Gothic Fish

LIFE AND AFTERLIFE

(After Edgar Allen Poe)

The news it came and found me weary
anxious, hopeless, sleepless, teary
thoughts in turmoil, vision bleary
and that voice I hear it still
how it told its tale so quickly
how it made me feel so sickly
churned my blood to curdle thickly
turned Summer’s heat to Winter’s chill

I barely knew the days that followed
my flesh was numb, my heart was hollowed
I knew not what I drank or swallowed
I felt my life was done
for he was lost and gone forever
what Love had wed now Death did sever
my wounded heart vowed I could never
seek out another one

The dreams I dreamed were cruel and gory
they showed the grim and ghastly story
that war is murder — there’s no glory
despite what men may claim
the horror followed me on waking
had me weeping, left me shaking
a nervous breakdown in the making
a fever fired my brain

I had this wild intense emotion
burning fierce — and then the notion
to go at once across the ocean
and find the spot he fell
I went alone — no one to guide me
just this longing deep inside me
to obey the vows that tied me
and lay his ghost as well

The battlefield proved bleak and battered
mud and debris — trees all shattered
like sympathy, the raindrops pattered
as I searched around
believing instinct wouldn’t fail me
then cursing doubts as they assailed me
some madness had at last derailed me
no sign marked hallowed ground

Distraught, I wandered sad and aimless
through this region crushed and nameless
ruins smouldered black and flameless
the conflict cooled and done
I sat awhile as dusk descended
by tumbled walls they once defended
and mourned those wasted lives now ended
the sense-confounding sum

And as I lingered, isolated
I pondered on what hate created
how all societies seem fated
to self-destruct at will
I whispered sadly to his spirit
closed my eyes, and for a minute
sensed a presence test the limit
of believing still

true noble souls are death-defying
their essence strong and thus denying
the funeral crowd of angels crying
for unsung heroes slain ...
then, all around me shadows shifted
it was as if my grief was lifted
the knowledge came and I was gifted
to glimpse my love again

He stood before me greyed and thinner
as the failing light grew dimmer
the smile upon his lips now grimmer
than in my recall
and suddenly my heart was beating
I shuddered — any joy was fleeting
as fear washed through and words of greeting
shrank away in thrall

Transfixed by this dire apparition
appalled by his decayed condition
my thoughts filled with a dread suspicion
as our gazes locked
I could not breathe for terror creeping
and chill into my bones was seeping
relentless as his stare was keeping
silent screams of shock

The moment stretched and darkness found me
fainted cold — dank earth around me
smelled of blood — some ghoul had wound me
in a mildewed shroud ...
and ever-since my time’s spent dreading
this travesty — this nightmare wedding
insanity’s the road I’m treading
the warning voice cries loud

He feeds on me to sate his hunger
I’m frail and old, yet he grows younger
he is the Devil somehow conjured
by grief’s stricken breath
when first I called him back unknowing
of the way Hell’s winds were blowing
the pact is sealed, the price ongoing
there’s no escape in Death

A DARK MOON RISING

Old pagan thoughts rise
up in me tonight
like a dark moon that’s
caught in nets of trees
one curious fish

Stars calm in the swim
of sky’s wide ocean
reflect on her face
half-dreams surfacing
shadow memories

A beetle bores soft
tick-ticking through wood
and a nightbird cries
solemn as a psalm
to a god long-dead

Voices come to mind
tongues I’ve always known
on the edge of sleep
summoning me home
time’s river runs deep

Free of clutching trees
moon flips her dark coin
below her transformed
our ring of tall stones
thus earth spirits dance



THE STICKMAN COMETH

As I came walking home one night
beneath a sallow moon
the wind it whispered warning me
‘the Stickman cometh soon’

Alarmed I hurried down the path
as trees above me sighed
then leaned in close as if to watch
my fear go stumbling by

The moon gave up and hid her face
abandoning the skies
shadows ran along the hedge
that housed a thousand eyes

Then rustlings sinister came close
to match me stride for stride
and breathings like some rabid beast
left nowhere I might hide

I broke into a frantic run
near-galloped best I could
sheer panic powering my legs
to speed me through that wood

where I was sure a figure leered
obscenely taunting me
all twigs and moss and leafy-haired
it gestured horribly

I smelt the reek of rotting wood
as pungent waves rolled round
with terror’s fingers at my throat
I prayed without a sound

I cannot tell how long it was
I sprinted on and on
time and distance made no sense
my scattered wits all gone

The only thought remaining lodged
in my so-rattled head
was if this thing caught up with me
I was as good as dead

At last I glimpsed my neighbour’s gate
and just beyond my own
another twenty yards and I’d
be safe and sound at home

Precisely at that moment came
a shock that chilled me through
a twig had tangled round my arm
one snagged my collar too

I hollered loud and struggled wild
to break the Stickman’s grip
then heard the satisfying snap
his failing grasp let slip

I tore away his gnarled old claw
he gave a ghastly groan
and simply vanished — left me there
a-tremble all alone

I pulled together quaking limbs
and made it to my door
weeping with insane relief
still shaken to the core

I lit some candles — chanted spells
drew circles round in salt
as pure protection — hexing those
that break the bounds of thought

I tried to rest but sleep refused
to offer some respite
I lay embalmed in ice-cold sweat
each second dragged that night

The wind outside took on a voice
that crackled dry as leaves
it menaced slates or hissed as sly
as snakes beneath the eaves

I could not quite ignore its song
it seeped into my brain
and resurrected childhood fears
old nightmares lived again

So every creak the house gave out
became the monsterous tread
of something wicked creeping slow
to find me hunched in bed

and whimpering in utter fright
no different now as then
for dread carves deep in memory
no matter where or when

It tightened savage in my chest
a knot that squeezed my heart
so hard it juddered — missed a beat
I felt all strength depart ...

It seemed life hovered in suspense
despite it hurt to breathe
as though it was the fear itself
forbade my spirit leave

and stubborness dredged up a well
of anger that emerged
to challenge every lurking ghost
or wretched wraith that stirred

Ideas then turned around to dwell
on how to exorcise
the Stickman wandering abroad
to blight folk’s blameless lives

But was it really down to me?
My answer gusted past —
the wind blew loud and something tapped
my bedroom window’s glass

I knew without a moment’s doubt
who’d clambered on my sill
and stared between the curtain’s chink
to find me pale and still

Raw horror frozen on my face
my muscles loath to shift
until I strove to meet that fiend
and sensed fear’s shackles lift

I flung the curtain back and glared
time locked us eye to eye
I kept my nerve and sterner stared
till with a stricken cry

he dropped from sight — retreating to
the woods from whence he came
as dull-toned thunder overhead
announced the sleeting rain ...

A second night he visited
we played the same old game
I stared him out for good or ill
and dared him come again

The third I knew I must confront
the power that he had
to mesmerize and so unhinge
the sanest — drive them mad

I vowed I’d find him in the wood
then sever root from crown
in hope to end his nightmare-reign
and bring him crashing down

I studied all the legends well
took notes from authors wise
in ways of magick — learned the ropes
and called on spirit guides

They coached me in the ways of fire —
anathema to wood —
a bearer of the sacred flame
that purges and makes good

I caught the spark and tamed its heat
and kept it in a jar
changing colour — blue to gold
it dazzled like a star

I mastered this pure element
as weapon to employ
against that manlike travesty
subdue him then destroy

My preparations all in place
no reason to delay
I gathered courage to myself
deciding the dread day

had come and it was time to meet
my enemy at last
the date auspicious from such signs
the rolling runes forecast

I hid the jar beneath my coat
its warmth a comfort there
with solemn ritual locked the door
and muttered soft a prayer

in hope I would return unscathed
my quest not be in vain
and I’d survive to tell the tale
resume my life again

The woods stretched grim and strangely quiet
its birds it seemed struck dumb
the eerie silence pressed on me
faint hope he might not come

I ventured further through dark trees
their shadows deep and old
and superstition flooded through —
recalled the tales of old

describing dreadful nameless things
that lurked though rarely seen
except by those who disappeared
where ghost-lights wink and gleam ...

My nerves strung tight as jangling wires
I crept along the path
wary as a hounded beast
that checks both fore and aft

and freezing every other step
my progress pained and slow
teeth clenched until my jawbone ached
the tension gripped me so

And still no sign of him I sought
I slumped beside a tree
struck by reason’s train of thought —
I’d let him come to me!

