A silent scream spreads through the night,
A bittersweet joy in the darkness,
In a world of sour sweetness,
Joyful sadness waltzes bright.
A deafening whisper calls us near,
While noisy silence fills the day;
Jumbo shrimp and icy flames,
They play their little big matches.
Living dead and peaceful strife,
A false truth in everyday life,
An awkward relaxed grace, a surprise,
Truthful lies hide in plain sight.
With cruel kindness, we laugh as we cry,
with open secrets that`re not hidden,
A false reality touches the air,
An uncertain certainty spreads apace.
In shameless honour, a giggle grows,
As chaotic order settles,
Across untimely time and space,
Where grave funny oxymorons lie.
A heart, painful, and beating, beating
Poor, poor. Hope, just, just hope. A love
Hmm. Life is dark. Sometimes it is light. Shine
Hah. Flow. Flow. River. Deep stream. This life
Swamp. No wake up. Deep. Without love. My life
I don’t know what is coming up. I don’t, I don’t know
I can’t live. I can’t live like this. Oh, pain of life!
Hmm, what brings the next, the next day, the next love?
I want, I want to lose. Lose my life, I want to die
I will, I will to die. For the real, and great new love!
For a love
For the only!
For the real
For the eternal!!
For the infinite
Only love!!
We steal from the mouths of strangers,
pluck vowels like fruit from someone else's tree,
and call it harvest.
Call it homage.
The dead speak louder than we do,
their sentences polished smooth by a thousand tongues,
worn into grooves we trace with our own breath.
I lift a phrase like lifting a stone from a river,
still wet with another writer's meanings,
and press it into the architecture of my own grief.
"To the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
But whose mind?
Whose death?
The words belong to everyone now,
to no one, a key passed hand to hand until the metal warms,
until we forget who first turned the lock.
Perhaps all poetry is borrowed,
each word a ghost we summon,
each line a seance where the living learn to speak
in the voices of those who wrote the world before us.
The Living Dead
Life is but a shadow rain or shine,
A masquerade, and a trick of the mind.
A life unspoken, a heart turned to stone,
I’m moving my body, but my spirit is gone.
Sunshine and smiles but darkness inside
My smile seems hollow-no light within
Dreams twist and tangle, like braids in a bundle
Laughter that howls- like the wind in a storm
Fighting for life, but no hope in sight.
Struggling for peace from the pain deep inside
Crying won’t stop and complaining makes no sense
Days are blurred like ink smudged on a page
Praying for life, yet hunted as a prey
All hope fades, no voice, no chance, no escape
Am I just walking-wondering through hell?
My mind has gone wild and my soul unfed
Breathing but suffocating, with tear filled eyes
Just a heartbroken man living inside.
My soul cries, begging to be free
But I lie chained, trapped in a dungeon’s dark cay –
It’s me…..all of me……wholly me.
How can my soul escape? How…..how much more can it take?
I’m more than this numbness, much more than this night,
I’m choosing to live but losing this fight
They are shadows of a forgotten world
Drifting through the remnants of life
Eyes clouded by the haze of Kush
Skin and teeth, a canvas of decay and despair.
Shoulders slump beneath tattered rags
Swollen limbs move with a sluggish grace
Their steps, slow and aimless
As if searching for a heartbeat lost in the dark.
No warmth lingers in their voices
Only the echo of an early death
Yet in their endless wandering through Freetown’s streets
They carry the weight of what they once were—
Fragments of humanity, broken and scattered
In a world that no longer remembers their name.
My time of death I don't quite know,
I'm still breathing but I was gone long ago.
Locked in the casket of a broken mind,
If I go any deep I'm afraid of what I'll find.
The skeleton of what I was was is gone a,
corpse of the lost me at every new dawn.
She gets high on suicide
Cos that’s the aphrodisiac
Running through her veins
At some point soon
She’ll hear that tune
Pushing her nearer
To her doom
The note is already in her head
Recited from the living dead
Goodbye world
It’s time to go
I never had a chance
But don’t feel sorry for little me
Cos this is the day I finally see
Maybe next time you never know
But for now it’s time to go
Finally, falling fast asleep
Exactly like they said
The note now lying beside her head
The final extract it simply read
Recited from the living dead.
The living dead, think they’re alive
Trapped in a fear prison
Thoughts centred on wealth and sex drive
Yet feel their soul’s risen
Human form a facade
In darkness they do plod
Distanced from love and God
By desires led
The living dead
17-August-2022
Quietus
Please don't wait
for me to feel it-
let's just start
from right here
awkward, numb and full of fear
it's now or never
Feeling dry
preserved, mummified
like something
long since dead
flickers of life in my head
haunting like a ghost
Trance-like walk
horror story style
down the aisle
children flee
mummy mumbles, blankly stares
heart and soul elsewhere
Still I try
to show up and care
God forgive
my dead soul!
