Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for violence and mature content.
a dagger to my eye,
the consequence of a smile so wry.
a stretch of vast nothingness,
missiles of blood thick carcass
shooting upon a vague sky.
schrodinger's concealment,
strangling ichor into congealment.
the rope coils into an icy embrace,
tightening and welcoming with grace.
but I'm already decomposing,
there's no point of the cord closing.
I've already been hanged,
no point in a dead man being harangued.
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140,068 Literary Works • 672,978 Reviews
Hai :3
This is so grim and theatrical in a really striking way!! There’s this intense fatalism running through the whole poem, like the speaker isn’t moving toward death so much as realizing they have already crossed some invisible threshold. I love how the violence feels both physical and metaphysical here ~~ dagger, blood, rope, decomposition, but also “Schrodinger’s concealment,” which gives the poem this almost philosophical horror. Like the speaker is both hidden and exposed, alive and dead, accused and already beyond accusation. Super eerie!!
LOVE this opening image!!
It’s immediate and sharp, literally and emotionally. The “smile so wry” is interesting because it makes the punishment feel disproportionate, like the speaker’s smallest expression has triggered something brutal. That gives the poem a really strong sense of injustice or doomed irony from the start. I also like how the rhyme makes it feel almost nursery-rhyme-ish, but corrupted. Very unsettling!!
This is such a bleak image!! “Vast nothingness” and “vague sky” make the setting feel emptied out, almost post-apocalyptic. There’s no grounding here, no place to stand, which works well with the speaker’s sense of already being condemned. I do wonder about “missiles of blood thick carcass” though. The image itself is powerful, but the phrasing is a little tangled, and I think it might be holding the line back from hitting as hard as it could. Do you mean the blood is thick like a carcass? Or that carcasses are shooting through the sky like missiles? Either way is horrifying, but I’d love for the syntax to be just a little clearer so the reader can fully feel the impact instead of pausing to decode it.
!!!! This is such a cool turn
“Schrodinger’s concealment” makes me think of something being both revealed and unrevealed, both dead and not dead, both guilty and innocent maybe?? It adds this intellectual, almost clinical layer to the gore. And “ichor” is such a good word here because it makes the blood feel divine or mythic, not just human. Like this isn’t merely a body dying; it’s something sacred being ruined. That said, “congealment” feels slightly awkward to me. I get why it’s there for the rhyme, and I like the sound-pairing with concealment, but it reads a bit forced.
Maybe there’s another way to keep that thickening/clotting image while making the line feel less rhyme-driven? I love rhyming, but I don't know if it pairs nicely with the topic at hand!!
This turn works really well!! The speaker’s resignation becomes the emotional center of the poem. It’s not fear anymore ~~ I'd say it's more like it’s exhaustion. The idea that the rope is unnecessary because the speaker is already decomposing is devastating. Like, the punishment is late and the damage already happened to them before they could do anything about it.
^^^ I think “no point of the cord closing” could maybe be smoother as “no point in the cord closing” just for grammar/flow, unless the slight stiffness is intentional... The poem already has this formal, old-world diction in places, so a few moments of awkwardness can work!! But here, I think the line would gain strength from being cleaner. It's hard to parse through!!
What an ending!! The rhyme is almost bitterly funny, which I actually love. “Harangued” is such a specific word, and it makes the speaker sound not just dead, but tired of being morally lectured after the fact. There’s something really compelling about that. Like the poem is saying: judgment arrived too late, punishment arrived too late, language itself arrived too late, etc. That's a really whimsical way of portraying what had happened, especially something as serious as a hanging ~~ I do like the absurdity of it!!
Overall, this is dark and full of really potent images!! I especially love the way the poem blends bodily horror with philosophical uncertainty. Some of the strongest moments are the clearest ones, like the rope’s “icy embrace,” because the image is strange but instantly understandable. Really eerie work!! <3
- Payton
God I loved your review!! Tqsmmm
this made me shudder in the best possible way yk?
i have synesthesia, so here we go... this poem felt violent blue and sickly green, like something rotting from the inside out. it felt harsh and halted and almost delicate and very much dead. there's really no way to describe it in sensible terms.
some standout lines:
"a stretch of vast nothingness/ missiles of blood thick carcass/ shooting upon a vague sky." these three lines create such a perfect image together. the first evokes exactly the setting it describes: vast nothingness. then, the image is punctured by "missiles of blood thick carcass." it makes me think of war and death and bloodshed, which is such a heavy contrast from the previous line. then, the stanza is closed with "shooting upon a vague sky." it ties the two previous lines together, and introduces incertitude. it closes out the metaphor of violence and nothingness coexisting.
"schrodinger's concealment." this really is the standout line of the piece. it enforces the concrete idea of this piece, which is that nothing is really concrete and everything is vague.
some lines that maybe need some work:
"missiles of blood thick carcass." while it works extremely well with the surrounding lines, it stacks four dense images upon each other. this denseness, paired with the vagueness of the line (which in itself isn't a bad thing, however) makes readers stumble over the line. i would suggest either cutting a word or two, or changing it in a way that makes it more readable.
"I've already been hanged/ no point in a dead man being harangued." while the lines themselves are not bad, the break point between them is a bit awkward, which makes the second rhyme feel forced (along with the fact that harangued is not necessarily a commonly used word). There are about three/four too many syllables in the second line; i would suggest cutting and replacing some words/phrases.
other than those edits, it's a really really really good piece, and it actually made sense in a way that made absolutely no sense. a really beautiful read.
I can totally see the poem being those shades of colour! Thankyou for reviewing and helping me out ^^