Best Dismemberment Poems
It's summer, and sunlight's syrup pours sweet into afternoon.
We've come to the bungalow's cemetery
to pick over bones of bygone days;
touch time's tender skin, lay flowers on childhood's grave.
The lodge is razed to the ground. We raise
our eyes to sky and take each big breath of blue.
Sharp lemon-light cuts through
the detritus of our days; the oaks once cloaked in dark.
The knotweed nooses and dreamlike domes of fly agaric
have all been cleared; the forest sentinels' leafless limbs
discarded - an abattoir of strangeness, sawdust-strewn.
But all dismemberment is a clearing of sorts.
The echoes of emptiness eavesdrop
on each reminiscence, as we forage for a few last remnants:
blue paisley swirls of 70s tiles,
red bricks from an 80s fireplace.
A yearning rises suddenly, slick sick-sour in my throat...
and yet, it feels cathartic, this purging of the past;
this merging of our then and now,
this blending of bitter and sweet.
23 February 2023
I was:
murdered
in the
bargain basement
of a
relationship.
chopped into
pieces of
discontented
dismemberment.
I am:
bleeding out
from a
deceitful
arrogance.
pooled in
muddled
puddles
of
forgiveness.
Does it not shimmer to the shine, the steel blade
Of dead reckonings ultimate design, cold is
Its fine edged point, a slicing masterpiece,
Of revolutionary engineering, behold deaths
Chopping silver anvil, the guillotine!
Polished by rags dipped crimson blood,
Washed by virgin waters of the fallen innocent,
From the martyr to the beggar thief,
It mattered not, to this abomination of
Humanities creation.
It wished nothing more except to be fed,
The head stones of the living, reveling in their
Screams of pain, and savoring the victims liquid
River of bodily fluids of terrors anguish.
A flashing chopping block, held and fastened,
By two wooden beams, apparatuses executioner,
Welding a suspended sword of destiny, at a
Ropes pivot center of weights mass,
Of crime or injustice!
The hooded condemned kneel underneath this,
Metal toothed demonic demon, praying
Their deaths to be swift, begging God
For salvation's intervention, but the beast
Awaits hungrily, demanding his tributes prize,
A bloody sacrifice of flesh and bone!
It almost seems to be a living entity,
Waiting, anticipating the carnage that is
To come, as the celebrating crowds gather.
Death’s grim reaper, kicks over the bags
Of weighted sand, just then the biting
Giant hammer clamps down, the final cut is done,
And the head basket of doom, is full at last!
The kindred brethren of the now deceased,
Yell hurray at this gruesome grandiose display,
Of carnages dismemberment and bloody
Theatrics, applauding for more!
Does it not shimmer to the shine, the steel blade
Of dead reckonings ultimate design, cold is
Its fine edged point, a slicing masterpiece,
Of revolutionary engineering, behold deaths
Chopping silver anvil, the guillotine!
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Even should a mother forget
but she cannot
but even if she could
God has sent His mother
to hold the bloodied limbs
in her arms
just as she held God’s humanity
in the folds of her dress
when all had been done.
Her altar of flesh
prepared His Body to rise.
She is there, too,
in the darkened room
where millions of mothers
are crying or trying to forget
or feeling the weight of life
left, gone—regretful or not,
God’s Mother is there
just the same
piecing together
the most bewildering puzzle—
Why?
She cries and remembers
the nails
the spear
the sword,
the pressure
the fear
the force
all for dismemberment.
But it is not the end.
Holding severed flesh
on her lap
in the folds of her dress
she prepares her children
to rise.
But what comes before
is freedom’s forgotten side,
the hidden part
the place we’re not allowed to see
or think about too long.
What would it be like
if our minds could comprehend
the choice placed in our lives—
the tiny seed we could nourish or not?
What would it be like
if we really understood
this freedom to accept or not:
Everyone!
Pro-life, pro-choice, nonaligned!
What would it be like
if we all understood
the freedom that we have
every second of the day
to build or destroy
to speak or be silent
to accept or reject
to say “I” in the face of given-ness.
