Five Poems

Hello friends,

Happy Halloween Week! Here are five horror poems.

Enjoy! (And if you do, please consider supporting my work by purchasing either The Robots of Babylon or my new omnibus edition Knit Ink (and Other Poems).)

DAWN OF THE DEAD (Anagram-Haiku) 

Woodland: The day breaks.
Another dead body walks
and wreaks bloody death.

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THE VAMPIRE (Palindrome)

No smirch selfless, 
ever a wan anaemic, 
I rip.

Maven,
I wage bites
sure of a foe.

Russet,
I beg a wine vampiric —
I mean:
an aware vessel,
flesh crimson....

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THE BANSHEE (Sonnet)

This banshee seems
to know your home.
She drags her comb
across the beams.
Her skin like cream,
in monochrome,
she crawls the dome
and guides your dreams. 
She falls to you. 
Her claws are black 
and stroke your cheek. 
Her lips are blue, 
but sharply crack —
to wail and shriek.

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THE WEREWOLF (Palindrome)

Flow, a name’s lupine, moonlit side.
We distil no omen:
I pulse —
Man, a wolf.

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This final poem, a Shakespearean Sonnet in iambic pentameter, combines qualitative metre with alliterative verse. In this poem, the beats of each line alliterate palindromically, according to the pattern xAx-BxCxBxA (where x represents the conventionally unstressed syllables of the iambs). For example, in line 1, the pattern manifests as: light [A] – walk [B] – anc- [C] – woods [B] – -lone [A]:

THE WEREWOLF (Sonnet)

Past light, I walk these ancient woods alone,
a silver blade held firmly by my side.
I needle through the cedars, thoughts unknown.
Past stony creeks, I force my crooked stride.

This place of death, this land where darkness prowls,
commits its doom upon the dales, each Moon.
We hide behind our doors and heed the howls —
yet see, by morn, that death must meet us soon.

Last month, the beast returned with bloody might.
It loped inside my home. It slew my love.
So, now I fight the woods. I face the night.

That beast obeys the lit abyss above —
its Moon is here! My wounds, they hurt me more...
yet, frail, I’ve seldom felt so strong before.