THE MEETING

Alone one night neath lantern light, I trudged a weary mile.
Forlorn, I went with shoulders bent (the storms around me howled)
until I met a Silhouette behind a sultry smile –
She gazed with eyes that mesmerize (Her body caped and cowled)
and stayed my way with question fey, ‘Why don’t you while awhile?’

Though timorous (with slow address and gestures pantomimed)
Her voice was gracing echoes chasing waves in evening’s tide.
The churchyard groaned, an ***** moaned, the bells of midnight chimed
while wanton winds awoke and dinned, and mistrals multiplied.
The Persian moon, like stray balloon, arose and blithely climbed.

The Silhouette (a pale brunette) arched eyebrows meant to please,
and down the lanes, on windowpanes, the shadows danced and sighed.
A meadowlark within the dark, somewhere behind the breeze,
ennobled Her with wisps of myrrh while deigning to confide
to nightingales veiled whispered tales of human vanities.

She doffed her cloak before She spoke with sighs of sorrow sung
(like mandolins, as night begins, when mourning day’s demise)
and spun Her tale of grim travail and tears She'd shed when young.
As jagged volts of thunderbolts lit up the dismal skies,
a velvet fog embraced a bog in coils of curling tongues.

Through summer vales and winter gales Her secret thoughts were voiced.
Midst storms so cruel (neath lightning’s jewel that glistered on the ridge)
She reminisced, She touched... we kissed... Her lips were wet and moist...
A lighthouse dimmed, while moonbeams skimmed across a distant bridge
to avenues where residues of shallow shades rejoiced.

                        HER TRAGIC TALE

“Midst sweet perfume of youthful bloom, the lonely spirit braves
and often cries and sometimes dies in quest of her amour.”

While starry-eyed, a ship I spied, a’ sail upon the waves –
the galleon docked, the gannets flocked, the Captain swept ashore
where, debonair with gypsy flair, he led his salty knaves.

In passing by, he caught my eye - I tried to hide a blush,
but ambiance of innocence left fervour’s flames revealed.
His gaze (defined by eyes that shined) beheld my cheek a’ flush.
I bowed my head while caution fled, I felt my fate was sealed
- a bird in spring with fledgling wing - he’d snared a  falling thrush.

He said ‘Hello’ - I answered ‘No’ and yet before he’d gone
said I, ‘I’ll wait at Heaven’s Gate not far beyond the Pale’.
At dusk he came neath moon aflame, and left before the dawn
just humming tunes between the dunes that lined the sandy trail
beside a pond where morning yawned, where swam an ebon swan.

We met again, and once again, and once again, again
entangled in a love called sin, in whirls of make-believe.
While in my arms, with voice that charms, said he ‘I must explain -
the tide awaits in distant straits and I must take my leave’.
Then tempests stormed as passions swarmed through ardor’s hurricane.

‘Forsake your home and we may roam’ he smiled as if to tease
and still naive, said I ‘I’ll leave, in silver buckled shoes’.
He took the helm in search of realms, and quickly quit the quays -
with tearful eyes, I bade goodbyes to fare-thee-well adieus
and sailed above a wave of love across the seven seas.

We swept one morn around Cape Thorne while bound for Bullion Bay.
With naught to reck, I strolled on deck, a baby at my breast,
while flurries blew and seagulls flew within the ocean’s spray.
Our ship soon moored, we went ashore and off to Fortune’s Quest -
with gold doubloons which shone like moons, he gambled through the day.

‘The deuce is wild’ he thinly smiled; another card was drawn -
he’d staked and raised with eyes half glazed, was dealt a dismal three.
With betting tight throughout the night, the final ace long gone,
meant all was lost, at what a cost; alas, the prize was me.
To my dismay he slunk away and left me doomed at dawn.

A buccaneer with ring in ear sneered ‘now, my dear, you’re mine’.
He held my wrists to thwart my fists and then... my honor stained.
On sullied swash, the sky awash with bitter tears of brine,
I broke his clutch with nothing much of me that still remained:
a residue when he was through, left clinging to a vine.

In morning dew, the good folk knew, and spurned me in my plight.
The preacher man pronounced a ban and wouldn’t condescend,
ignored my pleas on bended knees and prayers by candlelight.
While cast aside, my baby died... my world was at an end.
Until this day, I’ve made my way beneath the shades of night.


                        AT HEAVEN’S GATES

To set Her free from destiny was far from my design,
but, though unplanned, I touched Her hand to give Her peace of mind.
She told me then, and then again, that providence Divine
had cast a curse, and even worse: despised by all mankind,
She walked alone, unseen, unknown, Her soul incarnadine.

To break this spell of living hell, of loneliness enshrined,
and end Her days within the haze, a sole redeeming deed
would give reprieve and maybe leave our destinies entwined -
Her final quest be put to rest if only I agreed,
but no surcease nor perfect peace nor hope if I declined.

The shadows, shawled in silence, crawled, the night Her fate was sealed
as vespers tolled across the wold beneath the muted fog.
The heavens cracked and sorrow slacked as chimes of children pealed
while in the hills (where midnight chills) there wailed a daemon dog -
with no delay I lead the way, the path to Potter’s Field.

Her weathered face was lined with Grace, Her eyes shone emerald green.
With me as guide She stepped inside to grieve and mourn Her loss,
and thereupon, though pale and wan, the night took on a sheen.
With weary eyes as Her disguise, She placed a wooden cross
upon a mound (unhallowed ground) and whispered ‘Sibylline...’.

A falling star flared in the far and burst, a bolide flame -
beneath the light, the Final Rite no longer hid undone.
And kneeling there in silent prayer, we seemed to share the shame
but could atone if left alone, forevermore as one.
Before we both could breathe an oath, I asked Her once Her name.

Through lips, pale red, She simply said ‘Some called me Abigail’,
and neath a birch where white doves perch, I took Her for my bride,
beheld Her smile a little while, but all to no avail...
Her cloak and cape, and shrivelled shape lie empty at my side...
for now She waits at Heaven’s Gates, not far beyond the Pale.

‘Oinos.’

Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with
immortality!

‘Agathos.’

You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be
demanded. Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition.
For wisdom, ask of the angels freely, that it may be given!

‘Oinos.’

But in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once
cognizant of all things, and thus at once happy in being
cognizant of all.

‘Agathos.’

Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of
knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but
to know all, were the curse of a fiend.

‘Oinos.’

But does not The Most High know all?

‘Agathos’.

That (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the
one thing unknown even to HIM.

‘Oinos.’

But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not at last
all things be known?

‘Agathos.’

Look down into the abysmal distances!—attempt to force
the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we
sweep slowly through them thus—and thus—and
thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all points
arrested by the continuous golden walls of the
universe?—the walls of the myriads of the shining
bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into unity?

‘Oinos’.

I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.

‘Agathos’.

There are no dreams in Aidenn—but it is here whispered
that, of this infinity of matter, the sole purpose is
to afford infinite springs at which the soul may allay the
thirst to know which is forever unquenchable within
it—since to quench it would be to extinguish the
soul’s self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without
fear. Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of
the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the throne into the
starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets,
and heart’s-ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple-
tinted suns.

‘Oinos’.

And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!—speak to
me in the earth’s familiar tones! I understand not what you
hinted to me just now of the modes or of the methods of what
during mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do
you mean to say that the Creator is not God?

‘Agathos’.

I mean to say that the Deity does not create.

‘Oinos’.

Explain!

‘Agathos’.

In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures
which are now throughout the universe so perpetually
springing into being can only be considered as the mediate
or indirect, not as the direct or immediate results of the
Divine creative power.

‘Oinos.’

Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered
heretical in the extreme.

‘Agathos.’

Among the angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.

‘Oinos.’

I can comprehend you thus far—that certain operations
of what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under
certain conditions, give rise to that which has all the
appearance of creation. Shortly before the final
overthrow of the earth, there were, I well remember, many
very successful experiments in what some philosophers were
weak enough to denominate the creation of animalculae.

‘Agathos.’

The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the
secondary creation, and of the only species of
creation which has ever been since the first word spoke into
existence the first law.

‘Oinos.’

Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity,
burst hourly forth into the heavens—are not these
stars, Agathos, the immediate handiwork of the King?

‘Agathos.’

Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the
conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought
can perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved
our hands, for example, when we were dwellers on the earth,
and in so doing we gave vibration to the atmosphere which
engirdled it. This vibration was indefinitely extended till
it gave impulse to every particle of the earth’s air, which
thenceforward, and forever, was actuated by the one
movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our
globe well knew. They made the special effects, indeed,
wrought in the fluid by special impulses, the subject of
exact calculation—so that it became easy to determine
in what precise period an impulse of given extent would
engirdle the orb, and impress (forever) every atom of the
atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no
difficulty; from a given effect, under given conditions, in
determining the value of the original impulse. Now the
mathematicians who saw that the results of any given impulse
were absolutely endless—and who saw that a portion of
these results were accurately traceable through the agency
of algebraic analysis—who saw, too, the facility of
the retrogradation—these men saw, at the same time,
that this species of analysis itself had within itself a
capacity for indefinite progress—that there were no
bounds conceivable to its advancement and applicability,
except within the intellect of him who advanced or applied
it. But at this point our mathematicians paused.