What choice do we make?
Or do we simply not choose,
let others decide
the fate of our own flesh and blood
and “I”
Will we say:
I didn’t really want to, but…?
Killed our own selves
abandoned our will
left it to die
alone
on the side of the road.
Our own self dismembered
acting against its soul.
But God’s image will not be erased
though the dismembered member
of the human race
is killed by its own.
Maternity waits
and holds our freedom
in the folds of her dress.
The choice has been made.
We can say “no” or “yes.”
Rita A. Simmonds
January 23, 2019
Running cracks of lead flaked paint, spiders across the front door like a grandfather's
forehead.
Its hinges squeal from years of inattention and forgotten maintenance
Floor boards moan a song of dismemberment and forgotten age
While musty gloom thickens the air – inhibiting, restricting, compressing breaths
Entrance ways lead to hallways which culminate and connect enclosed spaces,
hovering in an atmosphere of haunt and mourn
Conversations linger, echoing within walls of dine and feast
settings arranged from ritual –
two plates,
two bowls,
two cups,
two knives,
two spoons,
two forks,
two napkins,
two chairs,
with only voice and ephemeral trace.
Twisted unleveled stairs, escalate to second stories
letters to love and hate cover ancient mourning boards.
Segmented space divides the infant from maturation.
Cracked spine, chipped rails, exposing the wooden crib core
Superficial angst and rage characterizing the infant's facade,
yet delicate love exposed in clean white linens pressed and laid in perfection
sets the bedding stage for stuffed bears and embroidered blankies
Toppled bookcase defecates bound knowledge across adult wooden bed frame
disheveling sheets, rugs, and right angles,
its half fallen posture exposes entrance way to hidden passages.
Between walls, moving slow as not to catch thread to exposed nail, pipe, or wire
shoulders grazing support beams, pace entranced by flattening florescence bulbed ceilings
Each step enclosing space tighter and tighter
Climax turns to anticlimax as exit opens to
a hermetic cell of textural paint echoing skin blotched and boiled.
Surrounding walls of tattered gold, ulcer red and puss filled purple,
each based with blotched skin.?Encircles full length mirror exposing views of deceased
discomfort –
Black glass glows within frame of ornate wood
spiking and curling with baroque transcendence
Reflecting back a ghost of future deceased persona.
I am going to write about violence
What is violence?
Is it when you invade on other people's rights
and cause harm?
Or is it when you do with such force
that could cause harm?
Whatever it is
It is good to know that we need to stay away from violence
Whether exposing ourselves
through movies, dramas, episodes
or practicing it
We need to stop
Guard it
Guard your heart
Don't let it hardened
And think everything is the norm
Everything is not a norm
Only the good and worthy are the norms
We live in such a violent world
that if we don't guard ourselves
We will be sucked into it
When was the last time you were sucked into violence?
Can you be sucked into violence?
Have you ever heard "it's a vicious cycle"?
Yes that is what violence is
- A vicious cycle
Someone got to break it
And it could be you
Don't practice it
Say "stop"
Whatever you should do
to make yourself stop it
You cannot do it on your own
You need others' help
God's help
He will help you
if you reach out and ask for it
No one should go into a vicious dismemberment
That is what it is
It is cutting your head from your body
That you can't think
You lost it
Anyhow get some help, will ya?
