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Melodies XLIX; In A Suburban Home
Upon that desktop dais---you hesitate to
call it a headrest---the decapitated head
stares at you with a gaze that can only be
described as embodying exponential hatred:
multiplying geometrically and proportionately---
other haters still intact cannot precisely
explain this---with the passage of time.
You sit, stiffly, before it; aware of its
extreme contempt for you (disclosed without
words by the horrific expression on its
deadening face), and unable to move from its
presence; and fully aware that you are, now,
unable to move at all. The twitch in your
somewhat twisted, perhaps even broken, limbs
cannot be harnassed to effect any sort of
escape; and, perhaps, the head understands
this and, immobilized itself, finds the irony
somewhat amusing: not enough to bring a
smile to replace that glare---furious and
enfuriating---that seems to generate the
principle, the curse, the vivifications by which
you remain alive, though you continue to
gush a seemingly unlimited amount of blood
through what is left of the ragged stump
that was once your neck. Within the room,
certain houseflies are gathering in groups, and
their excited buzzing seems to convey a joyous
curiosity. Disgusting, but instinctive, opportunists,
they will not be daunted by the rage that
festers in the stare of the head, or your somewhat
more languid inability to avoid their presence.
Outside, in the next yard, which is quite well trimmed,
two beautiful adolescents---having attained
their eighteenth birthdays within a week of
each other, now delight in a very casual game of
lawn croquet. Not visible, to your or the head, are
their shoes and shirts, abandoned at the base of an
ancient tree's trunk. Their shoulder length hair
shimmers in the summer sunlight, which kisses and
caresses their slender, bare torsos. The faded,
frayed cuffs of their baggy, bell-bottom jeans do not
fully conceal the blue and lavender stripes on their
socks, of which their soles are, as always, grass-stained.
Best friends since kindergarten and through high school,
they have become, recently, homogenous lovers
(perhaps inevitable; but no less eagerly accepted), and
neither of them imagines that this house contains a room
that contains an angry bodiless head and a
shivering headless body.
Starward
You Paint Portraits
I am enwrapped in your intellectual ability to capture so many details.
bananas are the perfect food
for prostitutes
Thank you so very much. Your
Thank you so very much. Your comments always mean so much to me.
Starward
This has both wit and the
This has both wit and the fright factor: It induced a smile along with a delightful sinking feeling of horror that begins in earnest with the words "still intact". Using second person point of view was a crafty and very effective strategy. Now we're face (so to speak) face with the unappeasable torment of a hell even Dante couldn't have dreamed up.
What makes it truly delectable, besides the ingeniously spun descriptions and waiting for the next horrific shoe to drop, was the sheer delight of witnessing justice. You didn't just conquer as the ultimate prude slayer, but added an element of humor. I mean, what's mortifying justice without a good laugh, and what could be better than the sneering, snarling half-prude listening to the blissful laughter of those they once condemned?
Astonishingly clever and thoroughly enjoyable work. Keep the chills coming!
Thank you so much for your
Thank you so much for your encouraging comment. Two comments, each from a Poet whose greatness on postpoems I admire so much, make me feel much better about this poem, which was, when I began to compose it, very heistant and tentative.
Starward