Creature From The Black Saloon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creature From The Black Saloon

 

 

His eyes are dead moons

that call up typhoons

where old sailors will die

on the devil's hot spoon,

dished up dressed in red for the Day of The Dead,

mouths whiskey wild and well off their heads.

 

He sparks a burned light

that cracks holes in the night,

calls witches to bonfires' sulfurous light

for the Dance in the dark, the Blood in the cup,

the black horns of the Beast

who will drink them all up.

 

His tongue drifts like quicklime

on a seasonless wind

in desires that die before they begin,

over the flesh that twitches and yearns

to dissolve into hexes the old gods that burn

just under the skin all mottled with runes;

I've met him. I've loved him

too long to refuse.

October 2023

posted for Creature Seeker at

desperate poets

Note; This may have been slightly influenced by attempting to watch Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem last night.

Images: Standing Figure, 1970 ©Nathan Oliveira  Fair Use

Dark Dancers ©Gina lacob   Fair Use

Breaking The Stone

 

 

 

Breaking The Stone

 

 

When I left the forest for a wilderness

of pillars, hexed by a tinsel covenant,

the moon cried for me. Pines sparked with

white gems of her longing. Minerva's owl

called my name three times; still

I chose the thrown shadows of a fire

that burned just out of my sight.

 

Sixteen years I followed shadows,

ate them, dressed in them, became

what was cast in front of me instead of

its birthing light. Stone I owned held no fire,

only chill when my foot left its face.The

pulling promise that scorched my hand

never could be grasped.

At last like a widow's first laugh,

there came the reaping breath of what is,

carousing down columns to lift

my short hairs with the brush

of owl's wings above me,

spread wide to carry me home.

Then the orphan moon

put away her tears

and blazed in the lavender sky.

Pine-wind recited in the meter of stars,

and I was their matchstick,

Gaia's fuse for a flameless firework

filling the amaranthine wood

against the dark end.

 

In my hand

I took the gift-feather

from the owl that called my name

and with it, wand and talisman,

without any heat at all,

I broke the stone.

 

June 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a draft poem for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: This poem could use some additional work, but I am posting it in its infant form til I can find what else it needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Owl and Pillars, author unknown, via Sunday Muse Fair Use  Image source 

Owl and Moon, ©Alan Perry, via internet Fair Use

Lightning Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Lightning Tree

When I was a child

pewterblue eyes round

as green walnuts, yellow pigtails

pulled tight in shredded rubber bands

I breathed up a world where I

lived in the storm, thunderheads panting like

mastiffs, tongues lolled over the lake, wind

secret as the monster under the bed

smiling, lightning fairy-dancing

into a forest 

of wild branches;

I didn't blink for the peace of it

covering the screaming, the blows,

cleaning my face

 

of a toy's tears. 

I breathed it in, petrichor

and the smell of power,

a brew of walking cobwebs

that piggy-backed me away,

a broken-eyed Dorothy doll

searching for Oz.

 

When I asked you to

kiss me like rain, you took me

up high on the lightning tree.

You had a web there, gunmetal strong

and sticky with grief. On the 

edge of those sudden wires,

one foot already caught

 

you don't even know you're dead.

When you fight

to run with one eye blind, 

and feel the tremble

coming closer

 

you learn everything

you lost

 

  all

you never had

 

 and that you 

can never trust

a storm.

 

 

 

~July 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Note: Comment moderation has been turned on. Apologies for the inconvenience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Images: Lightning in West Texas © Ryan Smith Photography   Fair Use

Broken doll, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use

 

Flash Fiction 55 Special April Edition #2

Since April is still poetry month as long as there are poets to celebrate it, here is the second special April edition of the 55 for all who are still valiantly writing daily, or for those who just wish to practice the form. Grab your pen, your paper, your keyboard, your crayons or whatever suits your fancy, and write 55 words, no more, no less, of poetry, prose-poetry or flash fiction, and post the link to your results in the comments below.

The prompt will be live from Friday midnight to Sunday at 4 PM.

~*~

Here is my 55:

Masque

"..and Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”
― Edgar Allen Poe

You, two

beats behind the living morning.

I, the rusted

 cutthroat knife flower.

You, in

 the scorpion cave torn, and

I,

anchoress in the black bower.

We dance

a chanted nightmare leaking fire

masked with

green locusts buzzing desire.

Outside, we

think the red death passes blind

these chambers

where our bones will rest entwined.

April 2020







with a nod to Imaginary Gardens with Real ToadsFriday April 10 Play it Again: Odilon Redon

Image: Photo, author unknown   via internet   Fair Use

The Masque of The Red Death, © Odilon Redon, 1883  Public Domain

Ice Fishing

Ice Fishing

Once the sea lived

wild or smooth, clashed or glass, 

with the sun to wrap or unwrap

in fog fichus, gulls for windchimes, lightning

twisting like time in the mercury sky

until you came

with the endless freeze.

For years now

I've been sitting

on the ice

above the tiny hole

in your roof

line baited, watching your pale

streamed shape below

swallow lesser shadows,

just a hint of mottle, grey and white,

is all you show of your famished dive;

a tug to tease me,

then

an empty hook, blinking above

your bouquets of bones.

I built a shelter once

but it's long since fallen down.

Still I sit, winter's constant fingers

peeling my face, a rictus on my lips

snowclouds blowing my eyes

to stone, bruise-blue cracked ice

under ravelled wool. Will you come

ghost fish, sweet engine of the kill,

to look at me when I am

dead of cold, pause unbeing's

restless body, wink at this stiff

shell with your black spirit eye

before you push away

to the next fool's line and pole?

~May 2018

for Shay's    Edward Emerson Simmons

This poem needs editing and work, but the time is sadly not there today, so I ask everyone's indulgence with its rough state.




fichu: noun, plural fichus [fish-ooz; French] 1.a woman's kerchief or shawl, generally triangular in shape, worn draped over the shoulders or around the neck with the ends drawn together on the breast. ~dictionary.com

 

Images : Night, 1889, and High Sea, 1895, by Edward Emerson Simmons   Public Domain

News Of The Whirled

 News Of The Whirled

It's all pix

elated into mess, crackled

digital distortion, tonight's

broadcast. The set's

failing.

A hunger, a shadow,

black furred blur

of flesh and age

mouths at the edge

never still except the lull

of false hope

its only cunning.

It's all so neat

so cancelled and concluded

here at the ending

and yet occluded

dispossessed;

the ordered home so long

invaded--

 a house

redecorated

by earthquakes.

~May 2017

 posted for Brendan's News

Images: Stardust, 1993, © Peter Alexander. Fair use via wikiart.otg

The House of Ill Fame, by Heironymous Bosch, circa 1500. Public domain.