"sarcophagus" poems
I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already -- the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.
I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!
My mirror is clouding over --
A few more breaths, and it will reflect nothing at all.
The flowers and the faces whiten to a sheet.
I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam
In dreams, through mouth-hole or eye-hole. I can't stop it.
One day it won't come back. Things aren't like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these small things sweeter than the face of Ishtar.
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The castle in the smoke
sneaking
like a reptile foraging
in the city
tirelessly
the blue-colored flame
awaiting the servants
the colors of sounds
staining
all over shadiness
the scarecrow with a hat
stumbling through
the dark
the wand of a magician
melts away
the ancient bed
and the love
locked in the sarcophagus.
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 9:49 PM UTC
My body steeps in this hot sarcophagus,
Coated in fake butter topping.
I watch trollops quaffing hoppy-scotch,
Flipping wristwatches for moves to jump rope two-and-two.
Like when I was 10, and I saw this ***** white trash can of a man,
Fly out of a grocery store with a 40oz like he was Peter Pan.
But I knew deep down, in my swashbuckling soul of souls,
That Peter Pan got Wendy by being a gentleman.
So this fever, that has my mobile phone not shaking in my pocket,
I keep staring at every five seconds for you to call.
Is just another moment in my life to cherish, because if we should be married, And I want to talk. I'll just need to walk down the hall.
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 9:29 PM UTC
I claw out of the grave like the phoenix
And for my 15 minute lifetime
I burn like the sun, the gas lamp, California, the Holocaust
Before fizzling out again
I live to die
I awaken on the production line
I breathe in the ash pouring from the apocalyptic clouds
Disappointed, I turn to my grey sarcophagus
The faceless, factory-made, invisible-as-Kether generation
Buried in the grocery store pyramid
Like Goya's dog, I peer blindly, so tiny
Upwards, into the infinite nothing that awaits
The afterlife, the void, Abraham's *****
Death, limbo, desolation row
The nihilistic emptiness from which I rise
Mar 21, 2019
Mar 21, 2019 at 2:45 PM UTC
The middle class idea of theft--
where we eat at semi-fancy restaurants
seated at faux leather interior
deep seated dimly lit coves
dine in a sarcophagus of tasty mildew.
A youth lends their smile
teeth faintly shine through,
but roughly cut short of sincere;
on their lapel in fine print the label says Sandy.
Flexing water spotted plastic
black brim borders
and articulated names of food
that would put all of Italy to shame.
Porcelain plates hold lofty portions
of what is purely compensation
as texture and flavor remind me of my adolescence
this is when Playdoh and Crayons are used for flavoring.
A slate for my signature is provided
and the upside to this all
was the perfection of a pen they lent me
it was ball tip and bright pink--
finally something I'd be glad to take home with me.
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 12:17 PM UTC
*where are women really safe?
how is it that society-collect FAILS
as humanity stumbles yet again.. and again?
our lady-folk are not safe*..
Amaya-bai finds little comfort but in sibilant-twin
as no eye of sun nor ginoo laid eye on this binukot
Olga is the silent-saint; believes in charity at home
yet chaos ensues too easily - she is wronged and just gets.. lost in the system
Zandile fetches precious amanzi in her sun-soaked calabash
her vigilant-sister falls.. roving guerrilla-men from the river's edge
Michelle, la petite belle, survives the daily-grind via low-coin
tubes to Champs-Élysées as assistante-de-pharmacie
Aadita, from the outset at 15, dons a veil hiding ****** acid-burns
she has some relative-luck to escape sati later on
Amy with downtrod-heart, grabs the tram to downtown family
wearing dark glasses and gloves on rainy-day blues
Emiko graced (yet cursed) with beauty struggles with ancient-practice
despite the ban, silent-suffering lotus-gait in the tiny village
Aisha may be alive but not well from ethnic-marking tragedy
as irugu are outcast from all-too prevalent gishiri-cruelty
*might as well take a trip to Vladivostok
or be dumped in a sarcophagus
beneath the Pyramids
safer there*
S T - 27 sept 2013 - freitag
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 3:59 AM UTC
Here we are!