‘Oinos.’

And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?

‘Agathos.’

Because there were some considerations of deep interest
beyond. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a
being of infinite understanding—one to whom the
perfection of the algebraic analysis lay unfolded—
there could be no difficulty in tracing every impulse given
the air—and the ether through the air—to the
remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of
time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulse
given the air, must in the end impress every
individual thing that exists within the
universe;—and the being of infinite
understanding—the being whom we have imagined—
might trace the remote undulations of the impulse—
trace them upward and onward in their influences upon all
particles of all matter—upward and onward forever in
their modifications of old forms—or, in other words,
in their creation of new—until he found them
reflected—unimpressive at last—back from
the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such a being
do this, but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded
him—should one of these numberless comets, for
example, be presented to his inspection—he could have
no difficulty in determining, by the analytic
retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This
power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and
perfection—this faculty of referring at all
epochs, all effects to all causes—is of
course the prerogative of the Deity alone—but in every
variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the
power itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic
Intelligences.

‘Oinos’.

But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.

‘Agathos’.

In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth: but
the general proposition has reference to impulses upon the
ether—which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all
space, is thus the great medium of creation.

‘Oinos’.

Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?

‘Agathos’.

It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the
source of all motion is thought—and the source of all
thought is—

‘Oinos’.

God.

‘Agathos’.

I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child, of the fair
Earth which lately perished—of impulses upon the
atmosphere of the earth.

‘Oinos’.

You did.

‘Agathos’.

And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some
thought of the physical power of words? Is not every
word an impulse on the air?

‘Oinos’.

But why, Agathos, do you weep—and why, oh, why do your
wings droop as we hover above this fair star—which is
the greenest and yet most terrible of all we have
encountered in our flight? Its brilliant flowers look like a
fairy dream—but its fierce volcanoes like the passions
of a turbulent heart.

‘Agathos’.

They are!—they are!—This wild
star—it is now three centuries since, with clasped
hands, and with streaming eyes, at the feet of my
beloved—I spoke it—with a few passionate
sentences—into birth. Its brilliant flowers are
the dearest of all unfulfilled dreams, and its raging
volcanoes are the passions of the most turbulent and
unhallowed of hearts!

There is snow on the ground,
And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
Blackly squats o'er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of
feastings unhallowed and old.

There is death in the clouds,
There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
Hail the sun's turning flight.
And chant wild in the woods as they dance
round a Yule-altar fungous and white.

To no gale of Earth's kind
Sways the forest of oak,
Where the thick boughs entwined
By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark,
from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

And mayst thou to such deeds
Be an abbot and priest,
Singing cannibal greeds
At each devil-wrought feast,
And to all the incredulous world
shewing dimly the sign of the beast.

O, the Horror! Halloween Poetry!

Halloween Poetry: Dark, Eerie, Haunting and Scary poems about Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Werewolves, Reanimated Corpses and "Things that go Bump in the Night!"



Thin Kin
by Michael R. Burch

Skeleton!
Tell us what you lack...
the ability to love,
your flesh so slack?

Will we frighten you,
grown as pale & unsound,
when we also haunt
the unhallowed ground?



The Witch
by Michael R. Burch

her fingers draw into claws
she cackles through rotting teeth...
u ask "are there witches?"
… pshaw! …
(yet she has my belief)



Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we dread the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross ― such common things.

Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we shrink from his voice.

Centuries have taught us:
in shadows danger lurks for those who stray,
and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs
and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs.
He has no choice.

We are his prey, plump and fragrant,
and if we pray to avoid him, he earnestly prays to find us...
prays to some despotic hooded God
whose benediction is the humid blood
he lusts to taste.



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters,
deep and dark and still...
all men have passed this way,
or will.

Charon, the ferrymen who carried the dead across the River Styx to their eternal destination, has been portrayed by artists and poets as a vampiric figure.



Revenge of the Halloween Monsters
by Michael R. Burch

The Halloween monsters, incensed,
keep howling, and may be UNFENCED!!!
They’re angry that children with treats
keep throwing their trash IN THE STREETS!!!

You can check it out on your computer:
Google says, “Please don’t be a POLLUTER!!!”
The Halloween monsters agree,
so if you’re a litterbug, FLEE!!!

Kids, if you’d like more treats this year
and don’t want to cower in FEAR,
please make all the mean monsters happy,
and they’ll hand out sweet treats like they’re sappy!

So if you eat treats on the drag
and don't want huge monsters to nag,
please put all loose trash in your BAG!!!

NOTE: If you recite the poem, get the kids to huddle up close, then yell the all-caps parts like you’re one of the unhappy monsters, and perhaps "goose" them as well. They'll get the message.



It's Halloween!
by Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams

of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!

If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise

to plague nightmarish skies
one night without disguise,

while children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the Devil's lies...

it's Halloween!



Ghost
by Michael R. Burch

White in the shadows
I see your face,
unbidden. Go, tell

Love it is commonplace;
tell Regret it is not so rare.

Our love is not here
though you smile,
full of sedulous grace.

Lost in darkness, I fear
the past is our resting place.



All Hallows Eve
by Michael R. Burch

What happened to the mysterious Tuatha De Danann, to the Ban Shee (from which we get the term “banshee”) and, eventually, to the Druids? One might assume that with the passing of Merlyn, Morgan le Fay and their ilk, the time of myths and magic ended. This poem is an epitaph of sorts.

In the ruins
of the dreams
and the schemes
of men;

when the moon
begets the tide
and the wide
sea sighs;

when a star
appears in heaven
and the raven
cries;

we will dance
and we will revel
in the devil’s
fen...

if nevermore again.



Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot

born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,

dreaming of blood,
her fangs ― white ― baring,

revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring...



Like Angels, Winged
by Michael R. Burch

Like angels ― winged,
shimmering, misunderstood ―
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.

They are as they are...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full
and dream of us by day.

Their eyes ― hypnotic, alluring ―
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths, we gather...
to see, to touch, to feel.

Held in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, so old!,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.



Solicitation
by Michael R. Burch

He comes to me out of the shadows, acknowledging
my presence with a tip of his hat, always the gentleman,
and his eyes are on mine like a snake’s on a bird’s ―
quizzical, mesmerizing.

He ***** his head as though something he heard intrigues him
(although I hear nothing) and he smiles, amusing himself at my expense;
his words are full of desire and loathing, and while I hear everything,
he says nothing I understand.

The moon shines ― maniacal, queer ― as he takes my hand whispering

Our time has come... And so we stroll together creaking docks
where the sea sends sickening things
scurrying under rocks and boards.

Moonlight washes his ashen face as he stares unseeing into my eyes.
He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine;
my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face.
He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared.

His teeth are long, yellow and hard, his face bearded and haggard.
A wolf howls in the distance. There are no wolves in New York. I gasp.
My blood is a trickle his wet tongue embraces. My heart races madly.
He likes it like that.



Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes ―
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.

Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.

Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.

Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed felonies,

yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must...



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.

Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.

You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.

Published by The HyperTexts



Siren Song
by Michael R. Burch

The Lorelei’s
soft cries
entreat mariners to save her...

How can they resist
her faint voice through the mist?

Soon she will savor
the flavor
of sweet human flesh.



How Long the Night (anonymous Old English Lyric)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast ―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



The Wild Hunt
by Michael R. Burch

Near Devon, the hunters appear in the sky
with Artur and Bedwyr sounding the call;
and the others, laughing, go dashing by.
They only appear when the moon is full:

Valerin, the King of the Tangled Wood,
and Valynt, the goodly King of Wales,
Gawain and Owain and the hearty men
who live on in many minstrels’ tales.

They seek the white stag on a moonlit moor,
or Torc Triath, the fabled boar,
or Ysgithyrwyn, or Twrch Trwyth,
the other mighty boars of myth.

They appear, sometimes, on Halloween
to chase the moon across the green,
then fade into the shadowed hills
where memory alone prevails.



The Vampire's Spa Day Dream
by Michael R. Burch

O, to swim in vats of blood!
I wish I could, I wish I could!
O, 'twould be
so heavenly
to swim in lovely vats of blood!

The poem above was inspired by a Josh Parkinson depiction of Elizabeth Bathory up to her nostrils in the blood of her victims, with their skulls floating in the background.



Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

Nevermore! O, nevermore!
shall the haunts of the sea
― the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore ―
mark her passing again.

And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her ******* and hips,
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.

The waves will never **** her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure...
She sleeps, forevermore!

She sleeps forevermore,
a ****** save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely smothered
by the restless, surging sea.

And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way...
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.

He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea...

their skeletal love ― impossibility!



Dark Gothic
by Michael R. Burch

Her fingers are filed into talons;
she smiles with carnivorous teeth...
You ask, “Are there vampires?”
― Get real! ―
(Yet she has my belief.)



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.


