"sepulchral" poems
I
Go on, high ship, since now, upon the shore,
The snake has left its skin upon the floor.
Key West sank downward under massive clouds
And silvers and greens spread over the sea. The moon
Is at the mast-head and the past is dead.
Her mind will never speak to me again.
I am free. High above the mast the moon
Rides clear of her mind and the waves make a refrain
Of this: that the snake has shed its skin upon
The floor. Go on through the darkness. The waves. fly back
II
Her mind had bound me round. The palms were hot
As if I lived in ashen ground, as if
The leaves in which the wind kept up its sound
From my North of cold whistled in a sepulchral South,
Her South of pine and coral and coraline sea,
Her home, not mine, in the ever-freshened Keys,
Her days, her oceanic nights, calling
For music, for whisperings from the reefs.
How content I shall be in the North to which I sail
And to feel sure and to forget the bleaching sand ...
III
I hated the weathery yawl from which the pools
Disclosed the sea floor and the wilderness
Of waving weeds. I hated the vivid blooms
Curled over the shadowless hut, the rust and bones,
The trees likes bones and the leaves half sand, half sun.
To stand here on the deck in the dark and say
Farewell and to know that that land is forever gone
And that she will not follow in any word
Or look, nor ever again in thought, except
That I loved her once ... Farewell. Go on, high ship.
IV
My North is leafless and lies in a wintry slime
Both of men and clouds, a slime of men in crowds.
The men are moving as the water moves,
This darkened water cloven by sullen swells
Against your sides, then shoving and slithering,
The darkness shattered, turbulent with foam.
To be free again, to return to the violent mind
That is their mind, these men, and that will bind
Me round, carry me, misty deck, carry me
To the cold, go on, high ship, go on, plunge on.
5k
The legere sacristy of pure love blazing
Feline confluence across ethereal plains
Arched angelic collusion of things sepulchral
The arcane occidere travisty of
Transmogrification canonized
Darkling eminence ordained;
The verity aura of radiance
Twilights tidal blood- dye magenta,
Germane sleek meagre wealth chiming lo!.
Finitudes golden prayer draping flounded
Brutality tithing the zenith with mealy
Doer aptitude majestically turbulent
Sacrificing thoriums weld feudal
Of heavens deceitful soothsayers,
Fellow djinn of Gotterdammerung
Soli of vilest stoic jingoism.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 7:07 AM UTC
1038
Her little Parasol to lift
And once to let it down
Her whole Responsibility—
To imitate be Mine.
A Summer further I must wear,
Content if Nature’s Drawer
Present me from sepulchral Crease
As blemishless, as Her.
2.3k
V
I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The gray dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,
O my Beloved, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go.
2k
I shall come back without fanfaronade
Of wailing wind and graveyard panoply;
But, trembling, slip from cool Eternity--
A mild and most bewildered little shade.
I shall not make sepulchral midnight raid,
But softly come where I had longed to be
In April twilight's unsung melody,
And I, not you, shall be the one afraid.
Strange, that from lovely dreamings of the dead
I shall come back to you, who hurt me most.
You may not feel my hand upon your head,
I'll be so new and inexpert a ghost.
Perhaps you will not know that I am near--
And that will break my ghostly heart, my dear.
1.8k
Tonight would not bridge
Two ordinary days.
Her idea would ignite
His imagination and mould
From the raw clay a vision
Through the churning heavens.
The ballet crafting their bodies
Scene through scene,
She whispers,
He listens,
They lay, as spoons often do.
A last glance over
The flowers and the candle,
Out the window through
The rain, wind, and thunder
Lighting their creation’s sight.
Chasing her through the forest,
She lets him, almost catch her.
Dancing themselves into vines
In a canopy hidden from the wind’s
Muffled thunder.
There, in their haven lush,
Ensnaring so deeply, too soon.
And away he turns himself to stone.
Twisting too tight around
The indifferent mountainous statue,
She snaps herself
And by the time he’s felt it,
Soft enough to turn and see-
See another statue’s backside,
Cold clay remolding into stone.
