vultures swirl… jackals
howl… carrion flesh foul...
buzzards on the prowl
I have this fear that beyond my years
Every word I’ve said or written will be gone,
Like dust in the wind or seas where rivers end
These thoughts of mine will vanish with the dawn.
No money or fame do I proclaim
Nor legacies of great things I have done,
No battle scars or discovered stars
Or a trace of any race I’ve lost or won.
Like most of those whose time now holds
Their words and thoughts erased,
Confetti like into the skies
I fear that wordless fate.
The dying of the poet’s dream
Of living beyond oblivion,
For someone to read these words indeed
Would save this soul from carrion.
Only time will tell if letters spell
The end of all these phrases,
Mere scribbles now that may somehow
Be read on future pages.
© Terrell Martin, 01/05/2025
Carrion- BEING SPIRIT INNER CORE-
O’ rotten carrion;
Being spirited inner core;
Whispers to the dead priest,
Whose spirit harvested in side dried bones;
All so souls depressed, so all alone;
Being spirited inner core;
O’ rotten carrion;
9/09/1973
8/22/2024
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.1973© 2024©
–For Burns
Hanging from its branches,
The tree bears them like glorious fruits—
Laden with corpses rotting: old and new.
Their eyes glazed over, forever spewing agony—
All in various stages of decay;
Dripping blood from their slick fur.
It must have been their eyes, black like buttons,
That drew you in. The whole forest closed in around you—
But, in the end, it was a voice
That brought you back to the carrion tree.
Slowly, you released the corpses one by one
And arranged them into a circle.
Now they could dissolve into the earth
Like they were supposed to.
Longing to be with them, you rid yourself of your clothes
And lay down—naked as the day you were born—
In the centre of your new companions.
You would dissolve with them
To gratefully give your body back to the earth;
While, above you—through the tracery of branches—
The sky darkened and the air grew colder.
Still, it didn't occur to you to move.
This was the right place:
This was where you had wanted to be—
Surrounded by the fragility of death
And at peace with the elements.
It was my public leeture
About man's links with Torture
How it seems tied to Nature
And an idea to nurture...
"Yet, it can't be a culture,
Torture like Beak of Vulture,
Which Carrions face like Torture,
The Final Grant: A Suture...
In man it's An Aperture
Welcoming Prompt Ligature...
"Torture is no nice picture:
A Sadist's Acupuncture,
On receivers some puncture."
The lumps of flesh and bones lie nestled
in the rotting leaves littering the forest floor.
How long it has lain there seasoned by the rain
as worms work through the tattered tissue.
She approaches the rotted flesh directly,
at a slow cautious pace.
As if it might reinvent its self,
rising up a demented force of instincts and endurance.
She gently snuffles the carrion,
as a lover would nuzzle the neck of his mate
after an evening of playful passion has sated desire.
Mellowing to a glow of contentment,
she breaths deeply of the foul stench
letting it fill her flaring nostrils.
The scent awakens an instinctual desire
born in a bygone, primitive past.
Flittering through the Jungian memories;
a myth where all the names and places are burned.
Only the shapes and figures remain visible.
All memory has been twisted, sorted and unsorted
till it is simply her shadow cast upon the forest floor.
Studying the studying
staring back - heavy shiney black
on the coffin road - I stood in the gods
an imposing carrion crow perched
Johnny Cash of fauna
Studying the studying
piercing dark inquisitive eyes
scanning for a body - to beak hack
Leaving - his panoramic but dead
observation tree, higher than me
the white thickly splattered
heavy branch reverberates -
a silent metronomic
Catching thermals or up draughts
vulturing round and rising
his energy conservation guarantee
Pin point eyesight for miles
cleaning catchment of two valleys
funeral bell caw caw caw fades
into feathered undertaker silence
Smelly mutton, frogs, afterbirth
and cold lamb, traditional tallies
contemporary road fill habit
rat hedgehog squirrel - rabbit
Mornings of great days bathe in sublime sunrise
Inspiring confidence and glowing with swathes of hope
That good tidings of a magnanimous size
Were afoot on the slope
Where sadness struts its stuff
Brandishing pessimism and nihilism
If the going went tough
In the context of sadism and cynicism
Drowning optimism
Whose pride of place I treasure
At the expense of the short-termism
Rolling in duvets of pleasure
Instead of conveying positive messages
I reserve for friends and acquaintances in my inner circle
Where together we devour sizzling sausages
Despite prospects of a potential debacle
That encircles and imprisons the vision
Which holds the key to the hermetically closed door
Behind which lies my progress provision
Which if mishandled would turn into carrion on my floor.