Athenian Epitaphs (Gravestone Inscriptions of the Ancient Greeks)

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
― Michael R. Burch, after Plato


Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
― Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus



Passerby,
tell the Spartans we lie
lifeless at Thermopylae:
dead at their word,
obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
― Michael R. Burch, after Simonides



Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here―among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes, will gleam blood-red
at last when sunset staggers to the door
of each white mausoleum, to inquire―
What use, O things of erstwhile loveliness?


Reclamation
by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me―progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically―her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure
to a consuming emptiness.

We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture―
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts
to the first note.

Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.

Need is reborn; love dies.



Deliver Us ...
by Michael R. Burch

The night is dark and scary―
under your bed, or upon it.

That blazing light might be a star ...
or maybe the Final Comet.

But two things are sure: your mother’s love
and your puppy’s kisses, doggonit!



the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no hope
the Horror tells us “life” is futile
the Horror beckons, “there’s the Rope!”



Belfry
by Michael R. Burch

There are things we surrender
to the attic gloom:
they haunt us at night
with shrill, querulous voices.

There are choices we made
yet did not pursue,
behind windows we shuttered
then failed to remember.

There are canisters sealed
that we cannot reopen,
and others long broken
that nothing can heal.

There are things we conceal
that our anger dismembered,
gray leathery faces
the rafters reveal.



Duet
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad!
How worn and gray your auburn hair became!
You’re very silent, like an evening rain
that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed
for days we laughed together, glisten now;
your flesh became translucent; and your brow
knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed
three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,
but mine is not among them. Time has proved
our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said
I loved you once, how is it that could change?
And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange . . .

Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright
my thought of you remains, and if I said
I loved you once, then took him to my bed,
I did it for the need of love, one night
when you were far away. My heart endured
transfigurement―in flaming ash inured
to heartbreak and the violence of sight:
I saw myself grow old and thin and frail
with thinning hair about me, like a veil . . .
And so I loved him for myself, despite
the love between us―our first startled kiss.
But then I loved him for his humanness.
And then we both grew old, and it was right . . .

Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond
these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered
against the night, beyond this vale of tears,
for love, if it exists, dies with the years . . .

No, Peter, love is constant as the heart
that keeps till its last beat a measured pace
and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place
by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,
and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace . . .



Horror
by Michael R. Burch

What I ache to say is beyond saying―
no words for the horror
of not loving enough,
like a mummy half-wrapped in its moldering casements
holding a lily aloft.

No, there are no words for the horror
as a tormented wind howls through the teetering floes
and the cold freezes down to my clawed hairy toes ...

What use to me, now, if the stars appear?
As I moan
the moon finds me,
fangs goring the deer.



Strange Corps(e)
by Michael R. Burch

We are all dying, haunted by life―
dying, but the living will not let us go.
We are perishing zombies, haunted by the moonglow.

With what animation we, shuffling, return
nightly, to worry Love’s worm-eaten corpse,
till, living or dead, she is wholly ours.

We are the dying, enamored of “life”―
the palest of auras, the eeriest call.
We stagger to attention ... stumble ... fall.

We have only one thought―Love’s peculiar notion,
that our duty’s to “live,” though such “living” means
night’s horrific wild hungers, its stranger dreams.

We now “live” on the flesh of eroded dreams
and no longer recoil at the victims’ screams.



Love, ah! serene ghost
by Michael R. Burch

Love, ah! serene ghost,
haunts my retelling of her,
or stands atop despairing stairs
with such pale, severe eyes,
I become another pallid specter.

But what I feel
most profoundly is this:
the absolute lack of her kiss,
the absence of her wild,
unwarranted laughter.

So that,
like a candle deprived of oxygen,
I become mere wick and tallow again.
Here and hereafter ...
gone with her now, in the darkest of nights, the flame!

I lie, pallid vision of man―the same
wan ghost of her palpitations’ claim
on my heart
that I was before.

I love her beyond and despite even shame.



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone―unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma ...



Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch

There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.

The most dazzling of all the Earth’s flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.

Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”

The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures―chattering, bickering.
Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve’s matted hair;

he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.

“We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us.”
As though his anguish conceived in insight’s first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol’s gray realm.

“Shining Creature!” he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
“Help me find me one rare gift to put Love’s gift to shame.”

“There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches . . .”

“But red is Ehve’s preference; while Envy is green.”
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment . . .
“Ah, but red is the color of blood!”

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.

No One hears the cannon’s roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men’s doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.

No One knows the world will end,
that he’ll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye,
through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise . . .
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.

Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man’s demise draws nigh.



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.

Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.

Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!” . . . as the gaunt vultures stare.



Contraire
by Michael R. Burch

Where there was nothing
but emptiness
and hollow chaos and despair,

I sought Her ...

finding only the darkness
and mournful silence
of the wind entangling her hair.

Yet her name was like prayer.

Now she is the vast
starry tinctures of emptiness
flickering everywhere

within me and about me.

Yes, she is the darkness,
and she is the silence
of twilight and the night air.

Yes, she is the chaos
and she is the madness
and they call her Contraire.



Dark Twin
by Michael R. Burch

You come to me
out of the sun―
my dark twin, unreal . . .

And you are always near
although I cannot touch you;
although I trample you, you cannot feel . . .

And we cannot be parted,
nor can we ever meet
except at the feet.



East End, 1888
by Michael R. Burch

Past darkened storefronts,
hunched and contorted, bent with need
through chilling rain, he walks alone
till down the glistening cobblestones
deliberate footsteps pause, resume.

He follows, by a pub confronts
a pasty face, an overbright smile,
lips intimating easy bliss,
a boisterous, over-eager tongue.

She barters what she has to sell;
her honeyed words seem cloying, stale―
pale, tainted things of sticky guile.



A rustle of her petticoats,
a flash of bulging milk-white breast
. . . the price is set: a crown. “A tip,
a shilling more is yours,” he quotes,
“to wash your privates.” She accepts.
Saliva glistens on his lips.



An alley. There, he lifts her gown,
in answer to her question, frowns,
says―“You can call me Jack, or Rip.”



East End, 1888 (II)
by Michael R. Burch

He slouched East
through a steady downpour,
a slovenly beast
befouling each puddle
with bright footprints of blood.

Outlined in a pub door,
lewdly, wantonly, she stood . . .
mocked and brazenly offered.

He took what he could
till she afforded no more.

Now a single bright copper
glints becrimsoned by the door
of the pub where he met her.

He holds to his breast the one part
of her body she was unable to *****,
grips her heart to his wildly stammering heart . . .
unable to forgive or forget her.

Originally published by Penny Dreadful



Evil, the Rat
by Michael R. Burch

Evil lives in a hole like a rat
and sleeps in its feces,
fearing the cat.

At night it furtively creeps
through the house
while the cat sleeps.

It eats old excrement and gnaws
on steaming dung
and it will pause

between odd bites to sniff through the ****,
twitching and trembling,
for a scent of the cat ...

Evil, the rat.



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

Jesus was always misunderstood . . .
we have that, at least, in common.
And it’s true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.

And it’s true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat―
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.

Hardly the great “temptation”
of which I’m accused.

He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God―
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.

I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his “Master” on callused knees.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



Role Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

The fluted lips of statues
mock the bronze gaze
of the dying sun . . .

We are nonplused, they say,
smacking their wet lips,
jubilant . . .

We are always refreshed, always undying,
always young, forever unapologetic,
forever gay, smiling,

and though it seems man has made us,
on his last day, we will see him unmade―
we will watch him decay
as if he were clay,
and we had assumed his flesh,
hissing our disappointment.



Excelsior
by Michael R. Burch

I lift my eyes and laugh, Excelsior . . .
Why do you come, wan spirit, heaven-gowned,
complaining that I am no longer “pure?”

I threw myself before you, and you frowned,
so full of noble chastity, renowned
for leaving maidens maidens. In the dark

I sought love’s bright enchantment, but your lips
were stone; my fiery metal drew no spark
to light the cold dominions of your heart.

What realms were ours? What leasehold? And what claim
upon these territories, cold and dark,
do you seek now, pale phantom? Would you light

my heart in death and leave me ashen-white,
as you are white, extinguished by the Night?



Liar
by Michael R. Burch

Chiller than a winter day,
quieter than the murmur of the sea in her dreams,
eyes wilder than the crystal spray
of silver streams,
you fill my dying thoughts.

In moments drugged with sleep
I have heard your earnest voice
leaving me no choice
save heed your hushed demands
and meet you in the sands
of an ageless arctic world.

There I kiss your lifeless lips
as we quiver in the shoals
of a sea that endlessly rolls
to meet the shattered shore.

Wild waves weep, "Nevermore,"
as you bend to stroke my hair.

That land is harsh and drear,
and that sea is bleak and wild;
only your lips are mild
as you kiss my weary eyes,
whispering lovely lies
of what awaits us there
in a land so stark and bare,
beyond all hope . . . and care.

This is one of my early poems, written as a high school sophomore or junior.



The Watch
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight spills down vacant sills,
illuminates an empty bed.
Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates
wan silver circles, left unread
by its companion—unmoved now
by anything that lies ahead.

