"funerary" poems
Where the sun kisses the earth
the sky burns with prismatic envy.
Her coveted stars slowly slip
from lonely green eyes
And shine upon the souls that linger
In a funerary salute to another day.
A death well taken by those who seek
The subtle secrets
in her sighing breath.
And under it all,
Night walking dreamers
drawing with fire
upon the hearts of one another
In the golden hues
of what it once was to be young
Basking in the rejected wisdom of history.
Just two fools drinking from the cup
of simple beauty.
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 6:29 PM UTC
All silent in the months of grace
When frosty blankets fall across the hills
And fields where birds once sang their verse,
But melody of wind is all we know.
These lands to die are not yet dead
Though bee does mourn for blooms and for himself
When beetle joints go stiff with cold --
When funerary twilight season comes
To ***** the days. The final wren
Now senses slipping of the year, and so
Of tenant hill and glen deprived
Set in for sleep. If never to awake --
To never feel a verdant joy
Or exultation of the orb that breathes
Bright life into our skies -- at least
Released from hardships and her sorrows be.
But she has faith, she loves the sun!
The twinkling of his eye will come in May
Or else with April's gown he'll march:
Believing in her lover's rising light
The dream that takes her through the night.
Not far, a sickly naiad's wood
In seasons past so fair of face and leaf,
Yet creeping forest's yellowing
Like fingernails of corpse when skin recedes.
But then blush orange sanguinate:
The lover's sigh ignites when dies the vine,
Their bubbling veins in praise of life
When soonest to be severed by cruel scythe.
This phantom of their fate is grim,
More grim be sure than fate that falls in death:
The slings and arrows of the mind
Are those most potent poisoned, fear them not --
Illusory as winter's chill
That peels off maiden's wedding veil in spring:
A peaceful rest does come to all
Though private troubles drown the trees through fall.
Unthinking sleep does bliss the boughs,
In hibernation lose to learn anew
The sights proved true by waking world
That are the growing season's cause to feel.
When browns the brush and flies the thrush
Unanchored Daphne nods and starts to drift
In sea where beings dream as one.
Soft blizzard quilt on woods in slumber laid,
Demeter's daughter vanished into shade,
With knowledge that she'll never fade.
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 2:56 PM UTC
At no time in my deranged youth
Did I ever grasp the full breadth of the truth.
A living death is sown by us alone,
In a paradox of pestilence
We are our own entropy.
From a rancid repellent abyss
I have climbed forth,
Cloaked in your memory
I storm forward, knowing that I shall not falter
There upon the alter of life's trials
I found a token of acceptance, a funerary charm.
From the dust of a bygone age I will mark my place.
Your hand grips like the talon of an eagle,
I found salvation in your touch and cellular synthesis in your stare.
Now months past the playful begginings, now,
I find your skin particles still cling to me,
Magnetized, electric connections, remind me of our bonds.
Though ******* so perfect, would make slaves of nations
Swayed beneath the legions of laughter marching forth from your mouth.
I cannot crucify your image, though I martyr myself in your name,
In the depths of my shame, your gentle presence remained,
A mirror to the pain, a white blouse stitched, lightly parted lips,
Bring back that ethereal face for one day,
It helped me to battle, and brave the night,
The fight I fought, was for your touch alone.
Now you touch me with different hands,
You choose how you touch, I take what I can get.
It is the meaning behind the caress that abolishes my regrets.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 7:01 AM UTC
Life is loss
nothing more
nothing less
It strips you of
that phantom
the well-tended self
sells your memories
on the street
for pennies
leaves your old worn shoes
in the entryway
as a warning
as if to say
those sad shoes will go no further
than the funerary urn
So I choose to mock loss
to dance in damaged shoes
and with each extravagant gesture
to shout out
Let there be wine
food and song
Let there be no grief
upon my demise
only mirth
Only dancing
music and mirth.
Jul 10, 2016
Jul 10, 2016 at 10:40 PM UTC
These 4 walls, the only friends
The hours tick away, but swelling
Winter, hurry — freeze my blood.
Sweating through these supine steps,
I'll stumble on.
A/C buzz, electric hum.
The room lit yellow, bathing jaundice.
Fante & Hamsun.
Folding pages, scratching dog ears.
furrow brows.
**** this color paint."
**** the Summer."
I say it, always.
4 new walls, my only friends.
The seconds boil away, but slowly.
Solitude, please freeze my blood.
Snowfall in my reptile dreams,
all serpentine
Heater hum, alone again
Wish they wanted my chanting voice, now.
Footfalls hustle. Frozen, crunching.
Clothed in funerary coat
The wine explodes.
Shake this thrumming midnight buzz,
and rooms lit dimly, sweating blizzards.
Trudge & debate Blake —
—use my degree for ******* something._
Shoulders hunch.
"Just me. In falling snow."
_"Tyger Tyger, burning bright—"_
Here I stand, a dwindling flicker—
_"In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fires of thine eyes?—"_
—I can barely see tonight. And thicker lines
have failed to lead me home.
