The haunting in the blood (Taylor Swift lyrics - site contest)

by Mr. Darcy   Jan 31, 2023


We gather stones never knowing what they'll mean (acrostic)
................................................................................................

Withered clocks connect these streets of dreams,
each one the same, each one depraved and mean.

Go now and dig with fingers gouged and torn
and keep the pills in graves of mothers mourn.
Try as you may their screams are ev’rywhere,
here in the crooked mirrors that you stare.
Eat off the floor like dogs lick up their sick.
Return the halo, dim, no longer lit.

Sacrificial rope is there to swing,
to mock, to goad, to chant there in the wings!
Oh dear, I say, is there a lighter way:
Nay they say, but still I think there may?
Evolution’s taught us civil rest,
so surely death by rope is nay the best?

Newton knew a thing or two ‘bout life, like
eloquent young men use guns not knifes.
Victory is sought if there’s a fight, Christ
even he would Prey for longer life…
Remorse, a dead man’s plea for one more night.

Killers’ remove all teeth behind their smiles.
Never a festered frame hath reeked so vile.
Overlaid are fields of beaming pastures.
Wandering unseen our lord and master.
Ink that skin to etch the very bone.
Nibble ‘til you reach the danger zone, then
grunt when you find that sack of gavelled stones.

Wade out where the waters have no end;
hidden in the depths are friendless friends.
A mirror journeys through to vagrancy
to busy street providing absentees.

Tonight, the moon it shines upon the lake,
heaven knows the sins that mortals make.
Evil eyes now burn with lightening force,
yes, see them now escape from ev’ry pore.
'
Like rats, they know the tide is on its way,
lamenting all those left out on the bay.

Moments define a life lived in the past,
events a knuckled rope about that mask.
As heavy sack was sucked into the lake,
Night choked for good, for evil can’t be saved.

.

Mr. Darcy
© 2023

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Latest Comments

  • 1 year ago

    by Golden AnGel Rhapsodist

    Congratulations for the win...
    Well this is my favorite stanza

    "*Tonight, the moon it shines upon the lake,
    heaven knows the sins that mortals make.
    Evil eyes now burn with lightening force,
    yes, see them now escape from ev’ry pore.
    '
    Like rats, they know the tide is on its way,
    lamenting all those left out on the bay."

    You are very good story teller coz you can bring someone to the scene...

    Gel

  • 1 year ago

    by Larry Chamberlin

    I am ecstatic that your poem won the first page. It certainly deserved it!

  • 1 year ago

    by Larry Chamberlin

    The mere construction of an acrostic is challenging for it to make some sort of sense. The longer the poem the more difficult for it to hang together. Michael has managed not only to craft a poem that makes sense, he did it in variable rhyme schemes dictated by the number of lines in each word of the acrostic. He’s had a marvelous time running everything together in a blended mood and voice. The melancholy speaks in each stanza. While he builds images through stream of consciousness, the poem nevertheless holds a tight pattern.
    The withered clocks connecting the dreams are the dooms found in each stanza. In other words, each stanza is a dream in which the time is up for someone. For example, the first dream is of a mother, perhaps suffering from postpartum depression, so drugged that she literally eats off the floor until dying of an overdose. The next dream deals with suicidal ideation resulting in a hanging. Number three reminds the reader not to bring a knife to a gun fight for a greater reaction to your action. Dreams then show drowning, both by suicide and murder.
    Well done, Michael, workmanship worthy of your talent.

  • 1 year ago

    by Poet on the Piano

    So genius to use the lyric as an acrostic! That last line hits quite hard, and I love the wording in many of your lines. When the poems were posted, I read over this one many times and I will probably do so again to appreciate the rhymes/rhythm even further. Congrats on the win!

  • 1 year ago

    by Star

    Congrats on the win, wonderful write!!!

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