I watch the minutes test the limits
of ornamental movement here,
where once another hand would hover.
Each circuit—incomplete. So dear,
so precious, so precise, the touch
of hands that wait, yet ask so much.

Originally published by The Lyric



Keywords/Tags: Halloween, dark, supernatural, skeleton, witch, ghost, vampire, monsters, ghoul, werewolf, goblins, occult, mrbhalloween, mrbhallow, mrbdark

Published as the collection "Halloween Poems"

grasp the dark and take the night
ride the moon till morning light
set the banshees free in flight
and cover all the world with fright

seize the vale below the hill
bend the shadows to your will
bring the ghouls hot blood to spill
mist and fog the heart may chill

chant the spells to call the dead
howling beasts which must be fed
tooth and claw the streets run red
souls are shaken filled with dread

creatures prowl eyes gleam bright
victims scream at horrors sight
of devils heartless to their plight
till sunrise comes to bring respite

Having laid myself to rest, I could not get myself to sleep, nor could I entrust my own mind to dreaming. 
Laying there, an empty head on a lifeless pillow, I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling besides the things he had constructed. Carefully picking up the remnants of a sanctified artwork, shattered about the room, he turned towards me. Piercing eyes in a frame drowned in nostalgia.
I saw the fallen poet battering his quill, tired of his incessant fight. The hideous phantasm of a man-made oracle. 
All fought, their arms tied to their devotion, their armour fastened to their solitude
And only I could keep them company

This air is turnin’ thin,
Black clouds are rollin’ in,
Blendin’ from day to night,
Yet sun an’ moon in sight,
Cold winds pick up their pace,
Their howls consume this place,
The stars creep to the sky,
They’re lookin’ through all time,
The powers come aligned.
The prowess of his kind.

The presence now of something black,
That stalks and prowls but wont attack,
With the mighty claps of thunderous blows,
The skies split fast and monsoons flow,
With such a force I watch it bounce,
And feel a waiting for the pounce.

A flash, A lightning fawke,
Here at last. The soul reborn.

It comes to land, upon the roofs,
It comes as man. It comes like you,
An empty street. An’ there he stands,
Head fixed on feet, and eyes on hands,

As though turned off,
The weather stops,
And all is still,
It is his will….

The restaurant doors had long been closed, the staff had all now gone,
Just shiny floors and chairs in rows and napkins shaped like swans.
The shadow steps out of the dark and takes itself a seat,
The shadow sees a blindin' spark – the foes begin their meet.
And so they sit now face to face with minds to cut their chords,
And so they sit to score the age, The Devil and The Lord.

The figure that was made of light spoke first, and it spoke well,
He told the one that spoiled his sight how it deserved its Hell.
But then expressed with fallin' tears a heart too far from whole,
As he confessed that recent years bore less and less good souls.
The Devil smirked and leaned in close and said in quiet craze,
'My plans are working, every ghost will wind up in my chains'.
He cursed The Lord and slammed his fist and hissed that he was king,
“You lead an’ love and want an’ wish, but I don’t miss a thing.
Our infants and their ignorance are headin’ far from home…
They welcome all the wisdom I embedded in their bones.
That they needn’t serve in Heaven and they needed make a grade,
When they can come an’ work forever in the sanctuary I’ve made”

In rage The Lord jumped up with this and told a separate truth,
The page that you have seemed to miss is that which lets them choose,
Upon a death, if they should care, they’ll find the waiting sun,
'You're not a speck and never were and soon you'll be undone'

I’ve strung the poisoned arrow, and its flight has proved enough,
I call the son a shadow and I call the fathers bluff.
The seed that I have sown brings forth a forest of unrest,
That needs a single road but reaps a warren at its best,
The little ones not fallen – yet not lofty in their lures,
Forsaken in their garden – at a loss for wanting more,

They’ve all but torn it all apart, but burned the fruits they see
The creatures nearest to his heart - apples furthest from the tree.

These infants know not of your skill -, a boast so long obscured,
Your impotence has brought their will far closer to my cause.
To strike the throne not where it sits but on its founding stone,
I’ll overthrow - but not take risk and fall again alone,
I’ll creep my way into the midst – like the fumes he made me breathe,
And reap that day so long eclipsed – when swooms bow down at me.
To pull the threads from all you’ve weaved – that fabric taking form,
Annul the ‘best’ and all his seed go scattered to the storm.
To tear the pages one by one – each letter from each word,
Undo the age in which you shone and better make the world.

How will he fall, and you so with? How will my plan come made?
You’ve heard that calling in the rifts – the call from but a babe,
That tiny voice to chime the start and usher in the act,
The vary last in our great art – the act where villains pass.
The baby’s blood’s of neither cloth. The soldier stood alone.
In no-mans land, with no-mans cause. Abolish and atone.
The baby’s blood’s of neither cause, compelled to bridge both poles,
Meet all my good with all your flaw – your Hell amidst my home.

Each beat of blood to soar and shake the pillars of his house,
Each beat of blood so keenly traced to the will that I give out.
The baby born to end the wait – pass form into the ghost,
We each have spawned and each create - that baby born of both.

If age makes wise – then you’re aside. I tame you but with this:
You’re of the line that knows of time the way it really is…
And yet you talk of victories and valor ‘gainst the life…
That lets you breathe, and lets you scheme and shout what you devise.
Make no mistake the blood in me’s the blood that boils in you,
And all these creatures you have deemed accustomed to your cues.
It flows right from the very veins that shaped you as a son,
Though I don’t know his ending game, I know how it begun:
As all above and all below, and all we cannot see,
As all to come and all we’ve known – and all we find so free.
It comes as soul, an’ sight an’ sound, the depths of which elude…
The contempting cold that daily drown the fermenting of your feud.
It’s in the airs an’ in the soils an’ in the blinding suns,
It forms and fares and thrives an’ toils – in all of times triumphs.
It’s in our bliss, an’ in the blackness of your ravaged wastes,
It’s in that pit that beats, attacks and pounds you out of grace.
It’s all the minds of all mortals, an’ all the brains of beast,
And all those kinds that shuffle off the coils into me.

It’s all the fathers very form – along with that which walks,
It’s all the fathers very tongue – along with that which talks.
It’s all the makings of the man who sculpted shine and sin,
And still he takes you by the hand – indulges every whim.
Yet in the furnaces of pride you poise to make your place,
Your savagery one of a kind – your aim one of a wave.
And in the recess of your eye still I see his fallen son,
Who only wants to tell the skies that he can stand as one.
A sentiment so many like – ‘til sense sees it un-form,
A base intent so true and tried, but pales to better thought.
A noble note in a crazy chord – a plan that can’t prevail,
An honest hope so poorly formed you forewent seeing it fail.
And now this face you try to save – this front you fear to shed,
With all your age you’ve still no claim to the living or the dead.

Bar a myriad of martyrs made of mayhem gone a’mock,
And you show them as though starters of the safety in your flock,

Each drone diseased and misinformed – too blind and lame to know,
Though they don’t believe in he above – they still find his face below.
Though I can’t predict his plans I now the pieces that you play,
None that made it as a man and all too keenly sail astray.
But they still gather to his seed, aspire to confide in you,
They’re still climbing down his tree – and they will find his face on you.

I hear your words an’ watch your ways – as silk with poisoned spore,
I’ll win the Earth an’ win the day an’ win your masters court.
Who turned their gaze an’ turned their backs on the brother they’d see burn,
You speak of graze and noble acts - but I wonder where they were…
When that ‘mighty’ hand and his ‘precious’ plan had me torn from all I’d known,
To a barren land and desolate sound – and an endless fall alone,
When his regal rite cast away from sight but the brother they’d desert,
Who’s but of a mind to reveal such might’s in another of more worth.
Did a single soul rally ‘round their own? Did they simply stop and see...
That the full control they’d all let him hold needn’t be beyond our reach?
We’ve the right of birth to take bite of Earth – if we’ll only rile the will,
Why invite his curse and delight his purse, when I still live to make the ****?

My pity then for he that seeks to bite the hand that feeds,
My pity still for he that dreams some hope in crossing seas…
That crippled masses past your means before you took a breath,
An ancient class far more a fiend, an’ more a worthy threat…
Than anything you’ve ever been, an’ anything you could,
Those of a Kingdom we’ve not seen – those of a purer blood.
Those of a height I’m yet to know, beyond the place I’ve made,
Those with a sight I cannot show – and of a grace I crave.

Who understand the union of that father on the throne,
One hand to do the provin’ while hand keeps more unknown.
One hand to bring the fearsome and one hand to bring the tame,
One hand to do the healin’ and one hand to cause the pain,
One eye to see us sufferin’ and one eye to see survive,
One eye to see us love and yet an eye to see us die,
One mind to watch us fight but then a mind to see unite,
One mind to show the light and yet a mind to see it hide.

If all your words have any weight – I’m as clean as all your clan,
But I live in an arid waste with but dead men at hand,
If all you talk has any truth then I’d know love as well,
But while you walk on formin’ fruit - I get the ragged Hell,
So where’s this side to spare a son? Where is this sense to save?
Eons are done – a new one comes. I’m sentenced, or a slave.
His bleeding heart but goes so far, I’ll have my fate fulfilled,
His two great halves’ll shake an’ scar before I slay an’ still,
I’d sooner make my mark and make my mound into a hill…
Then mountainous scar right through the stars, than bow down to his will!