To live and inevitably die.
But before we do,
let’s put it off and ****
all the life encompassing us
until it loops around
and kills us back.
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 12:50 AM UTC
Her impression of love
was nothing but...
A bar less prison
Sad!
She had a hateful
Perception ov love
A dead fateful lie
Cold as a sarcophagus...
How wrong she was
To think *** was love
And love was ***
My ex...
Her mother would die for her
But she had never
Laid her down
On a bed of pleasures of the flesH
For true love
Isn't sensually sentimental
But unconditional.
She was wrong yet so strong
With legs wide open
Weakened by desire
She gave it away...
Her perception of
love was nothing but lust
And trust which left her in the dust
And she always thought
love didn't last
Cuz she was lost
So she lost
Something he needed
on the honey moon!
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 10:44 AM UTC
Napoleon shifted,
Restless in the old sarcophagus
And murmured to a watchguard:
"Who goes there?"
"Twenty-one million men,
Soldiers, armies, guns,
Twenty-one million
Afoot, horseback,
In the air,
Under the sea."
And Napoleon turned to his sleep:
"It is not my world answering;
It is some dreamer who knows not
The world I marched in
From Calais to Moscow."
And he slept on
In the old sarcophagus
While the aeroplanes
Droned their motors
Between Napoleon's mausoleum
And the cool night stars.
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Every era that has ever been
Has engaged in the auto-dissection
Of their yellowing underbellys.
Yes, every generation has predicted
that the end is nigh,
That god is on their side;
But the devil has a crowbar
And is busting out of the basement.
Each decade is a mimicry of the last.
Different fashions, same trends
And always, with a fool on the hill.
A lonely steel harmonica can pierce the airwaves
Across space and time,
Through the grooves and crackles
To enthral an audience,
And to beguile that every generation
Into believing in their autonomy,
Their solitude,
With a fate independent of all those centuries past.
Through every disembodied spew of Dylan lyrics,
Or the corporeal and common alienation
Sympathised in every Wilde reference,
Comes the same fury at the chaos of a world
That is no more than indifferent at the plight of the people it houses.
Indeed,
Every generation has sought to either
Cure the ills of the Earth;
Or else set lighter fluid to the lot.
This stretches back to the first blood-spattered edition of the Bible,
And further, much further.
To all of the captains,
The heroes,
The anti-heroes,
The road gritter,
The malevolent dictator,
The schoolteacher,
The emancipated woman
And the borderline feminist.
To every young child who is reluctant to take the spotlight,
Or look you in the eye,
Ask questions, or speak out.
For every one of those who at some point were labelled
‘maladjusted’.
And so the Pharaohs and Caesars are all but gone now,
Replaced by the big-wigs,
The fat-cats,
The purple hearted,
The playboys -
The men in suits.
But they are all the same.
The same behind the decadence of
A solid gold sarcophagus
Or an Armani pair of shades.
They all built their empire on shifting sands.
And so we will all kick and scream
To our own tone and our own time
At the indignity of the world.
At our bespoke knowledge
To deal with all inconvenience
But that which privates the preclusion
Of any and all major slaughters of justice.
As for that young child,
With the lack of eye contact -
And all that he will become:
He will sit. And he will type.
He will type until his words fall beyond that
Of the spiralling noises inside his mind
And blossom into something pure and ugly and beautiful.
He will sit and he will write
To forget.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 8:21 PM UTC
i am stuck in a glass box.
No I'm not a mime
and no I'm not Houdini
Though my legs are tied with chains I cannot seem to find the key to
Pulling me down behind metal doors and locks snapped shut
By my own doing, I am my own victim
The walls I’ve built above myself are now a sarcophagus I find comfort in
My grave dug deeper than the 6 feet recommendation,
The breathing space I have seems only to fill with water
The more I push away the help I crave,
The more I doubt I will get it.
