"oubliette" poems
ts no more than i deserve
this pit of the blackest despair
deep dark oubliette
no bottom no end
walls looming upward
covered in thick dark slime
no light from above
grabbing clawing sinewy fingers
dragging further downward
no strength nor grip
to endeavour the climb
i fall to the depths once more
copyright gothic mistress2012
May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012 at 9:36 AM UTC
*Increasingly distorted memories
slowly succumbing to darkness
Some fallen, some forced into
the oubliette of my subconscious
Figures of the past linger tentatively
before receding into shadow
Familiar strangers they do seem
as if merely remnants of dreams
The looking glass of childhood friends
mirrors an unrecognizable effigy
An idealized reflection of a former self
unflinching in its accusatory glare
Whispers persist from imprisoned depths
for I am silently being recalled to life
Somehow I've forgotten how to be
the only person I've ever wanted to be
Somehow I've forgotten how to be me*
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 11:09 PM UTC
how long must I walk in the ashes of my yesterday?
charred carbon butterflies dancing past my tired eyes
floating on what could be the last breaths of this tired world
nothing but a fleeting sigh, nothing but a fading whisper.
Ashes.
the endless long lost steps
the creaking weary bones
one foot in front of the other
I walk in Ashes.
I look to the jagged teeth where earth meets the sky
gnashing, grinding, grinning
a sickly cheshire smile far and wide
a newness, a nascence felt inside
the illusion is slowly fading
but yet I still walk in Ashes.
like sepulchral confetti
the blackened ash quietly collects
whispering and licking at my ears
a tragic choir in unison they sing
'one and one have become zero'
in silence I grieve beneath a jet black sky
on my broken knees
never ending Ashes.
will this ever end?
rust covered, abandoned
thoughts like swinging hammers
comforted only by Ashes
that sing me into nightmares
of dying stars and black suns
and nights that have killed the only Dawn I've ever known
will the Ashes ever end?
in all the desolation, in all the dereliction
there is calm, a soothing shudder scrapes my skin
a rising urgency deeply rooted beneath the I
sweetly swaddled
gently graced
blanketed by Ashes.
the roof of the world
sunken, failing - utter frailty
I am no telamon, I have no strength
unable to bear the weight
the weight of all the Ashes.
in this comforting collapse
at the bottom of my oubliette
wings of splintered light emerge
they glow like the light of dying cinders
they glow like your iridescent halo
they glow like the last light I will ever see.
Apr 3, 2010
Apr 3, 2010 at 2:14 PM UTC
Hanging her head into depths of an oubliette,
the toilet bowl grieves inside muddied ruin.
An early avocado and piles of bile simmer
inside porcelain wastelands. Her face, a dark fillet,
fat like a flea questing on skin. Fingers joust
her drawbridge mouth. Cavaliers cannot rescue.
Tiny talons scratch the back of her throat,
distant organs heaving during the battle
of the bulge. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.
She tastes it twice. Flecks of spit singe cheeks
like undersink chemicals. Her imperial
belly wails, a damsel distressed.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 3:43 PM UTC
I will cut your eyes from you
Place them in the waiting dark
An oubliette prepared just for you
They will grow and let us feed.....
Star Toucher, 19 March 2013
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 11:04 AM UTC
Confined to this cell that's
filled with everything and everyone
that I have ever known;
How did I get stuck here?
Memories play like films in
this oubliette that is my brain.
**** they're torturing me,
and my distress is apparent.
My internal screams are inaudible,
but I swear I'm calling out.
These shadows in my cell shriek
to me from the darkness; I surrender.
This persecution is unlawful. I have
done nothing to deserve such agony.
Solitary confinement is leading me to madness,
but madness feels like home to me.
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 6:33 PM UTC
A broken shell, a living hell, and all I'm left with now is my regret.
Better days ahead were a pipedream after our relationship crumbled. Countless arguments. Disagreements. Every day! For my life, I can't believe we stayed together as long as we did. God knows I didn't want her to leave me. How much longer must I wrestle with these painful memories?