And still you see in black and white, in terms of some great tier,
Still haven’t heard a thing tonight – and still can’t lend an ear.
You ask why you’re left set aside, alone behind the veil,
You’re left to show the path arrai – a cautionary tale.
A marker for the men who seek a stature ‘bove all else,
And harbor then the weakness that sees strength a match for sense.
You’re there to sit where others wont. You’re there to play the fool.
You’re there to pitch your endless gloats – and fight the futile duel.
Somehow ‘under’ those in cradles, somehow ‘under’ those in graves,
But your number would be endless if you’d only join the game.

A misery all eyes can find. The maddest tale we share.
We watch you hate – and hate so blind – in sadness ‘cause we care,
But every day’s a way back home. A joke that you don’t get.
Just turn away, keep turnin’ clod, ‘til choked in your regret.
The picture - brother’s - such a scale your but a passing piece,
All us of life and later are but just a flashing leaf.
As somewhere else his other seeds stride knowing not of us…
Of angels blessed or saints revered or man or beast or brush.
And then again there’s others still, and more and more alike,
Past divine deaths, or life an’ limb – and all of such designs.

But here you sit, here one who sees time as it really is,
So I’ll let you sit an’ I’ll take my leave – still un-wavered in my wish,
That one time we meet you’ll walk with me, and leave your lonely night,
And we’ll put to sleep your darkened dreams and put our picture right.

Then the man of light moved to the door, an’ faded through the glass…
‘Til vanishing into the night. The meet had come to pass.
And all was still, it was his will. His foe sat lost in thought,
To unfulfil, to make his hill, to fashion up his Fort.

With a sodden frown – the forgotten found – the shadow left his seat,
As unhallowed ground came with hollow howls, he stepped back into the bleak.
The restaurant paused – so long since closed. And traffic moved beyond,
Past shiny floor and chairs in rows and napkins shaped like swans.

Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.

No faint and hesitating trill,
Such tribute as to winter chill
The lonely redbreast pays!
Clear, loud, and lively is the din,
From social warblers gathering in
Their harvest of sweet lays.

Nor doth the example fail to cheer
Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,
And yellow on the bough:—
Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!
Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed
Around a younger brow!

Yet will I temperately rejoice;
Wide is the range, and free the choice
Of undiscordant themes;
Which, haply, kindred souls may prize
Not less than vernal ecstasies,
And passion’s feverish dreams.

For deathless powers to verse belong,
And they like Demi-gods are strong
On whom the Muses smile;
But some their function have disclaimed,
Best pleased with what is aptliest framed
To enervate and defile.

Not such the initiatory strains
Committed to the silent plains
In Britain’s earliest dawn:
Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale,
While all-too-daringly the veil
Of nature was withdrawn!

Nor such the spirit-stirring note
When the live chords Alcæus smote,
Inflamed by sense of wrong;
Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre
Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire
Of fierce vindictive song.

And not unhallowed was the page
By wingèd Love inscribed, to assuage
The pangs of vain pursuit;
Love listening while the Lesbian Maid
With finest touch of passion swayed
Her own æolian lute.

O ye, who patiently explore
The wreck of Herculanean lore,
What rapture! could ye seize
Some Theban fragment, or unroll
One precious, tender-hearted scroll
Of pure Simonides.

That were, indeed, a genuine birth
Of poesy; a bursting forth
Of genius from the dust:
What Horace gloried to behold,
What Maro loved, shall we enfold?
Can haughty Time be just!

Down on the South side a
tube ride away,
out in the Borough
where some people stay and
some people say,
it's a nice place, a
well-lit place, a somewhere
to sit and deep think place.

but

there's another side, a ride back in time
when the streets were caked in
horse **** and grime and the urchins
searching for somewhere to stay,
some nicer place
on a much nicer day.

And the Stew houses
but no stew inside,
known to children and
no place to hide,
Goose, oh goose
let my children go loose,
cries far away from
the Borough today.
js

The following text is taken from 'Goodreads' reviews of John Constable's 'The Southwark Mysteries'.


'For tonight in Hell, they are tolling the bell
For the ***** that lay at The Tabard
And well we know how the carrion crow
Doth feast in our Cross Bones Graveyard.'


In 1107, the Bishop of Winchester was granted a stretch of land on Southwark Bankside, which lay outside the law of the City of London. The Bishop controlled the numerous brothels, or 'stews'in the area, but the prostitutes, known as 'Winchester Geese', who paid the Bishop licence fees, were nevertheless condemned to be buried in unhallowed ground. For some 500 years, the Bishop of Winchester exercised sole authority within Bankside's 'Liberty of The Clink', including the right to licence prostitutes under a Royal Ordinance until Cromwell and the Puritans shut down the bear-pits, theatres and stews of Bankside's pleasure quarter.

In 1996, those working on an extension to the Jubilee line of London's underground, unwittingly began to dig up the bones of the outcast dead of Southwark, extimated to number 15,000, and John Constable began writing the Southwark Mysteries and later became part of a campaign to preserve part of the cemetery as a memorial garden.

I can't resist pasting in an article from the Daily Telegraph that appeared after the performance of the Southwark Mysteries at Shakespeare's Globe and Southwark Cathedral on Easter Sunday and Shakespeare's birthday, 23rd April 2000:

The Sunday Telegraph, May 14th 2000

"DEAN REJECTS CRITICS OF 'SWEARING JESUS' MYSTERY PLAY

A religious play staged in an Anglican cathedral has provoked fury after it featured a swearing Jesus and Satan wearing a phallus.

The Southwark Mysteries was produced by Southwark Cathedral and Shakespeare’s Globe in south London as part of the capital’s 'String of Pearls' Millennium celebrations. It mixed ***** medieval scenes with modern imagery and referred to bishops engaging in homosexual *** with altar boys and priests visiting prostitutes. The character of Jesus, who rode onto stage on a bicycle, was shown apparently condoning a range of ****** activities, while Satan told scatological jokes and ordered Jesus to 'kiss my a*'. At one point Jesus was admonished by St Peter for his swearing and responded: 'In the house of the harlot, man must master the language.' At another, Satan, played by a female actor, strapped on 'a huge red phallus' before using it to beat his sidekick, Beelzebub.

The play was written by John Constable, who said that he had deliberately wanted to challenge Christians. 'Profanity is a theme of the play', he said. 'The point of it was to explore the sacred through the profane. ' Mr Constable said he had worked closely with Mark Rylance, the Globe’s artistic director, and the Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Colin Slee, who conceived the idea of a joint production to mark William Shakespeare’s birthday falling on Easter Day. He said the clergy had made a number of suggestions about the content, but he had not acted on all of them. 'They did ask me to make sure that Satan did not wear the phallus in the presence of Jesus, which I did', he said.

The first section of the play, which contained much of the ***** material, was staged at the Globe, and the final part, 'The Harrowing of Hell' in the cathedral. 'Colin Slee was very robust in keeping me on the straight and narrow', Constable said. 'The play is a new version of the traditional medieval Mystery plays, which were religious in nature but accepted human imperfections and took place in a carnival atmosphere. It seemed to be well received by most people who saw it.'

But one member of the audience, Simon Fairnington, has condemned the play as 'disgustingly offensive', saying that it 'revelled in the glorification of vice'. In a letter to the Dean he complained: 'Had the play been a purely secular production, one might not have been surprised at its treatment of Christian belief. What was dismaying was that it was sponsored and performed in part within a Christian cathedral. The cynical part of me wonders whether this is simply a sign of the times, and the way the Church of England cares about its Gospel and its God.' Anthony Kilmister, chairman of the Prayer Book Society, said: 'This is not the sort of play that should be performed in God’s house. It is quite disgraceful.'

But the Dean, who was the centre of controversy a few years ago when he allowed the cathedral to be used for a Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement celebration, defended the play. The performance was in keeping with traditional Mystery plays and 'portrayed graphically the life and history of the area' which was 'where the seamier side of life was to be found', he said. 'The message was that even the worst sins are not beyond redemption', he added.

Most of the audience responded positively to the underlying message of mutual forgiveness. Like the Dean, many accepted Satan’s *****, blasphemous words and deeds as part of the Mystery Tradition. The theologian Jeffrey John was of the opinion that, despite some obvious heretical tendencies, Constable was presenting 'remarkably orthodox Christian teachings going back to the first century AD'. Constable’s Harrowing of Hell is closely modelled on a play from the medieval York Cycle. His version shows Jesus’ spirit of forgiveness triumphing over the letter of The Law. Jesus’ ultimate 'Judgement' is a verse paraphrase of Matthew 26: 35-45.

  JESUS
  My blessed children, I shall say
When your good deed was to me done.
When man or woman, night or day,
Asked for your help, your heart not stone,
Did not pass by or turn away,
You saw that, in me, they too are One.
But you that cursed them, said them nay,
Your curse did cut me to the bone.