With grave robbers visiting my tomb often
I am now use to the feeling of losing parts of myself I will not see again
Always being told from a young age to not give my whole heart away
But never fully listening
The iron gates I’ve built around myself
, impenetrable to those wanting to see in.
After the numerous moments I’ve wished id kept them shut
For those only wanting to take,
only give more reason to keep them locked.
Dec 13, 2018
Dec 13, 2018 at 9:52 AM UTC
Plastic sarcophagus aspect
of the breathing machine -
feed it broken foam
to make me free.
Paper sound lung,
a landscape of coral,
tape the needle down -
we don't get many kids here.
My blood wandered
to another face -
my chest a kennel.
What's yours is
never wholly yours.
Jan 26, 2021
Jan 26, 2021 at 5:58 AM UTC
Little boats bob
Big boats glide
There's life in the mud
An ancient church
And a pub on the other side
Wild flowers bloom in the sun
Protected by the churchyard wall
Inside rows of box pews facing East
Well maintained at least
Oddly laying at the back
A sarcophagus carved in stone
No doubt a gardener
Would value as a planter
No one comes these days she says
Pouring water in the font
Flowers ready
Only people such as us
Satisfied we sacrifice a coin
Pop it in the slot
Walk back past the tower round
The congregation underground
Through the lilting seabird song to find
Ham egg and chips and a drink
Just to wet the lips
It's the Summer time
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 2:44 PM UTC
For ages, this mind has known only a deep sleep and the sound of silence
Entombed in a preserving chamber during a time of violence
The last grain of etherium joins the rest at the bottom of the glass
Ancient magic begins to flow, lighting the runes carved into the sarcophagus long ago
Deep within
The mind stirs
Coming back to consciousness
Pulling away the cobwebs covering the senses and remembering what it’s like to breathe
Dusting off the memory of a cool stone coffin… Is that what is felt underneath?
A faint blue glow brings life to the eyes, telling the mind it is time to rise
Right… it’s been a while, Motor Cortex
Muscles twitch, joints creak and limbs push on the cover of stone
Stone that doesn’t move a millimeter
Oh… I remember
Fingers find the glowing rune on the side
A hundred more runes come to life, and the lid opens wide
The eyes adjust and perceive
A small room filled with old air and covered in the dust of time
And showing the way out, leading to the door
A trail of runes, one by one, in a line
Okay legs
Hands meet a door that has not been met in over a hundred lifetimes
The mind is sure, it is time for fresh air
A return to life, one where the sun shines
Here we go
The seal is broken, the door opens, the dust of time is stirred
Hair flutters, clothes billow, skin feels…
Ah, my old friend, I am so glad you are still here.
It has been a long, long time. *
Aug 21, 2016
Aug 21, 2016 at 9:29 PM UTC
it's hot in a restaurant with the strangers you've since been stranded with
(look! You Finally Did It!)
and everybody knows your name but the symbolism of individualized letters with glottal stops and teeth-sucking pauses and dyslexic lingering lisps is lost on them, they have their own letters to think about, don't you know?
(hundreds of pillows fly out my ears in increasing sizes, so i must be dreaming - Right?)
Yahtzee! Soccer! Give it the old college try!
(abstract oils crash and burn in a watchtower atop of your New Life)
It's Something to do with your Mouth, It's Something to do with your Hands, but we couldn't tell you why $2.50 wasted matters more than four months and the casual flinging of my (god forbid)
i n n o c e n c e
(you're happy and i'm unconscious, so in theory we're on the same wavelength - Right?)
can you assure me that everyone has two decades of nauseating mediocrity
or no - is it just me?
we Need coffee! we Need love! dread has to be evenly distributed - don't leave your years of it at my door!
