Best Marionette Poems
"Marionette of Flesh in a Borrowed Dress"
- Daniel Henry Rodgers
The hourglass,
a skeletal jester
mocks in the tomb's chill
Each falling grain an emaciated sigh,
"Soon you'll cease to be."
The mirror's cold reflection,
a Gorgon's ghastly guise
A marionette of flesh with vacant...
hollow...
colorless eyes.
The worms, like pallid mourners
watch me shrink
A marionette of organs,
cold and pale, pink.
This flesh, a borrowed dress
once sprightly
Now stained and thin
Holds tight the secrets only
death can win.
This borrowed dress,
a shroud where my story's writ
In laughter's faded stitch
and tear's accusing slit.
A map of life etched deep
with scars that mar the grain.
A raven of fleeting triumphs
a pendulum of ceaseless pain.
In the shadowed hollows
where sorrow resides
I languish.
marionettes of fate's cruel designs!
Each scratch and cut a lament.
each tear a bitter sea!
Bound by the chains of my...
limited mortality.
In this borrowed dress,
I mourn what could have been...
Lost in the convulsion of my own... sin.
I am transformed
but not redeemed.
I am drifting into the void
My spirits are shattered
and my dreams destroyed.
So in the silence of eternity
I find my rest
Lost in this body of my own...
detest.
And though this shell
a chrysalis
soon withers
and decays
I cast aside the shroud
no longer bound or worn.
Accept the endless night,
where a new self-forlorn is bourne.
Transformed
a residual relic
through the void
I fly
Suture with stardust catgut,
a worn scroll in the sky.
~Marionette Master~
All my dreams evolve around my wooden floor
Candles and clowns the show must go on
~~~~
The Moon slowly moves its way into my room
Dust pushes through my window making shadow puppets on my walls
The talent on my walls dance, scaring my sweet dreams away
No cradle-songs tonight
Dangling artisans’ fingertips scratching down my core
Exquisite observation, an alley down “Death Street.”
Panic rattles my bone,
Stuttering a taste of ma' ma' ma' mama' off my lips
Grandfather clock ticks with every pull of the string
Invisible jellyfish puppets swaying their feelers that sting my site
A superior skill eating away at my fear
I can’t breathe,
I can’t move,
It dangles!
What can I do?
Carved Marionette figures locked in my head
A game in which trickery and deception are the main events
Staged with an evil sinister mask, sanctioning my nightmares.
No one to rescue me from the danger of this bedside playground.
The puppeteer engages to provoke me with my own dolls.
A dramatic performance throttles my mind …….
I cannot come out from under my blanket,
I cannot run,
My hands cannot reach the circus print lampshades!
A shadow show played in slow motion!!!
Realizing the moon can pull a world of strings with its own light
***
Suddenly, boney fingers from the sunrise show me the way…
I look down until my toes touch the cold wooden floor
I creep and creep,
Then I flick on my lamp.
The purple walls swallowed the orgy drawing inspired by the mooned night
A huge diversity of graphic illusions of puppetry in my room vanishes in one click
Mother please no more Pinocchio in my lullabies! ;-)
A marionette to the mind,
Whispering fading schematics,
Deluging the heart and soul, in a
Juxtaposition of good and evil,
Betwixt Heaven and hell, amidst
Snowdrifts that swirl before my eyes, while
Spiritless shadows restlessly carouse;
Discordantly, far from reach,
Vagrantly ambling across
Deadened Arcadias, glimpsing
Floating embers, in wake of
Vivid firestorms, swallowing me whole,
Faltering with every step I take,
Decelerating towards the escape I seek,
As it rhythmically scars my timorous nature,
Awakening the monsters hidden deep within-seeing red-
Bleeding out miasmic toxins, as noxious
Spores erupt, immersed in a haze of austerity,
While it seeps and saturates, throughout
Malignant wounds exposed, undulating between
The storms of push and pull, as daunting
Tasks, of rippling sequences, splits my
Chasmic core.
