Purgatory

Inspired by a death metal song that I was listening to. The sound of chains and something heavy being lowered with growing screams that had me picture something like this. Enjoy...

Darkness obscured my sight

But the atmosphere was there.

For the cold embrace of leg irons and shackles

Rendered me to prepare

 

I felt the wind now shifting

As they lowered me to the abyss,

And in that choking air of death

My thoughts fell to amiss.

 

The augmenting wails were deafening,

And so too was our doom.

So we cried out till our lungs bleed out

As our dreadful fate now looms.

 

As these thoughts drift in madness,

Quarantined from the light,

My nail carved figures of desperation

As we're all blinded by the night.

 

The cage fell to a halt,

And as they took them one by one

Their fading scream brought painful chills

Until their screams were gone.

 

And soon there befalls me silence,

Besides the heartbeats in my chest.

No hope for escape in this purgatory.

No hope for our souls to rest.

Author's Note

It took me a while to finally complete this poem, and finally here it is! Being stuck in writers block made it difficult for me to come up inspiration. Sorry it took so long.

Reviews

[Nusquam Esse]

I like the way you compare this setting of being trapped and confined in an atmosphere of despair, while you wait on the screams of others (being judged), to the concept of purgatory. I also particularly liked he line "Quarantined from the night" Here are some suggestions, take them as you will.

Your third line is a bit wordy, and throws off the pace a bit; you don't need to stick to a meter when writing this form of poetry, but keeping your lines 'roughly' the same length in syllables will help the rhymes roll off the tongue more naturally. I recommend simplifying the ending to "embrace of iron shackles" I am also thinking that your fourth line stands out as being weak compared to the others; there are a lot of potential rhymes, if nothing else, 'aware' seems a better fit.

With the 'lungs bleed out', you should use bled instead of bleed, since you are using 'cried' as a past tense. Finally look for ways to cut out repetition, unless it serves a literary device. An example of this would be the repeat of screams in your fifth stanza, try to mix up the word choice, perhaps wails?

[Fréyjä Helvití]

I totally agree with you. TBH, I had a hard time coming up with this. Some lines come out strong, some don't. It was struggle of trying to bring up what I was picturing in my head and playing with words that would work with the flow.

I appreciate the suggestions. Thank you

[Nusquam Esse]

Props on doing so much with so little (writer's block)!

[Davidgeo]

I got about two and half stanza's in before I became frustrated with how small and ornate your text is and said f**k it.

Do your readers a favor... enlarge the font.

[Relic]

I enjoyed the darkness and all it implied in this. Nice poem.

[Rocans]

I liked this one. It was dark and brooding...just the way I love it. Great stuff

[Fréyjä Helvití]

Thank you so much Rocans...

[Anne Timmins]

Very well done and it made me think and take notice. Good job!

[Fréyjä Helvití]

thank you so much Anne. :)

[Rob Santana]

You are forgiven Princess. Soooooooo glad to see you back with a new write. This is awesome. Strong imagery. You have inspired me to write dark again. Please come back .......

[Fréyjä Helvití]

Thank you so much Rob. I really missed you.

[Rob Santana]

Missed you too.......