(i don't want anybody's advice unless it's on how to fashion a fully-functioning noose)
tiny lips and long socks - i can't stop being in love with the whole two-eye/two-ear/nose/mouth ordeal but i'm utterly left-handed in my lust and i swear to god both hands are empty - but that's something else entirely
(back to where we started from, in bleeding headlights swimming on deserted streets)
'just wanted to throw an XO your way' say the eyes of every crossword connection i bend over backwards to trying to cater it to my thoughts of you
(For Sale: a storage unit of journals filled with sketches of you - it's pink and mushy and curled inside my head, if you're into that)
and it's only when we're in a bed together at 3:26 AM that belongs to neither you or me that i can consciously eliminate emptied emotions and neatly file them onto typeface notes hidden in bouquets decorating the dismal-ities of my freshly-planted tombstone
(fuse our bodies together and let's make this sarcophagus a necrophilia-polis)
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 2:24 AM UTC
Excuse me, if you must,
as the spinning causes seasickness.
Open the clouds as you continue on
in an aeronautical sarcophagus,
thirty-thousand feet
above broken land.
Grab your lover’s hair,
last resort to prepare for
the emergency crash landing
into mother earth’s disease,
or are they simply parting the seas,
causing darkness to spread
from the unfilled hole in their chest?
Stomachs turn as the
broken wings and sails
fall upon the shores.
An ocean of rage delivers
waves of hatred embraced.
The surf clears, exposing pain
and the premonition
of a cleansing blood red rain.
Shrieks of the banshee
and the howls of the hurt rise
to meet the clouds seeking
to brighten the days afar.
As thousands flee in terror
we make a toast in the French Quarter.
The chariots gain speed
and the wake gains mirth,
laughingly applauding
the approaching dark comedy.
The newly arrived antagonist
has forced the hero’s hand
and now she births forth
a wave of healing epidemics.
The wake’s in the wind
and the funeral’s imminent.
Its population’s been soothed
into a sedated slumber,
but our character has issued
too many warning,
and strikes deep at the heart
of this sinful city,
breaking apart the basin’s barrier,
and lulls its children back to sleep
with bloodstained lullabyes.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 1:13 PM UTC
I am choking, on the things left unsaid;
I am drowning, in their dread.
Smothered by the weight of my own tongue;
Coating my larynx, begging to be wrung.
My breath, stifled by unwritten letters draining into my esophagus;
Strangled words, using my body as their sarcophagus.
That one day, when I'm stronger, I'll find the courage to excavate.
Until then, I'll slowly ,asphyxiate.
Dec 27, 2016
Dec 27, 2016 at 5:02 AM UTC
wreckers arrive, trucks & sledgehammers & ball
on chain, tumbling brick walls
glass cacophony
crystals of sand.
demolition early, everyday ruins, debris
piles hills, constant removal.
wheels shifting loads
burial journey.
gulls fossick mountains discarded, peck at
rocks & remnants. banister
shattered, chunks of steps, rungless ladder.
a park ascends
sarcophagus past. developer opportunity
real estate soars, minion mcmansions.
corner view of water & trees, haven of
light & ore
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 8:16 AM UTC
been feelin' lousy lately
lethargic
lacking in energy and appetite
nauseated
something is wrong
it is a virus?
or a backlash from all that's been going on?
the interment was hard
my oldest brother presided
he's a former priest
my youngest brother sang and played guitar
he almost didn't make it through
but as he sang
the sun broke through the overcast
they put his ashes in a small white sarcophagus
afterwards, mom wanted to bid her farewell
by resting her hand on the "coffin"
my oldest brother led her there
they seemed to linger so I joined them
with one arm around mom
and one hand on the coffin
it had been a full month since he died
I thought I was all cried out
afterwards, we had a backyard potluck at my sister's
just family
four generations in attendance
and two gracious cousins
we were quite a crowd
it was good talking with my nieces and nephew
they're growing up
I don't see them nearly enough
like when they were kids
now there's only the future
yesterday was my birthday
at my age I used to dread it
and try to ignore it
but my younger brother's death fomented an urgency
to live and enjoy life
so happy birthday to me
at times he was my best friend and my worst enemy
my partner in night time bike riding
my parent's squealing pig prince
that got away with everything
good bye Terence
for the good times and bad times
I thank you
Sep 3, 2010
Sep 3, 2010 at 11:22 AM UTC
Vanity
Me?