He stretches himself thin to reach,
Her sepulchral touch lays him out.
She sits, straddles, stares him down,
The lightning cracks behind her eyes,
Splitting her stone heart
Clean through flame,
Incinerating their quiet canopy,
Rising into the storm.
Chasing her through the fire,
She lets him, fan the flames.
Two dancers' violent rhythm
Raging with every touch, until
A tear, or two,
Undo the flames,
Dropping with the rain all in everything,
They fall, fall, fall
Flooding down the mountain
Rushing through the cracks
Left behind in the stone,
Flowing together a river
Through the trees, out to sea.
As two make one body their own,
The currents churning through.
A spiral sparks the children’s learning,
The whirlpool to the maelstrom
Surging their liquid body up
The column that would
This time reach the storm.
The lightning cracks behind their smiles-
Their love undoes gravity’s condensation.
Drifting,
Through the clouds,
Stars,
In each other’s arms,
The ballet crafting their bodies,
They lay, as spoons often do.
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 2:09 AM 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
the dregs of your spotted smiles somersaulted in an elegant arc
fell in helpless array and landed nine planets away from my feet
and something slightly old still feeds my anger at your impatience
I forage through my grace to keep my tongue from spilling mess
and my heart feels all squiggly as I sneeze my way to your mocking silence
I gladly offer sweet indulgence while you openly despise my faults
I forage through my fantasies, not wishing to appear so trivial
lesions swell on the plastic head of revulsion
let not depression eat at your sweet magical pulse
still strongly beating in the sometimes sepulchral coffers of life
scorn not the honey bee buzzing or the hummingbird flitting
embrace the nuisance of calamity
for it helps along the way
to make vigorous the spirit
to wedge a cardiac space in place of pillowcase full of stones
where giants sleep in silent meadows across the land
sensing no sharp slingshot from no nifty bottle legged creature
and disappearing into the thicket would be the right time
on a heavy back, a child carries a burden made of toxic crayons
to melt away the awful prejudice of its forbears; undo the chains
the bringer of rain stands alone in a puddle, or is it a lake?
are YOU awake?
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 1:40 PM UTC
"Me too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall show,
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnassian on my brow.
But I, or e'er that season come,
Escaped from every care,
Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
And sleep securely there."
So sang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordained to grace his native isle
With her sublimest song.
Who then but must conceive disdain,
Hearing the deed unblest,
Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread sepulchral rest?
Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones
Where Milton's ashes lay,
That trembled not to grasp his bones
And steal his dust away!
O ill-requited bard! neglect
Thy living worth repaid,
And blind idolatrous respect
As much affronts thee dead.
1.5k
you know
when i first beheld the icy greyness
of this giant sepulchral building
a giantness of Empty
a giantness of unrecognised surreal faces
a giantness of being sorta kinda lost
a giant lostness of slamming into glass doors
hurriedly breaking out
to a place i wanted to know
when i first beheld that giantness
i had never thought
imagined felt conceived
hell i had it all figured out
in what i thought was a deep deep experience
i had never thought
it would be that crisp
that quick
the creepiness of mounting heartbeat
pounding like a drumbeat
rising out into the rosiness of dawn
full of a wisdom of it's own experience
that it would be that supple
lifting me with effortlessness
like a wave of adrenaline
rush; gushing into my
guts; breaking out like
a furious river bent on
flowing with the vastness of the ocean
and the innocence of the sky
i had never thought
that is how you have a Crush.
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 2:59 AM UTC
The pillow’s creased, and coffee cold.
Drops on the window, you seek console.
I’m not there to comfort, or elucidate.
We share a glance, although you may not know.
All the time you were beside me.
Continues to tomorrow and today.
Dissolution and irreverence cloud you.
But I beckon for a light to shine.
Just know I miss you.
You’re never absent in my mind.
Dig yourself a hole, pitiful and abysmal.
I can’t see you when you hide behind my sepulchral existence.
I pine to see you alive once again.
Life seems equivocal and anachronistic.
Anger swoons.
Please don’t tumble into rash being.
I cannot stand to see you apathetic, not tending to your wounds.
