Reposts for Christmas

Hello again dear readers. We are getting ready to go out of town, and I'm not quite ready or able to come out of my hole, but I feel strongly, as I read your poetry, that I should have something here for you to read in return until I get back. So, I am going to post an old poem once a week or so, not linked to any prompt, or with any expectations. Feel free to comment or not, read or not--just my attempt to give back to those of you whose work gives me so much comfort right now. Here is one from last June.

Incubus VIII

Untitled, by Zdzisław Beksiński

Incubus VIII
(Bloody Hell)

Hell is lonely without my demon--

my personal one, I mean, because

there's no shortage here of devils.

 

Basting on the liquid lava's lips,
I'm alone in brimstone sunscreen,

no ruby pitchfork's flip

 

when one side gets too burnt,

no serpent sapient tail to scale me,

just the brisk popping of my cookery.

 

I thought my demon knew there's no

vaccine for the maenad's bite, that

nothing says forever like damnation.

 

I was killing more than willing

to lie griddled on bloodred coals

and call it love; but I missed his

 

listening kiss in the hissing steam.

Hell is lonely, bloody
empty without my demon.

 

I thought this blistered blaze might power
his blade-heart's forge, and this hammer pain

might twin us bright as living never did

 

yet after the first in-twisting, after

first blood spilled

he disappeared

 

and that is Hell for you.

 

 

 

~June 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ This was originally posted for       dVerse Poets, where Karin Gustafson (Manicddaily) challenged us to write of twins, twining, combining or uncombining. Though I thought I'd finished with him, as I've written many little scribbles about my twin the Incubus, still he seems to linger somewhere at the back of Hell's waiting room.  If you'd like to read the others in this series, you can find them  here.  ]