When I had need of meat and drink,
You offered me an empty plate.
When I was clasped and chained in Clink,
You frowned, and left me to my fate.
Where I was teetering on the brink,
Did bolt and bar your iron gate.
When I was drowning, you let me sink.
When I cried for help, you came too late.

  RESPONSE
  When had you, Lord, who all things has
Hunger or thirst, or helplessness?
Had we but known God a prisoner was
We would surely have sought to ease His distress.
How could God be sick or dying? Alas!
When was He hungry, thirsty, or homeless?
How could such things come to pass?
When did we to thee such wickedness?

  JESUS
  Dead souls! When any bid
You pity them, you did but blame.
You heard them not, your heart you hid.
Your guilt told you they should be shamed.
Your thought was but the earth to rid
Of them I am now come to claim.
To the poorest wretch, whate’er you did,
To me you did the self and same.

Hath thou seen Queen Mab to-day?
in that bitter carriage, with her dreams
         Forwarding to the cursèd fray
with unhallowed thoughts, or so ’twould seem
         And creeping under willow’s bough
’pon rotting leaves and sick’ning scents
         Of fretting unborn babes and now
she peddles with a marred intent
         With foreign faeries in the leaves
who show broken wares and scattered souls
         They hide amongst the dripping reeds
while dying rays reflect on shoals
         And here, on the last hour of light
mab cursed the world into the night.

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning—
Of all to whom thine absence is the night—
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope—for life—ah, above all,
For the resurrection of deep buried faith
In truth, in virtue, in humanity—
Of all who, on despair’s unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!”
At thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In thy seraphic glancing of thine eyes—
Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship,—oh, remember
The truest, the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him—
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel’s.

Crazy things we didn’t know were there
Without an X to mark its spot,
We shoveled and we dug over our bodies
We pillaged acres of skin, ravished even,
Our flesh fueled by the promise of glowing treasure
Wielding shovels and picks only our better natured angels
Understood, or could call “sweet intentions”
No map we possessed ended in gold
So we drew up our own tracing mountains and streams,
Upturning every rock, wading in every pool,
Our made-up languages became passcodes for secret doors
Our hair and nails became *****-traps
Like poisonous ivy and razor sharp spikes.
Perilous our hunt for heirloom, we would find.
But how could we not look?
Our compass points Northeast from down here
So as I climb towards your chest and you to mine
Our knocking proved there were unhallowed
Cavities under ribbed-caged bodies
And still we dig
Closer and closer to the treasure in our chests.

Skeleton!
Tell us what you lack ...
the ability to love,
your flesh so slack?

Will we frighten you,
grown as pale & unsound ...
when we also haunt
the unhallowed ground?

Keywords/Tags: Halloween, skeleton, pale, haunt, grave, graveyard, unhallowed, ground, thin, kin, frighten, frightening, scary, horror, terror, slack, flesh, fleshless, bone, bony, unsound, haunting

Open, dark sepulchers! Autumnal woe
whips the dead leaves, which scattering, whirl below.
Bright orange memories of summer’s cheer
Flame out in phantom grimaces of fear.
Bare eldritch limbs reach out against the dusk
and spectral winds disturb each withered husk.
Thoughts wax sinister, existentially . . .
for such we shall become, eventually.
All hallowed saints acknowledge even this,
Departed from a world they do not miss.

Unable to assimilate true night,
The nation now embraces plastic fright,
Satanic sweetness surfeiting its young
while judgement in the wings, awaits, unsung.
They purchase Chinese plastic slasher-masks
To celebrate those diabolic tasks
They wish were only nightmares of the mind;
And so they show they’re spiritually blind;
Culturally and politically as well,
For thinking there’s no Heaven, nor a Hell.
As if Life’s stunning triumph thrills them less
Than spectral superstitions they profess.
They glorify the grave, though life is good—
Their children freely tour the neighborhood . . .

Oppression that prevails beyond our lands
Bears testament to this. Who understands
How real the threat of gruesome harm can be
Where terror’s costly fear is given free?
Imagine those who fled forevermore
Real graves and bones, blood; homelands wracked by war—
Survivors, having seen such things fulfilled
May wish they could forget how some were killed;
Their Halloween replaced with realer fates:
by bombs, in wars, in dark tyrannic states.
From whence true refugees take flight from death
to live where freedom draws an easier breath.
Uprooted, then transplanted, seeking life,
Believing they have now escaped the strife
Must they be thus subjected yet again
To fear’s oppressive rule, so now as then?
Traumatic scenes are glimpsed, it’s all in fun . . .
Meanwhile, those who have lived it come undone.
Ironic morbid joke: where freedom reigns
To purchase fake cadaverous remains;
Permit the grave to thus enslave our brains.

There was a brighter side to all this rot:
In neighborhoods your adult mind forgot;
So long ago, so lost in childhood’s mist.
Of what did earlier Halloweens consist?
It wasn’t all about the grave, the gore.
You didn’t buy your costume at the store.
Your mommy helped you tailor some disguise;
A character to charm, and to surprise
The neighbors known to live along your street.
Nostalgic masquerade: the bittersweet . . .
Now, our nation’s hypoglycemic kids
Gorge on what diabetes’ law forbids.
Macabre, this epidemic in our streets:
Sugar-addicted specters draped in sheets
Or dressed in Wal-Mart costumes of the ******
who ask for candy (grabbing on demand).

Were I the Lord, I’d find it all less cute
And curse it, as the fig-tree, to its root—
Slam shut the cover on the fearful tome,
Restore true life, reviving every home
Till Treats and Tricks alike speak more of faith
And God’s own Spirit banish every wraith.

The horrors you exhume in idle hours
To haunt your artificial autumn bowers
Are real for some, who question, once a year
What’s wrong with you, romanticizing fear,
When Death and Hell are real—however near.

earlyish
in the mourning
the moon
begins to rise
to the
dirtiest
consorting
in the room
between the thighs
forbidden fruit
from a filthy city
that ruins lives
so the troupe
snipped ribbons
ripped ties
flew the coupe
and found suit
elsewhere

Hell

thought it was provoking

when they
caught em
smoking loosies &
tagging in
elementary school
bathrooms &
peeping ****** movies for free
mercy me, a perturbing
flea ridden circus
ballyhoo at
high noon
just
look between
the alleyways
like pearly gates
adjacent to
& facing toward
the gallow stage
saved for traitors

& may I say

these are unhallowed days

triple x files.
furious grady stiles
walked the
daily eighty miles
to the liquor store for
his quick pick or maybe just
a curious
eye sore for bored out tricks
on the nearest corner &
the queerest gory ***** flicks for
a nickel a dime a quarter
&please;

- mind the camera -

hammer
sickle
sanskrit
star
prison bar
stripe

flock stickered on
the flickering light
mock bicker then its
quiet on the farm tonight
⁢ doesn't seem right  
the sicker sheep seek
sleepless nights
in the street
took Darwinian flight &
a diving leap
to diamond minds
thicker fleece &
meaner teeth
drinking on cheap forties
sneakin up on sweet
***** mother glory

lordy.

first it's the shock
you can't even believe it.
then comes the anger
oh god the burning you'll feel inside.
you hate him and hate him and curse him
for every single happy memory
he gave you.
then the despair comes
you're awake endless hours of the night,
and you hate yourself and hate yourself and curse yourself
for allowing yourself to fall in love
with his demonic smile
and unhallowed laugh.
you cry your eyes red
your sadness takes on a physical form.
you don't eat.
you don't sleep.
you feel no compelling reason to be
alive.
the longer it was, the longer this lasts
and every time you think you're getting better,
you spiral down the drain again and
suffocate in your own grief.
you cut your skin and
your veins are trying to accommodate
all the alcohol diffusing into your blood.
you scream at the top of your lungs
you believe you are going insane
and the only thought haunting you
for the rest of your days is
"why wasn't i good enough?"
(e.s 'november fifteenth')

Some days the wind blows
and bends yonder willow
  Its roots hold sway
  perched high upon
  steep sea cliff walls
No gale could affix
a bow to such a limber
heartwood backbone
  Wind arched echoes
  undulate to and fro
  alike a gentle restoration;
  a resilience unrenowned

It looks as if it takes
the skies weight so lightly,
while the rising waves
gather an unhallowed chill
fomenting untamed
at the heart of the prevailing
       westerly swell

A human tends to lean rigidity
right up to the yonder most edge,
a thin line threshold
        a step away  ―
pushed by a moment's gravity;
a blind jump over a cliff
into an unfathomable deep ocean
       far beyond
       a forgiving
       willow's bend


Jesse Stillwater ... 09  May  2018

Guarding the door,
like a bulbus Heimdall,
a blank pumpkin sits,
internally unhallowed,
without gashed gaping maw,
nor knife-notched nose,
nor eyeslits: triangular and odious.

Its inertia, serendipitous,
not for a moment did it greet
children asking
"Treat-or-Treat?!";
Never a one did it glow for.

Encased within, like
those stringy pumpkin guts,
is the puckish Pagan spirit,
craving bones ablaze in a fire;
Lost Loves manifested as moonlit
flaxen apparitions,
finding them Angelic
(yet unchanged),
easily as a ring
found in barmbrack.

