grasping. Pretentious, maybe? Hedging cliche? I don't know.

Flight

There is solace in forgetting.
A lost man's comfort in wandering.
The balm of the mad,
Apathy and indifference.
Armors of the mind;
Jailers of the heart.

The hoary elder breathes his last,
And remembers nothing,
A lifetime of summers lost to the living,
The burden of winters lifted from him.

The widow burns the house of her memory
And casts the ashes to a heedless wind.

The children run in blindness,
Fleeing the specter on the horizon,
Embracing the ephemeral.

The unborn dream in darkness
And know eternal life.