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

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

medieval paintings feel scrutinized by a
torturer--an upside down cross that lowers
into an oubliette.
the: "forgotten"--where a prisoner is thrown,
from a trap door that opens to a bottle-shape
pit.
with only enough room to stand, according to
what bones the fall selectively broke--as if
retorts to what end.
sewage often working its way in, putrid fumes
riding the back of chills & out with *****.
the hysterical prickles of whiskers, shooting
a toothiness unfit for a mouth--head above water.
slicked back fur pulling along a skin tail--rats
marking a precise claustrophobia.
excellent for nervous eating in a screaming darkness.
where regions of the prisoner do not report back,
as wind between mountains of night seeing itself off.
feces & ***** raining down from jesting guards--
lowering his head to briefly acknowledge the
corpse he's standing on.
while trap door phosphenes begin to open for the:
"forgotten".

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

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

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.....

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.

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?"

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.

Trying to relax
on my high-rise roof
I notice you across the street on
your balcony seemingly aloof
listening to vintage Carly Simon
          "... you say we can keep our love alive"

You stare my way and enthusiastically waive
          "Babe all I know is what I see"

I hesitate, smile and then return the gesture
          "The couples cling and claw"

As if on cue you stand and press against the railing
         "and drown in love's debris"

Still smiling as my heart beats faster
          "... we'll soar like two birds through the clouds"

"What's your name?" you playfully cry out
          "But soon you'll cage me on your shelf"

"Who wants to know?" is my surprising reply
          "I'll never learn to be just me first by myself"

Suddenly flashbacks hijack my thinking
          "... it's time we moved in together
          and raised a family of our own, you and me" 
 
Why is this happening?  Why am I sinking?
          "... that's the way I've always heard it should be
          you want to marry me, we’ll marry"

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.

The tea candle has burnt out
The cigarette has burnt out
I have burnt out
Coffee grounds in the last cold sip
Staring through bright, shining, window worlds of happiness
Plastic pallete, static ballet, crushed can alley, cardboard kingdom
Leaning on the leisure palm, societal balm, self righteous cents
Filming false charity for likes and views, make sure you subscribe to the channel too
Who do we listen to, linear division of red and blue, no middle view
Winner skews the history, in charge of our own misery, executed tenderly

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.

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 ***** 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.

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.

This vessel filled with sanguine nectar
Placed before my tortured face.
"Drink, drink", growls the Collector,
"So the ritual is not debased."
With a quiet sigh I raise my eyes
To find there's no one in sight.
But the shrill cries still to my spine bring chills
From the vague memories of the night.

"Who speaks to me in this empty place?
And what causes me these conniptions?
What are these echoes, these screams that resonate
And what source has borne this addiction?"
There's no soul here to hear my words,
Yet imposing shadows loom in the light
Of strategically placed candles set about the oubliette,
Ready to begin a dark rite.

"The one who speaks is the one who hears,
Indistinguishable except by delusion.
You writhe for the memory as the fogginess clears
And reveals the true cause of pollution:
We, Dante! We are the ones who
Fill this cup to the brim!
You are the lure and I am the hunter
And blood is what cleanses their sin."

As the snarling, disembodied voice speaks
I become filled with lecherous dread.
"You're a monster, a devil, a hideous fiend!"
I scream to the voice in my head.
I regain my composure but suddenly looking over
A room full of familiar corpses,
Torn open, bled, all eyeless sockets,
Materialized by unspeakable forces.

The flickering light from the tiny dancing flames
Eerily animate the dead,
But the bodiless shadows that tower remain
Motionless as the voice again said:
"The one who speaks is the one who hears.
By indulgence you gain from their tears,
Their terror, their anguish, they strengthen you, tame this
Devilish gnawing you fear."

Five leering shadows, eighteen festering carcasses
Surround me in grim trepidation.
Why, why do I choose to take part in this
Unholiness in this dark wretched station?
I try to refuse but my failure amuses
The entity goading me on.
I embrace the chalice of blood and of malice
And drink to fulfill the liaison.

As the ambrosia from the chalice is swallowed
A drunkenness begins to befall me.
As I stand, the five shadows, my servants, they follow
But as if they aren't walking, but crawling.
Altogether the flames grow brighter and stronger
Until the room like a kiln now burns.
The desiccated bodies prostrate and offer
Themselves so the fire upturns.

In my blood-drunken haze my eyes are opened
To the creation of my own obsession.
The Collector, the Harvester, the Reaper, the Chosen
And the Hunter, they are all but reflections.
"The others are voiceless", said the one voice I hear,
"Only I can speak as you can.
And you, Dante, are a bloodfiend, a ghoul.
In only man's realm you feign human.

"We are all you, all one in the same,
And as one we are death and disaster.
These victims before you bathing in flame
Were brought before the ritual master
That the remaining token be brought forth, bespoken
By the aspect of you that's most potent:
No, not the Chosen, though he holds the notion
Of calling that one the Unbroken."

At last all those nebulous memories
Are elucidated in this nightmarescape.
The Unbroken the voice just spoke of is me,
An amalgam of these shadows of hate,
Of murderous, methodical diabolism.
It all has finally become clear:
This black, ****** rite has brought me transcendence
As something all the more terrible draws near...

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

Ha ha! How ironic is this conception?
A bottle, filled left in the oubliette that you and I fill!
Perhaps it's a cruel joke, or maybe compassion
To let us drown our sorrows in a doldrum like fashion.

Hell, my friend, it surely awaits, so let's take our swigs
And numb ourselves from our unmerciful fates.
You know, this situation as I drink gets funnier and funnier...
I'd bet right now, de' Medici herself stands above in the Louvre,
That crafty witch!

Would you like some more of this Cognac before the dungeon master
Comes back?
One more joie de vivre until the chemistry fades?
What does it matter if it isn't ours?
Our final hours will be forgotten, and between you and me,
This will start the after party early.

A votre sante!
To the nobodies!

let evening settle into night,
let dawn unfold to day;
let me remain the anchorite
the world has tucked away

each battle has her casualties
and i am one of those,
the difference is the art of death
that heaven for me chose:
the world is cruel and hasty, so
i left it to forget;
i let the world be kind enough
to be my oubliette

i knew that on the day i died
the world would still go on —
they never noticed i was there,
nor that i'd even gone.
i left before those *******
made a misanthrope of me,
and let my body fallow so
my spirit could be free

with nothing but myself and god,
contentedly immured,
i pass my days in prayer and praise
in union with the lord.
there is no sweeter bread or wine
to tempt me from my cell,
so let me rot in limbo while
the world goes all to hell

let others be the prophets!
that is not the role i play
let me remain the anchorite
the world has tucked away