Long Macabre Poems
Long Macabre Poems. Below are the most popular long Macabre by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Macabre poems by poem length and keyword.
I was a middle child,
the middle of three unwanted children
Our mother was English, an actress,
who had the misfortune of
loving our father, who abandoned us
We were all partitioned out to
whoever would take a toddler or an infant
when our mother died. Yes, our mother
had chosen very poorly.
I was a ward of a couple who traded slaves,
a couple who never adopted me,
never called me son.
I was an interloper, spoiled one minute,
mistreated and harshly disciplined the next.
According to my master's whims. His wife
was silent, she did not care, she was not my mother.
My first book of poems was like me.
Nameless. I actually made sure the
by-line did not have a name. I treated it
with contempt, a contempt I understood.
I did not belong to anyone. The book
was like me, un-named, un-claimed, lost.
It did not do well. I continued living on
my five dollars a week salary.
At 27, I laid with my 13-year-old cousin.
We call this child abuse now; in 1836, it
was called marriage. She belonged to me.
I was no longer alone.
My wife passed before she was 30; at least
she lived long enough to see one of my poems
published and positively received. It was
different, interesting, to readers, macabre.
I died at 40; causes unknown.
Possibly because no one cared enough
to find out what finished me. Some said heart
disease, others suicide, some cholera, others
drugs.
What matter? I was dead wasn't I?
Dead, as the raven in my story, dead
and gone, forevermore. It seems
peculiar now that I matter more today
than I did when I was alive.
In 539 BCE, King Cyrus the Great – a Persian, conquered Babylon and issued the decree that permanently altered the trajectory of Jewish civilization. Jews were released from their 70-year Babylonian exile. The Edict of Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the Temple, and reconstitute their national life in the land from which they had been torn. In 2026, during the holiday of Purim (it commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people from a genocide plot in ancient Persia), the Jews are returning the favor.
An ancient debt to be repaid
Not loan, a mortgage or a tax
A sacred deed, it once has made
Kings’ most worthy, noblest acts
From bondage freed the Jewish tribe
Exiled in fiendish Babylon
To Cyrus Great it is ascribed
Two and a half millennia's gone
They came home, Jerusalem town
Rebuilt the temple with his gold
In Zion prayed to be around
All through the ages and not fold
The Persian king, his act adored
Messiah to the folks he saved
But now his nation chained by horde
Been half a century enslaved
The time comes, a rare bet
Bring freedom back as gratitude
An eagle of Israeli jet
In Persian skies is being viewed
Be gone, macabre killing ghouls
Enough of you, may freedom reign
Iran, live by your own rules
And may this war not be in vain
Two modern clans of olden spark
Awaiting moment of handshake
Surviving through the times of dark
And both hoping for a break
March 6, 2026
Damnations symphony
strings of rust & bone
A skeletal hand strums…
Gears grind, hell’s teeth bite deep
A skull's silent sight
What secrets does it keep
Twisted dreams turned metal
N Rust, A haunting melody
A world's unjust. Shadows cast
Siren cries arise, From remnants of refrain
Truth that does not lie in silence
Rages in the void
Broken fingers, deft, now devoid
A spectral melody of rust..
Time's cruel symphony
Where skeletons, dance
Upon nights plutonium shores
Whispers in the wind screams unborn
A dance of the damn. Life's dream, stilled
This desolate landscape macabre, haunting
in a shattered heart.
Some get over a bad childhood,
they rise to the top of a hill
to set fire to the bloody rags of a choiceless youth.
The beacon flares, below a forest
of wide-eyed animals
watch as the sacrifice, now a smoldering fawn,
blunders among them, its throat cut and bleeding.
Others drag around a blind doll,
day by day the macabre manikin grows larger,
its face a picture of apathy,
for apathy is the ghostly dress of
all long dead ballerinas.
That hand-stitched doll
gets too heavy to bear, and so daily,
they must give it away to beggars and saints,
The doll is insane, its pain is a robber's key
that returns to unlock any cardboard castle,
or iron fortress.
When the wild dogs come
to scavenge among the bones of a childhood,
throw them something raw and still wriggling,
let them slaver and chew it over,
until they sicken,
then chop off their gray heads,
one by one.
allegro: vermilion fields are history
he's been ill for some time
terminally ill from mysterious origins
sick of all the monsters in the closet
in close proximity of the macabre mansion
peacocks are flying over the hanging gardens
and books are covered with frozen blankets
adagio: ceremony on Monday
down the spectral oubliette
at the dawn of new dark age
he's pouring absinth
through green flames
it's better to be late
than when it rains
intermezzo: blue leaves falling
still there's a lady in the mirrors
still there's a lady in the lake
he's always searching
for the keys of the piano
for a moonlight
on black and blue sky
rondo: heart of vine disease
chairs with paws came to life
ran away to stormy night
and walls crashed down without a sound
someone's singing in the front hall
someone's rapping at the back door
there is no one uninvited
no one left to die alone
Last night two events occurred together that are unlikely to repeat…
It wasn’t even Halloween…so for them to happen in one night was certainly a treat!
First to an Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy we decided we would go…
Deborah dressed as the Raven and me as Mr. Poe.
In a dimly lit room we watched and listened as four actors played their parts…
In retellings of the Masque of the Red Death, The Black Cat, The Raven…and…the Tell-Tale Heart.
What made this even more special was with each story
we were served a delectable libation…
The inspiration for each cocktail was Edgar’s macabre imagination.
Then later that evening…it was on a midnight dreary…
Wait! It wasn’t dreary…it was a beautiful night to see
and it wasn’t even midnight…it was actually half past three.
We witnessed a moment that throughout history
has inspired poets to write and lovers to swoon….
A total lunar eclipse…they call it a blood moon.