Someday you’ll find me.
My eyes in another.
Please let me hold you.
I’ve come so far to be here to solace.
Don’t question my new frame or figure.
Just accept the love I trudged with vigor.
Dec 5, 2021
Dec 5, 2021 at 11:07 PM UTC
There is a war raging inside you.
A secret genocide;
an internal homicide;
a battle you cannot win.
Where are your allies?
They have all left you
as you spin further down
the drain.
They left you
because
you have left yourself.
As you look into the mirror,
you see a stranger;
I see someone I once knew.
I don’t know you
and
neither do you.
All that is left
is the shell of a man;
sharper than glass,
harder than diamond,
absolutely sepulchral,
and hollow to the core.
I have touched you
and the glass began to crack.
And I can’t help
but wonder
if this was my fault;
your downward spiral.
It’s only a matter of time
before you break
and leave me
to pick up the
pieces.
Is this really worth it?
Oct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012 at 12:47 PM UTC
my ghost, my ghost
my darling ghost
tonight, like most
leaves only sorrow in the sepulchral depths
of these quiet sheets
my heart, my heart
my foolish heart
will stop, then start
no matter how much I despise the sound
of those steady beats
my one, my one
my only one
like winter's sun
slides deeper behind the clouds above
-i must release
my hope, my hope
my endless hope
cannot fade, though forced away
for your peace
my ache, my ache
my lovely ache
i cling to with a child's fearful grip
unable to let go
my ghost of hope, my aching heart
my only one
you have shown me who i must become
and for you it will be so.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 3:36 AM UTC
In those sad words I took farewell:
Like echoes in sepulchral halls,
As drop by drop the water falls
In vaults and catacombs, they fell;
And, falling, idly broke the peace
Of hearts that beat from day to day,
Half-conscious of their dying clay,
And those cold crypts where they shall cease.
The high Muse answer'd: 'Wherefore grieve
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear?
Abide a little longer here,
And thou shalt take a nobler leave.'
1.1k
♪ ☠♫☃
Octosyllabic rhyme was killed.
Her epitaph I chisel here…
so face the book and feed your twit;
while I the rhythmic record clear.
The sad remains of Lyric Wit
are here interred – no more to rise
(lest poets’ brains be forced to think
and plummet from post-modern skies).
You phonies scrolling Twitter-blink,
and scribblers with advanced degrees
look up, and hearken to these words
while feigning your conceited ease.
The academic gallows-birds
reviewing chap-books, high on fluff
make darker the sepulchral gloom –
as if it wasn’t dark enough.
The verdict’s in and all assume,
as measured meaning leaves the court,
he meant to **** her (Poetry).
Life sentences are written short.
The killer grinning artlessly
in blank-verse handcuffs, void of rhyme,
composes abstract lines, the dull
memoirs of his poetic crime.
The prosecution’s notes are full
the case is made, the jury hears
his guilt made evident, at least.
The victim’s mother melts in tears
He murdered her himself, the beast.
then dumped her: a deflowered rose.
His incoherent imagery
dismembered her like slaughtered prose.
She met her end lamentably;
He did her in and cut her down
thus shortening her metered day.
(That free-verse wielding abstract clown!)
Behold her grave – where grass turns hay
as poets’ bones subside to dust;
her soul with God to reconvene
(or wander with bemused disgust).
Her grave-site paints a pastoral scene,
poetic fodder – life from death…
and calves shall fatten near her tomb.
Oh coward reader: take a breath !
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 9:22 PM UTC
3/2/2015
“I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything,
couldn’t do it anyway,
just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made
any sense, anything.
And I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t sit still or fix things and I wake up and I wake up and you’re still dead.” Richard Silken
I wrote of vultures once, I'd found in the sepulchral little category of "poems I had burnt a while ago" that I kept in my brain. I spoke of predatorial lashings against the dead prairie dogs of her and I, class of 2005- add ten more years and...
Contended May heat like the May-December romances in trope, I'd walk to bridges with notebook in sullied hand, a bit flushed, a bit healthy with the sun on my gold flakes shoulders If I had only known? Right? Haha.
