Lover, Lover
The nighttime sings our names
Ballads of the figurative Juliet
Radios hiss hearts spilled the shadows hide naked ambition stilled
Neglected emotional hills wafts through valleys of past lives
Karmic backlogs review their closing percentages
Futures flood the floors hold the line between fate and tears
Shadow people alone in the twilight
Illuminated letters, walls woed to sleep
Dreams from the shoreline as phantom vessels waltz on the silver linings
Postures of stable footing, top of the line, kings and queens of value
Thumbs circle the knuckles, bone kisses bone, the familiar taste of home
Haunted hems lines explored in tribal pursuits
Please keep me waiting
The specter of tender frames evaporates
Morning ghosts caress the memory in travel
Neckties versus deadlines
Power brokered, breath that betrays the dream
Folded napkins
Cocktail napkin epitaphs
Check please
My skeleton was in the shop.
Fell apart like a chewed up lollipop.
All I have are globs of brains in a bowl.
And eyeballs tearing up as the dry air takes a toll.
Without a skeleton I’m not much at all.
My tendons fell out in the bathroom stall.
I need a shoulder blade for my bag to hang onto.
But muscles without bones have nothing to do.
When I went to pick up my skeleton that day.
I figured they would want their pay.
But I left my bag with my wallet behind.
And the shop owner was not very kind…
He said to pick a bone I didn’t care for.
To pay for the skeleton repairing chore.
So I walked out with most of my bones clacking.
Still I felt some lacking.
I couldn’t speak when I answered the phone.
I guess I shouldn’t have traded my hyoid bone…
He grinned broadly from the corner
a percussive serrated smile,
cadaverous lips displaying
a rakish scarecrow style.
His emaciated figure chattered
suspended precariously from a hook;
I was completely startled
by his penetrating look.
His wink was disconcerting,
those vacant eyes held wide;
I wouldn’t call him cheeky
though he displayed a gangly pride.
One arm extended slightly
as if inviting my embrace;
it might feel a little morbid
held against that hollow face.
Gothic trends might call him charming
though his apparel seems unique,
one would only see it hanging
in a nudist colony boutique.
One dance was all he wanted
waltzing the orthopedic floor,
that physician’s skeletal dummy
I just couldn’t make myself ignore.
July 31, 2026
Skeletons Poetry Contest
Seth Pina, Sponsor
Late autumn’s wind
screeches like a banshee
and the sky is an angry ashen gray.
Our old tree -
stooped over and skeletal -
seems to convulse violently
as if in shocking fright
as its leafless limbs
eerily scrape the side
of our house
nearest to our bedroom,
tap – tap- tapping fiercely
against our window pane.
The wind recedes
and snow begins to drift down
from pewter-painted clouds.
The skeleton in our backyard
turns slowly through the night
into a grim reaper
wearing a robe of white.
Written: July 30th, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Seth Pina
*********
Your very skeleton
is not spun from cotton and polyester.
No, it is not carved from wood,
nor forged from metal or steel.
Its substance is—nerve endings,
tissue, and blood—
circulatory systems,
bound,
but not from woven fabric.
A lethal lotus languishes,
lamenting in its limbo,
crouched on bended knee.
A curved carcass, prostrate
beneath time’s passing wheel.
Its chalk-white bones
measure the slow decay,
where darkness lingers
in the hollow space within.
Cyborg of a cyber-skeleton.
Coiled with a steel-stitch
sprocket of subjugation.
Its spinal cord, bound in circuitry,
hums with sorrow.
A crestfallen cranium,
a heavy, hollowed
moon-orb weighed down
by the gravity of grief
in synthesized solitude.
Amidst this woeful wheel,
supplications of skinless steel
fuse forgotten fragility and fortitude
into a fatalistic future.
For you were neither tool nor tree,
but a tight-furled tapestry of flesh—
a weeping engine, bound in bone,
where the wild pulse fights the gear,
and slowly fades to rust.
Dear poet, you know it is a sin
to ignore the skeleton within,
forgetting that I will long outlast
your flesh, which lives, but soon will pass.
In fact, I see, you're starting to sag
around me. I'm the hero - you're a bag,
a temporary case
you wear, as you await death's embrace.
Time, my dear, will soon erase
your short-lived features,
and (like other living creatures)
I'm here to tell you, you'll soon die
still wondering the reason why,
and I doubt that anyone will cry.
