"charon" poems
It was deep April, and the morn
Shakespeare was born;
The world was on us, pressing sore;
My love and I took hands and swore,
Against the world, to be
Poets and lovers evermore,
To laugh and dream on Lethe's shore,
To sing to Charon in his boat,
Heartening the timid souls afloat;
Of judgement never to take heed,
But to those fast-locked souls to speed,
Who never from Apollo fled,
Who spent no hour among the dead;
Continually
With them to dwell,
Indifferent to heaven and hell.
11.6k
Lay my body rich with coins
As my dawn turns to dusk I will depart
Bless my soul to be reborn
And pray I keep my heart
Charon waits upon his boat
To carry me to the Otherside
I'll travel The River Styx
And marry time, as I am Waiting's bride
Bearded Ferryman of the dead
Refuse me not as I pay your debt
Tell Hades to lift the gates
For fate and I have met
Guide this monstrous beast
Along the waters spine
As we set off towards Afterlife
Where waits the Underworlds divine
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 5:45 PM UTC
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit-
man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,
I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of
your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam-
ilies shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you,
Garcнa Lorca, what were you doing down by the
watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old
grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator
and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed
the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my
Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of
cans following you, and followed in my imagination
by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in
our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every
frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors
close in an hour. Which way does your beard point
tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses,
we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent
cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?
Berkeley 1955
8.4k
A Sonnet is a moment’s monument,—
Memorial from the Soul’s eternity
To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearled and orient.
A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
The soul,—its converse, to what Power ’tis due:—
Whether for tribute to the august appeals
Of Life, or dower in Love’s high retinue,
It serve; or, ’mid the dark wharf’s cavernous breath,
In Charon’s palm it pay the toll to Death.
4.7k
By Arcassin B , wolf , & soul
AB : staring at the lady in the corner wearing make-up,
Selling flowers to earn money
For her son's college fund,
Take three patterns then reverse it,
Bring them back to reality,
The way people maintain jobs nowadays
It isn't fun,
But a..
..it takes a rose to help
Cure the pain of whats to gain and
What you've lost,
To find a way to piece together a suffering flaws,
SS : /////Electric rose
In all your neon splendor
I touch you and remember
No more
I ***** my thumb
Upon your thorn
And in death
I am reborn
I gaze rapt into your night
I am drawn into the light
Rose of Sharon, petals soft Blood red dreams sent aloft
To your power I will yield
'Til I look once more
On heaven's fields,/////
WS : in fields of Elysium await with gentle memories
and flowers of every hue
reaching into forever
from that street corner in modern blight
where a mother's love was the noblest fight
and she would give her all for one
that worthy offspring, her beloved son
tarry ye not, on that dreadful shore
pennies for Charon to ferry Styx
close thy eyes and weep no more
there's nothing that true love may not fix,
SS : /////Electric rose
In all your neon splendor
I touch you and remember
No more
I ***** my thumb
Upon your thorn
And in death
I am reborn
I gaze rapt into your night
I am drawn into the light
Rose of Sharon, petals soft Blood red dreams sent aloft
To your power I will yield
'Til I look once more
On heaven's fields,///////
Sep 25, 2015
Sep 25, 2015 at 7:10 PM UTC
A boat,
a world.
Sailing unseen
seas. Gathering
legendary creatures.
Mythical society
contained within a sailboat. One
world hidden within another, blind;
no normal man can see beneath. Inspect,
titans fire cannons, Charon runs sick bay.
Lady Lorely has all webbed hands on deck, the blue
men of the Minch guard the mighty Orpheus. Quiz
you they will on will power and skill, all mortal men undone.
Every battle is won by The Orpheus, without war.