I hunkered down — leaned back against
the trunk of a great pine
grateful for the hidden fire —
that spark of hope divine

Long minutes passed — my thoughts they strayed
my body still as stone
then suddenly became aware
I wasn’t on my own

Sheer panic had me cowering
I sensed rather than saw
a presence looming through the trees
its breathing ragged-raw

Like lamps his green eyes bored me through
malevolent as hell
as he advanced I caught once more
the overpowering smell —

mildewed leaves and lichen damp
corrupted by decay
suffocating — cloud on cloud
came choking on its way

I held my breath my cheeks now wet
with tears that stung my skin
then tugged together what remained
of courage shrunk within

From out my coat I pulled the jar
of fire designed to save
me from this monster or my fate
would be an early grave

The Stickman not a yard away
I threw it like a bomb
the contents flared and flames took hold
on all they fell upon

In moments he was well alight
the conflagration roared
and furious he thrashed his limbs
while liquid fire still poured

He toppled slowly — fell full length
his body broke apart
and from his chest a cloud escaped
rough-shaped to form a heart

It floated free and hovered near
as black and dense as fog
I moved away — it followed me
like some freak devil-dog

There came to me a warning voice
insisting ‘do not run
but try to lure it — play for time
until the rising sun

with Dawn’s pure light can pierce that fog
dissolve away — disperse
its poisonous and hateful heart
thus lift the Stickman’s curse’

And that was how (as legends tell)
such monsters meet their fate —
driven back from whence they came
through Hell’s fire-twisted gate

That chapter closed. Except some nights
when winter winds blow keen
and footsteps echo through the dark
whatever stalks unseen

I fear the shadow in my wake
and dream I smell again
the compost stench of wood and leaves
well-rotted-down by rain ...



MERCILLA

Mercilla dwelt deep in the realms of the drownded
she tended the desolate reef of despair
and raked through the bones of unfortunate sailors
long-lost where the darkness had hidden them there

She tutored the mermaids in magical mischief
schooling the sharks in tradition’s cruel ways
she sang to the Kraken the wickedest lyrics
and thus he slept sound in his echoing caves

Her voice conjured tempests to tear ships asunder
the wail of her curses brought terror and grief
when she whipped up the water to whirlpools so fiercesome
they tugged every fast-sinking vessel beneath

She wrecked whole armadas on impulse — mere fancy
quite deaf to the prayers of those caught in the storm
hard-hearted as stone, grey-green eyes glinting sharply
devoid of emotion she felt only scorn

for those pitifully weak and peculiar creatures —
poor humans who scrambled and clung for dear life
crying out to their god in his faraway heaven
untouched by their peril and blind to their strife

Old as the centuries, doomed as immortal
Mercilla feared nothing, and least of all Death
for nothing could harm her or limit her power
immune as a phantom, no feeling, no breath

One aspect did niggle her — proving vexatious
she lacked reputation, her name was unknown
all due to the fact that her deeds catastrophic
left no one alive to report she alone

was responsible — rather they’d blame superstition
for all those disasters to which she laid claim
those few who’d been witness were down with the fishes
dumb piles of white bones in her chilly domain

Then it happened one night that she spied a lone vessel
a fishing boat strangely adrift on the tide
just one man aboard who’d been left there forgotten
when the crew in sheer panic jumped over the side

The fever that gripped him was shed the same moment
Mercilla appeared through the storm-blasted night
as her terrible laugh broke him out of his coma
dog-paddling shipmates sank out of her sight

He gazed at her drunkenly, called her an angel
and she, in her turn, felt unusually drawn
to this wreck of a youth who, naive and yet charming
was so very handsome her conscience was torn

Hesitating to strike him, instead she decided
to quash every impulse to kill and destroy
a victim herself to the strangest sensation —
a warm inner glow as she stared at the boy

And so she released him unharmed and unhindered
he sailed home to safety with stories to tell
of this nightmarish monster who’d acted so tender
despite she was deadly and scary as hell

Then from his description a fantasy artist
produced a good likeness for study and show
and experts agreed she was unknown to science
so planned to explore further fathoms below

The boy (known as Jack) did his best to dissuade them
he warned that Mercilla might eat them alive
the fact he was young and good looking had saved him
or else he was sure he would not have survived

Brave or just foolish, those boffins ignored him
their grand expedition to regions unmapped
was in all the papers such was the excitement
it got the attention of gung ho-type chaps

who, mad for adventure, signed up to go diving
the dark murky seabed Mercilla called home
rashly believing they might make their fortune
exploring those depths underneath the green foam

Thirteen in number, without trepidation
the party set off for the same far-flung port
where Jack had been rescued and rumour persisted
of some ancient monster too sly to be caught

They’d harpoons and dragnets in hope they might trap her
and drugs to sedate should they chance to get near
but Jack had his doubts for Mercilla was crafty
an expert in cunning and conjuring fear

Two men in a bathysphere lowered down slowly
the rest wearing diving suits, flippered and armed
they sank through those waters, morale fairly buoyant
as though they were certain not one would be harmed

The seabed dipped sharply — became a grim valley
rough with its rockface, the water soup-thick
when out of its dimness Mercilla surprised them
appeared in an eye-blink — alarmingly quick

She grabbed at the bathysphere — shook out the contents
like it was no more than a tin of sardines
then toyed with the figures who dangled so helpless
the water transmitting low bubbling screams

She swallowed them whole as the rest of the party
scattered in terror — her mindset confirmed
as a flesh-eating demon from some Hell dimension
beyond sane invention, the cruel lesson learned

So, each man for himself, they hid in the rockface
those dark yawning caves or cracks narrowly grooved
and foiled their attacker, impatient with searching
she grabbed and she snatched at each shadow that moved

At last she gave up, as though bored or distracted
but time had run out for a number of men
their air tanks exhausted, they’d died in the darkness
that final adventure the ruin of them

But Jack, plus two more, by some fluke or strange mercy
had just enough oxygen left in reserve
to make a bold dash for it — risk she was lurking
they prayed for the courage and quietened each nerve

Then broke from their cover and dashed for the surface
frantic for freedom and knowing the cost
of foolish mistakes — reckless miscalculations
resulting in failure and everything lost

She zoomed like a rocket, her eyes wide and glowing
from where she’d concealed herself, sly as a fox
then fixed on the last man, who struggled, legs trailing
she lunged for his ankles, her focus so locked

that she failed to see Jack, who’d hung back on an impulse
to help his companion and fight for his cause
now he signalled quite wildly to draw her attention
till she dropped the limp man from her barbarous claws

She paused, then she smiled when she recognised Jack as
the boy she’d spontaneously spared and let go
and she felt once again that disturbing sensation
stopped dead in her tracks by its pleasant warm glow

Made brave by her sudden near-gentle demeanour
Jack felt that a show of good faith would perhaps
encourage Mercilla for even a moment
allow her most horrible habit to lapse

He swam to her side with his heart pumping painful
and reached up to kiss her — lips warm on cold skin
she blinked once or twice, caught it total amazement
then her features relaxed in a wide toothy grin

She blushed for sheer pleasure and sent the three packing
they swam to their ship anchored calmly above
fair winds took them homeward and into such legends
that tell of a monster who found human love

Since when she’s the saviour of all who go sailing
she rescues and preaches to those who will hear
“all life is salt-blooded, with roots in the ocean
all kin to the fishes ...” her message sincere

Writ large in the pages of seafaring annals
Mercilla achieved undeniable fame
for charity, kindness, goodwill to all creatures
true nature spelled out by the sound of her name

SEPARATE BEDS

She woke with a start
unsure of her thoughts
the duvet rumpled
as though in a fight
room like an ice box

She turned on the light
the bulb flickered once
then fizzed and went out
the beat of her heart
drummed loud in the dark

Breath caught in her throat
she fought to control
prickles of panic
a soft moan escaped
she heard something move ...

Close by a board creaked
foul odours wafted
a voice said her name
she answered ‘Be gone!’
Dawn sent his shade back —

Back to the graveyard
love lies rejected
in death as in life
devoted husband
perfidious wife

THE WOLF’S AT THE DOOR

The wolf’s at the door
he snaps his sharp teeth
bone-bare the food store
no crust underneath
no money for more

The roof lets in rain
and illness has struck
the fever brings pain
a run of bad luck
the bills pile again

The logs burn to ash
the room is like ice
outside the winds lash
the near-starving mice
too weakened to dash

across the cold floor
not one crumb to find
the outlook is poor
their small world unkind
this house on the moor

its widow asleep
stone-deaf to wolf’s howl
strange dreams drug her deep
where night creatures prowl
and sly shadows creep

THE LONGEST NIGHT

The ruined castle stands alone
its tumbled grandeur swathed in mist
still clinging to the mountain’s stone
defiant, brooding, moonlight-kissed

Dark spirits lurk within those walls
and echoes tease the air with cries
faint footsteps cross long-shadowed halls
where fallen rooves admit grim skies

A wide imposing staircase wends
its invitation to explore
and risk whatever Fate intends
as nerve-ends quiver, floor by floor

Thence to the tower weathered numb
by centuries of cold neglect
abandoned by the Devil’s son
his ancient monstrous bloodline wrecked

by vampire hunters armed full well
with Christian valour firmly set
to break the power of his spell
so purge the land — destroy such threat

too long endured, the sense of dread
that even now somehow remains
yet who can swear the legend’s dead
while fear and superstition reigns?