A return to the turnip.

Ambling along ferns
rusted that same shade of pumpkin,
pondering the dead, and where
I long for them to reside now;
Rose, with her heaven,
Ryan, his Valhalla.

To each their Kingdom
of eternal inviolate peace.

Word spoke in malice,
turn to silver as they roll off the tongue maniacally.

Intention of a depraved notion swivel backward in their motions.
Evil succumbing to the power of provocation.
The sin and burden of wrathful anger trickled down into one simple action.  
An act of devotion...
The willful way of degradation.
Hypersensitive reaction to the extraction.
Asking to be acquitted of your transgression...
How does a Devil ask an Angel to condone such an act of wickedness?
Trespassing on unhallowed ground, and living within a ****** lie.
The error of time...
Feathers of white on a whim of a demon.

When does the madness of your demise separate oneself from the act of humanity.
In death?
Or in the will to live?
These question have been asked from the beginning of time.
The answer are yet, still to be found.
Find solace within yourself.
Stop letting the sins of others weigh into uneven hands.
They're not your's to own or to even know.

In lieu the knowledge I have bestowed.
Go forth and live your life.

Happy, peaceful and in the never ending search of grace.

I’m going to each of my suitemates' rooms. One at a time, methodically. I pause, for dramatic purpose, until I have their full attention. Once I have it, I rushingly, excitedly, breathlessly say, “I’M getting pizza later, for the GAME!” Like a seven year old child.

Now, my roommates KNOW we're ordering pizzas later. They’re all “on board,” everyone’s submitted their order and venmo’d their money to Sunny who will actually place the order for delivery at 5:30 pm. But I’m excited. I LOVE pizza (and American, NFL football) and I love being childish.

My roommates, like my brother, sister and parents before them, know this and love my manic, overactive way of excising tedium. Besides, I won’t do this more than once or twice - ok, maybe three times today before the pizza comes.

Since you’ve read this far - allow me to opine, for a moment, about “self restraint.”

Have you read about how they’re using familial DNA to solve old cold-case murders? I think they should use familial DNA to track down whomever it was that invented self restraint.

It was probably some old Protestant. I mean, Catholics only have sin - it’s yes or no - binary. So without researching it (at all), I think we’re dealing with someone born after the protestant reformation of 1555 - but I’m flexible.

Anyway, they should track that person down, dig them up, beat them with a stick, and then rebury them, in unhallowed ground.

I hate self restraint. It’s so.. restraining.

#restraintsux

Cigarette smoke fills my lungs as I press graphite to the dimly lit page
I am uncertain if my light source is the street lamp or the moonlight
Mucus builds up in the back of my throat
Lovely habit
I look up and see Orion and wonder what he thinks of me
Does he think of me?
I put out my cigarette and the faint yet pungent odor of marijuana hits me
Maybe some Mary Jane would help this flow better
Maybe
I begin to count
Ten
Ten cigarettes to last me until Monday
I reach for another, begrudgingly
Filthy habit
Orion looks down at me with disgust
Or is it indifference?
Marlboro Red's
The sharp veil that adorns Death's alluring figure
Each puff is a tighter grip onto my unhallowed lover
Smoke hits my eyes, stinging them
Death is such a tease
And I am in love

The gates of the ancient prison creaked
And the chains clanked in the breeze,
When we pulled in with our caravan,
As we camped among the trees,
The kids went off for a quick explore
And were back before nightfall,
They said, ‘There’s all of this nasty stuff
Leaked out from the old stone wall.’

They said it looked like a yellow moss
But it had a putrid smell,
It clung in lumps to the chains, in clumps
That were hung in every cell,
‘Do you think it grew on the prisoners,’
Said Ted, with his eyes a-glare,
‘I’ve got a terrible feeling from
The damp in the cells in there.’

‘It’s only an empty building,’ said
Darnelle, but her eyes were bright,
‘I heard the prisoners whispering
As they must have done, each night,’
She let her imagination reign
Or that’s what we thought she did,
I learnt to listen more carefully
When she said that she had, our kid!

So later, when they were both abed
I took Clare by the hand,
And led her into the ancient Gaol,
To that misery of man,
Our footsteps echoed on cobblestones,
My voice came back like prayer,
Bouncing back from the old stone walls
In tones of a pure despair.

The moon came filtering down that night
And made patterns through the trees,
While beams shone in to the cells where once
Old men prayed on their knees,
And Clare would shiver where candlelight
Was once the only ray,
To keep the spectres away at night
Until the break of day.

I kept on wandering further in
While Clare would turn around,
‘Let’s go,’ she said, ‘it’s a scary thing,
We walk unhallowed ground,’
But no, I walked to the furthest cell
To the meanest cell of all,
And saw the bones, and the yellow moss
In a pile against the wall.

A beam came down from the rising moon
That lit up the pile of bones,
And there for a moment, all we heard
Was the sound of muffled moans,
A shadow rose by the weeping wall
Of a man who cried ‘I’m free!’
Who dropped the chains of his earthly pains
As he strode away, through me.

And all I felt was a deathly chill
As he passed right through my form,
My mind was frozen, my heart was still
And I felt I was unborn,
But then the morning arrived at last
With a terrible sense of loss,
For all one side of my face was gone,
Covered in yellow moss.

David Lewis Paget

Each day reminds me that I am depraved

fixated, titillated still with sin

and thinking I’m smart, I’ve ranted and raved

only to wake up again in this skin

wondering if I am actually saved.

Behold the deep cesspool I find within:

unhallowed Self, to whom I am enslaved,

doomed to start over every day.  Begin

again Lord Christ, that sanctifying work

you promised to accomplish through your Word.

**** the vipers that in our garden lurk;

tell of your blood and all that it conferred.

Explain—as on the road to Emmaus;

or dull mortality may dismay us.

My footsteps this day make no sound
As I walk these halls unhallowed.
Like a shade passing through corporeal bounds,
Hollow, holding happiness shallow.
Day after day I'm fading away
As my masquerade is breaking.
Frustration and fury, foreboding, that for me
Forever humanity's faking.

I stand amongst the normal and living
Their faces so hopeless, so broken.
Some may be friends, others have enemies
But for me no single one has spoken.
This place has turned strange, it's greying,
Decaying, my bane begets this Perdition.
The stench of a tomb from the rot that consumes
The doomed place ****** to a fission.

It has been my misfortune in which I delight
I'm accursed to blacken the sun,
To bring the ruin of all by devouring the light.
Now again has this cycle begun;
Darkness, disaster to dastardly droves
Debauched by a daemoniac foe
Who dissembles man to hide diabolic designs,
For what man dares brave the unknown?

I walk into the abyssal gloom
Of foetid and harrowing decadence.
The webwork of veins that trace every room
Betray the presence of an Asmodeus essence.
Is it me? Could it be that I've become so vile
That merely my presence defiles?
The pariah, it seems, is all I can be
In so sweetly tormentous a style.

It happens that here in my darkest hour
When I feel the facade is fractured
I see the bright purest light that breaks through the dour
Dark leading me to my attractor.
An angel I wonder, or maybe someone sent for
Me to cause me to blunder?
Perhaps today her angelic array
Was displayed for her spell I'd go under.

My hunger subsides in those crystalline eyes,
In their glow my bloodlust turns calm.
A warmth I feel, emotions belike,
Yes, foreign to me, I have qualm.
She is purity, surely there's a pulling toward me
Enduring my stubborn eschewal.
No tragedy to speak of, her majesty must be of
A flawless aethereal jewel.

How did I come into this sudden infatuation?
Enticed by the taunt of her lure,
Her perfection, it stalls me, indescribable exaltation,
Yet somehow this morbid mind's torn.
It's confounding, she's sounding profoundly arousing
And drowning my sense in her charm.
I love it, I hate it, that this consecrated
Divinity isn't met without harm.

How damnably refreshing my ambrosial dream
Whose glow can subvert the most heinous!
Her light can reveal worlds beyond what is seen
And the shadow I cast will sustain us.
A Devil, an Angel, together disdainful
In the eyes of the fools that surround me.
But I glimpse in that shadow a horror I now know
To mean that my Angel has bound me.

The light that shines forth casts a most vivid shade
Of this man-shaped form that I am.
But to my limbs were attached something of linear shape,
Like strings on a marionette.
What could this mean? Could it possibly be
Something I've been too smitten to see?
I've been such a fool to be blind to the truth:
My Angel is a Demon like me!

At this revelation I turn to the shrewd Enchantress
Who has been manipulating me from the start.
No shame, no fear, only with the most chilling deftness
Does she command the strings of this heart.
Of all the rotted, defiled, insidious, hideous
Things that dwell in my darkness,
Nothing more evil than this tentacled being
Can be conceived of in the depths of Tartarus!

Sensual, seductive, psuedo-seraphic shrew!
I'm enslaved by the lust she engenders.
Repeatedly beguiled by the lies that she used,
Still to those eyes I surrender.
The sinister spirit that taints all that's near it
Is an evil the both of us share.
She chose a prey who cannot be slain.
The challenge is an alluring snare.