Me?
Heightened sense of security
Me?
Me?
Vanity
Felt through everything
We’re the echoes through eternity
Me?
The fibers snap, snap conduct
Feverishly
Sending to benevolent web
Me?
I was there it was a ******* tragedy
You remember
That day?
Vanity
Me?
We’re more important than anything
This is the turn of the century
What we do
Echoes through eternity
Me?
Heightened sense of security
Big bro
He knows everything
Me?
We know everything
Anything we find
Quite conveniently
BLIND
Me?
A sarcophagus of time
This happened before in some other land
Before we knew of this
Time
BLIND
Me?
Vanity
Me?
Me?
Heighten sense of security
The fibers they snip snap tap
Feverishly
Conductivity
But we still don’t know ANYTHING
Me?
Vanity?
I was there it was a ******* tragedy!
Why’d they take the towers away
Did it really happen that day?
To
Me?
***** Monster
Narcissist Pharisee
Conscripted pet
Atrocity
I was there it was a ******* tragedy
Why’d they take the towers away?
Must have been vanity…
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
I used to enter the coffins of bathroom stalls
to dance my weird away
to be free from prying eyes…
now, they are chambers for my sadness
too small to hold it all
they are the mummy's sarcophagus
and I am cursed with your ghost.
I am
lonely
but the only place
large enough to hold all this loneliness
are your wide open arms.
"move on"
you said.
as if it was easy
like loving you,
as if it wasn't more
like dismantling pyramids from the top
down with a toothpick and an unsteady hand.
someday you will choose to love
but I am not the girl
to change your mind.
I am slowly accepting your death
brushing the dirt off of artifacts:
the way you held me
like an ancient civilization’s most precious deity,
late night walks
through labyrinths, with no wish for threads of return
jazz concerts, green jokes,
our staple, our oral tradition
and food always parted at the middle
a sacrifice for all the hopes we had
in this dating ritual.
you will never be the you that I once knew,
that you is dead
mummified,
existing only in my memory
like a brain kept in a jar
away from the rest of you.
This new you
(the only you that exists)
is a stranger
a different person
an un-dug desert, jungle un-ventured
and though
I grieve for he who has died
it would be stupid to dig up his grave
inside of you.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 8:40 AM UTC
I slog through this museum of people living their best life.
I hold my phone tightly.
Like an emotional support animal,
Cocooned in my bed.
I dig through people's lives like someone stuck in an avalanche.
The only movement I have are my fingers, swiping.
My body groans as it realizes it will be frozen through time.
It's 1PM and I’ve been awake since 6 AM scrolling.
It's hard to breathe, I can feel the weight in this Sarcophagus I built.
I force myself to focus in my own lane.
I can see someone had their heart broken,
It stands out in a crowded room like a glow stick.
Everyone can see your pain.
Everyone knows that we have been there and they regretfully have done that.
So let me stay on my island,
Barricading my insecurities and tucking them into my vulnerabilities
Until you can't see what’s hindsight with my 20-20 vision.
I’ll pile my damaged goods till it seeps out of the storage boxes with childhood toys in my mind
You will see my mind will grow calluses that built this lighthouse on my island
To let people know that I am damaged goods.
So steer clear, find your cargo elsewhere else.
So let's hear it,
What makes you think I can trust you.
Jul 27, 2021
Jul 27, 2021 at 7:19 PM UTC