With Lobe;

Wrote this awhile back after seeing this amazing picture I don't have anymore, which was of a kitchen knife covered in blood with this little plastic heart necklace dangling from it. It inspired me to go off and write this piece--which I can't really explain--so enjoy. All critques and general comments welcome. Also, all iltalics and underlines are intentional, thank you.

With Lobe;

The note read: “with lobe, darling,”
It was dripping with tampered, dirty blood.
It was stuffed into the chest of the forty-something man, like a frigid pinata.
I disliked it thoroughly.
It smelled of still-baking cookies and hot, sweltering life-force.
It smelled like bitter integrity.
I retracted my scattered thoughts.
There was something else—there in the messed up scribbles.
I looked harder; burying the words inside.
With lobe, darling,
She spelled her name with two 'K's'.
STARKK. Stark white, dark red, mellowing black—
All there in the three little words.
I shut my eyes carefully, and dreamed.
He stood by the sink, lathering his burly hands before a drink,
His viciously crooked eyes narrowing with ironic concentration.

The lug never knew what hit him.
The note still read, “with lobe, darling,”
My heart still attempted to decipher the riddle while she wept.
She was creeping up to him now, over and over,
Rusted knife in hand swinging along with graceful hips.
Maybe there was a bit of smile on her ruby lips,
Tainted—waiting for what will never come.
Frozen, I tipped the victim's head back and read further on.
“Forgotten,” plainly stripped, the meaty neck. There was a trace of luck.
She left a small clue, tattered, and silken among the remains—
A soft sort of calling card.
A single name: Starkk.
I'm sure she's smiling now, slick white teeth accentuating the eyes.
The lonely, dearly deathly, lustful green eyes.
Where are those teeth and eyes now? And sultry lips?
And devious fingers, strapped to the handle of a blade—

It made for a quick getaway.
He turned to look at her casually, not too forcefully,
That would be out of character.
“Darling,” his cracked lips slit open, begging for breath
That will never come or go again.
He kissed her once. Believing she was his,
Happy, singularly, he loved her. Why else would she do it?
Her last words were printed definitively on the stained page:
WITH LOBE, DARLING.
Lobe, lobe, lobe...
I couldn't tear apart the phrases. On his left cheek, spilled,
“Take me.” sporadically, I frowned, seeing it all fade on.
She faltered on the last step, believing she might be caught—
But he never guessed what spied within her swan-like brow.
Of course, she never smiled.
There was nothing to smile about.

I pulled the scrap out of his chest and studied it, feeling woozy.
I could see something more now—a misprint.
A mistake in clear-cutting logic.
I glanced up and around for a moment, and then
Crushed the bloody slip between my fingers. It made a distinctive,
Disquieting squish. I crumpled it up further and shoved it
In my pocket. Then I reviewed the scene once more.
He spun, gloriously grinning, when STARKK tapped him on the shoulder.
WITH LOBE, DARLING, she whispered it in his ear.
Then she plunged the thing into his ribs irrationally.
Unthinkingly, too quickly for baited breath.
She never smiled. She wasn't heartbroken.
I tossed his head gently to the side and caught his left ear,
Seeing smeared, poorly scratched on the pliable surface—
WITH LOVE, DARLING.
And that was all I wrote.

I love it. Simple as. It is pure excellent. It reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe in a poem.

Well done. I can't find a fault or flaw anywhere.

~Retro Disco666

Hello there
This was quite a lengthy poem. You must have been really inspired! The length affected the quality of the idea because as it went towards the end, it kind of lost the edge. Maybe you could write an inspired short story about it instead. I liked it though , eventhough it was very sordid and dark but witty. I liked your similes too, not tacky at all.
Good job

Wow. Rarely do I find something as creative as this.

The style is chilling. It's sharp, poised, but distinctly elegant all the same. You have very appropriately placed this in the narrative poetry section; indeed, I thought that it could be written as a story and still work perfectly fine, but I quite like the writing of it as it is. It adds a separate dimension to it. Rather than being a rushed piece of flash fiction, it comes across as something with incredible weight and depth, a stunning capture of the instant. At first, the mention of blood annoyed me - seemed too melodramatic for my liking. But as you later went on to expand it, I came to realise that this was not just a blood-and-guts cheap gory tale; it was something with a lot more purpose than that.

Since this deserves a more in-depth review, that's what you're going to get:

The note read: “with lobe, darling,”
It was dripping with tampered, dirty blood.
It was stuffed into the chest of the forty-something man, like a frigid pinata.
I disliked it thoroughly.
It smelled of still-baking cookies and hot, sweltering life-force.
It smelled like bitter integrity.
I retracted my scattered thoughts.

Should the 'w' be capitalised in the first line? And why is the blood [i[tampered[/i], of all things? The third line is wonderfully eery, and something about the bareness of the fourth just WORKS. Are you sure you want to jam pack three ideas successively here - cookies, life-force and bitter integrity (which itself is a mouthful)? So far, you've built up a really clear, directed attack on the reader - I guess you say it perfectly in the next line, though: 'I retracted my scattered thoughts.' That is so clinical! If there's anything I can say definitely needs changing, it's the 'It' at the beginning of most lines. It annoys me (pardon the pun). Something about beginning each line with a word that begins with an 'I' just seems ridiculously formulaic. You can do better.

STARKK. Stark white, dark red, mellowing black—

Nice one. Though I wonder if you'd made up the name for the sake of the wit? I certainly hope not.

I shut my eyes carefully, and dreamed.

