dead girl’s kiss
She lay asleep on a yellow park bench,
Blanketed in the dime moon’s cold light,
And under the swaying tempo of pale hands,
Pulling on the hems of her lace dress
Hungry for more than a simple caress.
Abandoned, bare and shuddering
Her milky feathers plucked and dead.
Wrenched from all she knew,
And tossed into the world’s cruel belly,
Down to the beat of its fleshy, black heart
Delivered by the wickedness of mortal men.
Most of all I remember her wet eyelashes;
Dark as the ink of the night skies,
With skin white as the gleaming stars above,
She’s your moon and stars,
And all the more, this I fear.
Up above my pitiful arms-length,
My fingers strain to graze her boots
And tug her back down, back down
From a lonely ole rest,
Doomed to never wake from again.
The clouds blow her back down,
In content little gusts,
Into the dream in which I pray
She would wave a cheery hello,
And whisper a good-bye.
Forever she drifts, amiss,
A dandelion seed knocking and stumbling.
On welcome mats she plead and crawl,
Though never mine own.
The glazed honey sun melts my back
As I walk, further and farther away
from the backdrop of periwinkle skies,
glossing over all of my terrible troubles,
and silhouettes of the girl I still love.
But this I have known,
Of angels and devils above,
Generous enough to cradle a haunted girl
Over salt and rivers, forests and plains
and the ferryman who lent a kind hand,
kind even when he looked back on her
water-logged corpse.
I still remember that lovely day in the park,
Of her healthy and ripe smile on her sleepy face.
Her name dwindles on my tongue;
Horrified I’d forgotten; my words stolen
by biting and cruel winds.
So I bury my longings and crimes by a kiss,
Sealed by the dead girl’s blue lips.
(a slightly edited poem originally from 2017)
This is hauntingly beautiful, the imagery is very disturbing but works really well for the poem. I especially love the line “blanketed in the dime moon’s cold light” and “She’s your moon and stars, And all the more, this I fear”. I sometimes get a bit lost in whether it is the reader or the narrator who is in love with the drowned girl but the stanzas are just so pretty and paint such a clear picture that it’s hard to care. Really great poem and I really enjoyed reading it!
This is both terrifying and beautiful.
I love the 7th stanza - the descriptions are amazing to read.
The last two stanzas are interesting, and I especially like the last line.
The emotions are so vivid and painful from reading. The poem gives great insight into how the narrator thinks/feels.
I've always found the ferryman to be an interesting concept in terms of death. I'm assuming the ferryman is supposed to take her to the afterlife? Or maybe just death.
I like the lines:
"A dandelion seed knocking and stumbling."
I'd say my favourite part is probably the fourth stanza, particularly the lines: "Up above my pitiful arms-length | my fingers strain to graze her boots | and tug her back down, back down."
This was a wonderful poem and I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for writing it 
This is beautifully written...And it's just as scary...So the speaker's in love with a drowned woman? And this poem doesn't adhere to a certain rhyming or stanza structure, correct? This is a wonderful piece of work, filled with frightening imagery and brutally painful emotions. I especially liked the 8th stanza, where it becomes clear the speaker's loved one is dead. I feel that the ferryman is a reference to Charon, or am I simply over-thinking things...? In all honesty, this poem was too much to describe in words. Please write more. Actually, have you published this piece yet? You really should.
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