Alone.
And kindred with the cold.
Aug 16, 2025
Aug 16, 2025 at 10:51 PM UTC
At 27, I catch glimpses
of my reflection, the edges blurred.
What I thought was an identify
is really a funerary pall.
You sought Mercy Street
on Beacon Hill.
I walked the star-lit night
until I stumbled against a street sign
which read: “Dead End.”
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 2:21 PM UTC
The rosin still clings
To my slackened strings
And my shine is all but gone.
Yet you found me;
There lying still and silent,
In my funerary garments
Of tattered velvet
and darkened oak.
You called to me,
Coaxing me back into being.
For yours is a labor of love;
I need you nearly as much
As you need me; Musician.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 9:46 PM UTC
He looks hither, thither and then afar
to question the shocked silence of his fear.
Above him reigns a scintillating star,
wrought in the dark sky like an icy tear.
He moves between plots of freshly-dug earth
with the cautioned step of a wounded fox,
and discovers traces of that second birth
which calls pale men to the funerary box.
Dead, interred but yet forgotten so soon
no grave bore the name of him who once was.
Like a stolen kiss beneath a full moon,
these men were disposed of without a pause.
This is what terrified the aging Pushkin so.
Death itself inspired no unusual woe.
But he lamented those names lost in snow.
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 11:27 PM UTC
Surrounded by liars, we conspire to exhale,
Suspended from heaven by wires so frail,
I was as you knew me; half there, half alive,
Too old to know better, too young still to drive,
An hourglass bandage, alone in my room,
A bruise to explain, an excuse to consume,
Burned down to silence, ethanol in my nose,
Confidence hibernation, voice never unfroze,
Turned to paper and pen, writing unhappy ends,
Tuned out all the fighting, lost faith in my friends,
A funerary maze, and I stayed there for days,
Kept safe from the addicts, degenerate haze,
Until finally I slept, free from sirens and screams,
It felt so good to see you, if only in dreams,
And I stared as you sat, delicate as a ghost,
I know I wasn’t there when you needed me most,
Always so far from home, and still so far from free,
Maybe I became less than you meant me to be,
With fire in my shoes and a map in my head,
Spent 3 years on the run, 4 wheels and no bed,
No food in my stomach, hollow cheeks caving in,
I came too far to fail, but was too lost to win,
Still the city lights held me with frenzied embrace,
Childhood imperfections forever etched on my face,
But head down I’ll hold on, however hopeless it seems,
And someday we’ll meet again, if only in dreams.
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 6:43 PM UTC
Xenophobes of the Inferno fear the inevitable presence of these
Xoana, false representations of humanity.
Xanthic is their fear, for inside the malebolges themselves
Xanadu is sought for those of the fallen soldiery.
Yet funerary proceedings dictate descent for these souls, and the coffins
Yaw slightly in the wind, disturbed by the
Yanks of the ****** rabble who bear their weight.
May 7, 2012
May 7, 2012 at 1:25 AM UTC
I want what devastates me
Sugar so syrupy sweet it sickens
Red liquid slows and thickens
Black lips painted poisonous purple
With thin lines of strychnine
My fair long haired Mary
Marvelous Magdalene
And terrible Typhoid
Saint and Succubus of lusting frenzy
Draining the core of me
Morticia the Mortuary Queen
With fatal fingers that feel
My moist internal organs
Throttling my throbbing heart
Dear black orchid
Princess of the pentacles
Funerary eyes of fire
Waking Walking Death
Yes she is so bad for me
Still, I want her so deeply
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 10:56 AM UTC
shed that shell
translucently
lacquered
by childhood
that insect
fluttering behind
the ivory
bars of your ribcage
was once buried
under funerary mosses
of a fallen oak tree
three hundred years
of aged silence
basking in it's demise
saying
"I stretched
to the heavens
but they scurried away
every night of every day"
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 10:04 AM UTC
Some like it violent
Insatiable in every sense
Brutal and arousing
Bruises and bitemarks
That draw blood
A delight, red and raw
Teeth marks sinking into flesh
Miss Mass ******
And her new boyfriend
Mister Mysterious
Are in love
Shiny and new
Like the first drop
From a finger pricked
On a cerated knife
But it was too much too soon
Twisted young love asphyxiates
In rooms without privacy
Hitting a new a high
Pointed teeth and fanged smiles
Cigarette drags on moonless nights
*** and death intertwined
There is lust after life
Together forever
Side by side: six feet under
Unnatural and unlawful
It was a night to dismember
A funerary wedding
His and hers in a hearse
Rattling tins and dangling bones
Just married written in a scarlet hue
That is not ink
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 12:58 AM UTC
From the scaffold
we see most clearly.
From these heights I know the stature
of all the works and days of man;
and from here, enthroned by these two beams,
straddling these two worlds,
I see the oyster heaps of cities
where the children we shall leave
assume our places
at the cafe, brothel, cathedral,
and here.
We upon the scaffold
bid whispered farewells
to our accusers
only for the instant
time takes to reunite us.
