“Chance” Meeting

I cup my simple brew

Warm but I imagine

Quietly to myself

Something oh so warmer

And satisfying too…

As I meet your eyes

Is there a spark?

Do we feel the pull

The draw of fate’s strings?

I smile and give a little wave

You smile too returning wave

Though you waited a moment

I am so eager to know you

I’ve been watching for weeks

But I’m so very nervous

And terribly shy

Yes for weeks that’s right

I do hope I haven’t unnerved you

I have tried ever so hard

To go unnoticed

That is

Until now

Now you see me

Now I smile

You smiled too

Hesitantly

I felt that hesitation

A slight against me

So hurtful and minatory

Oh foul temptress

How could you so toy with my heart?

How cruel you are

And awful too!

You will pay

For hurting me so

I was your only chance

For love and life

A shame

You are so pretty

When you sleep at night

For that is where

I will creep within

And with careful hands

Snuff your life

A Watchman’s Duty

I stood before our gates

Pike in hand

And ever vigilant

Breaking the rolling horizon

A figure approached

For nearly an hour

I watched its plodding progress

As it came close enough

I saw what it was

A lone robed wanderer

Their robes a sickly yellow

And twisted yellow mask

Grimace glaring beneath the hood

The eyes were bloodshot

And panicked

Though its pace never varied

I cried out to them

“Halt! State thy business!”

But still it came closer

I readied my pike

Tip gleaming in the noonday heat

But still it came closer

“I said halt!”

Again I shouted

But still it came closer

Its complete silence

Unnerving me most

But still it came closer

I struck out as it came within reach

And they collapsed in a heap

My pike buried in their breast

I leant down and removed their mask

Face sinewy and raw

As though they had been skinned

Their lips worked but no sound issued

I leant closer

Turning my ear

And faintly I heard

“Prepare

For The King is near”

What You Want-

I asked for this

I went searching

I was the one who scoured volumes

I was the one who dove deep

I pushed so far

I fought so hard

I found what they sought to hide

I uncovered all those bloody tomes

I saw the halls steeped in silence

I heard the echo of abandoned homes

And now sitting before the wooden crate

Containing all that was searched for

I find myself hesitating…

Have I made a mistake?

When (do) I Sleep

Eyes so heavy

Sandbag weight

Sandman waits

To sprinkle down

. . .

Then they shut

Fresh hell

Flesh halls

Horror the instant I sleep

. . .

Eyes fly open

Gasping breath

Grasping bed

My whole body trembling

. . .

When am I sleeping

Eyes always open

Lies hallways often

Awaiting my return

Confusion in a Dark Room

Fedora cocked and jacket billowing

Detective unholsters his pistol

Cigarette in lips grimacing

The rain falls unheeded

And he follows after a figure

Disappearing in a crowd

Spilling into a theater

Through the lobby

Seeing the barest hint

Of that dastardly smile

As our villain slips

Into a darkened room

With a sacrilegious curse

Leaving a woman’s mouth gaping

The P.I. navigates the crowd

As he enters the dark room

He sees the cone of a projector light

On screen a man stalks stealthily

Slowly through a dark room

Eyes lit by nothing

But movie magic

Cautiously the gumshoe waits

Before spying the suspect sprinting

Leaping past the screen

Slamming open the exit door

Quickly he follows after

Before someone cries

“Stop where you are!”

Here our hero stands

Lit by projector bulb

Shadow silhouetting silver screen

The audience murmurs as he distracts

A few getting nervous at sight of his gun

“You’ve had this coming…

For a long time Jacky boy.”

