12 thoughts on “Death on Display”

  3. I smile my best graveyard smile,

    dressed in Death’s black lace,

    staring down on broken coffins,

    chained above the watching eyes,

    their names laid out in stone,

    a remembrance of each life

    ruined by the Reaper’s outrage.

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    Very…uh…dark? I guess?

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    I smile my best graveyard smile,

    dressed in Death’s black lace,

    —

    This implies trying to look good, or appear appealing. Best graveyard smile indicates trying to look pleasant, at the least, and “dressed in Death’s black lace” probably indicates wearing a pretty dress? Idk what lace actually is, so Idk what that part exactly means.

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    staring down on broken coffins,

    —

    Tomb Raiders. In all seriousness, though, this indicates that not even the dead can rest peacefully.

    —

    chained above the watching eyes,

    their names laid out in stone,

    —

    The first line is completely cryptic. What’s chained? Obviously, it can’t be the coffins, because you’re “staring down” at the coffins, and whatever’s chained is “above the watching eyes”

    The second line is simple: gravestones. A mark of death.

    —

    a remembrance of each life

    ruined by the Reaper’s outrage.

    —

    Combined with the second line of the last section, I can use “remembrance”, “ruined”, and “Reaper’s” to conclude that gravestones are memorials, and perhaps even foreshadowing of future deaths. “Reaper’s outrage” and “each life” indicate that it is “gravestones” plural, and not just singular, as an outrage typically goes uncontrolled, and “each” implies multiple

    —

    Don’t ask for a summary, Idk how it all ties together, if I’m even right on all counts

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        1. Okay so my interpretation is as follows:
          “I smiled my best graveyard smile,
          dressed in Death’s black lace,”
          So basically I’m smiling though a facade, a smile that holds a specific sadness and secrets. I’m dressed nicely, made to look presentable, despite the “dead” smile-no life in it. It’s Death’s black lace because Death himself is associated with black, and people traditionally wear black at funerals. Again, the lace is to appear presentable, assisted by the smile, though a lifeless one. This could also be tied to the way people dress up the dead to be seen in open caskets.
          “Staring down on broken coffins,” basically observing those who are dead, but cannot rest. I am on display, I am the one chained. This ties in a lot to being a writer, writers (and artists) never rest, their work living on, always on display, keeping them ‘alive’
          “Their names laid out in stone,
          a remembrance of each life”
          almost literally supporting my statement above.
          “Ruined by the reaper’s outrage.”
          This, quite literally meaning death, or meaning their work (my work), kept them (me) from laying to rest at death, instead living on. With all this being said, it’s not always a bad thing.
          Oh, and when writing this poem, I was thinking a lot of Sylvia Plath and how her later poems reflected her feelings up to her suicide, and how her work lives on despite this.

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