My favorite kind of poem is the split poem. Basically, they’re two separate poems that share the same universe, offer an alternate view or continue the theme established in the first poem into further territory. We’re keeping with the metal poetry theme here of course.
Rosaceae Death/Quantrill’s Children
Baroness – Blue Record
A little known Southern lesson
The Confederate army was known
To use blackberries as ammunition
Bruise blue double-barrel revolvers
Twelve pound Napoleon bramble haired cannons
It caught the Northerners by surprise
Fleshy drupelet bullets destroyed them
Like swarms of hornets they screamed
And every Confederate ambush
Ended in a black sea of fetid fruit in the humid sun
Blackberry plague flowers
Bloomed with petals of smoking human intestines
Pollinated in blue jelly
The Union died so quickly
They had no time to ponder the symbolism
How closely their blackberry wounds
Mirrored the blackness in their hearts
And the greasy skin beneath their uniforms
*
The little boy walked up to the body
A man down left behind from the battle
Somewhere on the Missouri/Kentucky line
Curious about the truth of what they say
Knelt down, and wiped his thumb
Across the fringe of his gaping chest wound
He was surprised, angry to learn
That there was nothing bitter in his blood
It was more like blackberries, ripe blackberries
Nothing remotely like the evil they claimed
Maybe black-hearted, but as sweet as anyone he ever knew
The little boy clapped his palms together
Rested his head against his fingertips
Prayed and mourned this death
Even though he never met this man
Because nobody else will
Fuckin-A Anime!/Lazerzzzzz
Strapping Young Lad – City
Hey all you animals!
Wire a bomb to an arcade machine!
Kablooie and bonzai and the sky is asteroid collision!
All flashing red and yellow starburst explosions!
City skyline like varying volume level measurements!
Up and down and up and down they go!
Action! Fucking take action! Now! Go!
Blast! Not sorry about that Blast!!
Ha! Stole the governing modulator device!
Speed racer, motherfuckers! Speed or move!
Or die, die die, DIE, DIE!!
Highway death by nosedive sucker punch!
Gotcha beat, sucka! Manic Panic City fo’ ya!
Color, color, COLOR y’all in red, red, RED!!
Call out to my tribes, and my man, my sensei!
Big atom nucleus go nuclear fo’ sho!
Diamond-plated raspberry star runs deep, yo!
Boom, blam, blop! Firing from all its proton spheres!
Buildings are shaking like pussy vibrators
Doubled-over, crouching in pain from them lazers!
There they go! Zap! Zing! Close call meteor showers!
Wham! Right in all your relentless hesitation!
You either fuckin’ fight or you’re fucked, dude
Word to your mother, make her a ray dancer
Just like the fool I made out of you
*
My girlfriend, completely unfuckable
We were at a bodega, buying orange drink
When the cashier shot her, point blank
For no reason with a keychain laser
Her head blew like a Gallagher watermelon
Bottom half of her skull like a broken bowl
Barely containing the glowing radiation
I drove her straight to the medic
The nurse knifed a circle in her bed
Pried open the mattress with a crowbar
There was a serious laser battle going on in there
Glowsticks bobbing in a fire well
I’m sorry my Russian dollface
But you lived in America, so down you go
That’s where we all have to go when we’re done
Even if I have to spike you in with a hydraulic press
New Yama/Markandeya Fulfilled
Mastodon – Crack the Skye
A young sophomore, sixteen and wants to die
Not out of misery or for attention
But to be a part of a bigger place
To escape a boring world of restraints
The mind-numb greenery, the gray city
The vapid idea of safe, short transitions
From man-made to man-made wheel
With Yama’s noose, he’ll abolish wheels
Tie himself to the pulling magnets of hell
Into Naraka, carpeted in trimmed fire
Swept with hanging ropes beaded with thorns
He’ll soon be lazing on a flat rock in a tar pool
Eaten of his sins by snickering rodents
Enduring real, true pain he’s only imagined
In his note to anybody who should find him
Antyesti uncooked rice to preserve
A Bic lighter and kindling to burn
A Mapquest summary of a place to the South
Where his dust is to be buried under a river
His favorite death metal albums placed
On bamboo sticks and grass carpet
Then burned with gasoline so they may join with him
In his afterlife in the underground
*
The messenger pawed the door
Took the teen by the wrist
Biting just enough to break skin
No blood shed until they arrive home
The messenger nudged with his nose
The client of death toward the hole
Where steep stairs dropped
Towards a tiny yellow light in the earth
The messenger grabbed his spirit
A ghostly white tag above his neck
And carried him down to the catacombs
Where he was made to hang his body
Then deeper down, wrapped around a fang
The teen’s spirit was escorted
Into the ebony columned chambers
Into the stale sweat of a feared, godly friend
The growl of Yama cleansed him
The licking tongue of the dog consoled him
As the noose removed, the chains in place
And the winds of change that he longed for
Howled like a barb-branded demon
