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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Terminal sigh

As promised in my A Cryptic Script post two weeks ago, this is the first of a planned series of comment-inspired poems. The title was suggested by Hanna, with a very slight change — not to mention my own mangled interpretation of the phrase.

Terminal sigh
By Francis Scudellari

Mortally minded, his own skull
He bloodless cracks, painfully pries;
With fleshy fingered forceps pulls
Splintered thoughts, fragmented feeling;
Disconnected, forgotten bits
Re-moves to neatly etched pathways;
Liquid memories suctions off,
Coiling feeds through light, fibrous tubes;
Essence transfused: flesh to ether,
Life's flow dripping off in slow leaks;
A mist of dream-refracting drops
He exhales: his terminal sigh

10 comments:

Jena Isle said...

Bravo, this poem can be a good topic for class discussion in poetry. What exactly, does the poem mean?

Apparently it denotes death, but Francis, you're presented it very poetically.

Hats off to you.

Jena Isle said...

YOU'VE presented it very poetically. My keypads have a mind of their own.

Anonymous said...

Very nice done Francis...Terminal Sigh....great title...I felt the words denote rather a death of inward feeling, a suppression of motions. Now, I could be wrong LOL but hey it was worth a shot. As always on a level above the rest.
Take care.
~JD

fihanna said...

He exhales: his terminal sigh
now his programmed posts are running themselves...
captcha: mgwxuv

Francis Scudellari said...

@Jena Thanks ... it represents a kind of death, but also a type of escape from it. My keyboard has the same problem :).

@JD I'd say it's more about the breaking of inward physical connections to those feelings, and the desire to preserve them somewhere else.

@Hanna You're on the right path, and that's good since it's your title :). The key is that "terminal" has two meanings. Maybe I should write nonsense poems built by captchas ;).

Fiendish said...

What a nifty idea for a poetry section. Personally I love the "bloodless cracks," and also the use of the colon in the final line. Punctuation junkie here. Nice :)

Francis Scudellari said...

@Fiendish Thanks ... I can get carried away with punctuation at times. And I don't always follow the rules as strictly as I should.

Anonymous said...

the terminla sigh was a grabber..well done

Anonymous said...

Very nice. Nice writing throughout, nice website. Good work. I wish I had better writing skills. :-)

Francis Scudellari said...

@Confused Thanks ... I had a bit of a struggle putting it together.

@Guy Thanks for the comment.