The Mandrake Devourer grins
As I approach with its gift.
It licks its curved teeth as
I lift the seal to present
Two point eight ounces
Of my neck muscle.
As I stand there, bleeding,
Wobbling and dizzy,
I can only look with eager eyes
To see what prize awaits me.
It has allured me once more
With siren’s screams of
A pure heart, one at one with mine.
Its soft lips emit a decrepit whisper,
“Thank you, my dear,”
As my neck is devoured.
It turns away to mingle
With ones who see not
The pure or putrid of my tempter.
Were it not for the sudden abandonment,
I’d not see my wounds to need tending.
I scramble to find parts of… something
With which to mend my… neck, thigh,
Stomach, cheek, fingers, temple, arm.
Skin is now scarce,
A thing to be rationed like blood.
Despite relentless patching
I fall, I crumble to the earth
Laid down, the world fading around me
I see the friend return to me.
I gasp words.
“Look! I have done my best to keep myself
anew for you! I do what I can for you.”
It only smirks, and returns
Such sacrifice with “Why, thank you.”
And a humming, sounds of a
Desire for more flesh. It is not satisfied.
My soul is lukewarm, for I still believe
In a return, an appraised forsaking.
The whisperer turns away
And defecates a human heart.
Fallen by consumption, it lay lifeless
On a hardened dirt ground.
The sight of my master fades.
My skin dries.
The bleeding stops.
My downfall is complete.
My thanks to the Devourer.
My long-awaited gift I have received,
For I have been given back the first bit of flesh I gave away.
Author notes
This is personal, about a problem I've been dealing with, but if you know me, don't take offense. Rest assured, the devourer doesn't represent any one person.
Option 6
A contest entry
- Just Another Contest You Won't Look At Or Are You Proving Me Wrong?!? by Xxthe angry gothxX.
800 points, ended July 12, 2007, 39 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
How's the imagery? What do you picture when you read this?
Comments
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Wow! another original poem with words that portray such emotion and beauty! i just loved the flow and how it almost sounded close to a story. the finale was phenomenal! you did a great job!
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Excellent imagery!
I think this has to be my favorite poem of yours; all your raw emotions translated into fantastic imagery that really blew me away. This really is an amazing piece, and I'll do my best to (coherently) express and explain why I liked it and what I liked about it.:
You used simple wording that produced extraordinary imagery when it's all put together; simple phrases like "it licks it's curved teeth" and "wobbling and dizzy" surprisingly gave me a feel of the climate of the poem, beginning to form this complex imagery in my head. The only thing that kind of threw me off, though, were the ellipses in 4th and 5th lines from the bottom of the first stanza. And I don't know why, but I really, really loved the lines "Skin is now scarce//A thing to be rationed like blood."
The conversation part in the second stanza seemed out of place by glancing at it, but when I re-read, it did wonders for the expressing of your feelings, and further added to this caustic, submissive yet rebellious type of atmosphere the poem created in my head.
The first two lines in the third stanza made me want to fucking applaud; it was raw imagery that didn't sound tacky, but instead read like this wonderfully exquisite piece of morbid word-art that just begged for explosions of mixed feelings from the reader. The conclusion to the poem was better than I could hope for; you did a 360, painfully coming back to a sort of state the narrator used to be in and just wrapping it up wonderfully and true to the poem.
Goddammit, Chris, you're amazing! I wish I could give you more applause, 'cause you definitely deserve it!
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I actually picture some creepy-looking thing, a la Harry Potter, taking a bite out of someone's neck... Sketchy! Anyway, what's the problem? I don't know you personally, so it's not like I'll tell anyone. IM me if ou need to talk. Well done.
All the best,
Laura
MSN Messenger: phantess_phreak@hotmail.com -
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lol, that's actually sort of what I pictured myself. I sort of, for some reason, thought that a mandrake was a man-eating plant, but when I remembered otherwise, I still had to use that word.
But nah, I think I'll be fine. I'm actually in the middle of resolving the problem, and it should be over with in a few days. But thanks for the offer. Uhh, if you need anything yourself, feel free to IM me @ moon_ghost@sbcglobal.net.
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