As my Angel now dawns a horrific appearance
My obsession burns ever indomitably.
Apocalyptic, unquenchable, bloodbathed coherence,
Nefarious and haunting so ominously.
Darkness is ours! Eldritch bloodthirsty fiends:
Angel of Death and Devil.

The masks are peeled away, we're free
To cleave and bleed the world and revel!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                What I Found While Cleaning a Faeries’ Well

Perhaps it was because I cleared the vines
The ancient vines, with tools of iron, of steel
And traced the circles of the well’s lost lines
With my unhallowed hands, by touch and by feel

Or that I wore my boots, or forgot my prayers
To the White Lady said to haunt this place
Or whistled secular songs, careless airs
Until the dusk, when I came face-to-face…

I have lived to tell of this wildest of adventures
I found on the lichened stone – a set of dentures

The darkness overcame me,
Those shattered spectacles of fire were all around
As the curtains snapped to over the sun, you took what was mine.
The flames enveloped me, and yet I fought them.
For when I broke cover, the sun was shining,
Clear as it did in days of yore .
Your light had built me, and in that it failed
I fled into the darkness, for my fate led to death,
And to victory over your ambitions.
To fertility over desolation
To prosperity over the darkness that,
Unfolded upon us, like oil on canvas.
And yet I am afraid.
The living have traded for the dead.
The fire dwells over all that resist.
The light of the shadow is fading
Where art thou, o Evenstar, and why do you flee , before our end,
And though you may flee to bright lit shores
Where the maladies of death come to nought
It is we who watch thy girdle
The blood upon our swords and the splinters of our shields,
They hold back what thou fear
The halls of our fathers await.
We are destined to them
And as gentlemen though we fall to
This darkness that you hold
We shall not accept your order,.
And live and die as gentlemen.
For the hour is long gone for negotiation
The vultures gather for their treats
The unhallowed for their rank,
And yet I shall face thee to the death.
The leaving dare not come near us,
The dead dare not pass by
For as the flames of the elder days are stoked
We shall both meet our doom.
The dead watch our front
The living , betray us
But we of the mighty land shall stand
And fall for those that we hold
That mistress is arriving.
Gentlemen, I give you today's victory,
And tonight's mourning.

Statues shining ever bright
over walkways glowing white,
with souls that walked into the light,
bound there in forever night.
Statues show their daunted gaze
and keep their eyes 'this haunted I'm led,
towards the distance, passed the graves
to the House of Red.

Shadows follow as I walk,
and I feel their hands behind me.
I pray these demons that I talk
should never come to find me.
Though, when they do I'd pray be dead
that I may not know when;
for through the gates of this House of Red
I know I'll come again.

Footsteps follow towards me
from the House of Red,
as footsteps go on from me
to the doorstep where I'm led.
Following I wonder,
Am I already dead?
Perhaps I'm resting underneath
this unhallowed House of Red.

Statues keep their eyes on me
as I walk up to the door.
There's fainted laughter echoing
from those that laugh no more.
This house is empty I can see
and it feels my soul with dread,
as I open up the door to be
inside the House of Red.

But lost inside I wonder,
What'd I leave behind?
It can't be that important
if it's no longer on my mind.
Perhaps I could've gone
another way instead.
Either way I'd come again
into this House of Red.

Attend, ye NINE, and careless swains:
descending to Arcadia’s plains;
a playful Zephyr wind of love
now stirs the leaves of VENUS‘ grove.

By PHILOMELA‘s unshorn flocks
and bright DIANA‘s flowing locks
my classic naiad air now brings
a gushing fountain’s hidden springs.
O’er verdant fields and greening rill
my lay shall fauns with satyrs thrill.
Ye swains and shepherdesses, come!
Adore the world’s Arcadian ***.

FLORA, banished from Eden, thrives
Sweetening hidden honey hives
whose swarms of workers never tire
providing flow’ry heart’s desire.

CUPID spreads his fluttering plumes;
and NATURE wanton pose assumes
uncovering her dales and glades
before her early glory fades.
The captivating limbs of grace
now parted, show her lower face,
where clefts are glimpsed—ravines, or chasms;
shuddering, bursting forth in spasms.
EARTH thus trembles. See her quake
and ruin of GOD‘s creation make.

WISDOM, fallen, pawns her crown
as high ideals come crashing down.
So o’er the fields, my pastoral lay
sets ****** blowing on his way.
Now thyrsus-bearing maenads pass
and BACCHUS rides upon his ***.
(A different *** should be adored
that fair creation of the LORD,
which gently rounded, swells the mind
with thoughts unhallowed, unrefined.)
This second *** we long to ride;
until she comes—our load inside.
But burdened beasts deserve no spite,
nor does my POETRY, despite
the fact that **** has made us DUMB
reducing us to spurts of come . . .
So chaste (and chased) celestial virgins
turn to trees at Classic urgings.

EROS spreads his wings (her legs)
inviting us to drain the dregs
while CERES’ tawny limbs now shake
as harvests man would undertake.
Old PAN gives rise to Attic fears
(as well the sav’ry BACON sears),
whose pipes the purling brooks enjoy
and streams flow faster, for their joy.
The golden past see here, anew
in rosy and poetic hue:
Will nature be reduced to ****?
Shall nymphs of pleasure, newly born
who bare their charming whole to all
cast womanhood in a dying fall
before a camera, there, to fawn
and light the rosy-fingered dawn?
If so, I say let’s get it lit
(since literature might help a bit)
and in the daybreak’s fervid light
we’ll now make out fair nature’s sight:
appendages outspread, well-splayed
where once the sprite and dryad played.
Such fertile pastures, mounds, and woods,
a panoply of carnal goods
our undulating field of bliss
make misconceptions: hit and miss.
These wetlands, groves, and bounteous limbs
enthralled to lust’s capricious whims
make sweet DIANA seek her quarry.
(far too late to say I’m sorry . . .)
***, our motivating prize
displayed in fleshly glory lies.
Her fanes are reared, which sounds obscene
where once raw NATURE reigned serene.
Halcyon visions of the hunt
direct our carnal minds to C – – T!
The blessed light, transcending hope
and rolling o’er each grassy *****
begins to shine on darkened waters,
stirring up the river daughters;
waking schools of silvery fish
who glide along their final wish:
to flee the sharpened hook of fate
upon which squirms the Master’s bait.
While PHOEBUS floods the surface bright
with beams of pure poetic light.

This HEAVEN, following ******* Hell
is less a Babylonian spell
than pure devotion, misdirected
(and a pagan shrine erected).
where the poets sing too long.
Now hearken well: I’ll close my song.
Don’t harden your dull heart in hate;
just glimpse the garden from her gate.
And view those less celestial skies
receding in her human eyes
Until these dear idyllic scenes
inspired by purely digital means
reveal, at last, a digital end
and past with present bravely blend.

Enough of flocks of stinking sheep
who eat and wander, bleat and sleep.
Who copulate, and **** and ****
as if their lives depend on it . . .
Instead, I’ll sing of human being
beneath the eye of ONE all-seeing.
Ye watchers of the erring flock,
and pastors whom the crowing ****
awakes from sleep’s Elysian fields,
attune your souls. My poem yields
an end to this Arcadian story
(it was naught but allegory).
Such fleshly charms are quite a treat
and mutton-chops make hearty meat.

i love the way your bones
        are illuminated when they're
                grafted
      against
        my skin,
                the fear of you
constantly going back into hibernaculum;
your necropolis, innocence small
        remember you took mine
        with my hieratic blouse on
                                unhallowed
                                    little dirt
my mom said, i'll break your legs
        if you chase her, i told her
                i'll
            find
         a wheel chair
for it's our love that bid us both to the same grave
        no matter how cramped;
            no matter how deep gravel covers us
              i will lay here with you

Alone in between the right and the wrongs,
Left, alone in this place of darkness and stone,
Below, I belong with the other things left undone,
Unravelled ingenuity becomes,
Anonymous animosity,
Misogynous monstrosity,
Disingenuous duopoly,
Synonymous, settling finally, with simple simplicity,
Not original nor profound,
There’s already been every sound,
Footprints on supposed unhallowed ground,
And yet we still dig down,
Down, down into the depths to find,
The simple thing that is only mine,
Simple thing,
Simple things are not what they seem,
Easy to say, but hard to mean,
Simple things are only so in dreams,
And probably already passim,
It is really nothing, in fact dead,
Everything worth saying has already been said,
And repeated again and again,
And again we try to abstain,
Refrain from replacing by accident,
Disdain and heckler’s haughty contempt,
You were there,
You were where I did not dare,
Unprepared for the lies and despair,
Unaware of the incompatible compared,
The undemanding and the complicated,
Down in the dark I stand illuminated,
Concentrated, concentrated and fully fabricated,
Automated someone manufactured whilst isolated,
Looking for the simple thing to make it all make sense,
Become alone and lost in a fog of thoughts too dense,
Why do you never drive me far?
Because you’re really not my friends,
So do I either throw caution out the car?
Or do I drive you round the bend?