frigidity-a distillation

An erasure poem created from Edgar Allan Poe's "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque." Written on 10/2/2009 and 10/3/2009. Erasure poetry is a form of found poetry created by erasing words from an existing text in prose or verse and framing the result on the page as a poem. The results can be allowed to stand in situ or they can be arranged into lines and/or stanzas. I just recently discovered this technique this semester in my creative writing class. It's really interesting! I don't currently have a title for this piece. Any suggestions would be great.


frigidity-a distillation
of people themselves
of ignorance, of speech
incomprehensible inhabitants
interwoven
inhabitants of earth, yet
much more metaphysical

guilty of the present
proper perusal of this
extraordinary extremity
taken off-so far forgot
as to doubt the arm
of his brother

and without having reached
death-the pardon, so horrible!
no so, however, a ridiculous hoax
well--what of that?

odd little ears
have been cut off close to his head
have been missing for days
they were dirty-very dirty

he would take his bible oath,
the drunken gentleman
returning with money in his
pockets and an astonishing
lack of extremities
have gone missing on each
trip beyond the sea

not a whit better

philosophical phenomena-
so entirely novel that
Europe is in an uproar
warm masses distributed
about the firmament
the clattering of tongues
removed in a spirit of sport

a shout resounded long, loudly
furiously through the city
he moved, burdened by the
huge bulk of his rucksack
a queer sight, this man
so oddly shaped--what could it be?

what could the
devilish, shadow-enveloped
presence portend?
mouth wrought in
an unspeakable form
maintaining hushed babbling
eye steady, still lower

dirty newspapers clutter alleyways
the insult of his misdeeds
reprehensible, upside-down
glaring from a front page

the victims, their noses
upon nearer inspection
a circle of instruments
but still worse, there
hung the parts of
many citizens of Rotterdam

murder agitated him, his intentions not so
the state of mind clear, reflecting
a philosophy reasonable enough
to collect souvenirs from his travels
and nothing more