The castle rears fire-blackened walls
and winds that visit rarely tell
such tales no living soul recalls
or has the tongue to translate well

Maybe it’s true he sleeps beneath
in some deep chamber bides his time
until some stranger might bequeath
fresh blood to resurrect his line

Meanwhile, a blue moon sails on past
and bathes the scene in pallid light
while most things change there’s some outlast
the loneliest and longest night ...

SHEEP’S CLOTHING

I woke before he did and found myself staring
at his jacket hung over the back of a chair
admiring the fabric, the cut and the colour
the subtle grey flecking soft-textured as hair

My head a balloon barely strung to my body
I slipped from the bed where my overnight guest
slept with his strangeness hid under the covers
laid so still I concluded he needed more rest

To the bathroom for asprin, then to the kitchen
my one thought was to brew some restorative tea
I dithered — Strong Breakfast or maybe Darjeeling?
would he notice the difference? I plumped for PG

I took the tray up feeling really quite nervous
while grabbing at straws in my booze-addled brain
reconstructing events of the previous evening
exactly who was he and what was his name?

I stepped in the room as he stirred and rolled over
caught squinting as though morning’s light hurt his eyes
he made a noise in his throat more a growl than a greeting
it was my turn to blink as I took in his size

He stretched and grew longer, bones cracking like gunshot
I flinched as he yawned — such a powerful bite
in those rows of sharp teeth and thin lips curling cruelly
and I dared hardly think what had happened last night!

I smiled a tight smile, said my poor head was splitting
picked up his silk shirt from a heap on the floor
and looked round for shoes but I couldn’t find any
just a hat with a feather pegged high on the door

I felt his gaze on me but couldn’t look at him
my skin prickled over and my blood it ran cold
and I thought if I’m dreaming then someone please wake me
for this kind of fairytale doesn’t end like we’re told

He had seemed such a prince in the crush of the party
the wine had been flowing — some birthday boy’s bash
I’d gone with a colleague from the same department
by twelve I was squiffy, hence my thinking grew rash

He’d been so attentive — so witty and charming
and I’d giggled inanely at each word he spoke
I remembered in flashes how I was bowled over
now embarrassed to fear it was alcohol’s joke

As he slurped at his tea he seemed in no hurry
to heave himself out from beneath the duvet
while I stood by the window and tried not to tremble
I stated quite bluntly ‘I’m busy today ...’

Such a broad hint surely said all it needed to
yet he continued to loll, well at ease on my bed
so I wondered if breakfast might get him moving
and send him off homewards once he had been fed

Three eggs and four sausages, five strips of bacon
a whole rack of toast buttered half an inch thick
he wolfed it all down as I watched in amazement
for I’d never seen food disappear quite so quick

He licked the plate clean, licked his lips and his fingers
and I feared for a minute he might ask for more
but he brushed off the crumbs from the sleeves of his jacket
then thanked me politely and strolled out the door

Well, I thought that was that — I’d escaped from his clutches
just a weird one night stand with no strings or remorse
but a note in the margin: I’d been worse than foolish
and in future I’d be more discerning, of course

*****

The days drifted by but my mind wouldn’t leave him
he gnawed on my memory, worried and whined
though I tried to distract myself, kept my thoughts busy
for the moment they wandered I feared who they’d find ...

His lamp-yellow eyes lit my dreams and that haunting
was more than my weak woman’s psyche could bear
I imagined he prowled in my moon-ravished garden
and the earth would show paw prints to prove he’d been there

I gathered my courage and went to the doctor
confused and afraid he would label me mad
but he put it all down to anxiety syndrome
blamed the time of the year — a condition called SAD

I took two pink tablets that night with my cocoa
and knew nothing more till I woke with a start
to find him beside me as though this was usual
which prompted me question the voice of my heart

I studied him closely the while that he slumbered
his chest rose and fell, his soft snores did the same
and I calmly considered this odd situation
relieved by the fact I’d remembered his name

It was William Golightly — I whispered it quietly
my advantage now certain — he’d have to obey
the old rules applied as dark energy shifted
dawn broke through the curtain and brought a new day

I prodded him gently until his lids flickered
and seeming reluctant to let go pleasant dreams
he came to full consciousness groping around him
unsure of his place in life’s role-changing schemes

He looked quite perplexed, shaggy-haired in confusion
like someone who’d spent a rough night on the tiles
then struggled back home to face cold condemnation
but finds his wife waiting relieved and all-smiles

He sniffed the air cautiously, scowled in the silence
I savoured my line ‘Morning,William’ I said
some warmth in my tone to reflect our position
an intimate couple freshly woken in bed

Those tawny eyes widened, his tongue darted nervous
to wet his thin lips like he needed to speak
and I have to admit that I almost felt sorry
the strong beast inside him looked so drained and weak

He glanced at me, grunted as if that meant something
heaved his long lanky limbs, put huge feet to the floor
and reached for his clothes but his jacket was missing
I’d taken and hidden it some hours before

How he gnashed those sharp teeth! Then he whined and tried pleading
But I shook my head, daring him, courage grown strong
‘It’s high time you left — the wild forest is waiting
Go back to your own kind — it’s where you belong.’

I will never forget his poor hangdog expression
those shadows of sadness that crossed his regard
but I knew if I wavered I risked going under
while his will and mine wrestled keeping focus was hard

Well ...

Whatever laws govern things deemed supernatural
I can only report how he faded from view
like a mist slow-dissolving the bulk of him vanished
leaving just a faint waft of his musk seeping through

So I opened a window to let some fresh air in
to blow out the cobwebs that clustered and clung
in the dimly lit corners of thoughts I’d been keeping
and to calm my raw nerves — every cord highly strung

*****

For almost a month my existence was peaceful
I relaxed and believed all the danger was past
but I’d foolishly failed to get rid of his jacket
and my own curiosity doomed me at last

There was something about it — the fabric so tactile
its animal quality seemed almost to seethe
with a life of its own even hung on a hanger
I wasn’t too sure that the thing didn’t breathe

On the one hand repelled, and yet fascinated
I talked to it, stroked it like it was some pet
then I had an idea that would be my undoing
the insane sort of impulse one lives to regret

I slipped the thing on ... it was too big and heavy
my shoulders and arms trembled under its weight
then the strangest occurrence — it shrank on my body
as I struggled and knew I had sealed my own fate

It felt snug as a skin while a fever raged through me
I panicked and cursed, then I prayed for release
I called every god in the book I could think of
so desperate I was for the nightmare to cease

I can only imagine at some point I fainted
for I found myself lying half-dressed on the floor
no sign — not a button or thread of the jacket
but a draft breezing thin round the left-open door

I picked myself up feeling shaky and anxious
and sniffed at the old unmistakeable smell
alerting my senses — it seemed like a message
a warning perhaps? — there was no way to tell

I checked every hiding place — wardrobes and cupboards
peered into the narrow gap under my bed
reason and logic had all but deserted me
so I cleaned and I tidied to sort out my head

It was gone. I was sure he’d been back to retrieve it
and I shuddered, recalled that sensation once more
as the garment had tightened, adapted to fit me
so its hunger infected, corrupted my core

Cold dread settled on me, breath crushed by its millstone
the calendar showed each new phase of the moon
I counted the days self-condemned as a lunatic
convinced he was out there and I’d hear from him soon

Three long nights of darkness seemed past all endurance
the clouds clotting thick so no moon could shine through
loud winds gusted fiercely — if he had have come prowling
I doubt I’d have heard for that hullaballoo

On the fourth it calmed down — a clear sky crisp and empty
except for the moon grinning roundly like some
congenital idiot with no other purpose
than to feed superstition and plague everyone

I resisted its pull and denied it affected
my chemical balance, which was fragile at best
but I lied to myself as I fought off each impulse
which refused to subside or allow me to rest

I paced back and forth in deranged agitation
reality’s grip now slip-sliding away
and the harder I tried to fix on a location
I felt my world tilt and the room start to sway ...

