I'm not usually very dark as far as writing goes. I'm a fun guy. But, I have a few ones here that are a bit of a departure from the usual.
Nice Guys Finish Dead
Nice guys finish dead,
still beating hearts inside their hands
held out to you while bleeding out,
and crying their last tears
in hope they wash your
callousness away
or drown you
with them
in a jaded hell.
The Slow Knife
The slow knife
cuts into us,
draws blood
and leaves two
empty sacks
along the curb
without our noticing.
The slow knife,
drowns out memories
with steel, stains hope
with blood.
The slow knife
penetrates and
uses love against
our hearts.
The slow knife
is the first knife
is the last knife
is the nail inside
our coffin.
Ooooh, I like these, Ben. Very dark and foreboding. When I spit out stuff like this it scares the hell out of my husband. I catch him hiding the sharp knives. Tee-heeeee..... xo
ReplyDeleteI think we both do dark well ;)
Deletegrrr!
ReplyDeletei fucking love your dark side mr. fun guy!
Thank you! I've tanned thoroughly ;)
Delete"The first cut is the deepest...baby I know...."
ReplyDeleteLove the dark, Quirky Ben Ditty! The gnomes are quaking in their cement shoes!
I particularly like the second. :)
Oh, no, I've scared the gnomes! I hope cement shoes isn't a mob reference.
Delete"They gnomes wouldn't play ball, so we took 'em for a swim."
Suddenly I'm envisioning a really strange story...
The slow knife...is a damn good poem. Very fitting pace and line length.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jack :)
Delete"Is the first knife, is the last knife..." Love that.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Heather. I was trying to go with an idea of time, slow, yet consuming.
DeleteAm I nuts? I don't read these as foreboding at all. in the first I see a man who is hurting "nice guys," he feels used, wronged, not cared for and as if his heart is outside of himself and vulnerable because he made it available to someone who didn't care about him. He feels jaded and being jaded is a hellish place that his misplaced love has left him.
ReplyDeleteIn the second: i imagine the sacks are the hearts of two people hurting. The knife that did the damage was slow in its work, but powerful to drown out all that was once good between these two.
Tell me, please. Am I wrong? How? Come on, Ben. I like to take apart the poem and guess what the author was saying. Help a future college Eng teacher out :).
You're not nuts at all. In fact those insights are very striking. The metaphor in the first had a theme of vulnerability mixed in with pain from "misplaced" love. And if she had cared, he could have kept in his chest, instead of ripping it out.
DeleteIn the second, I don't know if there is so much a hurting as a thaw. There's almost a lack of damage. The knife is a relationship consuming itself.
Ahhhhhhhh, Thank you! I am relieved I did not entirely miss the boat, as I read the work and then the comments and thought, "Huh?" :), but this is not uncommon, so thanks for sating my curiosity.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome :-)
Delete