The grammar rules of english: you (I) is a proper noun- but of course, i refuse to give myself that much pomp. To be full of such vanity is to be full of treacly purity- which does not apply so much now.
I had been given time to love you - until I didn't need you anymore, you said, then you'd leave- a sweetly sardonic little note, seeing as you hated the conjugal and impossible implications of "forever". I feel, now that you are gone, this is an imprisonment I am doomed to til atrophy...
You are dead. Your corpse rots in the sun of the soil in the coffin and it is still cold outside. Everytime I leave the house I ask myself what I seriously am expecting from March. The heat, the permenance of your being gone makes me sit down on the cold snow,
My dullard heart sits with a bread knife wedged on a rib when I realize how utterly alone I am- so alone the vultures do not even circle.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 7:45 PM UTC
I left my pitter patting feet
at the door
He said I can feel the heat
from a total lunar eclipse!
Maybe that's my overactive imagination
or the way we can run away from each other.
But no.
In my dreams, crispy crispy
benjiman franklin flips hot dogs
and street corners aren't so sepulchral
Your life may be just as worth saving as your dollars.
Feb 19, 2010
Feb 19, 2010 at 9:15 PM UTC
630
The Lightning playeth—all the while—
But when He singeth—then—
Ourselves are conscious He exist—
And we approach Him—stern—
With Insulators—and a Glove—
Whose short—sepulchral Bass
Alarms us—tho’ His Yellow feet
May pass—and counterpass—
Upon the Ropes—above our Head—
Continual—with the News—
Nor We so much as check our speech—
Nor stop to cross Ourselves—
998
Octosyllabic rhyme was killed.
Her epitaph I chisel here…
so face the book and feed your twit;
while I the rhythmic record clear.
The sad remains of Lyric Wit
are here interred—no more to rise
(lest poets’ brains be forced to think
and plummet from post-modern skies).
You phonies scrolling Twitter-blink
and scribblers with advanced degrees
look up, and hearken to these words
while feigning your conceited ease.
The academic gallows-birds
reviewing chap-books, high on fluff
make darker the sepulchral gloom—
as if it wasn’t dark enough.
The verdict’s in and all assume,
as measured meaning leaves the court,
he meant to **** her (Poetry).
Life sentences are written short.
The killer, grinning artlessly
in blank-verse handcuffs, void of rhyme,
composes abstract lines: the dull
memoirs of his poetic crime.
The prosecution’s notes are full
the case is made, the jury hears
his guilt made evident, at least.
The victim’s mother melts in tears
He murdered her himself, the beast.
then dumped her: a deflowered rose.
His incoherent imagery
dismembered her like slaughtered prose.
She met her end lamentably;
He did her in and cut her down
thus shortening her metered day.
(murderous, evil, free-verse clown!)
Behold her grave—where grass turns hay
as poets’ bones subside to dust;
her soul with God to reconvene
(or wander in bemused disgust).
Her grave-site paints a pastoral scene,
poetic fodder: life from death…
and calves shall fatten near her tomb.
Oh coward reader: take a breath !
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 10:47 PM UTC
sensation of sepulchral chasm inside my chest
threatening to devour me from inside out
knowledge is power, they say
but this I don't want to know
too late! the genie is out of the bottle
never to return
knowing can't be unknown
I turn to dust inside
I'm done
Feb 2, 2012
Feb 2, 2012 at 10:47 AM UTC
Horror of horrors! Dark lady, it’s you again
Abbess of shadow and sinister sprite.
Pray show me, sweet Nelida, how to express myself:
Passion? Pure malice? Or ****** by fright…
You opened the dungeons where dreams slept desireless
Vanquished my sleep of misogynist night.
A sepulchral shudder enlivens my being:
Liquescent infernoes of Gothic delight.
Elevation celestial or depths of despair –
No middle to stand on beholding your visage
The firmament drops as I swing in the air.
In this fall, or this orbit, show mercy, bright maiden
Nor quench solar fires with lunar disdain.
Eclipsing at zenith, you blacken my brain.
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 8:01 PM UTC