It was no great surprise as the clock struck its midnight
that a howling broke out somewhere in the wood’s deep
its cacophony travelled the few miles between us
and knotted inside me forbidding all sleep

One voice rose above and it spoke to me only —
part threat, part entreaty it called me by name
and I stood by my window behind its thick curtain
and shuddered in hopelessness, cowered with shame

I’d brought on myself certain Hell and Damnation
by inviting that creature, his person unknown
to sate sexual appetite — no higher reason
I had welcomed him tipsily into my home

But late — much too late — Mister William Golightly
with those hypnotic eyes and such slick ways to flirt
although onto your game — big bad wolf in sheep’s clothing
there’s no chance in a million I wouldn’t get hurt

I couldn’t escape it — the urge overwhelmed me
I twitched like some puppet and he held the strings
so I answered his call with a cry scarcely human
running swift in bare feet as though heels sprouted wings

He was there in a glade basking cool in the moonlight
not quite as I’d known him except for those eyes
their gold glinting cruel as he sniffed me in greeting
and I brushed the dense fur of his awesome disguise

As a man he’d been handsome but this transformation
defied true description since legendary lore
determindly drew on a dire reputation
and denied any hearsay that might suggest more

But he was magnificent quite without question
a fabulous wolf from his nose to his tail
I was forced to acknowledge my lupine connection
I felt myself changing and let go a wail

For the process was painful — the bones realigning
my muscles and tendons and nerves pulled around
in a different arrangement — I feared I was dying
alarmed and bewildered I sank to the ground

As to how long it took, well ... I’d only be guessing
for time seemed to stop while the moon overhead
stayed perfectly placed to spotlight the drama
as spasm by spasm my old self was shed

I cannot find words that come close to defining
the rapturous freedom that surged through my frame
there’s no finer bliss I have ever encountered
that fired up my flesh and unfettered my brain

I howled in sheer ecstacy, rolled on the carpet
of grasses and leaves as wild nature unleashed
a spontaneous and uninhibited flaunting
of physical pleasure — my skin slyly fleeced

in a rippling coat, a good match for my William
who watched my performance and missed not a thing
as I went through each agony of transmutation
from woman to wolf ... What the future might bring

was but a vague thought — heightened senses in turmoil
so much to take in — the bombardment I felt
as I tried to adjust to a quadruped’s body
plus the warmth of my new and luxurious pelt

Aware all the eyes in the clearing were on me
and critical, curious, some egging me on
to enjoy my true self and embrace carnal instinct
while the moon’s at her zenith, her influence strong

So I ran with the pack — gave full rein to my hungers
indulged in their savage and bloody night’s sport
and I coupled with William in some deep dark thicket
naught else half as thrilling, no rivalling thought

as I savoured the lusty unselfconscious passion
I was glad to shake off false morality’s ties
for what better life could the world have to offer
than the freedom to run beneath clear moonlit skies?

*****

Dawn found me in bed, fleshed as human and aching
but my heart wasn’t in me — I’d left it behind
in the woods where I’d gladly relinquished dull tameness
and let the wild rule me, inhabit my mind

Then I smiled on recalling my William Golightly
the scent of his fur as our limbs intertwined
and I stretched out and grunted with pure satisfaction
how fate had determined us two of a kind

And I knew without looking that snug in my wardrobe
a garment was hung — a soft jacket’s disguise
for those nights I would lure some lost lambkin or other
to the woods w(h)ere wolves wait with the moon in their eyes

THE LIGHTHOUSE-KEEPER’S TALE

The lighthouseman was tired and grey
and near retirement time
he’d lived on this wave-battered isle
since young and in his prime

But now he counted off the days
until his work was done
and he could rest in some quiet spot
beneath a kinder sun

November’s days were bitter cold
and dragged their hours grim
the gales blew fierce through every crack
he ached in heart and limb

He struggled up and down steep steps
to keep the lamp alight
talked to himself or his black cat
and prayed he’d last the night

Whenever winter storms attacked
and shook with sudden squalls
the sturdy lighthouse held its ground
with thick and stubborn walls

For it had stood a hundred years
was maybe good for more
but sea and weather took their toll
salt worried, gnawed and wore ...

Thus undermined both will and stone
he trembled as each tide
crashed relentlessly and warned
he’d nowhere safe to hide

A madness claimed him — black despair
(last drop of whisky drank)
his brooding blotted out resolve
brave fighting spirit sank

He stayed in bed and huddled there
ears plugged against the din
and covers pulled above his head
to block out everything

His scrawy cat for body warmth
curled tightly in his arms
he muttered lines from Shakespeare’s plays
and half-forgotten psalms

As though bold words might ward off ill
placate wild weather’s rage
should ancient gods be making war
they’d calm and disengage

No luck — the tempest thundered on
no speech could pacify
its fury and destructive wrath
flung careless from on high

They cowered — hapless man and beast
death loomed without much doubt
then came a bang — one final flash
and then the light went out

The storm had blown the thick glass in
extinguishing the lamp
he could not get the wick to burn
for all was drizzled damp

Its top ripped open to the sky
the lighthouse creaked and groaned
and like a monster multi-voiced
the wind screeched fierce or moaned

Crazed and desperate now he lashed
their bodies round with rope
secured them to iron railings in
what dregs remained of hope

They wouldn’t then be torn apart
and hurled into the waves
where fathoms deep in times gone by
old sailors found their graves

How long they hung there Heaven knows
both frozen to the bone
he gasped for air and lingered in
some barely conscious zone

While in that limbo state a voice
familiar filtered through
a long-dead father’s clear advice
it told him what to do

With fresh resolve he blundered back
though it was black as jet
and found the wooden table still
with supper things all set

He grabbed the legs and overturned
its heavy oaken square
retrieved a sack to serve as sail
then dragged it out of there

Onto a narrow jetty where
he judged it might float free
with hm and his bedraggled cat
cast off on that cruel sea

A jagged flash of lightning fell
to light the gothic scene
the fury of the weather slashed
in ghastly shades of green

And purple night with demons loud
their howling straight from Hell
and which direction they should head
no one on Earth could tell

The waves rose mountainous and dark
the table whirled around
as ceaselessly as on some door
the ocean’s fist did pound

Half-drowned the man and cat still clung
their sail torn clean away
and luck it was that either saw
the break of a new day

The sun beamed faint that winter morn
the sky stretched grey beyond
the wind was silent and the sea
as placid as a pond

The battered table washed ashore
upon a rocky beach
the man and cat crawled past the line
that freezing tide could reach

Collapsing there scarcely alive
but Fate at last proved kind
a woman walking on that shore
became the first to find

Two bodies cold and close to death
the cat she bundled tight
into her shawl and needing help
she yelled with all her might

Her son carried the lighthouseman
upon his broad young back
up the cliff path steep and worn
to reach their rough stone shack

A modest home the widow and
her only child kept neat
and there they nursed both man and cat
till both were on their feet

Then as the days went drifting by
the lighthouse-keeper thought
it was the hand of Destiny
that mystically had brought

Him to this place of peace and quiet
with pleasant company
a simple life with simple joys —
cat purring on his knee

He wed the widow — settled down
and beachcombed every day
saving things the tide brought in
and grateful come what may

They say he lived till ninety-nine
contented with his lot
and told his tale to any who
washed-up in that same spot

A local legend he became
the records claimed as fact
while his old ghost still walks the shore
and close at heel his cat

OF WOLVES AND ROSES

The huge hand came down
through a crack in dark
clouds and plucked a whole
rose bush pricking its
long dove-white fingers

so pools of blood formed
in the garden slow
to sink into clay
forming a tight red
skin as it congealed

A sickly smell soon
wafted from these pools
and enticed the wolves
out of the forest
to sate their hunger

But all the wolves died
poisoned by the pools
their corpses decayed
sank into the soil
and so enriched it

more rose bushes grew
as sweet and as red ...
Thorns find flesh and blood
bring wolves circling —
beauty has its price

TO RESTLESS SPIRITS

This is the night you
traditionally
go roaming around
break through the thin veil
and visit the quick

Blank invitation
this custom long-set
centuries ago
when superstition
conjured from darkness

the shades that men feared
and hoped to appease
with rituals — now
commercial displays
make welcome or block

poor ghosts at the door
who’ve journeyed so far
expected or not
the old world awaits
your echoing knock

Pumpkins and candles
the lantern grins wide
across Death’s divide
come if you dare — but
beware Culture’s shock

NAKED AS THE NIGHT

I fit with the dark
inside and outside
we merge our shadows
in city or park
night blinds all windows

Night’s tunnel gives birth
pops colourless forms
that slink, slide or crawl
claim mother as earth
I’m sister to all

I’m naked as they
I’m led by the nose
and sniff for strange air
decide a safe way
when fear’s everywhere

When predators prowl
small hairs on my neck
dread sudden attack
wind mimics a howl
there’s blood on the track

There’s black in my heart
it’s lived there a while
truth stands ever-stark
I made a false start
now dwell in the dark

NEITHER FISH NOR FOWL

An egg in the grass
patterned black and green
hatched as we went past
the small creature seen
uttered a weak cry

Neither fish nor fowl
it flapped one bald wing
skinny as a bat’s
strange as anything
dumb we hovered by

curious to see
if its mother came
answering that plea
give some clue or name
to its progeny

Nothing broke the calm
except one more yelp
triggered by alarm
desperate for help
it stared up at us

Scooped in gentle hands
without fret or fuss
pity understands
what its nature was
need makes all the same

KISSING LUCIFER

Who would have guessed that
the Devil tastes sweet?
King of the Hell Club
one imagines heat
peppery not peach

But few dare kiss him
sure their lips will burn
keep a safe distance
fear whips up concern
feels the conscience churn

Old Nick’s a soft touch
though he hides it well
give the chap a peck
it’s quite plain to tell
romance rings his bell

The beast in him dies
mellows clean away
what’s then left behind
is harder to say
whose rules are in play?

