4.11.2011

Scary Poems


Where are all the scary poems? Why are poems not scary? What did Edgar Allan Poe do to them?

I will tell you what ol' Eddy did to scary poems. First, take off your shoes.

Yeah, doesn't that feel nice? Bet your feet are thanking you.

thank you! thank you!

Now, take off your pants. Come on, nobody's looking. You're alone. Just you and the internet.

Yeah, you feel free.

Yeah, you're beautiful. Take it all off, you'll feel free. You and the internet and your body and the air in its caress and its love always surrounding you.

Breathe in the air that hugs you. When you breathe you inhale your scent and the scent of those who've held you.

Now your body is a poem. The light on your body is the light on a poem.

Now forget about the rabid, dark poet trapped between your walls. Ignore his haggard breath as he churns his limited air into toxic carbon dioxide. His mad cries growing pale and soft as melted ice cream.

Poor sweet Eddy. No one cares to hear that ol' cow bark.

There's a new scary poem in town.

There's a new everything now.

3 comments:

JT said...

i care to hear that ol' cow bark.

also, dewitt, i found Scary, No Scary to be full of scary poems. have you read? it's something about the bang-bang surprise at the poem's end and often with a corpse dangling. of course, corpses can be BOTH erotic and scary... so...

DeWitt said...

I've only read poems from that book, I haven't read the whole boom. I think Zach's great. The poems I read were more sexy funny than sexy scary to me. But you're right, there are scary poems being written.

In cultivating fear as Poe did, and which made him the first real internationally read American poet (I've read this, I wasn't alive then to say it's true) poets don't seem interested. Most situational poetry tends to span from personal, political, or nonsensical. By situational, I guess I mean poems where the reader is located in a defined space with a relatable main character through whom they must determine the poem's emotional crisis or lack thereof by discovering what situtation this character is in. 

viagra said...

Not all is about scary poems. I think variety is good, and would be a kind boring to get always the same poems talking about... uhmmm the same.