I just feel regret, unspoken, I just feel the pain; since she left, my life has been a broken shell, a living hell — I can't believe I let her go; it was foolish pride before the fall the day she left when I lost all — I should have held her closer, I should have made her see the feelings I have for her, what she means to me; I didn't say I love her or beg her to stay, instead, I stood in silence and watched her walk away, and all I'm left with now is my regret.
Justification is an exercise in futility. Knowing what I could have and should have done leaves an inextricable switchblade in my soul. Love's lessons learned too late — love's loss too great.
Misting eyes beseech as memories replay in my head, but they're too painful, and I feel dead. No joy to be found. Oh well, my self-imposed hell. Painful memories open like an oubliette under my feet, plunging me lost and languishing in isolation's labyrinth. Questions left unanswered, decaying in the debris fields of "what if.”
Reflection can be a catharsis for the soul, but it can also rip a hole in it, and soon reality roars from guilt's bottomless pit to devour all hope. Sometimes despair is mitigated by occasional reminders of us. Thoughts lingering on happier times, blessed moments mine to treasure. Until the damnable loop of regret dominates to decimate any respite of joy. Vanishing expectations. Weeping willow's silent wail. Xerox memories fade with time.
Years have passed, and my thoughts continue to haunt me over what we could have had. Zero-sum game — all I'm left with now is my regret.
Mark Toney ©️ 2023
* * *
April 22, 2023
I hope you found the above fictional prose poem interesting. I wrote it in response to a writing challenge I heard about. Write a 26-sentence short story (or prose poem). Each sentence must begin with the alphabet's sequential letters starting with A through Z. One sentence must be 100 words long, and another sentence only one word. Would you like to try it?
Apr 22, 2023
Apr 22, 2023 at 2:07 AM UTC
Erase the memory
I never was ever really falling for you
Replace the inner pain
I never was I or living honest or true
But these days I find I find I find, find find
Solace
You were looking out for hurt
Dream so big for what it's worth
Even with the tide gone, telling lies
No direction was right
Living days away, praying without a base
No oubliette to hide
Inside left when the dam burst
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 8:50 PM UTC
sinking through my shadow
down the oubliette
of my retraction
drunk upon
nepenthe: contempt
of insurmountable distraction
i can siphon
all this blood
into a staining chalice
down again
another round
and hope to
drown again
within the sounds
of screaming
stifled under skin
claws maw
ravenously
the inner walls
of a carapace
too far gone
in its accretion
to spare
the raving calls
the solitary
somber narcissist
of slow and painful
suffocation
eloquence
an incomplete attempt
to justify,
to anthropromorphize
and endeavor
i shall, forever
to cauterize this soul
but its far too cold
to build a fire
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 10:46 PM UTC
i
Aloof aback the nether antechamber
Abaddon tried to calleth out mine name
Aba composition's awoke from smoke
Whilst nephilim brutes were left untamed.
ii
They bit me and they gripped me with
Their nail's of poison and polunium whip's
Through the old agaric horror play oubliette
Obelisk's, of troglodyte monstrosity!!!!
iii
The nearing was open, yet to far off
I felt the crimson color, up mine lung's I coughed
Mine calumus pinion's all were eventually lost
For I was mocked, as the legion scoffed.
iv
Scourged I was, as mine back was chopped
Like glass bead's hitting a gentle rock
They cracked mine sweetly frame, and made a pop
Mine soul was dying, mine head was lost.
v
Yet in the destination of this witching hour
Cameth in Gabriel and Michael of all unknown power's
They arrayed this hell with celestial shower's
They freed me of mine inferno, and tooketh me to the higher sire.
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry.....
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 7:56 AM UTC
It's not that I don't appreciate
the glorious struggle of this life.
But when I'm crowbar hopping until I can hardly stand up
guilty of smashed in windows and foggy afterglow afterthought
I can't help but wonder
how I can be anything but off the wagon
when they've been circled to fend me off?
They want their stereotypes?
Fine.
I'll be the station wagon burner of their suburbs
but even if they're entertained I don't want their thanks.
I reserve my thanks for being alive
for being allowed to rise each day
even if my thanks are abstract marks lining
my arms.
Sorry if this is disjointed.