Anything for creeping the reader out further, eh? This is horrifically clinical again - 'carefully' is what makes it so - but then the 'dreamed' strings along linearly along the ground. There's no abstraction here; the dream is as concrete as reality.

His viciously crooked eyes narrowing with ironic concentration.

Surely, there's a more subtle way of saying this?

Frozen, I tipped the victim's head back and read further on.

Only here do I get more of an idea of the narrator's relationship to the characters. Are they a detective? And if so, I think it's great to introduce their identity here like this - it's subtle enough so as not to overpower the other images and the main storyline, but loud enough to be noticed.

“Darling,” his cracked lips slit open, begging for breath
That will never come or go again.
He kissed her once. Believing she was his,
Happy, singularly, he loved her. Why else would she do it?
Her last words were printed definitively on the stained page:

The only point where I felt it getting melodramatic. 'Happy, singuarly' - these are not things one can say about marriage and love. Hence they make the narrative come across as pretentious.

Lobe, lobe, lobe...love. Love?

Not yet - I think the reveal at the very end works a lot better. I'd say to just remove the last word here - let the intelligent reader figure it out.

I could see something more now—a misprint.

This is why this poem is so much deeper than a simple murder mystery and a detective figuring it out. There's meanings without you suggesting them - here, I see a meaning relating misprints to miscommunication - a key factor for so many things that go wrong in relationships. The misprint also ties in well with the 'mistake' idea - the whole debacle is just that, on a grander scale.

Seeing smeared, poorly scratched on the pliable surface—
WITH LOVE, DARLING.
And that was all I wrote.

Encore? The note was written on his ear? Then how was it stuffed in his chest? And why the sudden change of narrator? Not the greatest bang of an ending, but it does its job, I guess.

Anyway, a great poem. Thanks for the read. PM me if you've got questions or would like me to look over any rewrites. Actually...PM me when you write more!

I really like this poem, it has a really unique style to it that I haven't seen much. It's really interesting, and reads more like a story than a poem, which I like, usually I don't. I have to be honest, though, when I saw the title I thought it was a typo, but I was driven to the poem by it.

Hello there! Sorry it took me a bit to get around to this. I hope my review is still valuable to you. ^^

“Darling,” his cracked lips slit open, begging for breath

I LOVE THIS LINE! Not kidding, your word choice is impeccable. "lips slit", "begging for breath" <- those are beautiful.

With that said, that's also really the only line that jumped out at me for the whole thing? But, I do have a few points on this, so I'll try to cover them succinctly and make sense.

First I'd like to comment on the fact that this is much more of a story than a poem. There's nothing wrong with a poem telling a story, but it needs to be poetic nonetheless. Some of your lines felt too much like a story though.

I pulled the scrap out of his chest and studied it, feeling woozy.
I could see something more now—a misprint.

This line was too story-like for me, and you have others similar to it. Narration isn't bad, but.. I can't explain it. When I read poetry I expect to read poetry. That sounds like a story. The rest of what I explain might help you more though.

My second point is on length. I won't be one to tell you to make it shorter, but I will tell you to make it shorter. haha, I bet you're wondering what I just said. What I mean is, long poems aren't bad. But with poetry, every single word needs to be important. It needs to have meaning. If it doesn't do something, if it doesn't make your poem jump of the page, or make your reader jump off the page, what is the point of it? One part that really jumps at me for this would be all of the "its" you use. "It" is such a vague word. It's nothing, it's just a filler. It's boring and dry and dull. You want to use real words.

The note read: “with lobe, darling,”
It was dripping with tampered, dirty blood.

You could say "The page dripped with tampered, dirty blood." - anything but IT and you'd be better off.

Now, I also hate suggesting my own poetry for example, but here is a longer poem I wrote: The Weight of Suicide. Now, I wrote that a year ago, so it might not be tip-top shape, but I was sure to make every bit of it count. I also have a lot of heavy meaning in the poem. Some of it isn't so great, but it's not overflowing with words. When you write a poem, you need to be careful with what you say. Poetry is the hardest form of writing, in my mind, because you have so much to say, in so little space, and the less words you use the better. In the same turn, make sure those words are powerful.

On another note, I was surprised by how ungorey this was. A murder scenes? You should make me want to throw up. But I didn't. The description was kind of offhand, wasn't too important. Focus in on your words, especially with your imagery. It's not just blood, the look: what does it smell like? Does the narrator's stomach lurch at the stank? Can she hear the body's internals slosh as she moves him? You should gross me out. But you didn't! Make use of this. It's fun to gross people out.

And, my final note.

I tossed his head gently to the side and caught his left ear,
Seeing smeared, poorly scratched on the pliable surface—
WITH LOVE, DARLING.
And that was all I wrote.

This was probably the reason you wrote it, right? The Great Twist, you thought. I'm not saying it's not a good twist, but you failed to set it up properly. Starting with where you lied to us. From the beginning of this poem, we are led to believe that the speaker is a detective, or some such, and someone else killed their husband. The whole. Entire. Time. At least, that's how I understood it. I didn't think she was going to be the murderer, not because you so trickily wrote the poem, but because I had believed she was a detective, by the way you were telling it. Just throwing out your plot twist, especially in poetry, doesn't work. You have to build it, create it. Perhaps I misread your poem, but this was the feel I got.

On a minor note, I think it was kind of confusing to follow as well. Like, you were flashing back between the killing/after the kiling with the "Detective" and it was hard to keep track of what was going on. So, if you worked better on removing the over-narrative feel, cut needless words, got gorier, and focused more on the central idea of this poem (basically, tighten it up), it might end up being easier to follow as well.

Best of luck!