Death Waiting by the Door

Short free verse poem on death--For Spring SLAM 2006 Final Round 3

You, the kind one,
my now-absentee landlord,
I know you hide, waiting by the door for me
to turn in the key, so you can grant me
wings to soar and witness, from atop,
how you'll bare my skin and unseal my guilt,
my pleasures, or the cavernous dark,
the job I could never do on my own.
Then, after emptying me of those material things,
you'll direct me to a beauty
that makes poets weep; next,
you'll bend into my coffin
and lure my bones to stay
as your keepsakes.


14 lines
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Prompt:
Write a poem free-syle under 15 lines that gives life to death - personifying it in some unique way. Whether you portray death as kind or cruel, gentle or harsh, welcome or feared is not the key point. It's how you personify death itself.