On Earth as in Hell
things aren’t all they seem
the Dark Lord sneaks in
Heaven’s Disney dream
Love seeks to redeem

THE HALLOWEEN MASK

She leans willow-thin
head to foot in black
cadaver-pale skin
suggesting a lack
of sun and fresh air

She seems kind of shy
alone by the wall
while couples drift by
she watches them all
they don’t meet her stare

The glass of wine stays
undrunk in her hand
no gesture betrays
her strategy planned
the game’s less than fair

She fixes her gaze
on one well-heeled man
in champagne’s smug haze
he’s sporting a tan
he reeks millionaire

Beneath the joke mask
a real vampire lurks
intent on her task
her strange allure works
he hasn’t a prayer

THE LOVE OF HER DEATH

She was a vampire
and he was a priest
handsome and earnest
his faith never ceased
it burned fierce as fire

She slept in her tomb
while he preached above
and warned about Hell
yet undying love
shone bright through the gloom

She heard his strong voice
and whispered his name
as though in a trance
he answered and came
Fate gave him no choice

He moved the stone lid
and gazed on her face
then lifted her up
in tender embrace
aware as he did

the cross on his chest
would kill the undead
kissing her softly
‘Farewell, love’ he said
‘May your soul find rest ...’

LEDHRBLAKA (Old Norse: Leather-flapper)

I heard it thud against the glass
a small shape flitted round the room
soft breeze created as it passed
cut through Dawn shadows’ layered gloom

It tested each unyielding wall
then hovered briefly by the door
but found it closed — no chance at all
of making swift escape before

the sun’s sharp eye identified
this refugee from night’s far shore
a tiny bat that dipped and shied
away from light and growing more

confused and frantic in its dash
it fell and landed on my bed
and pity-prompted (kind or rash?)
I warmed it gently — feared it dead

A figure then emerging tall
from nowhere came without a sound
as if in answer to some call
the bat revived — direction found

It flew up quickly from my lap
straight where this patient stranger stood
and found his own familiar gap
in folds beneath his master’s hood

Before I’d any chance to say
a word or question what went on
all had vanished clean away
real or figments both were gone

It leaves my sanity in doubt —
a part of me can’t quite believe
it truly happened and without
a trace ... or might the brain deceive

and offer riddles, tricks and dreams
to keep poor mortals such as me
wrong-footed by unconscious schemes
and drowning in uncertainty?

I ponder on it long and hard —
how such encounters will defy
all logic stretching yard on yard
while truth goes leather-flapping by ...

COME FISH OR FOWL

A bird flew down upon my sill
instinct warned me it was you
the way it cocked its blue-grey head
its voice a draft that chilled me through

That cheeping an appeal for food
I knew its language like my own
a simple need expressed and yet
unnerving how the thought was sown

It waited patient while I went
and fetched some scraps to satisfy
the hunger burning in its breast
it fixed me with one beady eye

as though it needed me to grant
permission it could start to eat
it hesitated briefly with
crumbs strewn around its red-toed feet

‘Go on,’ I whispered ‘take your fill’
it pecked quite eagerly but then
hopped swift to perch upon my hand
dug in its claws and cheeped again

I gasped ‘what is it that you want?’
a drop of blood welled through my skin
and panic made me short of breath
I fought to calm the fear within

It dipped its beak into the red
and drank my blood — I tasted sick
rise in my throat and horror then
provoked — I killed it clean and quick

I wrapped the body with due care
and built a rough stick funeral pyre
then cursing tears and sore regrets
consigned you to the cleansing fire

I know in time you’ll come again
each incarnation something new
whatever beast — come fish or fowl
I won’t be fooled — I’ll know it’s you

ESCAPING BEDLAM

There is no rest to be had around here
there is no peace — no island of calm — to be found
those who suffer make their noise
the Devil’s melody of harsh despairing sound

It does not cease
this ugly concert programme scored right through
with misery’s percussion — choking cries
for help — Oh, please dear God — but no one tries

to ease distress — instead the staff just sit
play cards or chew the fat till end of shift
their foreign gabble loud above the din
a TV thumping out a chance to win

a car — a holiday — which only rubs it in ...

The walking wounded shuffle to the small canteen
those stuck in bed with wires and tubes gaze blank
at the trays of indefinable unappetizing food
the ghost of old school dinners — steak & guess-what pud

There are visitors that sidle in from time to time
emissaries from the outer world who claim there is life there
though somehow it seems more and more unlikely ... eyes stare
trying to make contact — decode messages — unmask the crime

The air is cloying — glutinous with its own brand of distrust
the angels have gone awol — all is thick with grime and dust
that suffocates slowly — slowly slowing thought
until only one lingers — I must I must I must get out of here

Nights are the worst. The squeak-bang-crash of the trolleys
no subtlety hauling out the poor unfortunates who failed the course
the rest of us lay supine fearful we spit, cough and curse
vainly calculating the odds ...

This could be limbo — there are no signs
no clues to pin an exact location
the ark rolls in bitter isolation
wheezes out a ghost of violins

Invisible the chains that bind
a parody of flesh to the hallucinating mind
tantalized by a glimpse — a scrap — a figment of Heaven’s perfect blue
it is the lure to keep the thought-fish squirming through

Now there’s a shoal of dream-sharks come
their fevered purpose aimed to tear faith from
this wreck of bones — ribs open to each rabid bite
for there is no telling of the depth — the insanity of appetite

White-coated doctors carousel — make rounds of this
sad fairground with no prizes — no one rides the rig
with any confidence — it’s scheduling to satisfy
whatever faceless demon has authority

Lucid moments struggle to make sense
a plan evolves and counts the steps between the bed and door
horror taps its toes on a cold floor and fear’s intense
what choice exists? It’s make or break
                                do or die — the great escape …

SICKBED FANTASY

There’s no improvement
I cannot see them —
insect-size demons
slipping in through the
window’s narrow crack

I hear their glass feet
scuttle ’cross the ledge
pain darkens the edge
maps my consciousness
mocks the fighting flesh

Only one thought’s home
in the great empty
castle of the mind
defiance rages
curses traitor sky

Hope fades for rescue
time’s troops marching by
the infiltrators
relentless — there is
no begging that halts

their callous advance
razor jaws on skin
still they come — pour in
poison my breathing
plunder — trash what’s left

DARK FISH

I swam into the sea last night
on fantasy’s dark fish
I rode him like a magic steed
obeying every wish

He took me deep into his realm
though it seemed bright as day
and monsters greeted me like friends
inviting me to stay

Their ugliness was beautiful
their calming sense of grace
infected — I had no desire
to ever leave this place

It was a garden like the first
before the serpent came
entirely free of all men’s ills
no hate, no war, no pain

I prayed the dream would never end
but dawn came like a curse
and floated me back to a world
polluted and perverse

I only hope when Death draws near
he’ll let me gently drown
and follow this thin trail of words—
ride my dark fish back down

THE SNOWBERRY BUSH

Pale in Winter moonlight’s glow
the berries swelled as soft as skin
each one a tender breathing shell
that held its secret safe within

The night expectant — all was hushed
as moon played midwife calm and cool
tall trees like anxious uncles stood
reflected in a scry-glass pool

Where grasses leaned — grown curious
a hooting owl peered down to see
what spectacle about to start
lay rooted deep in fantasy

The moon attentive — focused full
on berries aching ripe and round
then shuddering the moment came
they split their skins without a sound

A dozen creatures tumbled out
and then a magic thirteen more
all perfect with their rainbow wings
depicted fine in faerie lore

They flew as bright as fireflies do
a string of lights that laced the trees
their nascent cries so swiftly lost
absorbed by darkening degrees

The bush that mothered this rare brood
now withered back — its duty done
released from age-old birthing rites
a weary moon went rolling on

SONG FROM A FRESHLY-DUG GRAVE

My dearest love, don’t grieve for me
I have not left you — turn and see
my shadow faint upon the wall
and hear my voice — this loving call

You fear I’m in the cold grey earth
but after death a second birth
has brought me safely back to shore
I cheated Fate, so cry no more

Don’t be afraid — hold out your hand
I know it’s hard to understand
but feel my skin — it’s almost warm
try to believe I am not gone

