Two hands clasp limply around midnight
Twelve long forlorn cries
Somewhere above
In his study
A man screams
Welcoming Halloween
Another stands alone in his bathroom
Hands bloody and horribly raw
Beneath in the sink sit numerous teeth
This is terrible and yet
He sees something far more horrid
He screams “IT HURTS”
Clutching his curtain
A different man stares sidelong
Out at the horrible thing
Standing in his lawn
Airraid siren blaring
It has begun
In another home some miles away
The floor creaks
Yet no one is home
And deep below someone screams
Fingers enmeshed around their chest
Probing their throat curiously
A woman stands in a crowd
Surrounded by strangers
Clutching her face
Eyes wild with terror
And screams in protest
“THE EYES! YOU SEE THEM! I SEE! I SEE YOU!”
It is still early and a young child is awake
Staring at the vent in his room
Listening for the telltale scrabbling
Of those that make them hollow
The vent shakes
He closes his eyes and begins to cry
The Jester calls his rebellious crowd
Prepared and ready to raise a ruckus
Their new beginning
Blade in hand
And smile wide
He turns to the lightened sky
Deep beneath
Somewhere secret
A bed breathes
And the man breathes too
A few behind a oneway mirror
Scribble a note or two
A businessman lies awake
In his hospital bed
Tears streaming down face
As he remembers
Everytime he has died
On that fateful street
On the outskirts
A woman tills her garden
As sun greets so lovingly
She brushes brow
Bent low and smiling
At all the faces she sees below
Only ten miles from here
In a sanctuary for those mentally disturbed
A man, his face bandaged tight
Screams muffled anger
At passing nurses
“I. WEAR. NO. MASK.”
Back in the suburbs a boy left a box
Yet as the door closed
A hand crept out
Black and crooked
Grasped the edge
And pulled as the box collapsed within
A vessel long from now
And far away
Turns slowly in void
Directionless
Distress transmitted
Awaiting rescue
Back below in a cabin alone
A man screams at the walls
Fists full of dirt
And beating his flesh
He cries simply
“THE EARTH IS DEAD!”
Two dance in the depths
Below crashing waves
The woman couldn’t be happier
The man’s face aghast
And twisted in terror
Is all the joy she ever wanted
Yet another time
Another place
Something walks in the dark
Listening waiting
And all too hungry
It hears a soft creak
Awake and yet not
A man eyes antiques
Something within
Is evil and cruel
Waiting to jump out
In surprise
Something similar haunts fever dreams
A man has unfortunately found out
He paws at his face
Disbelieving and afraid
His reflection laughs
In mocking pantomime
His
Heart
Is
Not
A
Home
In a land that is strange
A stranger is screaming
Holding tight upon the ropes
Try as he might
He cannot stop
The rise of those terrible gods
Rusted wire sits coated in blood
The body wasting away
Now it is cut
And taken away
And in the distance
We hear pigs squealing
A woman had extracted
Some weeks before
Something small and awful
Flour dusting doorway
She awakens each morning
To find yet more tracks
This monster sits
Smiling gladly
At the feast laid out before him
Mask porcine and old
He cries for yet more
And here comes the next bit
Mere doors down from the man with no mask
Another cries in anguish
His body is dead
He’s trapped within
And all the doctors
Call madness
As chaos consumes
And the tempest draws nearer
A man welcomes it in
He’s drawn all the signs
and he opens their door
And embraces the slithering thing
Trapped in memory
A fortress of his own
This man weeps for love
She is long gone
And yet he chooses
To live it again and again
One more ritual as the night draws to a close
The corpse is already hung
A man fed Lies Slowly Dies
He screams at the sight
Of that horrible face
And the Lord of Flies calls for his heart
As I type and click away
I spy something amidst the trees
It moves
And sways
As all the others
Yet a swear I spy a face
Lastly the man
Who fed Him all his loved ones
Giggles away with his pigs
He’s not sure just what he’s done
But he’s sure he’s had fun
And he can’t wait for next year
Dried Ink Ribbon 