If you are a victim of violence
You need help too
Sometimes the help you need the most
is the emotional help
Get with someone
You need to get the darkness out
So you can see the light
Sometimes if only you could see
Whatever it is
Remember light drives out darkness
Expose yourself to the light
God's light
Any lights
Light in people
Light in you
Find it
Then you will be the one
- the champion of your own life
Do, will ya
Don't need to tell you twice
Unless it's me
Then you need to tell me twice
Haha just kidding
I don't like orders
Just want to tell ya
The encumbrance of
life
Copious and
never-ending
A leaching
gangrenous wound
In need of
dismemberment
From his torpid soul
The medicinal
elixirs have raped
the mind
And replaced it with
a dense syrup
That makes
cognition, onerous
He cares for nothing
Feels nothing—is
nothing
A means to an end
Has him captivated
Fixated on the task
Relief is at hand
But he lacks the
strength and courage
Soldiers in uniforms
Crucifying their brothers
In order to establish
Justice for their colors
Why on earth is this
Even accepted
To kill and proclaim
Death by dismemberment
Killing all people
Our friends and relatives
Who's really our enemy
When your killing your family
To live by a cause
Diseased by corruption
No matter what faction
Your reason is false and disrupted
Nothing can be justified
If your killing your brothers
Killing is killing
Whether its me
Or your mother
No law to decide
What is right
Or who dies
Just body's that lie
Facedown by a guy
Whos spilling
All the blood
Of the victims
As god is the witness
No one is innocent.
And the killers
Keeps on killing.
I’m calling the Suicide Hotline,
This sad Cowboy poetry is getting me down,
I’m looking for a happy thought,
But one just can’t be found.
I’ve got a case of Cowboy Melancholy,
Depression of the deepest kind,
A malady that causes Cowboy Poets,
To think only in disparaging rhyme.
Perhaps you’ve not heard of it,
It’s a little talked about affliction,
That sneaks up rather slowly,
And attacks a Cowboy’s diction.
It starts with Cowboys talking,
About having to shoot their horse,
Or the death of the very last Longhorn,
And Cowboy life having run it’s course.
They tell about being stomped by a bronc,
About how women will break your heart,
Don’t say there won’t be no more Cowboys,
Please, just leave out that part.
Death, dismemberment, getting gored,
It makes me sorrowful and morose,
I tell you these gloomy Cowboy poems,
Boarder upon the verbose.
Is there nothing to say that’s amusing?
Or perhaps a bit light-hearted?
Is Cowboy life, nothing but strife,
And all about the dearly departed?
Does any one remember,
When Cowboy poetry was fun?
I tell you we got us a Crisis !
Quick ! Someone call COW-1-1 !!!
We need some recitation resuscitation,
If Cowboy poetry we are to save,
Go easy on that couplet verse,
About Cowboys in unmarked graves.
Hook those paddles to our pencils,
And everyone stand clear,
Shock the daylights out of us,
Till we write Cowboy poetry delightful to hear.
I vote we form a support group,
With a name somewhat synonymous,
A two-step Western program of sorts,
And call it Cowboy Poets Anonymous.
I suppose I could surrender to the urge,
Recite just one poem of despondent refrain,
But I took the oath, and from this day on,
From this Cowboy Curse I’ll try to abstain.
" Hi, my name is ________, (fill in the blank!)
and I’m a Cowboy Poet... "
Copyright © 1999 Debra Coppinger Hill
The tiny old school, which was my first guide,
has become a museum of a distant age.
The playground--swings, bars, and slide,
still stand in mute dismemberment stage.
A fence around, a ticket to buy,
purchasing memories packed away.
Days so distant, unseen if you try;
Sharpened pencil scent, recalled today.
Inside, Grade One, up the stairs, Grade Two.
How can it now all appear so small?
So proud to pass to second-grade view
learning how to write, we felt so tall!
The tables are there: six of us at each,
and now I don't remember one name.
They gave our class the best to teach:
so tiny, like one of us, we felt the same.
Some memories better left behind,
with sadness they bring of years long past;
and daydreams we always hoped to find
around the corner where dreams can last.
September 13, 2022
for Back to School contest
by Francine Roberts
Honorable Mention
Poets Escape
by Odin Roark
How willing
This heart and mind
Absorbing pain's daily prose
Global flagellation becoming
Best sellers
Top Box-office
Google's lifeblood
Whether Syria's dismemberment
Washington's absurdity
Or Hollywood's Grand Guignol Follies
Exhausted passions and intelligence
Clutter synaptic duty
Excused as collateral damage
Everyday wars of fear
Slowly accelerate
This self-destructive countdown
Repeating Time's insidious cycle
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
While few escape
Some find refuge
In the manifestos of metaphor
Using echoes of cranial madness
Illusion's manic voice
Mumbling through the night
Arranging similes
This is like that
That is this
Until...