Soulless footprints are all that remain, as
Moon tides wash ashore, ebbing away
Towards dystopian depths.
There’s three puppets here,
You and him are on the stage;
I am in the box.
·
I am in the box,
Tangled up in my own strings:
Waiting for my turn.
·
Waiting for my turn,
I know, I won’t have that chance:
Darn this puppeteer!
·
Darn this puppeteer,
Pulling your strings far from me:
While you enjoy your show.
·
While you enjoy your show,
My wooden heart snaps for you:
Splintering my soul.
“4-Minutes”
For Matt Caliri’s Write Now! Contest
Your crooked smile
A marionette with broken strings
So only one corner is pulled up
Save me from your eyes
Ruts in the road
Where all the good things pool that nobody sees
I’m drowning in the water
That’s only up to my ankles
I thought I was having fun on a rainy day
But I think I fell too hard
I can’t look away
From this strange mess I’m in
Ankle puddles on rainy days
I have wet socks but that’s ok
You make my cold feet…
Disappear
I don’t want to sing in the rain
No…
I want to scream
I want tears and rain to run into my mouth
A little salt brings out the sweetness
Rescue me because I’m drowning
Look at your reflection one last time
Until it breaks
And you’re gasping for air
Come into the deep
I’m waiting
Are you afraid of sharks?
Know that they will smell the blood on my hands
I’m not who you think
I hope that's okay
On a rainy day
Will you be my umbrella?
Will you be my broken marionette?
With your crooked smile
And eyes I have to look away from
I’m not shy…
I’m afraid of you
April 30th, 2018
Feeding on nothing but misfortune, scoffing at others,
It pretended to be nothing more than a tragedy.
Foolish story.
Exposing such an ugly and warped heart.
The relation that is hidden by my real mind,
And suspicion was born from this relation.
The overwhelming suspicion will change me to the
Ugly and lonely monster.
Marionette scoffs at me,
He does not know my sorrow.
He may act as a good natured person,
And he's convinced that I'm "Happy."
Forcing hypocrisy and looking down on others,
I pretend to be nothing but the hero of the story,
But unsightly the protagonist.
I want to correct my ugly and broken heart.
Marionette does not know how to cry,
He will never know my true pain.
When I continued reading my own story,
I am unsure of what he will do to my future.
Lonely visitor crying in the theatre,
"My story has nothing in it."
Then the real genuine story,
"Let's begin it once again."
This relation will make me into the
Beautifully straight human.
Marionette finally smiles at me,
Beginning the clumsy story.
It may be suitable for
The foolish story.
Wooden arms,
vanilla legs
dance on
Prague’s cobblestones,
painted eyes
haunt
the musical sway.
Written by Lee Ramage
September 23, 2012
For Nette Onclaud’s contest
Septolet the Puppet
The Handwriting of the Marionette
David J Walker
The confessional was
Paper-thin cursive in ink
A life of sin laid out in as few lines
As were memorable in a
Second person narrative
The ventriloquist's voice opened
The service with a far-off prayer
In another language of tongues
Which only the faithful could bare
As the maître de la marionette
Guided her signed confession
Utopia would open its gates
In the wake of the waves drowning
The funeral pyre
So goes the soul as the steam rose
From the cut strings to the
arcadian clouds somewhere higher
And higher
Strings severed
No more dancing
Can't dance
Useless
Lifeless
With two left feet
Date written and posted: 04/09/2016
Incantations of A Dancing Marionette, Dancing Nighttime directional Vapors of Death
invisible, nefarious fumes that make the dead
terminations that rises, to awaken one's head
up and vomit! plead and shout!
but your voice needs air to breath
now Deceased, a (the) criminally sacrificed dead
choking incomplete incantations, Uttered in you head (prayers)
beg for clemency, you will receive no answer
although, tears may flow
consequences have already been taken
crafted from a hellish place
hold back , one's bleeding pinkish achromatic (black) tears
human suffering is but a necked ritualistic, activate,
frequencies of self-contained housing units of fated fears...