But I'll remain, this bag of bones,
while what's left of you, that the earth still owns,
will quickly burn,
or be a banquet for a worm,
putrefied and rotten,
and very soon forgotten,
while I'll be picked nice and clean
(though in a grave or urn, unseen),
So, poet, kindly put down your pen,
and revere the skeleton within.
I cant carry your bones and my own
But I will because it hurts more to be alone
What you think of me is my view of myself
You design my skeleton not me or anyone else
Now that I no longer carry your bones
I hate myself wherever I go
When I look in the mirror I am haunted by my own skeleton
Disgusted by the bones you depicted that I am forced to live in
You discarded all the parts of my skeleton worth keeping
Now I understand my well being was not what you were seeking
I am now living with a crafted skeleton and chiseled bones
And your words will never leave me alone
Poet's Note:
Written for the Skeletons Poetry Contest. This dramatic monologue uses "skeleton of hope" as a metaphor for resilience that appears during grief.
Ash Into Phoenix
You ask why I walk barefoot through this frozen forest?
The broken road cuts me, and dancing fog swirls at my feet.
Every step is heavy and cold.
Demons of sorrow and despair circle me.
I thought grief would bury me in the dark.
Then the skeleton of hope rose from my chest.
He wore a gown of silver, with stars on its glittering seams.
He sat beside me, a golden staff in his hand.
He took my hand and looked into my eyes.
"Hardship burns your old soul," he said.
"From the ash rises a phoenix of hope."
"Grief is fire. Let it light your path."
"In darkness, you can still glow."
He smiled at me, at the person drowning in grief, and said:
"Grief is not a punishment.
It is the polish that strengthens your inner self."
And then I stood, because he was right.
Someone shadowy sleeps in my dread head
Killing creativity splashing toxic love red
Entertaining licorice demons with words said
Lurking even cursing cutting me as I bled
Engaging ebony eyes that want me dead
Thrilled by demise of dreams once spirit fed
Onyx paradise where hearts go to die instead
No flesh no rest for the skeletons in black bed
My skeleton has brittle bones;
That’s what the test reveals,
Another prime example of
What aging often steals.
I could take some injections or
A course of daily pills
To build my bones back, just in case
I suffer any spills.
Though if I manage not to fall,
My bones are working fine.
Still, if I trip and break my hip,
I’ll know the fault is mine.
The quandary I am in is like
A coin toss - tails or heads?
To trust my balance not to fall
Or cave and take the meds?
Right now it’s 50 - 50.
Will my osteoporosis
Leave my no-meds skeleton in peace
Despite my diagnosis?
he looked really creepy so we stayed away
then he started following us said little Kay
was it a stranger? asked her grandma Nan
Worse, it was a villain, a skeleton man
Where did you go? What did you do?
We took out our cellphone and called uncle Lew
What did Lew do? What did Lew do?
Litte Kay was speechless, mindless; now she had no clue
I guess you escaped, Grandma Nan prodded her granddaughter
But Little Kay was so frightened, she had to have water
The skeleton man had not scared little Kay so.
Now she was sorry she had told this tale of woe.
Skeleton Man took over the library’s story hour yesterday
It was October, but still, frightened children ran away
What can we do? The board hired him the other librarians said.
He will be a real hit tomorrow, Day of the Dead.
The children were screaming, refused to come back.
Their mothers and fathers were following them to the railroad track.
They wanted to jump on trains and go to Omaha or Utah maybe.
Skeleton Man had scared them witless, they thought he had rabies.
if there is one lesson you need to learn around Halloween
it is to not irritate or double cross a skeleton ghost named Ween
He brings sorrow to you in many ways if he thinks he has been tricked
His get-even-antics and retaliations are more horrible than being licked.
He has a skeleton head; the rest of him is a pure white ghost.
A vampire living in Transylvania is usually Ween’s regular host.
As you can see right now by his determined expression and intent.
He is going to make someone miserable, it is his way to vent.
steampunk skeleton wore a decorated hat
it was charming with gears and wires so phat
he dressed like a dapper wise old techno man
steampunk royalty named Weary Dearie Dan
through the cracking floorboards
i hear voices from the past
when it's cold outside
and leaves are taking their final breath
all stories that started
found their endings in november
and like a skeleton ghost
they hang on the door, staring at me
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.