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 2:02 PM UTC
Asmodeus is left to breathe nothing but sand
Belial is trickery and is partial to Man
Charon is only influenced by what is paid
Dagon will bake whatever can be made
Erebus guards his own darkness under his own tree
Furfur his army is more legendary as a legion to see
Geryon his sentry at the gates ensures leaving is not right
Hetu-Ahin even whole at Dawn you are not safe at Twilight
Itzcoliuhqui is the ******* of all that is cold
Jezebeth is articulated as all falsehoods that are told
Kasdeya wallowing 5th in line to never be king
Lilith who Adam thought would make him sing
Mephistopheles not the true leader just a fawning servant
Nyx Incestuously in love with her brother Erebus
Orthon can take on any or other form
Philotanus will assist when the fortress is to be stormed
Qanel is alone in a canal of strife
Raum his command means Furfur is under the knife
Seth Rules the Egyptian underworld with an iron fist
Tando Ashanti Takes seven on seven and will never miss
Uphir will ensure that all Demons stay well
Vetis will make sure all that Holy comes to Hell
Wele Gumali is as black as the darkest sin
Xaphan makes sure that all are comfy and warm within
Yama has dogs to take care of all the junk
Zagam is just a drunk
Jul 19, 2012
Jul 19, 2012 at 5:48 AM UTC
Who will place two coins on my eyes
Down the river Styx
My shade must glide
Two coins for the boatman
Ferry me away
To the throne of beautiful Persephone
Snatched from light of day
Two coins I cry
Two coins for my eyes
Through dark waters I float
To where my body must lie
Two coins for Charon
Always silent looks away
Never seeing a face
Or the light of day
Two coins
This poem is copyrighted and stored in author base. All material subject to Copyright Infringement laws
Section 512(c)(3) of the U.S. Copyright
Act, 17 U.S.C. S512(c)(3),
Tammy M Darby
Aug 8, 2013
Aug 8, 2013 at 5:52 PM UTC
You tripped off your feet
Then stepped on something that pip,
It goes boom; and you go woom!
You reached the heaven,
But got rejected—
So you entered hell,
Full of wiles, trying to be
The villain in their eyes;
Yet, Satan was out of the house
Fighting angels and God for wows;
With no choice Charon ferries you
Back to where the happy are few.
Aug 26, 2025
Aug 26, 2025 at 10:36 PM UTC
have you seen Eurydice
and did she kiss you with gold on her tongue,
and when she bit your lips like a ripe-bruised fruit
did you taste the metal-black sheen of your blood?
and when you rowed her down the river did
her white chemise trail, unblackened, through the mud?
and if she kissed you, I don't blame her;
the Holy Ghost receives her subjects, penitents, lovers
with all the love in her wilder heart,
so tell me, brother Charon,
have you seen Eurydice?
I'd hoped she'd be in the river-weeds,
drawn down to the water from her faery meads.
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 9:49 PM UTC
I don't know how it came to be
To have so many holes in me
But here I cry
By and by
Bleeding from the heart
Where so many rivers start.
I cannot explain
This inexorable pain
As I cross this river Styx
Wondering how I'd come to this
But here I am
****** and Dammed
Crying cold tears
Wondering what fate nears.
I remain here with the ferryman
Wondering how I was ever a merry man.
Crying my tears of blood
Just as any man would.
Touched so high in grace
****** for all my race.
So burning is this torment
Yet cold, silent, and dormant.
But I am no betrayer. No, Not yet
No sin increases my fare
Charon does not bring me to that gate
But rather back home to finish my fate.
For I am not dead
And it is not living that I dread.
I have only been shown this torture
So I may avoid it in future.
I have no place in that weeping forest
Just as Dante, I was but a tourist.
But so my sorrow deep and cold
Should not permeate into my old
But rather it shall remain
a past pain.
O I shall remember
these such foul members
But it is that which makes me
Not breaks me.
These are that which become me
For I shall not succumb to these.
And so these folds shall make me
stronger
Till I feels these holes,
These rivers in my heart,
These tears of blood,
This passing of the laurel,
These faults within my ore,
No longer.
May 24, 2016
May 24, 2016 at 1:03 AM UTC
Letters come & go.
Messages from home: love lost.
Jefferson Davis
& “Honest” Abe Lincoln’s war…
…nothing more than flexing strength.
The sun rises up
above the barren Culp’s Hill
as Ewell kept them
back, & Jackson’s wishes were
lost on Cemetery Hill.
Gettysburg was filled
with mudpits, puddlepits, shitpits
& every kind of
pit. Not any kind that they
wished to see as guns moved up.
The barrage of shells
from the artillery was
never ending, not
unlike this cursed war, all
while brothers & sons were lost.
The second day came
with no signs of stopping, he
packed his gear, grabbed his
rifle, & marched out to the
sound of Charon’s ferrying.
The medic rushes
out onto the battlefield
hesitating not.
His crude instruments flailing
about in his pack, he works.
Medicine, horror,
they were synonyms to him
as he braced the man;
scraping against flesh, he screamed.
This Civil War--hell on Earth.
Sawing off a leg
was much harder than once thought,
the medic then knew.
In the thick of battle, screams
drowned out screams, & drowned out screams.
Bullets whizzed by him
as he cleaned up his patient.
Or was it victim?
These days it all seemed the same:
North, South, free, slave, dead, living.
