For Halloween, my students took normal, innocent poems--and used the power of language to turn them evil.
First, we watch the
Frozen Horror Trailer to set the tone. Talk about creepy! But, it helps them understand how one might take something innocent and pure--and change it for evil.
Here was today's digital agenda:
If ever I thought that my students didn't look at the daily Learning Targets (without my prompting), today I was reassured that they DO look at them. We had a good laugh over this Target.
After watching the trailer, I give them several "tame" poems to choose from, and then they create the malicious versions.
Here are some of their poems: (recognize them from their originals?)
The Voices Will Know
By CKing
Blood will fall again
on your rough pavement,
a light rain like
a breath or a step.
The chills and the darkness
will flourish again
when you return,
as if beneath your step.
Between bones and shadows
the voices will know.
There will be other days,
there will be other voices.
You will be alone.
The voices will know.
You will hear words
old and spent and useless
like corpses left over
from yesterday’s feast.
You too will make gestures.
You’ll answer with words—
face of nighttime,
you too will make gestures.
The voices will know,
face of nighttime;
and the ominous rain
and the menacing dawn
that wrench the heart of him
who hopes no more for you—
they are the sinister smile
you smile by yourself.
There will be other days,
other voices and spirits.
Face of nighttime,
we will suffer at daybreak.
Nightmare Deferred by JKlouw
What happens to a nightmare deferred?
Does it get its head chopped off
Like a carrot?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten skin?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a bloody brain?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy bag of bodies.
Or does it come back from the dead?
The Body not Taken
TWO bodies submerged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not take both
And be one killer, long I stared
And looked down the scar as far as I
could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, just as bloody,
And having perhaps the better carnage,
Because it was torn up and stenched of
death;
Though as for I passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no human had wanted to come
back.
Oh, I kept the bodies for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two bodies diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less tortured by,
And that has made all the difference.
Day to Night by NV
She had her little room for
thinking during the hours the sun was high:
but she saw shadows on the
walls when the light began to die.
A voice she did not understand carried beyond
the door.
So she lugged a chair behind
the knob to hold the door forevermore.
Sometimes there were things to watch--
The shifting shadows on the leaning, cracked
walls.
Most nights, she stared until she
was assured when she closed
her eyes she’d hear nothing
She had the day, at best,
Before things resumed whispering from
The corners and the cracks.
And just what were they doing
Out on the other side?
Why, trying to invade?.
Later that night when she
rolled over and felt cold air,
She would open her eyes
and think of the place that was hers
For the day--where up until this point,
She thought the shadows were trapped to stay
Forbidden Fruit
By: AValencia
I love to go to my
sanctum
Among the bloated,
rotten, cold bodies
To feast on broken flesh
The eyes are the best
part
The skin sliding off
like velvet
The bodies looking at me
I stand in the pile
I didn’t know I could do
An act so very vile
The blood pierces my
taste buds
A thick ocean enveloping
me
I sink my teeth in the
soft skin
A squench as i clench
deep
The blood pools out of
my mouth
And drips on the ground,
so steady
R.I.P.e in September
I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, people
to eat people for breakfast,
the legs very prickly, a penalty of hair
they earn for knowing the blood art
of cruel-eating; and as I stand among them
lifting the limbs into my mouth, the ripest human
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain wild words
like strengths and squinched,
many-layer, on-skin,
which I squeeze, pull open, and attack well
in the silent, startled, icy, harsh language
of
ripe human-eating in late September.
The Crows Will Know
BY Lucifer
TRANSLATED BY HKingwill
Blood will fall again
on your smooth pavement,
a red river
a breath or a step you will never have again.
The breeze and the dawn is gone
will never flourish again
If you could return,
as if beneath your step.
Between the dark and nothingness
the crows will know.
There will be other days,
there will be voices.
You will be alone.
The crows will know.
You will hear words
“Finish it”
like a lost soul left over
from yesterday’s sorrow.
You too will make death a reality.
You’ll answer with tears—
Faces of lost one,
you too will face that sorrow.
The crows will know,
Faces of the deceased;
and the red blood stream
and the rising death shall dawn
that wrench of knowing you won’t return
The crows hope no more for you—
they stare for years
you smile by yourself.
There will be no other days,
other voices and renewals.
Faces of death,
You will suffer at daybreak.
SONNET 18 by DO
Shall I compare it to a Winter’s night?
Thou art more dim and more chilled:
Rough winds do shake the rickety homes,
And Winter's lease hath all too long a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of hell shines,
And often is his pale complexion darkened;
And every dark from dark sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal doldrum shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that darkness thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal darkness to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this takes life from thee.
SS
By the road to the abandoned hospital
under the surge of the dark
heavy clouds driven from the
northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing blood
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
brownish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches—
They enter the new world naked,
cold, afraid
Is how they will enter. And leave—
Now the bodies, tomorrow
the stiff curl of rotting flesh
One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of death
But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: death.
Lost dream
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a body left for dead?
Or eat at you like a maget--
And feed?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or or stick with you like a tick?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy burden.
Or does it stay in the back of your head and fester at you fro
eternity?
I carry your heart, by: C and Q
I carry your heart with me
It sits in pocket
I am never without it
As well as you eyes, they are my cufflinks
And your intestines, it is my scarf
I fear no fate for the deed is already done
I made a dapper suit of your skin
I want no world with you in it
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
I loved you
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars
apart
I carry your heart
Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it turn dark
Like a lurking ghost?
Or slowly creep toward you--
And then launch?
Does it follow you like a shadow?
Or only appear in your nightmares--
like a persistent tormentor?
Maybe it just exists in you
like a bug eating your insides.
Or does it kill you?
Nightmare by J Hart
What happens to a nightmare?
Does it dry up
Like a snail to salt in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and scab over--
like a decapitated limb?
Maybe it just sags
like rotting flesh.
Or does it explode?
