Horror

What price for horror?
and how much to ignore it?
Im just browsing
but what will it cost my soul
to hear the agonised squeal
of a hostage slaughtered like a sacrificial goat?
pleading to wake from his nightmare
as shrouded murderers descend upon him with knives
holding him down
excruciating convulsion and gritted teeth
as a silver blade carves into his slender neck
and gushes a fountain of red.
his bloody head and sinew held aloft in jubilation
glazed eyes and dripping jaw
as i scream inside.


Not today thankyou
my life isn't worth that sickness
Indeed lives are ruined by it, although
no man is an island im told
so what will i suffer to ignore it?
what will it cost my soul
to ignore the japanese dolphin culling?
to look away
as a fishermans knife slices through living flesh
like a knife through butter
the dolphins squirming body spewing liquid
spilling guts onto the deck
an anguished, shuddering dolphin
unable to depart this world in an instant
for lack of cutting.
The horror is in the detail.
Will blind ignorance save me?


My soul paid in full
to see the beloved family cat
run across a road to welcome us home
and get wrapped around the tyre of a passing car
that christmas ill never forget
the one that left my soul in debt
I paid first for the squishing tyre
then to see her desperately crawling for cover
dragging her lifeless wet stump behind her
I paid to reach into the dark and pull her out
her squashed contorted stomach
with her wretched screeching.
and wild staring eyes
I paid heavily to feel her die in my arms
to see fluid oozing out of her
as my mother caressed her lifeless body
I spent it all.
had no soul left to cry with
until three days later


So not today thankyou.
cant spare any right now
It seems my soul has placed a down payment
on my own departure from this world.
But when death comes to complete the deal
and its my turn too
when the world closes in around me
and I lose control
of my slender grip on life
in a panicked gasp to inflate my shrivelled lungs
the terror of a child alone in the dark
Who will share the expense of my horror then?
Will you?

Reviews

[ganymeder]

Very personal and painful. I felt so saddened reading it, but I'm glad I did. The few times you said "No thank you" vaguely reminded me of the "No merci" monologue from Cyrano de Bergerac.

This was very touching. I wish I could offer some sort of critique, but I honestly can't see how it could possibly be improved.

I'm so sorry about your cat.

[Bubo]

Well, you certainly hold no bars with this very descriptive write, and maybe if more
people read this they would do something to stop such horrors you have so rawly described.
The stanza about your cat, i felt,was deeply personal and very very painful, i can't imagine having
to bear that awful pain and memory.............and it is such horror, horror that many watch day to day, be it films, online whatever, the world has such access to horror that we so keenly try to avoid.

so what will i suffer to ignore it?
what will it cost my soul
to ignore the japanese dolphin culling?
to look away
as a fishermans knife slices through living flesh
like a knife through butter
the dolphins squirming body spewing liquid
spilling guts onto the deck
an anguished, shuddering dolphin
unable to depart this world in an instant
for lack of cutting.
The horror is in the detail.
Will blind ignorance save me?


Your work is powerful stuff...........you don't want to read but can't not. Strong.
And at the hour of our death we are alone............no one to share that fear with. Great writing!!

[Damien Dsoul]

The horror ... the horror. Your poem does a magnificent job of giving dynamic pictures of the sort of drama the metaphor so well provies.