And with the iron descent of ruin
and the silencing of the mind
and the extinction of the soul
is struck the next toll
of the ceaseless funerary bell.
These are the empty visions
of men sentenced to go before the rest—
who shall not call back from the dripping caverns
that light is dancing on the farthest wall.
Oct 3, 2016
Oct 3, 2016 at 10:08 AM UTC
The last time I was here
It had been free drinks on the house
It had been a celebration
A taunt
This was how far we’ve come
This is how far we have yet to go
You can’t catch us
For we’re having too much fun
Flirting, talking, chatting
Ideas and hopes
For this year
And the year it had been
It’s different now
Solemn without solace
The haphazard roof
Over haphazard concrete
Where music blasts
And is not played
Where thoughts are delayed
For thoughts bring tears
And tears bring pity
I can’t stand it
The twilight air
Suffocates me
As people stop
And stare
I want to stay
I want to go
I want to live another day
And I want to know
What is beyond the boundary
Let’s have a party
In a building turned funerary
Barbed wire fences
And railroad tracks
Life is seen between cracks
I’ve come so far
And yet I haven’t progressed at all
A waxing crescent moon,
Canescent, anxious light
Illuminates the eerie sky
Free from shadow, free from stars
But not free from sin
This is the realm of illusory serenity
Under celestial blessing
I walk the path I’ve always known
A single road
A lonely road
Gravel cuts the underside
Of my aching feet
As I march under moonlight
So that I may
Taste the sweet and sour
The good and the bad
The grief
And the peace
Feb 8, 2018
Feb 8, 2018 at 10:01 PM UTC
From a spark, I am reborn,
My golden wings spread like a new dawn,
And fire courses through my veins,
As I become the righteous flames.
Soaring through the ancient skies,
Sacred flares trail as I fly,
Gliding through clouds above,
Glowing with the burning sun.
Years pass as I slowly grow old
And my feathers lose their amber glow.
My strength and fight begin to fade,
My soul is tired and unafraid.
When it is time for my final breath,
with all my strength I face my death.
In my element, the sparks ignite
The end has come to my long life.
Flames consume my flesh and bone,
As I embrace the fire that I become
As burning smoke rises higher,
And I succumb to my funerary pyre.
The fire fizzles and dissipates,
As the embers cool and accumulate,
And through the ashes sparks a flame,
The Phoenix reborn, rises again.
©️Lizzie Bevis
Dec 15, 2024
Dec 15, 2024 at 5:10 PM UTC
Three times, your grimy nails click across this table, miming funerary chimes,
Three times, you began, according to plan, clicking the number of man and a second,
A second more and you might have reached this poor core of this sore heart of mine,
But a second less meant one yes less than a first caress.
And here, we're putting shells to our ears, revering hidden purpose in our own austere inventions
The Beasts' beauty increased with every delicious warning from the now deceased sacrilegious priests.
A gross of Gods toast to the ghosts of their creations, morose men and mavericks that left their posts
And a hundred bones creak from the sound of their moans, because they've reached their completion of the known.
That's how many times the heart beats in a minute, we admit, playing hard to get,
And that means something, we insist in our in-betweens behind the scenes.
Yes,
That means something.
Sep 30, 2016
Sep 30, 2016 at 12:20 PM UTC
Wherever grass grows wild and tall
I'll think of you beneath it all,
A secret shared with earth and sky
And no one else.
Where winter came to freeze a heart,
That summer thawed us both apart
And somewhere in that hazy heat
I laid you down.
There's funerary flowers there,
Run wild and overgrown with care.
I think I'll take that wilderness
Before your chains.
A shackled love, a fettered life?
A rarer smile, brittle with strife?
All that, I'll leave behind with you
And go alone.
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 12:43 PM UTC
before he died
his breath was sour
it smelled like whiskey
flock to me
adorn me in funerary robes
build me into a messiah
so i can bruise myself in your name
i promise to you
i ******* swear to all i have left that i would finish creating you
but our time has run out
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 11:05 PM UTC
Your Soul
So who is this Soul that you sing of?
This silent witness
Who counts the leaves off of trees
instead of gathering them?
Then raking them into a funerary circle,
Into a giant pile, your better self will fall from,
Or jump into?
Up to your eyeballs,
Up to your own little crown of thorns.
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 6:50 PM UTC
So who is this Soul that you sing of?
This silent witness
Who counts the leaves off of trees
instead of gathering them?
And raking them into a funerary pile,
Into the giant pile that your better self will fall from,
Or jump into.
Up to your eyeballs,
Up to your own private crown of thorns.
Mar 6, 2019
Mar 6, 2019 at 10:57 AM UTC
I
heed, first person,
the bones of surrender
burning in my eyes.
Agitated breathe
seeking
silt
in my lungs,
where saplings
will age into
a place for birds
to sing
"The sun is down, come home!"
for a day and a night,
before falling
like tears
fall.
Oct 16, 2018
Oct 16, 2018 at 12:29 AM UTC