When my chest splits out come the crows
Where they land nobody will know
I ripped my heart out the scars will show
Where they pitch is all in fate
Life for me is far too late
Observe the crows as they claw and peck their way out
Cover your ears to ignore my shout
Or sit and watch my blood erupt as a gory spout
Sit in awe as they tell you my tale
If I said it myself i am sure to fail
Hear them cry out for some help
And witness me slowly get dragged down to hell
Sit in wonder whilst they tear me apart
As a reminder for how unsuccessful I was to mend my heart
Watch the marvel of the blood red feathers
Gust through the wind until they may find another
When they do they'll crawl inside tear the chest open to build a nest so they have a place to reside
Until the time come it happens again they'll rip you from the inside out
And then the bloodworks start over once more
The pain will be seen once more makes you feel empty as they tear their to come out to explore
Through the mists they land
Carried by darkened wings, spread
Sensing, they await
Suspended death in decay
Inhumanities now shared
.
Carrion kings crow callous things in settled twilight cracks;
Their cankered queens quote noxious reams down croaking fabric tracks.
A patterned noose attentive sits atop a patient peak,
Whilst zephyrs drone from Zaire to home to wheeze unto the week.
Preachers pine an impassioned whine beneath their teething tongues;
'Twixt caustic lips their worm-breath sits to drain their sunken lungs.
Twin servile suns send sullen songs to sleep beneath a cross,
Which frays away it's stiff arms held aloft with burning moss.
Carrion carry the message
In flights of dry yellow sun
And wind sprays
The Ocean of T.V. screens
Faces the digital throng
Of robots commuting
Satellites drift in orbit
Each dead white star ringing black
-ness. Space. Silent
....
Symphonies roar metal
Steel the diamonds glass
Dog-whistles taste of chalk
Outlines of concrete
Murder and the prayer
Of a flag drenched in gray
Rain on the worn Gravestone. Washing
....
Acid and melting faces
Of anthems waxing leaders
Marching bones grinning
Hookers in alleys crying
The Buddha under his tree. Smiling
....
Judas’ Carrion
Gossiping in such a furtive manner
Determined to raise success’ banner
Murmuring eloquently in the dark
Calumny where there’s no spark,
In the coven of conspiracy gather
Passing the Cup of Hate to another
Greedily imbibing to quench thirst
Competing to see who wins first....
To the contrary, let God be blessed:
He’s not with limitations distressed
When from another we plan to steal
To the affected He plans to heal!!
JM
19th Nov’ 2013
I get lost when i think about it.
My heart is parallel with time
I feel as though this beat I carry on
is endless.
There was no start
I will never finish
I just keep going,
With forever,
Until time is nonexistent
Until this beat becomes consistent
And one day my body will drop
As my beat runs parallel with time,
I carrion.
The news was brief so take a breath
My "be aware" vision peered its head tonight
Poetry died a tired lonely death
And those damn poets caused the death of might
The carrion of poetry lay still with blood of ink
After years of neglet it finally gave in
As the "poets" unite to slay the beast
The "poets" unite to set it to sleep
Together they committed suicide
Together now turn to genocide
For "poets" forgot to feed its soul
Now the carrion of poetry lies down low
A bird of prey sits on a perch
The bird of prey from poetrys church
Now cleans her head of former blood
As she looks down to see the "poets" flood
She sees them cry so desperatly
Sobbing their ink of insecurity
She perches high to see the show
Of silly poets who killed their own
She elongates her wings to free
As they have been waiting constantly
For mooments like this are natures call
For moments like this bare souls to all
Her claws of might clutch to the sky
Grab a hold the tears of Gods cry
For HE created man to see
The death of themself from poetry
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