It’s when the moon moves directly into the shadow of the Earth
and as you watch it happening overhead…
the moon slowly and for a short while…turns the color of blood red.
I imagine if Mr. Poe was alive today and I could visit him a while
when I told him about our evening…even he would have to smile.
And when I asked him if there’d ever be another time like this…
that would capture our imagination…
cause our blood to stir and our hearts and minds to soar…
I’m sure Edgar…being Edgar would simply answer…
Nevermore.
Real fear
as it crawls
from the nape of your neck
icicly popping skin
along arm
hairs raised in surrender
unable to stop what will become
I never look at shadows anymore
incase there is a face their theyr'e
that sea me-i love using the wrong swords
see you
just open your phone
Who is that in the background
feel my oil slick tendrils
kiss your shoulder
talon crawl across your ripping flesh
when stomach and arsehole
are closer than before
Brian turns ewe to your brain
that tightly held breath
heart above sound
feet rooted in molten stair
see my face
as the darkness turns away
afraid to look again
if mirrors reflect light
why can you see your shadow in a mirror
and will you dare to look
sitting in my favourite
seat the spittles of rainbow
spewing from the box of idiots
dance accross my wall
macabre marionettes forbid into cryptic cryptids
and the end of the scream
is unheard
"Open the gates of Heaven's beginning
Where we end thoughts of awful sinning
Where hope and love will be forever
And think of troubles no more, never!"
~ Anonymous
Death creeps in, leaving everyone grief-stricken,
Waiting for the day when dear souls will quicken,
Life connection is like a gossamer thread,
The macabre grave summons those who are dead;
Grieving and groaning, we give them a send-off
To the gates of heaven where they'll always laugh,
This ghostly anguish that rends the broken soul
When a loved one dies is beyond our control,
We feel godforsaken, but forget to grasp ~
They are in a better place in God's own clasp.
Heaven's golden gate is always open wide
To guide the godly souls as they glide inside.
The dilapidated Victorian
mansion stood as a monolith
of terror amidst the suffocating,
spectral fog.
A tall, skeletal silhouette
materialized from the swirling
mist, his hollow eyes burning
with madness.
In his trembling, cadaverous
arms, he bore the lifeless,
porcelain body of his unfaithful
spouse.
The ancient floorboards
groaned with a sickening,
rhythmic creaking under his
heavy, deliberate footsteps.
Billowing curtains of gray
spiderwebs brushed against
his pallid face like the fingers
of ghosts.
Swarms of chittering,
chitinous bugs erupted from
the decaying wallpaper,
feeding on the stagnant
atmosphere.
A sudden, agonizing shrill
screaming echoed through
the rafters, through no living
throat had opened.
He carried his grisly burden
past shattered mirrors that
fractured their twisted,
macabre reflections.
The heavy front door
shrieked on rusted hinges,
exhaling a cold plume of
graveyard dampness.
Outside, the tangled,
overgrown garden was
completely swallowed by a
thick, undulating blanket of
mist.
He marched toward a
desolate, forgotten corner
where the earth choked on
briars and thorns.
With a rusted spade, he
violently ruptured the soil,
preparing a nameless,
unmarked grave.
The damp earth gasped as
he flung her treacherous
form into the dark, yawning chasm.
He whispered a final,
venomous malediction into
the open pit before
shoveling the dirt back.
The restless phantom of the
woman suddenly materialized,
her spectral jaws unhinging in
silent fury.
Clouds of nocturnal insects
swarmed the mound,
sealing the unholy site with a
writhing carpet.
The towering man smiled a
wicked, jagged smile,
believing the secrets were
finally buried deep.
Yet, the mansion's windows
tattered violently as the house
itself absorbed her vengeful,
trapped spirit.
The oppressive fog
thickened, trapping the
murderer inside his own
self- made, claustrophobic
purgatory.
Now, the endless creaking
of the floorboards carries
the eternal weight of his
undone crime.
An Evil War
They walk the plains of sun-dried grass,
together in a row;
the mothers, with their young ones, pass
to search for food and go
for miles with thirst to find a drink;
as dry season appears.
They walk along, each one in sync,
alert with eyes and ears.
On different paths, the males walk too
to feed as they patrol,
and somehow they, with inner clue,
all find a water hole.
And peacefully they live their days,
adapt to nature's reign
that serves them well to drink and graze
and procreate their strain.
But space in their domain is less...
encroached by humankind,
uncaring of the crowding stress
they leave on them behind.
Still worse, they have become aware
of threats of crueler kind,
and learned to watch, to hide, beware
of horrors which they find.
So oft they see a sight disturbed...
sprawled out along their path;
a member of their precious herd...
they trumpet loud with wrath.
They stop and mourn like humans do,
stand vigil, shocked and chilled;
caress the faceless friend they knew...
who for his tusks...was killed.
Sandra M. Haight
~1st Place~
Premiere Contest: Evil Is Everywhere
Sponsor: Brian Davey
Judged: 10/08/2016
BBC News: The War On Elephants: April 28, 2016
"Bloated and eerily upright the large adult elephant was still standing where it had been killed - just next to the stream - its face hacked off....It had been fleeing the carnage in the mud 100m or so away, where the remains of four other adults and one young elephant lay fallen and disfigured, their tusks and trunks all taken for ivory and meat. Like a macabre statue, this faceless animal stood as a landmark to the horrors of poaching, of the ivory trade, and of the mass slaughter of the last remaining elephants in central Africa...
“It's worth so much more than just the animals. It's about trying to stabilise a whole region which has been unstable for decades. It's about trying to basically build peace. And that is why we wake up every morning, why everyone fights this war, and why we try and save the elephants. It's about basically saving Congo. On 23 April 2016, three rangers were killed in a fresh clash with poachers. Park manager Erik Mararv and another ranger were badly injured."