Post by Sunsetfur on Apr 3, 2008 21:15:19 GMT -5
This a poem I wrote...for no reason at all. XD Let me know what you think, please!
++ Cheating Death
Against towering cliffs of bronze stone
the sea agonizingly throws itself, shattering
into a million tiny fragments of moonlight
and liquid thunder, as if it were trying to
end its own pain with the bleak, unfeeling rock
as its choice weapon.
This was where Death rose up from
a jagged trench in the ocean floor, decked in
black and silver, tall and elegant, his face
crow-like and handsome.
He stepped out onto the weather-worn crags
where eagles made their prickly nests
and hundreds of barnacles clung to the eroding
stone, seeming to glide across its crest;
beneath his feet, the grass shrivels up, recoiling,
black as if burned by fire, and the wind halts
and swerves aside to let Death pass unhindered.
He chances upon a gravel road
that curls through the wet forests like the sunlight
through murky water—merging with the wild,
no definite boundaries marked—and begins to
follow it, shooting down birds with the lightning
that now tears the sky apart.
Suddenly he halts.
A glint of smudged copper, a glint off of metal
in in the road, and on it is a face, a face he
knows well: he always remembers the faces
of those he has already taken.
From the dented surface of the penny Death sees
that familiar face gazing in a direction perpendicular
to his own, and he lets out a scream of anger,
swiping his hand down to bring a bolt
of white lightning to smite the coin where it lies.
The face is dead once more.
Troubled, Death ghosts into a city, peering into
windows, poring over the street signs,
and is met over and over by the faces
of those who should be dead—there they stand,
gazing unblinkingly at him, laughing at his failure
to trap their souls away forever.
They smile serenely out from biographies,
encyclopedias, obituaries, paintings,
their words caught in the carefully constructed cage
of print, their voices frozen in minds of others…
Death in his fury drags an inferno of stormclouds
across the sky, and slashes out at the images
of his prisoners with his arrows and daggers
and poisoned darts wrought of crackling energy,
destroying them one by one, casting his shadows
around the universe, taking back what is now his,
creating a shroud of somber clouds
over the earth, the stars.
Again and again the lightning strikes.
Death is raging across the Eurasian continent,
wiping the remnants of his prisoners
away from the living world, forgetting his
purpose, forgetting about spiriting away
more souls in his madness
to eradicate the evidence that these
dead ones had once been alive.
Meanwhile, the beautiful black gates
are being thrust open—Death’s friends
have all joined the game, the hunt for the
images and memories of the dead—and the
deceased are creeping out, inserting themselves back
into the places where the lightning had struck.
Death spins around, and sees the pistol jam
in the hand of the holder, a bloodied survivor
of a car crash crawl out from the wreckage, a miracle,
the claws of the lion never entered the trembling
gazelle’s flesh, the man who was falling
was caught, the girl who was drowning
survived, the burning flames were extinguished…
Death had abandoned
his duties, and allowed life to persevere.
Overwhelmed by mania, Death
turned to the sea, cast himself down into the
rocks at the bottom, his hands trapped beneath him,
torn and bleeding from the ragged rocks,
but he could not die—
after all, he is Death.
He sinks back down into his empire
and drags the gates closed, sending his
followers to bring back the escaped.
Never again does he return to the lands above.
For the living have their reminders
of the dead,
and Death himself has reminders of the living,
their miseries and heartbreaks;
Death himself knows horror:
a thousand little scars
where the rocks had ravaged his hands.
++ Cheating Death
Against towering cliffs of bronze stone
the sea agonizingly throws itself, shattering
into a million tiny fragments of moonlight
and liquid thunder, as if it were trying to
end its own pain with the bleak, unfeeling rock
as its choice weapon.
This was where Death rose up from
a jagged trench in the ocean floor, decked in
black and silver, tall and elegant, his face
crow-like and handsome.
He stepped out onto the weather-worn crags
where eagles made their prickly nests
and hundreds of barnacles clung to the eroding
stone, seeming to glide across its crest;
beneath his feet, the grass shrivels up, recoiling,
black as if burned by fire, and the wind halts
and swerves aside to let Death pass unhindered.
He chances upon a gravel road
that curls through the wet forests like the sunlight
through murky water—merging with the wild,
no definite boundaries marked—and begins to
follow it, shooting down birds with the lightning
that now tears the sky apart.
Suddenly he halts.
A glint of smudged copper, a glint off of metal
in in the road, and on it is a face, a face he
knows well: he always remembers the faces
of those he has already taken.
From the dented surface of the penny Death sees
that familiar face gazing in a direction perpendicular
to his own, and he lets out a scream of anger,
swiping his hand down to bring a bolt
of white lightning to smite the coin where it lies.
The face is dead once more.
Troubled, Death ghosts into a city, peering into
windows, poring over the street signs,
and is met over and over by the faces
of those who should be dead—there they stand,
gazing unblinkingly at him, laughing at his failure
to trap their souls away forever.
They smile serenely out from biographies,
encyclopedias, obituaries, paintings,
their words caught in the carefully constructed cage
of print, their voices frozen in minds of others…
Death in his fury drags an inferno of stormclouds
across the sky, and slashes out at the images
of his prisoners with his arrows and daggers
and poisoned darts wrought of crackling energy,
destroying them one by one, casting his shadows
around the universe, taking back what is now his,
creating a shroud of somber clouds
over the earth, the stars.
Again and again the lightning strikes.
Death is raging across the Eurasian continent,
wiping the remnants of his prisoners
away from the living world, forgetting his
purpose, forgetting about spiriting away
more souls in his madness
to eradicate the evidence that these
dead ones had once been alive.
Meanwhile, the beautiful black gates
are being thrust open—Death’s friends
have all joined the game, the hunt for the
images and memories of the dead—and the
deceased are creeping out, inserting themselves back
into the places where the lightning had struck.
Death spins around, and sees the pistol jam
in the hand of the holder, a bloodied survivor
of a car crash crawl out from the wreckage, a miracle,
the claws of the lion never entered the trembling
gazelle’s flesh, the man who was falling
was caught, the girl who was drowning
survived, the burning flames were extinguished…
Death had abandoned
his duties, and allowed life to persevere.
Overwhelmed by mania, Death
turned to the sea, cast himself down into the
rocks at the bottom, his hands trapped beneath him,
torn and bleeding from the ragged rocks,
but he could not die—
after all, he is Death.
He sinks back down into his empire
and drags the gates closed, sending his
followers to bring back the escaped.
Never again does he return to the lands above.
For the living have their reminders
of the dead,
and Death himself has reminders of the living,
their miseries and heartbreaks;
Death himself knows horror:
a thousand little scars
where the rocks had ravaged his hands.
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