Unfeelingly, I believe-
help my unbelief
__
Another Shadorma, with apologies to readers expecting a Halloween poem! I found this tucked in my Bible from a Sunday a while back when I was depressed and not in a proper mind for worship. While it's a bit embarrassing to admit I feel this ambivalent at times, I'm posting this hoping it will comfort others who struggle with this as well.
Held behind cold stone walls,
In silence, marched to work.
The shabby dressed walked prison halls,
Hell waits for those who shirk.
Breaking rocks or picking rope,
Naught to eat save gruel and bread,
Pointless toil, devoid of hope,
Here worked the living dead.
Mornings in the chapel praying,
The gathered wincing at the drops,
The hangman had the condemned swaying,
Yet more unworthy souls now cropped.
The chaplain looking down his nose,
He could better use his ministrations,
The faithless sat in squalid rows,
(As he prayed for a better station.)
Ne'er has a place been so bleak,
Nor seen more fear and woes,
If the Devil sought out company,
It would be here he chose.
I fell to his temptation,
now my heart will never beat again, and my lungs can't breathe,
I'm a living dead girl,
a zombie if you wish to say,
no reason to live,
just here for the ride,
waiting for the day to die,
the blood stopped pumping,
with the air no longer there,
just waiting for the thoughts to stop,
for him to stop whispering in my ear,
I pray with no answer,
he's gone for good,
the one God gave me,
my air and soul,
with the love now gone,
the hearts not pumping,
the lungs aren't breathing,
for I'm a living dead girl.
They say that they are Christians
But commit all kinds of immoral act
They say that they are Christians
But they lie, steal, deceive, and sin
They say that they are Christians
But support lies and not the truth
They are alive in the flesh
But they are dead in the Spirit
The Living Dead
Take away the safety net
What remains
only the weak kill and call themselves men
A coward hides in the mountain of who they are
behind their own curse justifying wrongs
Tears falling each and every single day
suffering innocence weep
Self inflicted forged inside darkness
Mortal sin
The day will arrive
when you have to come out of your shell facing reality
Evil deeds done dirt cheap begging soul forgiveness
Blinding pure is the eyes of our Saviour
Salvation enslaved by guilt
poor is the heart where poison seeps
Rich forgiving pride the Lords prayer I say
Please God open their eyes to your peaceful presence
Make them aware of your goodness morally within
Open their souls to the truth
such deeds hold an ugly sin
Mercy on your damned soul
Such actions
destiny crumbles
inside their castle walls bleed burning with fire
Angry all their lives at everyone but themselves
Articles of faith strips them bare
I tip my eyes to the Lord
Blessing myself in the name of our Father the Holy trinity
Begging their forgiveness
One third of Man
blind faceless spill blood
cursing peace and His Holiness in the end days
Along with a haunting horde trick-a-treating
Dressed as ghosts, ghouls and goblins,
Dancing dwarfs and teetering giants,
Despicable despots and snarling demons,
Pirates, warlords and mercenaries,
Blood-sucking vampires and wolverines,
Dracula, zombies and Frankenstein,
Skeletons, Spiderman and scarecrows,
Walking deads or the Grim Reaper,
Pretty princesses or the wicked witches,
We too tagged along with this
wild and weird looking carnival,
Hiding our sinister thoughts
and evil designs behind
our smiling Joker's masks
to garner the most candies and toys
with our macabre charm!
Very much so as in our mundane lives
Each morn after a fitful night,
We put on the masks of
good cheers and civility,
Hiding the day's concerns and care,
Envy, hate and jealousy
behind a hypocritical smile and keen dress.
But on this eerie night of Halloween,
We get to let our masks down for a while!
~"Halloween Poem" contest by Carol Eastman
Rising from their graves,
Breaking through the ground,
Raised by radiation waves,
They are coming to your town.
Board up all your doors,
Nail them good and tight,
Or there will be blood and gore,
By the end of the night.
They tear down your walls,
Break through your window pane,
No one can help you at all,
When they try to eat your brain.
Those dead eyes make you shiver,
You scream out with alarm,
Zombies try to eat your liver,
And, chew on your leg and arm.
There is no point to tell her,
That it is just too late,
Go hide down in your cellar,
You cannot escape your fate.
Zombies are the living dead,
They do not easily expire,
So, cause injury to their head,
Or, burn them with fire.
Hungry zombies do not give,
Oh, you better run,
Or you will not live,
To see the rising sun.
Written by: Kelly Deschler
October, 11th, 2013
For Leonora Galinta's contest -
"Halloween-Only One Theme...Zombies!"
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