What is that look upon your face?
and why does horror now replace
love’s sweet expression — that fond smile?
It’s only been such a short while

yet now you shun me — shrink away
what is my crime — what can I say?
When death divided I implored
God let me back through that dark door

The Devil heard me — bid me sign
my name upon the dotted line
I pictured you so broken-hearted
thinking of me lost — departed

I traded in my soul for you
so sure you would be faithful to
our deathless vows — but hope’s forlorn
you’re healed already. Life moves on …

THE LEGEND OF THE WITCH AND HER WOLF

It snowed a bitter tantrum
piled high against her door
she fed wild birds for mercy
and then it snowed some more

She called upon the spirits
those well-disposed to man
repeated pleas for magick
to curb the blizzard’s span

One spirit old in wisdom
insisted she should give
some token of her fealty —
a charm to rein her with

She took her sewing scissors
and cut three hanks of hair
dark they were and shining
her head in patches bare

The pact was sealed directly
the snowstorm lost its way
and dawn pulled down a softer sky
to thaw the frigid day

The spells she sang were healing
and snowdrops bloomed among
the roots of oaks and beeches
their branches warmed by sun

The sheep near-froze and starving
emerged from drifts unscathed
the cattle who’d been stranded
were miraculously saved

One man though not so lucky
they pulled him from a ditch
then laid him on her doorstep
for rumour tagged her ‘witch’

She shuddered at the order
she had no spell for this
her instinct not to meddle
despite all she might miss

For the man was young and handsome
posed elegant in death
entranced she kissed his corpse-white lips
and felt a ghost’s thin breath

In haste she laid him on warm stones
around the hearth’s wide grate
although the vigil might be long
she steeled herself to wait

It was a week before he woke
she’d many folk to tell
and some refused to take her word —
what makes a dead man well?

A group of men led by the church
demanded that they see
this man she’d resurrected thus
commited heresy

They battered on her solid door
insisted that she give
full explanation of the trick
to make a dead man live

Both meek and mild her manner was
she had no trick to hide
not dead but chilled down close to it
but all believed she lied

The man was questioned in his bed
he lay there vague and thin
his speech a chattering of birds
no sign of suffering

The leader of their group declared
they’d take him from her care
a trial would judge unnatural work
while he’d be safe elsewhere

The man he growled at their advance
he bared his snow-white teeth
his eyes now yellow as the moon
they glimpsed the soul beneath

At which they bid a fast retreat
fear sent them stumbling home
suspecting as dumb mortals do
much worse would surely come

She’d done no harm — that was the truth
this godless girl proved kind
yet something of her power pricked
unsettling the mind

Days passed. The man grew stronger
he watched her fast and pray
invoking veiled protection
both knew he could not stay

He paced the cottage while she slept
his legs and mind grown steady
and yet he loathed to leave her there
the heart of him not ready

At length he told her — let her know
his nature and his calling
he’d dallied dangerously long
her sweetness so enthralling

She didn’t plead, nor did she beg
her desolation deep
but she was wise enough to know
that wild things will not keep

And so with love she let him go
a kiss upon his brow
and wishes for a happy life —
the best the gods allow

Her days were empty with him gone
she missed their evening walk
his musk that sanctified the place
things felt too keen for talk

A week went by. She gathered herbs
engaged in country craft
kept busy trying to forget
the last time she had laughed

In her own world she worked away
to modestly create
the wares she sold on market day
or at some rural fête

Her mind immersed so thoroughly
she did not hear them knock
those persecutors who burst in
and made her shriek with shock

The sound it carried over moors
it rolled the valley’s side
and miles away it tweaked an ear
his yellow eyes grew wide

They threw her roughly to the floor
they tore away her clothes
they beat her savagely nonstop
a brutal rain of blows

Unprotesting as a doll
she took the punishment
but on the air her silent screams
in all their terror sent

The men were masked, as cowards are
a gang of nine or ten
she heard one call another ‘Jack’
and someone answered ‘Ben’

She recognised a voice that made
her gasp — town bully Seth
he leaned across her, dripping sweat
and beer was on his breath

‘Let’s see how this sweet witch performs —
give her the chance to fly
We’ll find a broomstick, I’ll be bound’
he checked the darkened sky

and cursed the rumble of a storm
their tethered horses neighed
a distant howling had them spooked
she closed her eyes and prayed

In through the window with a snarl
a flash of fur, a gleaming fang
crazed as a dog dispatching rats
he tore apart the evil gang

He licked her clean of blood and gore
his tongue unleashed hot tears
so tenderly he nuzzled her
and calmed her raging fears

She curled beside him comforted
the warmth of him, the scent
her very life belonged to him
she’d follow where he went

Man or wolf — she loved them both
she clung to his broad back
he took his bride and loped away
down legend’s twilight track

MRS FAUSTUS FOLLOWS SUIT

I’m not who I was
(but who gives a damn?)
grown angry because
I loathe what I am

It’s mere vanity
I’m willing to guess
near-insanity
brews darker distress

Those friends I loved best
are lost to me since
they’ve gone to their rest
Death has me convinced

He waits on me, too
impatient and sly
I dodge each day through
dull time passes by

The mirror tells lies
Age can’t see itself
each morning’s surprise
shows somebody else

I’m stuck with this face
no longer on track
I’m in the wrong place
I yearn to go back

I’m old and I curse
this living is hell
so conjure a verse
recite a mad spell

The Devil might hear
I’ll sign any pact
and make it quite clear
just flesh and blood fact

my soul isn’t worth
the cost of its keep
no love on this earth
can soothe me to sleep

But Youth, Health & Strength
plus money enough’s
the height, width and length
of all worthwhile stuff

The risk isn’t great
(who can pick and choose?)
the hour grows late
and I’ve nothing to lose

ON THE BEACH

The beach curved close to midnight’s calm
sands stretched their silver-grey
the yellow lantern of the moon
mocked Halloween’s display

and there upon the tide’s chill edge
a body lifeless sprawled
thrown up — ejected by the sea
limbs battered and salt-mauled

A woman walking through her grief
came cautiously to where
the surf was jostling along
and rinsing out dark hair

She bent to view a stranger’s face
that nature cast as male
while water lapped uncovering
a fabled merman’s tail

Unnerved, she let a gasp escape
half-disbelieved her eyes
imagining it was a trick —
some fancy dress disguise

Came closer then and dared to touch
the texture of his skin
she stroked cold scales and sensed a pulse
that fluttered deep within

Compassion for this creature’s plight
prompted she obey
the instinct she must stay and help
not flinch and creep away

She heaved him inch by breathless inch
to hide him safe from sight
of beachcombers and fisherfolk
that come with dawn’s first light

She lay beside him, held his hand
long fingers webbed between
shy-kissed his brow, enchanted by
this slow-unfolding dream ...

She woke to find the sand still damp
imprinted with his form
the sun already breaking through
and night’s strange magic gone

But there close to her hand a shell
wherein an oyster curled
the ocean’s perfect parting gift —
a moon-reflecting pearl

Since when she takes each midnight swim
convinced he will return
love’s milky bead strung round her throat
all else of scant concern

THE INSEPARABLE

Are we not lovers — you and I? —
Do we not seek each other’s eye
when we are in some crowded room?
Apart and yet the witching moon
has influence and works as well
through thickest walls she casts her spell

Despite the noisy party’s throng
I harken to dark passion’s song
it lures with potent undertow
and speaks forbidden words I know
will summon certain danger should
temptation find I’m far from good

Already sinned by dint of thought
I dream of you more than I ought
in crazed embraces — reckless — hot
so virtue’s lost as like as not
and how you stare! — Our gazes locked
the air between is charged and shocked

Is it too late? Your greedy hand
insists I am already damned
desire is boring through my brain
and hunger burns exquisite pain
into my flesh — I need your kiss
for there’s no fire as cruel as this

You are my lord, I am your slave
there’s no escape although I rave
against each willing wanton urge
I can’t beat back, begin to purge
and thus control — subdue — abate
sensation soars to aggitate

I am in conflict when you’re near
all my defences disappear
anticipation is in flood
you’re in my mind, you crave my blood
my weak objections all outrun
I bend my neck — the deed is done

Dark souls reborn but never free
we’re doomed to yearn eternally
the ancient curse renews its claim
we love and lose, then love again
our shadows pass though Death’s grim door
yet lust revives us
                        thrills and drives us
                                        inseparable
                                                forevermore

MEETING THE MONSTER

I’ve glimpsed you skulking in the murky depths
grotesque as any monster scarcely seen
a thing of shadows moulded from despair
the strangest creature ever there has been

Who created such a fish? — If fish you are
you share some aspects — cold and scaly-skinned
you breathe salt water, ponderously swim
a hulk of bone and gristle, webbed and finned

Yet I have caught your eye — perceived your soul
anguished, crazed and hungry for escape
not truly dumb but lacking human voice
you’re doomed to dwell, resigned to this grim fate

What do you dream of, sad leviathan?
Is there some beauty you imagine waits
who’ll love you for the prince she sees within
believes a good heart always compensates

for ugliness? She’ll know it as a mask
certain her brave kiss will break the spell
release you from your ghastly nightmare guise
then you will rise from this deep ocean hell

You stare a moment like you read my mind
my sympathy acknowledging your pain
the myths are cruel — I see your suffering
so vast your lonely echoing domain

Oh, forgive dear monster, those great fools of men
who arrogantly trespass, spear in hand
and deal out death to any form unknown
because they lack the wit to understand

all living creatures have their hopes and dreams
for every difference there are things we share
and none should judge the other brute or fiend
in ignorance, but think and be aware

whatever form or size, there’s room for all
and fear-promoting prejudice is wrong
I stand — a puny mortal in clear view
in hope that somehow we might get along ...

