Dry

[Hawkman]

I have no blood;
my heart’s a stone, propelling only dust.

How the eyeballs burn;
their wells are dry and rivers cannot flow.

Both ears are deaf;
I don’t recall the last thing that they heard.

My throat is parched;
no clever words to lubricate a tongue of slate.

I have no blood,
but still I bleed, even though you’ve ceased to feed.

That cone upon the floor?
Why, it’s time-sand, and I chose to let it pour.

[Delta40]

wow at first I imagined a vast desert but the last couple of lines could well be an emaciated person (poet?) lying on their lounge room floor staring at a tiny cone of time-sand....

Good description with great possibilities for the reader Hawk.

[hillwalker]

The description of one's body calcifying is chillingly portrayed. But also one senses the emotions are also deserting him - no tears, no sound, no voice and finally no audience (?).

Heavy stuff, Hawk.

H

[MorpheusSandman]

Honestly, I wasn't impressed with this, although I generally love your stuff, Hawk. It's too full of near-cliches and banalities, stuff that goes back even to the proto-romantics. The best thing here is the last two lines, which finally conjures up something that feels unexpected and surprising. When I first started reading I was wondering if you were going to do something more subversive with these ideas...

[Hawkman]

Delta, Hill & Morpheus, thanks to you all for reading and commenting, espcially Delta for liking it :D

Hill, I think when you are that far gone you're past caring about the audience... :D

Morpheus, sorry you don't like this one. Not to your taste, fair enough, I'll try not to disappoint with my next offering.

Live long and prosper - H

[AuntShecky]

Sorry I missed this upon its posting. I'm not sure I understand it, other than as a cri de coeur, but the images could have come from E.A. Poe, or much more recently,the SF/horror writer Harlan Ellison. The conceits in your piece remind me of one of Ellison's titles: "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream)

Though I'm afraid to confess that this one isn't among my favorites of your consistently excellent work, it's eminently worthwhile. I would suggest changing either "parched" or "throat" in the line in which both appear, as those too words
appear together a bit too often, like "dire straits."

[blank|verse]

Yeah, having a 'heart of stone' is a bit cliched (and also raises the question of how something made of stone can contract and expand like flesh to pump the blood-dust round the narrator's body). And it might be easier to sympathise if the reader had some idea why the narrator is in his current state.

What I do like about the poem is the form - I think the couplets, which themselves 'contract and expand', work very effectively. So much so I might nick it for a future poem of my own! :)