Waking up to Fear

Wind-buffeted morning
shadows hunt silhouettes
on back-swept wings.
Blood, bone and muscle
fit like gloves containing
consciousness
and fetid fearfulness.
Everything breaks
and dies. We fear
the unexpectedness
of death, a slow verb
about to spring into action
one unknown day,
never far away.

Kim M. Russell, 2017

The Kiss of Death Statue

The Kiss of Death located at Barcelona’s Poblenou Cemetery – image found on Pinterest

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille – Be Not Afraid

Victoria is hosting the fun and challenging Quadrille this Monday. She says: ‘We live in anxious times. On a global scale there is international conflict and instability, terrorist threats, political divisiveness and uncertainty, identity threat and climate change. We are polarized and fear one another, fear those who see things differently than we do.

On a personal level it can be even worse. We fear meaninglessness, financial insecurity, the past, the future, loss, death and what comes after. We are afraid that we are not good enough, that we don’t meet expectations. We seek professional help for anxiety we can’t even name.

And then there are those good old phobias—some of them understandable if we dip into events of our past. I have a horror of heights that I think came from having to descend a rickety old fire escape during fire drills in High School. Others, not so rational.’

Victoria would like us to take the word FEAR and use it in a poem of exactly 44 words, excluding the title. Fear can be used as a verb, noun, adjective (fearful) and adverb (fearfully). She asks us not be afraid but to just take it wherever the muse leads us. 

43 thoughts on “Waking up to Fear”

  6. Sometimes death can be an action verb, from our first breath to our last. Stunning Q44 though, well packed with poetics. I like the lines /shadows hunt silhouettes/on swept-back wings/.

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  15. Oh my…..death as a slow verb that can pounce suddenly upon us. Vivid description here and so very very true. What an interesting way to think about it…as a slow verb that can suddenly rush at us.

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  19. At my age the “slow verb” seems ever nearer. Your descriptive words and the photo leave me in a somber mood. I do not fear death, but the photo depiction is rather terrifying. Powerful write!

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  20. Death and fear seem to go hand in hand in modern culture. If only we could think of it as, ” Death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.” 🙂

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  22. Death is a concept which can be fitted with a plethora of adjectives. Beautiful, sad, happy(sometime), and one of the worst would be the fear. Fear of dying can be the worst because it can attack one wherever he is!

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