Prelude to Death
Derek Talbott
Drunk with melancholy
and the smoke of oblivion,
I sit against the bed
to watch your face emerge in the mirror
broken, tainted,
sick of you.
The shades that still pervade this room
have still not dared to break the silence,
your silence,
cold and stubborn,
like the silver knife stabbing through my liver, relinquishing blood that is not blood
into a pond of black and putrid bile
struck by the light beams of a rocking lamp pretending to map the words
of a dreamt and half remembered poem
I whispered to your ear
while caressing your cheek
one of those times when life seemed
so curled and cuddled under silk,
so moaning and yawning, yet still
so painless, so endless
like everytime your lips
would kiss and cure my gaping wounds,
which now my nails attempt to soothe
to sound the emptiness within
and turn the flesh inside out
against the cruelty of your visage
that holiday,
in that river,
floating,
naked, flaccid, pallid,
mute.
I am left to wander and wonder
among cabs, clocks, croissants and coffees, awaiting to find a place
where I can’t find you,
bereft,
free...
The night lady usurped the wasteland yesterday and promised to bury you for a pair of coins with a little rouge, some mascara
and cloying lipstick smeared against my neck. I believed in her, I did,
until she stripped and took off her mask and she was you,
and oh what could I do?
beat her to death? Perhaps…
but I told her to sit, offered her some tea, asked how old, what friends had she, she said sixteen and none, except for one who’d gone mad after her husband died, but how?
he drowned the fourth of July,
after binging and plunging into a river lured by some magic fish.
We gazed astray
and took the last sip,
the tea already cold and nasty
like the rain that poured down
against the ghosted glass pane
while we asked ourselves why?
So faint, so fragile
she poured more tea,
and in my cup I saw those swirling rings closing round my eyes,
blurring your face and mine
as you were screaming my name
filtered by the gurgles flooding my ears,
urging me to let go of these dreams dissolved beneath the psychedelic stars, away from the bloody flags,
the hot dogs, the honks of cars,
and only now you see me take the last sip, and yield to kiss my frozen lips
and suck the spirit out of me.
and the smoke of oblivion,
I sit against the bed
to watch your face emerge in the mirror
broken, tainted,
sick of you.
The shades that still pervade this room
have still not dared to break the silence,
your silence,
cold and stubborn,
like the silver knife stabbing through my liver, relinquishing blood that is not blood
into a pond of black and putrid bile
struck by the light beams of a rocking lamp pretending to map the words
of a dreamt and half remembered poem
I whispered to your ear
while caressing your cheek
one of those times when life seemed
so curled and cuddled under silk,
so moaning and yawning, yet still
so painless, so endless
like everytime your lips
would kiss and cure my gaping wounds,
which now my nails attempt to soothe
to sound the emptiness within
and turn the flesh inside out
against the cruelty of your visage
that holiday,
in that river,
floating,
naked, flaccid, pallid,
mute.
I am left to wander and wonder
among cabs, clocks, croissants and coffees, awaiting to find a place
where I can’t find you,
bereft,
free...
The night lady usurped the wasteland yesterday and promised to bury you for a pair of coins with a little rouge, some mascara
and cloying lipstick smeared against my neck. I believed in her, I did,
until she stripped and took off her mask and she was you,
and oh what could I do?
beat her to death? Perhaps…
but I told her to sit, offered her some tea, asked how old, what friends had she, she said sixteen and none, except for one who’d gone mad after her husband died, but how?
he drowned the fourth of July,
after binging and plunging into a river lured by some magic fish.
We gazed astray
and took the last sip,
the tea already cold and nasty
like the rain that poured down
against the ghosted glass pane
while we asked ourselves why?
So faint, so fragile
she poured more tea,
and in my cup I saw those swirling rings closing round my eyes,
blurring your face and mine
as you were screaming my name
filtered by the gurgles flooding my ears,
urging me to let go of these dreams dissolved beneath the psychedelic stars, away from the bloody flags,
the hot dogs, the honks of cars,
and only now you see me take the last sip, and yield to kiss my frozen lips
and suck the spirit out of me.
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My name is Derek (Pomona 2025), I am from San Francisco and I am a QuestBridge Match at Pomona. I enjoy reading and writing poetry and fiction, and also love to draw and paint in my free time. I am currently planning to major on Media Studies and English, and I am thinking of screenwriting as a career
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