You watch me, and I watch you, gazes locked
my thoughts ring true — you blink, then turn away
your hugeness melts in shadows evermore
and if I reached you, I can’t really say

GREEN-BLOODED

I woke one morning good as dead
at least best part of me
I’d had this kind of crazy dream
I’d turned into a tree

All leafy in my new disguise
I reached to touch the sky
as flocks of little birds flew down
each winked a knowing eye

I must admit that it felt strange
my flesh transformed to wood
and yet as I grew used to it
it quite improved my mood

The sun showed up and warmed my bark
till all my buds unfurled
and made me glad I’d joined the ranks
of this green-blooded world

For all I had to do all day
was let the balmy breeze
play around my swaying boughs
and whisper, taunt and tease

Then, as night drew down the blinds
I found my role as host
to bats and owls and visitings
of the odd homeless ghost

We got on well — these guests and me
where truth and fiction blends
as though each living thing dropped by
intent on being friends

I drifted in this blesséd state
for who can tell how long?
My every sinew pulsing warm
my wooden heartbeat strong

I counted up my aging rings
and knew the seasons’ score
as though I’d weathered all my life
a tree deep in my core

I woke once more — a second time
frail human in my bed
and lay confused, remembering
this life I hadn’t led

So real the vision haunted me
I searched the clueless skies
imagining I felt within
Spring’s sap begin to rise ...

Since when I take a daily stroll
in passing greet each tree
for I can’t help but recognise
some kinship streak in me

I’ve glimpsed the spirit that connects
existence caught between
reality’s storm-battered shore
and calmer lands more green

It’s of these peaceful lands I dream
far from the world’s mad flood
rooted safe with fellow trees
who share my emerald blood

THE EYE IN THE TREE

Carved high in the bark
an eye’s staring down
it blinks through the dark
leaves whisper around
night muffles each sound

Twigs crack underfoot
where shadows slow-move
between twisted root
and burrow’s worn groove
familiar paths soothe

the nocturnal beast
that noses its way
seeks a modest feast
some unwary prey
to track down and slay

The eye watches all
the drama beneath
hears every last call
and snapping of teeth
each sacrifice brief

The tree god’s strong-willed
his ancient sap sings
with secret life spilled
blood nurtures his rings
green lord of wild things

THE SNOW MAIDENS

From the rocks and the trees
where they slept underground
they came gliding half-formless
and making no sound

Thin wraiths carved from nothing
except legend’s dream
of Nature’s frail spirits
more real than might seem

They gathered in moonlight
upon a bare hill
a dozen that waited
breath held and stock-still

The night’s frozen backdrop
as unmoving as they
in deep hibernation
life slumbered away

On the dark’s vague horizon
more cloud shuffled soft
and soon the sky’s covered
snow’s weight held aloft

till a flake drifted slantwize
to land in their ring
where night held enchanted
each tight-folded thing

The flake fizzed and melted
transformed to blue flame
and from that pale flicker
a tall figure came

Now thirteen in number
a magical charge
ran swift round the circle
and shadows loomed large

Then a silver-winged owl
made a cry as it flew
like a signal to start
and let the energy through

So the spirits shook off
Winter’s blanket of trance
and the ritual began
with a ponderous dance

like a dream-induced waltz
in a ballroom grown wide
ceiling arched to the sky
lacking walls either side

If an orchestra played
then the music was low
not a note could be heard
as they swung to and fro

Any watchers spellbound
small creatures that were
caught up where they crouched
in feather and fur

As the tempo increased
frozen air seemed to thrum
and the sky overhead
stretched as tight as a drum

Then a far-sounding rip
like some paper sheet tore
and down through a dark gap
snow started to pour

Though the blizzard made blind
the dancers whirled on
like nothing would stop them
their faces all shone

as down through the valley
their skirts trailed the white
wildly tossed like confetti
to the left and the right

Celebrating a marriage
of silent earth and chill air
Winter’s bride wore a million
ice gems in her hair

In her wake folds and flurries
bandaged windows and doors
of those farmhouses lonely
somewhere on the cold moors

Thus the season’s bright blessing
in white’s dizzy haze
this wedding of weather
spread icing’s pure glaze

All the power of magick
as the frantic dance slowed
the flakes became fewer
and the snow maidens glowed

With their ritual now ended
they trailed back to safe rest
in the pages of folklore
deep in Earth’s wooden chest

Where they’ll wait for a sign
when the Solstice comes round
gentle spirits will rise
and their new Snow Queen crowned

THE SOUL’S TUNDRA

I have gone into the white
that cold crystal dazzle stretching acres bright
into the stillness of oblivion
where a perfect peace awaits
and death moves slow and gentle —
                                        freezes blood

There’s nothing now except the snow’s caress
draining warmth from barely pulsing flesh
the flutter of each flake
a blur against a mute nerveless sky

It holds for me a sterile welcome
soothes by smothering rebellious thought
bids the tired body lie
and let its chemistry subside ...
                                be covered over

I could be spirit Winter’s blue-skinned bride
draped with the thin rags of frosted years sewn in
a winding sheet of dreams
lost in the soul’s unending tundra
my wild purity’s restored I feel life’s drift —
                                        wait trustingly
                                                for sleep to come

THUNDER BIRD’S SHADOW

Bird of ill-omen
heralding unease
your dark shadow falls
as chill as a hand
that brings forth shudders

Part of the storm cloud
your baleful feathers
blue/black flutterings
the glint of coal eyes
seeking a victim

Who would dare net you —
pierce with an arrow —
stone you or pet you —
whose magick might tame?
fear follows your name

Where do you come from —
what strange dimension
harbours a creature
that conjures such dread?
Are you more than ghost?

A clotting of air
avian mirage
hovering — preying
on those who believe
dumb prophets of doom



ODE TO ANEMONA (AN-EM-ON-A)

A creature of pure fantasy thou art
from murky salt-deep regions of my brain
you rise with your strange cohort — realms apart
and test my skill to render your domain
in terms of words and colour — tone and line
imagination swimming round and round
hooked on detail, savouring the brine
of whimsy’s sea and amniotic sound

I’ve searched for you and others of your kind
leviathans that lurk beyond belief
bathypelagic haunters of my mind
that hide behind some dream-enchanted reef

You show your face and give a knowing wink
allow my pen its space before you sink



THE VAMPIRE’S VINE

Grown on a grave forgotten
creeping tendrils unobserved
buds like palid shell-less eggs
abandoned by some bird

Among the weeds they quietly swell
draw sustenance from where
old bones lie sleeping — biding time
decay pollutes night air

Shadows loiter — watch and wait
behind slow-crumbling stones
a rambling breeze in fits and starts
emits thin ragged moans

As if on cue the clouds draw back
reveal a haggard moon
that sends a jagged sword of light
where ghostly buds festoon

one sunken plot so long ignored
outside the churchyard wall
no cross to indicate the spot
name lost beyond recall

Yet thick with stems and leaves that weave
a mat of sickly green
and timed to break the witching hour
those buds bulge pale between

The moment the church clock strikes twelve
long notes to wake the dead
each bud unfurls and lifts up high
its hungry florid head

Corpse-white petals smooth as skin
gape widely to expose
stamens sharpened and arranged
as teeth in vicious rows

Their ghastly scent like putrid flesh
attracts nocturnal things —
huge bumbling moths in drunken thrall
swoop blind on urgent wings

Bats and nightbirds follow suit
small rodents climb and sink
into those deadly blood-streaked blooms
that clam up tight then drink

their victims dry ’til lifeless husks
of fur or feather-bound
are flung like sacrificial cups
all scattered on the ground

While six feet down red roots drip-feed
a vampire’s quenchless thirst
until Dawn withers back the vine —
each blackened flower cursed

Show over for another year
the dormant plant’s unseen
until October casts its spell
the night of Halloween

GRAVE DOUBTS

Of late I have increasing doubts
what kind of creature one might see
if it were possible to plumb
the very darkest depths of me