Dream's phosphoreal mirage
Becomes imagination's reality
Layered tapestry hanging firm
Mind's needlework in progress
Becoming woven experience
To shroud forever
Weakness's acquiescence
For what?
For whom?
Poets know not
They just are
You scrape a living in a harsh barren land,
never ceasing the hope,
that rain will finally come.
Covered with spines, you brace, and wait out every storm,
yet bearing fruit, just those few days of the year.
You bring color to the desert, ever reaching to the heavens.
Brushing off dismemberment,
a new shoot where a severed limb once sprouted.
Seemingly the giant of the wasteland,
but often, merely a small potted plant.
Knowing full well that the next day may very well be your last.
The scorch of the noonday sun blazes down,
drying, burning, razing to the ground,
what has clung desperately to life.
But still, the Cacti, endure...
Scattered pictures lay crumbled in the fire,
smashed mirrors with reflections,
blinded by the darkness.
I needed you like air.
I longed for you like water.
I ached for you like food.
Deep in the dismemberment of
our trickled reality
I found a hole I needed to fill.
A hole.
A deep endless hole.
Needing to be filled.
Torrential winds exasperated
the flames of sour regret.
Pages burnt up into ashes
causing an existence of
depression and mania.
I bled for you like a razor.
I lived for you like life.
I held love for you like crazy.
Introspect and intellect must have
been confused with my happiness.
My sanity does remember
your broken heart.
My insanity forgot my broken soul.
Bring me back from the depth
I have fallen into....
Will continue to fall into...
if I stay...
Written By: Laura Loo
Date Written: March 27, 2016
Beware of those who would solicit your political or economic loyalty
by attributing to you
fear, anger, and/or hate motivations,
concerns,
issues you presumably share.
Integrity,
potentially sustainable through multiple regenerations,
follows the lights and richer-hued darks of your positive motivations,
shared loves and hopes
and multiculturing beauties of healthier nurture
and wealthier nutrition.
Shared pathologies breed merely mutual immunities.
Co-arising positive energy investments
respond to shared empathic trust,
roots of politically empowered
and economically enlightened relationship,
rather than absence of re-ligious relationship,
graceful integrity,
or even a decent sense of humor.
Encourage your parents to read this,
suggest they kindly invite your more generously mindful integrity,
rather than immunity of collusive ignorance,
competitive Business As Usual,
passively longing to become less lonely.
Expect your political parties
to remember parties begin with invitations to shared passions
and pleasures,
not fear, not hate
concerns about dismemberment,
financial marginalization,
debates about who lives inside sanity
and who does not.
These are monotheistic traumas of toxic stews,
narcissistic supreme-designs
compromising organic polyculturing integrity.
Feed actively cooperating empathy,
to starve hyperactive competing fears
and angers
and hatreds
disgraceful nationalistic/partisan/tribal
disempowering distrust.
Beware those who would use your fears
because they are not resourceful enough
to own and name and claim our co-empathic ecopolitical love
for a compassionate pleasure party,
Earth's optimally healthy therapeutic wealth.
Beware of false Medicine Men.
It’s all right if I fall apart
Vases are meant to be broken
My glue fails in togetherness
See ancient plain of jars stalwart
Old, weathered, and unwoken
It’s all right if I break into pieces
The day comes with its crazy glue
Beckoning me to keep it together
So what if others look mint
I practice wholeness bruised
I’m letting go of perfecting
Even fine porcelain has its cracks
Brokenness has its rewards
Scattered see how the pieces fit
When the day comes hammering
The whole is afraid of falling
Down below nowhere to go
Perfect in imperfection is a relief
Pieces of me drop away again
My heart lurching finds a home
If only my pieces have a voice
Speak my broken objections
Help me to remember shattering
Natural as peaceful dissection
Poking anthropology for clues
Without dismemberment true
How can I know the whole?
It’s all right if there is no glue
Don’t put me together falsely
Finding perfection in pieces
Vases are fine either way