What once was blue ‘n gray
was now brown & black & red.
Explosions tore up
the land around him as he
cleared his vision & finished.
Out of the brush, fear
overtook the medic as
a man in blue clashed
with a man in gray; blood ‘n sweat
drenched both as life was on balance.
The medic was stunned
& failed to bring himself to
act at first. He shook
himself awake, & grabbed his
knife, & leapt into the fray.
His knife plunged precise
into the blue man’s heart. No
soldier, but knew his
stuff. The gray man thanked him, &
the South fought another day.
All for naught, for on
that third day, Lee ran with his
tail betwixt his legs
all the way to Virginia.
Two years later, all for naught.
July fourth, eighteen
sixty-three, no cheers, no love,
no wins for us folk.
Only them **** Yanks get their love
from home: letters come & go.
Sherman’s March left him
quaking in his boots; gone was
his love. Gone was his
home. Gone were his letters. All
of it gone. Gone with the wind.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
Stand close around, ye Stygian set,
With Dirce in one boat conveyed!
Or Charon, seeing, may forget
That he is old and she a shade.
2.2k
The gentleman in the black trench coat
breathed out
a puff of smoke
and said,through the fog,
"I am a breeze of relief
to some
and
a storm of wrath
for others."
He took out a crumpled piece of paper.
Read it and mumbled,
"I wonder what your share is?"
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 1:18 PM UTC
Such was the heraldry of your being.
You stood before those who were of lower standing as you viewed them,
appointed oneself upward through controversial means, non of which were worthy of commendation. Corruption rose you to dizzy heights and watched as you violated the lives of others.
The lawful way is inconsistent and trust, honesty and goodness are words flaunted by your immoral and malicious demonstration. For ones own ends you walked the walk.
Now become by expiration, death should hold no surprises for one so foul.
The underworld is your new domicile and untold pain and torment are your future. Across the Styx, Charon will deliver you unto me. Watch with care the affliction of those minions that seek exoneration below the black wash. Purgatory however is beyond any reach that will veil itself to you.
Your appointment is of a somewhat personal nature to me and along with myself and eternity you will wish life had leant you on another path.
Jan 10, 2015
Jan 10, 2015 at 6:56 PM UTC
Do I splash
the pool of Narcissus
when I call you nasty names...
...even hog
the grapes of Bacchus
playing friendly bar-room games?
Will I squeeze
the **** of Aphordite
in my tippler's lecherous way?
...And will I challenge
her MIGHTY HERCULES
and find i'm in a fix!!!??
For i'll fear of meeting Charon
upon the under-river Styx!!!
Oh me, oh my, lions and tigers and bears
Oh oh my...
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 8:46 AM UTC
Bells that chime with malcontent
shall toll the sounds of dread.
Whistles cry with detriment;
the hour of death's ahead.
Fields are razed, and valleys hazed;
miasma shall ensue.
Mountains crumble; end of days
rides 'pon the heels of doom.
Death has come for everyone;
no cornerstone unturned.
Putrefy to purify;
with blood, your lakes shall churn.
Sanctity's naught but a dream;
rescind your factions few.
It's all for one to come undone,
and all shall burn with you.
Clouds aflame, for in His name
the sky comes thund'ring down.
And when this land rests in His hand,
He'll take our throne and crown.
Tyrant-force with no remorse;
from out the sea, He'll rise.
He leads His thrall to conquer all,
with fire in His eyes.
Apocalypse shall head the Styx;
the river shall run high.
And to the banks, you stand in ranks
and heed Lord Charon's cry,
"File in, all ye of sin."
His cackles crack the trees.
*"Thy Earth undone, my kingdom come.
Now sunder unto me."*
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 11:24 AM UTC
These old doors,
sullen as spinsters.
Wharves, deckhands, the old chopping block:
flights of time misremembered in a
backward gaze.
Toes in water.
Hooks to fish.
The sea salty.
How shall I count the ways...
lost among the waves.
But look, afar, the old man on his boat!
Is he Charon come to point the way to
the seaward lost; or has he come to
sequester memory to some far shore?
(Maybe he's a schmuck with a paddle!)
Seagulls, feathers, the brine:
all groan with this wood.
In this wood was the line
that snatched life from the water
(the fish, the scales—they shine)
and flopped on the deck,
heterocercal.
The evening closes on this vista but
not the charades of time.