I'm writing from the heart
but shooting from the hip
with those familiar revolving killers
slung low on fun belts with
the chambers of my heart spun
until I'm dizzy.
I've always been an avid subscriber to chaos
but I can't deal with this disorder any longer.
I know that each and every one of you
are precious and dear to me
but I can't break away from the oubliette of
my dreary words.
They're like my alchemical dependency
burning dread into gold.
I give thanks to know you
even if showing it is difficult.
I'm a barren mined strip.
Now I'm discharging thought heavy metals into your
water supply and I can't help but think I'm
poisoning everyone.
I've been a misanthropologist all my life
discovering what makes us so awful at times.
Now I just
want to be a sincere apologist.
I need you more than you need me
and I love you.
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 10:36 AM UTC
There is no hope here
no one gets out alive
straight, bisexual, or queer
all must perform the dirt dive
We apparently come from nothing
and make ourselves up
as we go along sauntering
through the tulips draining the cup
If there is meaning here
which is far from certain
it lasts only as long as we're
on the live side of the curtain
So,
Remembered for a thousand years
or in the oubliette next Tuesday
ask Alexander if he really cares
ask Milton"What do the snake say?"
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 10:13 PM UTC
as i fell on the ground with a dull thud, listening to the cracking of my bones, did you really have to pretend?
you pretended to love me, you pretended..
i allowed myself to be intrigued by the lies that slipped from the beautiful place that is your lips..
you made me feel so powerful and now i feel... nothing!
because you lied & you had no idea what you were doing to me..
as i dug deep into my skin with a razor so sharp that it could **** a man, i thought of you and all of the things you said to me.
you destroyed me.
i had forgotten about you but you've somehow managed to escape from the oubliette.
is there a lover that i can run to for cwtsh?
NO THERE ISNT.. so what am i to ******* do to escape this horrible feeling? this mess that you made of me, how do you expect anyone on God's green earth to be able to clean it up? to be able to love me without question? you were selfish, i would've never done this to you.. but i should have, you were undeserving of my love, undeserving of a Queen and i hope any trace of happiness in your life crashes & burns.. i hope any bond that you try to create dies a slow.. horrific death dear.
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 4:48 PM UTC
I've tried making friends with Death
on many a dark and crimson night
I would lay in my folly
and watch as Death made his plight.
Stealing children
and mothers
and the souls of the old
watching their chamber rooms
turn murky, chilly and cold
But alas, Death does not need friends
he has told me many a time
but perhaps if Death had a hand to hold
he would not take the hands of the strong,
maybe, he'd take mine.
Death, why do you leave me here?
Why can I not join you tonight?
When you leave, you give no reason
you brush me off, and disappear
into the silvery concaves of the light.
Death, I have touched your scythe
and I want it to graze my neck
I see no future for myself here
only mist and clouds appear in your oubliette.
Death, you are beautiful
your Alabaster flesh crawls in my mind
why does no one else love you, Death?
you are perfect in my eyes.
When you stop choosing the ones who hate you
and make friends with the ones who love you, Death
then maybe
all the souls here around you
can learn to find peace when you lead them to rest.
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 7:55 PM UTC
Sous les draps de ta pyramide
On a vue en 3D sur la mangrove
Rhomboïde
De rhizomes entrelacés
À perte de vue.
Et j'essaie le sabre aux lèvres
Grâce à mon géo-radar
De me frayer un chemin dans le feu inextricable
Vers ta chambre nuptiale
D'eau enchevêtrée d'éclairs et de lave en fusion.
Sous les draps de ta pyramide
J'emprunte ta face Nord
À travers une oubliette à l'abri des regards
Des crabes et des salamandres
J'emprunte la descenderie
Et au bout du couloir
Me voici à l'antichambre
Et un sphynx exige de moi un mot de passe
Pour accéder au nec plus ultra de tes entrailles.
Et je dis : soldat du feu !
Et ce que je croyais être un simple feu de broussailles
De mangle rouge momifié
Se révèle un feu de jungle folle
Où sauterelles et criquets grésillent
Sous les flammes humides de ta chrysalide.