Suddenly a gun shot

A flash of light

Then a second

Responds in kind

Screams

The detective holds

His smoking gun

And in the audience

A man clutches his chest

On screen

A man lies bleeding

In a shadowy room

‘A talkie…

It was a fucking talkie…’

The detective thinks

Cursing his luck

And the devil’s own

As the killer walks free

For another night

But no matter the cost

The bodies that pile

The people who are hurt

Our hero

Will never stop

Never rest

Until he has his man

Ends

Justify means

…

Surely

Bedside Manner

Copper and bile

Head thundering drums

Measure my pulse

Vision awash with color

And a ringing in my ears

What happened

As if in answer

Someone kneels above me

Blocking the bulb above

“I’m sorry”

They speak

Deep voiced

But gentle in tone

Then I feel a burning

A too hot heat

Spreading through my stomach

I lift my head weakly

Making out an arm

Buried in my torso

He retracts quickly

Prize in hand

And devours greedily

Something crimson and vital

Belabored breath follows smacking lips

My vision snaps to as the pain returns

Rows of serrated teeth

Glimmer in the backlight

The head of this thing

Is that of a leech

My brow quirks

As the scream of pain

Is wrenched from my throat

I am so puzzled by the creature

But my body refuses me a moment to reflect

To inspect

The head turns back to my torso

Needle and thread in hand

And makes quick work of restoring me

Sans-organ that he took

Before I lose consciousness again

I hear it whisper

“Yes this should

It should sustain me

Sustain me a day or more…”

A Hall of Sea-Sung Pasts

I’ve been walking long

No end in sight

Some parts are carpeted

Some barren, boards broken

Others shine like a Christmas Day

Allways continuing on

I’ve always feared peering behind

Looking back on those long untouched parts

As I look over my shoulder

The hallway curves

Almost imperceptibly

Beyond my vision

I decide to rest

Head against the wall

This part of me never hungers

But cries for respite

My dream is elsewhen

The hallway here shifts

A slow and steady rocking

Sea swell bucks beneath my feet

A window beside

Porthole in truth

Gazes upon an unbroken horizon

Even these waves not breaking that expanse

Slowly I walk on

Then a drawing

An artist’s rendering

Crew in revel

Watery ale poured freely

And there I stand

A different face

Voice rattling from sea-spray scratch

But eyes alight with the same life

And besides me stands

Her

Allways here

Allways finding me

Or I find her

What difference does it make

So long as we are beside

A bit further on

A moment frozen in time

The water breaks

As something hits it

My lungs fill

Hard to breath

Above she cries

Leaping after

Beneath the ocean

We embrace

As the cold stabs

As the air flees

We kiss

A promise

To find each other

Once again

Cellar Door

The cellar door opened with a creak

Its pronouncement pregnant with possibility

Simply a venture to fetch more wine

The party well underway and raucous

Or something far more sinister

Shackles and darkness colluding

To coalesce into something awful

Is it day the safety of the sun

So effusive and grossly incandescent

Or the dead of night

Moon gibbous and waning

As you descend are the steps

Resounding with stone clack

Solid and resolute

Or groaning eerily under foot

Boards almost giving way

Is the smell stale with ages of dust

A history in scent

Steeped in abandonment

Or is it abnormally clean

Citric burn filling nostrils

Obscuring something terrible

Crimson and copper

Does wine greet you

Grey with settled detritus

Eager to be uncorked and imbibed

Upon aged wooden lattice

Or is someone else waiting

Eyes sunken and dejected

No hope stirring their bones

Blinding tile surrounds them

One simple sentence

Draws forth both these places

And stand equal in their realities

The only question left now

Which of these awaits yourself when

The cellar door opened with a creak

Halloween

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

Not

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

Tall

So tall and slim

Branches jutting from forest floor

Face blank

Suit crisp and well pressed

We’ve seen him many times

Iteration upon iteration

And in every art form

Shared a million times

And always he resurfaces

Never the same

But always similar

Tendrils

Spidery appendages

Minions

Or alone

Targeting children

Or the mentally unwell

Competing

Vying for spotlight

Against those other

Monstrous things

That oh so cheeky

Tilt of the head

Yes

You can see him even now

And all he needs

To live

And haunt

Is be remembered

And shared again