FEAR THE REAPER



Late one moonless night
Comes a figure draped in black,
Stealing human lives.

Taking away the life force
Of his victim; now a corpse.

Silently he creeps
Through dark and dingy alleys,
Scything all he finds.

Taking only the seared soul
Leaving the human vessel.

Scything human prey
Like corn scythed in the summer:
Death personified.

Creeping slowly through the dark
Of a victim’s sleeping room.

Slowly raising death
In the form of a honed blade,
To a sleeping child.

Aiming toward a pale neck
Cleaving him or her in twain.

Right across the Earth
Human prey keep on falling,
As he steals their souls.

No human life is sacred
To this loathsome, creeping fiend.

Another life falls
To the midnight reaper’s blade,
As he cuts the flock.

Culling all humanity
Without fear or prejudice.

No one knows he’s real
They think him but a legend,
Yet he walks in truth.

Reaping all and sundry
Slinking through this awful town.

THE END
© Copyright 2021 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

About this poem

A renge style poem about the grim reaper.

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Written on August 02, 2012

Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on June 11, 2021

Modified on April 26, 2023

51 sec read
2

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXX XX XXX XX XXX XX XAX XX XXX XX XAX BX XXX BX XXX
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 952
Words 170
Stanzas 15
Stanza Lengths 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3

Phil Roberts

I turn 65 on the 31st of January 2022. I love cats, rock music, and horror fiction and poetry more…

All Phil Roberts poems | Phil Roberts Books

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