Et j'ouvre ma pompe et j'arrose
De mon eau de rose ton sanctuaire
De fleur de grenade inviolée
Et je comble ta faim
D'un bon mortier fait de venin de sable et de sève d'argile
Montante et descendante
Que tu dégustes en te pourléchant les lèvres.
Pour ne pas en perdre une miette.
Nov 2, 2019
Nov 2, 2019 at 5:36 AM UTC
Finally relaxing
on my high-rise roof
I notice you across the street on
your balcony seemingly aloof
listening to vintage Carly Simon,
“That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should Be”
You stare my way and energetically waive
I hesitate, smile and then return the gesture
As if on cue you stand and press against the railing
Still smiling as my heart beats faster
"What's your name?" you playfully cry out
"Who wants to know?" is my surprising reply
~Who really am I?
Sudden flashbacks hijack my thinking
~Song lyrics dredging up buried memories…
Why is this happening? Why am I sinking?
~Triggered
I hear your beseeching, unintelligible shouts as I retreat
Painful memories open like an oubliette under my feet—
p
l
u
n
g
i
n
g
Lost and languishing in isolation's labyrinth
© 2020 by Mark Toney. All rights reserved.
#
Aug 8, 2020
Aug 8, 2020 at 12:53 AM UTC
New Year's Eve dark at 4:30,
a dilation like a pleasured eye:
stray clouds pull themselves
across the clarity
& stars smudge unreasonably
across taffy-thin years of light,
long inviting blears.
I am peeling away from myself,
half-drunk on the absence of grief,
half-drunk on my lovely neighbor's wine:
it's funny how little moments
can pull together the murmuration
into a pattern you can hold:
I feel possibilities, sour morsels
of old dreams going loose
into the frozen nacre of street,
into the cubic alleyways,
rain smiles light as *****
But moments don't hold,
something turns off -
the clouds are burning alive
in a songbird's oubliette.
The bastille falls
all the prisoners escape.
Dec 31, 2022
Dec 31, 2022 at 7:48 PM UTC
The dispiriting prison bar is now your frontier,
What left your character drowned in blood,
The environment draws you with fear,
Your living corpse plunge to the befoul scud.
The critics, the juries, virtually invisible enemies,
You need to hear their loathe in the darkness,
Around all these hopeless entities,
It's a woeful depiction of inferno.
They got knives of deception and treachery,
As you turn your back, they stab, you kneel,
Wish you die in a blink, yet torture gradually,
You have entirely deviated the vocation to heal.
Victims learn from mistakes,
You never did,
They will hurt you again for all sakes,
But then you realize you're stuck amid.
Jan 19, 2019
Jan 19, 2019 at 1:31 AM UTC
through the lips of
the horizon
a purple parasol
of attenuated *****
spread, flagrant is the crepuscule.
these are the exiled
in the heliotrope world:
trees saluting the length
of sprinting air to calm
these undulations -
painted are the leaves
with blame.
lips sinking to find answers
hidden underneath the
derelict of sweat, noisome moan
after quieted breathing,
heavy with the undeniable boulder
of craving's weight -
tongue naked, freeing itself
from the oubliette of flesh,
finding what is still to be
tasted in a covetous harvest,
it is indeed strange to be here,
in this absolute hour
of absent resoluteness.
to deny want and embrace fullness,
my eyes slope these visions
and then dive through steepness.
no words have to be said,
only their significations
held secretively as roots
are unseen flourishing in their
obligations to this flower,
your flower
underneath the twilight
of bodies crossing each other
out, love's derivatives
ensue.
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 5:34 AM UTC
Just one iota
of that teenaged brio,
utterly fearless in the way
slim life allows,
would power our souls for
whole years
fears, as they come,
are whispered on sharp minutes,
on slow hour memories,
on broken days, lost
in an oubliette
desperate for a single glimmer
youth can be reckless
self-sabotaged and trite
but by god,
there are lessons in the might of it
in spite of it
if we stop,
look
and listen
#emmaraducanu #youth #joy #riskreward #thrills #liveloud #rageagainstthedyingofthelight
Sep 12, 2021
Sep 12, 2021 at 7:24 AM UTC