aka:lyricvixen
aka:verlecia
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Incantations of A Dancing Marionette, Dancing Nighttime directional Vapors of Death (4/30-2017-sun) (fixed)
invisible, nefarious fumes that make the dead
terminations that rise, to awaken one's head
up and vomit! plead and shout!
but your voice needs air to breathe
now Deceased, the criminally sacrificed dead
choking incomplete incantations, Uttered in you (your) head (prayers)
beg for clemency, you will receive no answer
although, tears may flow
consequences have already been taken
crafted from a hellish place
hold back , one's bleeding pinkish achromatic (black) tears
human suffering is but a naked ritualistic, active,
frequencies of self-contained housing units of fated fears...
Marionette moves
manipulator hovers
someone pulling strings...
strands of literate design
the audience is transfixed
She sits in silence upon the bed,
hands folded neatly, but with drooping head.
Her gossamer chords, silvery and fair,
float gently through the winter's evening air.
Slowly, his music fills her hollow form
as she waits for him to strum her gossamer chords.
A dancing silhouette, bending to his will--
spiraling, swirling, or capriciously still.
His fingers dance across those gossamer strings
as she silently floats across the floor.
Tirelessly she performs the night through,
never once missing her cue.
As his haunting music begins to fade,
and he slowly turns away,
she slumps back against the bed--
hands folded neatly, but with drooping head.
Alesia Leach © 2/2015
imagined by others,
s/he is approached as the
perfect candidate,
s/he is that last
perfect
puzzle
piece,
which will make the whole
monstrosity,
complete &
not a shred of talent matters,
not a shred of ambition is
needed,
not a shred of ideals, not a
shred of intelligence, not a
shred of anything but the
will to obey for dollar bills &
the obligation to keep that
cocaine figure,
with a face that can be pumped
full of twisting
poison, as many contractual times
as possible,
as long as it brings in the
bucks,
as long as it makes the hormones
run,
as long as it makes the flailing hands
throw coins in the coffer
with silent hopes that a blowjob is
just down the line---
and when the marionette finally
makes it rain,
the puppet masters pulling the strings
edge back & hide behind the curtain
allowing for the fresh face
to suck up the credit &
dance the way they do best,
to the sounds of the cameras clicking,
the face**** posting (tattering smartphone
fingers ablaze), the light speed twattering
& the real time, still human,
amphetamine babbles that come
out as a side effect of anyone glued to
all said screens.
now these curious kitties finding
everything via the web, want to make
certain that the dancer is in fact the
author of the piece of work
which they’ve all be masturbating
to overnight,
as it goes viral &
sparks conversation for the first few
hours of the next work/school morning,
but as the hamsters all run on their
wheels,
somebody gets an inclination
that the marionette
swings from strings &
that the piece which they’ve all cum for,
really isn’t authored by the beautiful
face they thought they knew.
when confronted, the marionette’s
lips are sealed,
because it’s part of the contract---
it’s all part of the
contract &
the contract is what separates the
charlatans from those who actually
create anything
anymore.
I am but a marionette,
my cross is in your hands
move my strings slightly to watch
me waltz to your commands.
I am but a mannequin,
I hide behind plastic smiles
watch me close but never see
I act fine in my trials.
I am but hollow glass,
you will never again see through
I reflect all you wish to see
and not what I really do.
I am but a puppet
whose strings are in your hands today
put me through my paces
because I am a toy for your play.
I am but a porcelain doll
so of course I have no heart,
and the glass skin will not let me feel
so it matters not if I break apart.
The marionette spun and danced to the sound
played by the weary and weathered banjo man.
She staggered with jerky leap and stuttered bound
that thrilled the children as only a doll can.
Her wish as she was thread about and around
was that she were real and her own moves could plan.
Sad were her eyes as she schemed and dreamed to know
the world outside this traveling minstrel show.