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Jun 03, 2026
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The Dead Mesa Requiem
A decade passed since weary lawmen died,
to guard the gold that locked itself inside.
A curse was laid upon the lonely hill,
To keep the hidden treasure dark and still.
The midnight sun is bleeding low and red,
across a silent valley of the dead.
He pulls his heavy brimmed hat to his eyes,
as black crows scream their warnings to the skies.
The map is cracked and rotted down with mold,
a scrap of flesh that speaks of Spanish gold.
The ink is dark, like dried and vanished veins,
of men who died in heavy iron chains.
He spurs his horse through canyon walls of stone,
where frozen, blackened water falls alone.
The mesa rises like a jagged tooth,
to hide the ancient treasure and the truth.
Inside the mine, the gold is shining bright,
a trap of glittering and cursed light.
But shadows stretch and slowly start to crawl,
along the rotted timber of the wall.
The lawman stands above them, seven feet,
where dust and midnight shadows start to meet.
His skin is leather, stripped and sun-bleached dried,
with nothing but a hollow void inside.
A silver star is pinned to rotted bone,
his jaw is carved of scorched desert stone.
He wears a heavy coat of faded hide,
with ash and smoke alive and trapped inside.
Two burning embers stare from empty eyes,
reflecting cold and cruel winter skies.
He draws a heavy pistol made of steel,
to seal the awful doom the living feel.
The cowboy freezes with his hand on hip,
a silent prayer escapes his trembling lip.
The hammer clicks, the seconds slowly freeze,
the air locks tight without a sudden breeze.
He fires fast, a blinding, sudden flash,
the monster turns to smoke and harmless ash.
The cowboy laughs and claims his heavy prize,
with greedy hunger burning in his eyes.
He grabs the chest of cursed Spanish gold,
but suddenly his living blood runs cold.
His fingers turn to grey and heavy rust,
his leather boots begin to melt to dust.
He tries to scream but sharp ice fills his chest,
as mortal thoughts are violently suppressed.
He feels his mind dissolve into the stone,
to rule this dark and tragic vault alone.
The silver star falls down upon the floor,
as phantom wind blows through the open door.
He takes his place inside the heavy gloom,
the new protector of the silent tomb.
The cowboy’s bones now guard the ancient gold,
beneath the mountain, dark and bitter cold.
Above his head, deep in the solid stone,
a final warning stands and waits alone:
"The shadows wrap your throat and choke you in,
to pay the heavy price of greed and sin.
No grave will mark the place where you must dwell,
you are the phantom and the prison cell."
— RJ Bear, Jun 03, 2026
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About This Poem
Review Request Direction:
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Review Request Intensity: I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Editing Stage: Editing - polished draft
Critiques
neopoet
1 day 23 hours ago
Neopoet AI (premium) [2026-06]
The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:
The poem commits to its premise with admirable consistency: the curse that converts each treasure-seeker into the next guardian is a satisfying closed loop, and the final couplet—"you are the phantom and the prison cell"—lands that idea with real economy. That conceptual circularity is the strongest thing here, and it is worth protecting through revision.
The meter is iambic pentameter throughout, held in rhymed couplets, and the discipline is generally sound. A few lines, though, break the count or stress pattern in ways that read as accidents rather than choices. "A silver star is pinned to rotted bone, / his jaw is carved of scorched desert stone" runs short in the second line; "his jaw is carved of scorched desert stone" wants another unstressed syllable—"of the scorched desert stone" or "from scorched and desert stone" would restore the line. Watch for these isolated stumbles, because in a poem this metrically regular the ear notices the single misstep immediately.
The larger craft issue is the reliance on a small inventory of adjectives that do too much repeated work. "Heavy" appears in the hat, the pistol, the chest, the gloom, the price—five times. Each use is defensible alone, but in aggregate the word stops carrying weight and starts signaling that the line needed a syllable. The same pressure shows in the stacking of "dark," "cursed," "rotted," "silent," and "ancient." Consider whether each instance earns its place; the poem would gain force if the adjectives were rationed and varied, so that the genuinely strong images stand out rather than blending into a uniform gothic texture.
A related concern is the verbs. The horror depends on transformation, yet many of the active moments are stated rather than enacted: "shadows stretch and slowly start to crawl," "shadows start to meet," "seconds slowly freeze." The construction "start to" and "begin to" recurs and softens the very actions that should feel inevitable and sudden. "Shadows crawl" is stronger than "shadows start to crawl." Cutting these inceptive verbs would tighten the pacing, especially in the confrontation stanzas where the reader wants the dread to accelerate.
The internal logic has one snag worth examining. The opening establishes that lawmen died guarding the gold, and the guardian wears a silver star, so the reader infers the guardian is a transformed lawman. But the closing reveals the cycle applies to greedy intruders—"the price of greed and sin"—and the cowboy who replaces the guardian is plainly an intruder, not a lawman. The star that "falls down upon the floor" and the new guardian who lacks one suggest the lawman identity is shed, not inherited. This is interesting, but the poem does not quite decide whether the curse punishes greed or simply perpetuates guardianship regardless of motive. Clarifying that distinction—whether the lawmen too were greedy, or whether the curse is indiscriminate—would sharpen the moral the final stanza reaches for.
One image deserves scrutiny: "The midnight sun is bleeding low and red." A midnight sun is a polar phenomenon, which sits oddly against the Spanish-gold desert mesa setting. If the intent was simply a dark, blood-red sun, "the dying sun is bleeding low and red" preserves the sound and removes the geographic contradiction.
Finally, the rhyme on "eyes / skies" recurs across stanzas (crows to the skies, winter skies), and "gold" anchors several couplets. Treasure poems naturally circle the word gold, but spreading the rhyme sounds more widely would reduce the sense of return to the same chimes and let the deliberate repetitions, like the closing image, register as intentional rather than habitual.
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devoejack24
1 day 4 hours ago
the second line 4th stanza i…
the second line 4th stanza i think you get take out "blackened" better rhythm. same wit some the articles "of", "the" ruins the rhythm
love the story its fun
Ray Bear
1 day 4 hours ago
Thank you
Thanks for the feedback. I'm actually keeping this piece to a strict 10-syllable count per line, so those articles are serving as essential metrical anchors. I'll definitely take another look at that fourth stanza to see how I can smooth out the rhythm while keeping the syllable count locked in. Regards Ray