This poem will be published in Collections VI, an anthology of the 2016 Merging Visions Exhibit by the Denton Poets’ Assembly and Visual Arts Society of Texas. I’m looking forward to seeing the art created to pair with it!
The Lurking
It slugs along the concrete,
groveling for scraps,
a mummy of rejected parts.
An atrocity, its body
is soft and patchy
with hair, scales, and flesh—
and letters.
Always fueled by my discarded
turns of phrase,
it skulks in the background
of the cellar,
gathering power pieced together
from my unwanted.
I am in charge here,
I remind myself
as I toss another poem below,
and I only need worry
if I were to give it
something sharp.
© Annie Neugebauer, 2010.
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This is brilliant. “Mummy of rejected parts” is awesome and the end made me shiver. Keep ’em coming!
😀 Thank you!
Awesome!
Thanks!
It’s awesome! The ending freaked me out – now I’m wondering what constitutes something sharp and what the “poem mummy” would do with it. Eek! (Also imagining all my trunked novels getting a hold of something “sharp.” Uh-oh!)
Thanks Lexa! Yeah, those trunked novels are the extra sneaky ones. 😉
This is so clever and funny in a creepy way!
Thanks; that’s just what I was going for!
I really like the indication that this amalgam of unwanted strings of words and phrases lurks in the basement, literally or figuratively. That you toss these peices or bits ‘below’, as though reburying them in your subconscious. It inspired me. 😀
Thank you! Yes, the cellar part of the brain. Or in real life, the file folder labeled “crap,” haha. 😉
Heehee, love it, Annie.
Thankya!
I’m so glad they’re going to pair it with some art. I was going to offer my services. It begs to have an illustration!
Having art made for my work is one of my favorite things about being a writer. 🙂 If you ever get a hankering, you go right ahead! I’d love it!
I definitely will!