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 3:20 PM UTC
Death who is pale and cold
He takes both young and old
His gaze sweeps 'cross the land
And all fall to his hand
He walks the fields of war
Where men fall to the sword
He haunts the scholars' hall
And spares no one at all
He rides a pale white steed
His every command it heeds
It bears him near or far
To where the dying are
Beware the Reaper's scythe
He comes to end your life
For always there is Death
When you take your last breath
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 8:40 PM UTC
My Moon went missing
and My Mercury kept rising.
So I took a brisk walk,
around the Rings of Saturn.
As My Heart wept Tears,
forming a sad Pattern.
I went searching for Her,
On Jupiter and Mars.
Venus had seen Her,
with the "Shooting Stars".
Pluto suggested that,
I may find Her on Charon.
As it rhymed well,
with Her Name Sharon.
Uranus and Neptune,
said "Why not try Earth?
U may find Her,
at Her place of Birth".
Jan 3, 2021
Jan 3, 2021 at 9:00 AM UTC
For Denis Joe
Alas, poor Pluto
I knew him slightly
Dangling out there
On the sun system's edge
Unsung by Holst
Who knew him not at all.
Furl browed tribunes smack their gavels
And in a nano - second
Planetary glory dashed to asteroids.
Mighty Pluto busted to dwarfhood!
[Brief moment of silence]
Well, the dwarves will have to have
Their own music now -
Nothing Earth shattering
like THE PLANETS.
A humbler essay, say a trio
For tuba, autoharp and cello.
Modest but catchy tunes
For little orbiters and shakers:
XENA (warrior princess)
CERES (goddess of grain)
PLUTO (mythical silver smith)
CHARON (underworld boat jockey)
Oops, almost missed the big send off.
There he goes now with Charon at the oars.
Arrivederci
little
fellow.
SNIFF!
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 6:20 PM UTC
Achilles does not sleep.
Instead, he seeks the lover’s embrace and curved lips alongside which he went to war;
Those same that he did not find,
Once the dark mist had come swirling down over his eyes
And his soul went winging down to the House of Death,
with a soldier’s sigh of relief.
He had whispered in Charon’s ear, “Take me to him.”
Charon had rowed on, but held his silence.
By way of greeting, a thousand faces turned away,
And no trace of his beloved’s sweet smile as he disembarked, no warm hand to take his own.
“Patroklus,” he cries,
And goes unheard.
Thus; Achilles does not sleep.
He is Achilles; he does not wait.
He is Achilles; instead, he aches.
He is Achilles; instead, he searches.
Over the horizon, he chases Patroklus’ laugh and the turn of his wrist.
He lingers in all the shadowed corners of eternity,
Leafs through the pages of unforgiving, unyielding posterity,
Whispers “Patroklus, best of the Myrmidons” and sends his name through the winds.
The headstrong runner does not drag his feet as he scours the world,
As he chases ghosts across the face of the earth.
Restless, he is never still,
Knows that each step must carry him closer,
Knows that each ragged cry may be the one
That is finally answered,
Each rendition the wound to be finally salved.
He haunts, and is haunted.
‘I did not feel it,’ he thinks. 'It should have been as though Hektor’s pierced my side, in turn. Did they not say we were one?’
As if what he felt, when they told him, had not been enough.
(Scamander would disagree).
One day, smiling among the cypress, he will cease.
One day, the thousand faces turned away will melt to the one alone that within itself holds his heart.
One day, his greeting will be that sweet smile that he found only in the dawn.
One day, a warm hand will take his own, and the word with which his beloved left him will be the same as that which retrieves him:
'Ἀχιλλέυς.’
Until the day when his heart pours out golden,
Achilles will not sleep.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 10:17 AM UTC
I can see it in the distance
It's the River they call Styx
An I can see the Boat Man
Waiting for me holding out his hand
Ahead is Charon’s long black boat
In it many souls of those that are dead
A rough unkempt Athenian ******
All dressed in brownish red
His filthy matted beard is uncombed
His eyes burn like hollow pits of fire
A steady glow off the riverbed
A deathly foul oder laced in his attire
What is it that you pay the Ferryman
When you know your pockets are bare
The two coins that are on your eyelids
Will be enough to pay your fare
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 1:07 PM UTC
The devil sits at its zenith
Hell’s warmth embracing
a bead of sweat escapes
both the man and the beast
locked and circling
waiting
waiting
waiting
until one leaves alive
both man and beast
want to show their bravado
one charges
one waves and dodges
both smell death’s breath
a crimson river starts to flow
and the dance is repeated
until one sits on Charon's boat
or is pulled by death’s horses
but in this dance
both have tripped and fallen
death is overjoyed in the afternoon
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 6:45 PM UTC