Your fountain runs dry, without ivy or mold
Frail frame, curled round the cracked cement, you eyes open only
to count the wrinkles from time, to scratch them out
on fraying pieces of paper, to chronicle the
decline, to preserve the date of every shift in the crumble,
every piece of rubble turned to dust.
Concrete angels whine hunger to the heavens,
doves leave bloody feathers in their wake, and tears
fall, unnoticed, just as lives wink out in dusky apartments --
found only when the stench creeps beneath the
neighbor's floorboards and finds their residents eating instant
dinners, powdered milk and pills.
Know now, among missed meals and dehydration,
that you died a thousand year prior, and now
the last bits of you have disintegrated into ashes,
which serve only as a maggot's afterthoughts, and never
angel dust from God.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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i loved this poem. it is beautiful!
the title really seems to make sense, too.
i read this poem as of about people who have wasted their lives away, who gave up. i fear of becoming one of them actually, so it was really meaningful to me.
i especially liked the last stanza.
great job!
My suggestions/questions are in orange:
I like the overall feeling of this poem - the tone is well-communicated. Hunger and death...cheery, ain't it?
I also didn't understand the relevance of the first sentence to the rest of the poem.
I do enjoy your work, no matter how cryptic it gets!
Colleen
(Edit: I don't understand the relevance of the title, either! Actually, I don't understand the logic of the title. Back pains have everything to do with one's spinal cord.)