Happy Halloween! To help get into the spirit, here are three spooky poems written by yours truly. Below you will find a haunted lighthouse, some creepy crawlers, and of course, zombies. Enjoy and stay scary, my friends!
ANOTHER LIGHT
The echoing haunt
of breaking waves
cringe upon the verge
of this world and the next,
rising to the tower,
white stone bleached
from wind and sea and salt,
into the eye
whose light reaches
cresting depths
where Lost Ones lie
in dripping graves
to fill saddened ears
dwelling upon the loss.
And when Moon staggers in,
wipes her feet upon the mat,
another light is seen
at aberrant angles
from the rocks,
finding form
in lamenting figure,
bleeding, glowing,
bleeding, glowing—
searching for home.
THE SKITTERING
On his skin they crawl;
as he sleeps
they dominate his flesh.
He’s aware of them
in the deep corridors of his dreams,
running the gauntlet of twisted nightmares.
The prickling sensations
penetrate his pores
as tiny legs tickle the hairs.
They scour across his eyes
and loom in the hot moisture
of his snoring mouth.
They find rest upon the soft tongue,
as dew from slumbered breath
settles on shells of black bodies.
When morning comes,
and he rises from the abyss of hellish sleep,
there is no sight of them,
yet he feels the impressions left behind
all the pulsing echoes—
of the skittering across his skin.
FROM CORN TO SEA
I.
I see
the broken slivers of Earth, wilting metal and glass crumbling with shards of the dead–mangled masses returned with withered memories and without reasoning.
I run,
abandoned like my dying crop, as they approach, rotting like the livestock.
I fear
the desquamated wave, brittle and desiccated, eclipsing the land, pounding pavement into dust, blood-flaked stains all that remain, seeping into every corner–a typhoon forever famished, ready to consume until all safe ground is swept. And so,
I turn
from corn to sea.
II.
I sail
for days skimming the coast, floating in serenity, my body the vessel, spine forged into a keel, rising upon the crest of life breaking into depths, until awareness pulls me from the sanctuary of dreams, and
I feel
the churning, gentle at first, a whisper beneath the waves, softly stirring, and then
I see
the gruesome truth within my mind: the hoard marching onward, risen dead rising, filling the ocean floor, floating closer, hands reaching, jaws snapping, and
I fade.
III.
I wake,
searing pain bites my flesh, skin so cold it burns, body still submerged, lapping in a sea-salt froth, scraping the nook of jagged rock, ice-cold shards sticking to my skin.
I pull,
and my cheeks peel from muscle and muscle shreds from bone.
I shudder;
the ripping screams echo in my ears.
I rise
and climb the edge of rock, a stone island off the shore. The horizon, a bone-white beach overflowing with bloated dead flowing into the sea, eroding like edges of the Earth.
I hear–
click and turn to face a man with shotgun to my head. He quivers in fear, but not of them, of me. And in his reflected eye
I see
the truth of what I’ve become: a hideous thing, pink and peach peeling from blue-gray skin beneath, slimy webbed extremities and bulbous yellowed eyes. But as the man’s skull pops within my multi-hinged maw,
I begin
to see beauty. But the air grows too thin for my shrinking lungs, and the new-formed slits in my throat flutter, gurgle, and hiss in thirst. And so,
I turn
from corn to sea.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed these and would like to explore more of my work, my debut chapbook, Come Fly with Death: Poems Inspired by the Artwork of Zdzislaw Beksinski is available in print and on Kindle.
CREDITS:
- Another Light originally published: Phantom Kangaroo, issue no. 9, July 13, 2011.
- The Skittering originally published: The Horror Zine, October 2011.
- From Corn to Sea originally published: Devolution Z Magazine, April 2016.
Marrowroot 