It’s true I sport a human pelt
this tent of skin I barely own
but what it houses rarely fits
I feel I’m ‘other’ to the bone

And should some hunter on the prowl
catch my shadow in his sights
or half-translate my morbid howl
on one of these unsettling nights

I wonder would his senses send
a warning signal — stay his hand
and make him question all he thought
he knew of this nocturnal land

that I inhabit — weaving through
acknowledging those legends there
that lurk half-dreaming they are real
a quivering of dread-filled air

I am imagination’s child —
born and bred from fantasy
while borders blur between my world
and black and white reality

I may be mad yet fear I’m sane
my blood pumps anything but pure
I doubt my monster’s ramblings
but then again I’m far from sure

For in the mirror once or twice
I’ve glimpsed a face that isn’t mine
perhaps only a fool would think
he’s in there simply biding time

FISH FOOD

O take me to the river’s edge
to wash old sins away
hide me in night’s darkest rags
I daren’t confess by day

And should those sins appear too black
then bleed them one by one
and bid the Devil turn his back
feign blind to what I’ve done

The young play careless with their love
and trample trusting hearts
they’re selfish — full of base desire
and that’s where trouble starts

with caution thrown to the four winds
and conscience buried deep
they live life at a reckless pace
and seldom lose much sleep

But age brings wisdom stained by guilt
life dirges chilling songs
I pray the river purges me
of a whole heap of wrongs

So take me where the waters flow
mere flesh will float or sink
I’ll likely end up food for fish —
recycled in a blink

ARACHNID

I wonder what you think of
or if you think at all
high in your corner cobweb
suspended on my wall

Blacker than the shadows
spindle-legged you squat
an uninvited housemate
an ominous dark blot

Kindred to Arachne
cursed to weave the night
spinning death so silent
you are a loathsome sight

You dangle your grim warning
your ghastly larder strung
a line of hapless corpses
like twitching trophies hung

With finest silk you strangle
then wrap your victims round
expert in your method
no fuss, no gore, no sound

Cruel Nature made you killer
you’ve no choice in it at all
but your image sends a shiver
triggers frightened flesh to crawl

So be gone — you Gothic horror
sucking dry each shrouded moth
I’ll not stand free board and lodging
but evict you — now fuck off!



THE GIRL WITH THE YELLOW UMBRELLA

It was a grey afternoon in November
when he first saw the girl in the park
hunched under her yellow umbrella
the clouds overhead massing dark.

She sat on a seat in the drizzle
but it seemed that she waited in vain
for he watched her for nearly an hour
sitting patient — but nobody came.

At last, with the rain drumming harder
and the dregs of the day almost gone
she relinquished her damp, lonely vigil
stood up and prepared to move on.

She followed the path to the gateway
then lingered beside the stone wall
looking back at the seat in the twilight
through the curtaining rain’s steady fall.

The dome of her yellow umbrella
stood out from the dullness around
and her figure, so slight in its shelter
seemed to symbolize passion profound.

Drawn in by this underplayed drama
the park keeper kept her in sight
intrigued by a vision romantic
with the backdrop of oncoming night.

He trailed her along the wet pavement
and into the shop-shuttered town
with pedestrians scarce after home-time
still the cold, squally rain pelting down.

Then she vanished as though in an eye-blink
like she’d suddenly walked off the stage —
not a sign of her yellow umbrella
its clear image entirely erased.

The thrall inexplicably broken
he called in at the pub for a drink
didn’t speak to a soul while he pondered
’til he lost sober power to think.

He dreamed of her often — so vivid
he imagined her face and her hair
her voice so familiar and loving
while reality offered despair.

He searched through the park — always hopeful
she might, unannounced, reappear
but the days blurred to weeks until Christmas
and his emptiness felt the more drear.

Christmas Eve — and he locked the park early.
All was still — the ducks slept by the lake.
In the water a crust of ice forming
purple sky looming low without break.

He returned on a whim — some vague fancy
insisted he go back and check
and there on the seat she was waiting ...
a sharp chill pricked the hair on his neck.

She glowed from beneath her umbrella
her skin a strange luminous white
then she called out his name — smiled a greeting
and the knot in his stomach grew tight.

As the first flakes of snow floated earthwards
she held out her hand with delight
then blew him a kiss soft as feathers
and whirled away into the night.

They found him frostbitten — unconscious
those snowballing kids Christmas morn
who’d short-cutted through the park’s playground
his body curled stiff — scarcely warm.

Three days he lay deep in a coma.
On the fourth he began to revive
and he seemed to the nurse who was witness
all bemused — hardly glad or alive

but held fast in the grip of depression
so strong it took patience to break.
His sweet nurse proved an angel by nature
and she worked round the clock for his sake.

By midsummer, his health had recovered
and his thoughts were the everyday kind.
The girl with the yellow umbrella
didn’t trouble his calm state of mind.

So he went back to work for a season.
All was well ’til November the eighth
just a year from the first time he saw her
and it rained cats and dogs on that date.

His hut in the park was left open
his keys on a hook by the door
and nobody could say what had happened
for the signs weren’t the same as before.

By the time they’d reported him missing
it was late and the pubs were all closed
so his nearest and dearest concluded
things were graver than they had supposed.

There was one — only one — distant sighting
from a vagrant whose eyesight was poor
who mentioned a yellow umbrella —
it was dark, so he couldn’t be sure

but he thought he had seen the park keeper
with a woman — pale skinned and dark haired —
they stood close — very close — as rain pelted
and he held the umbrella they shared...

He has never been found and his story
spread wide as the legend evolved
with the truth buried somewhere in fiction
and the case left entirely unsolved.

There were clues — just a few — in his diary
from the dream-haunted life that he’d led
so obsessed with the yellow umbrella —
mind caught like a fly in a web.

Who she was was a question unanswered.
Did the girl perhaps only exist
as a figment of lonely invention —
his delusion the ultimate twist?

There were those who kept watch on the offchance —
ghost hunters and psychics who held
séances — but failed to make contact
their spiritual theories dispelled.

Then the focus of lurid attention —
that quite unremarkable seat
was moved to another location
the new management thought more discreet.

Well, nobody knew how it happened
but the seat appeared back in its place
as though spirited there by strange forces —
transported across time and space.

Which spooked the replacement park keeper
who resigned in a fit of despair.
He’d the look of a man going crazy —
shocked white to the roots of his hair.

Years went by... There were no further whispers
of anything odd or bizarre
so the story was almost forgotten
the way that such tales often are.

Then, on a chill day the end of November
a yellow umbrella was seen
afloat on the lake’s murky water
its spokes stuck among the weed’s green.

The umbrella was old and well-rusted
its fabric quite faded and holed
the frame being horribly twisted
and the yellow blotched over with mould.

It took a strong arm to retrieve it —
untangle and pull the thing free
for the ooze held a terrible secret
it seemed loathe to give up easily.

Curled close to the ebony handle
something gleamed pale as roots brought to light —
there were five finger bones grasping nothing
but mud and a wet, endless night.

They dug down and discovered two bodies
locked tight in a tender embrace
and though some ghastly deed was suspected
the authorities found not a trace.

They were both laid to rest in the churchyard
on the grave that they share is a cross
carved with only the barest of details
their worldly identities lost.

“To the memory of nameless lovers
Both drowned in a lake long ago
Now forever at peace — their life's story
Cradled safe in the darkness below...”

What became of the yellow umbrella
is unknown. Yet, for some, there remains
each November a dread she’s still waiting
in the park, around dark, when it rains.



A HAIR-RAISING TALE

One night a host of spiders came
each driven in by freezing rain
they squeezed through every narrow gap
in walls that hear old Deathwatch tap
swarming dark they crawled and crept
while dreamless in her bed she slept

Across the floors like drifts of gloom
they scurried through and found her room
mechanical their rhythmic feet
obeyed some strange hypnotic beat
in waves they scaled the bedclothes there
and nested in her unkempt hair

They wove her tangled tresses tight
skilled with silken structure light
at last she woke quite unaware
of squatters living in her hair
all drowsy in the dawn’s pale hush
and safe from threat of comb or brush

She wore those infiltrators well
as far as anyone might tell
she suffered them with mindless grace
for lack of flies about the place
no pesky buzz or bumbling wing
those spiders preyed on everything

Odd visitors might start with fright
when faced with the unusual sight
of tame arachnids spinning webs
organic strands glued edge to edge
her silver-netted barnet fair
styled sleek and chic with spider care

This management of growth hirsute
had mixed advantages to boot
until a tribe of vampire bats
launched an unprovoked attack
a ghastly tale of blood and gore
as fearsome creatures went to war ...

The bats flew madly — scratched and bit
and she (caught in the thick of it)
screamed and ranted, howled and tore
hair from her scalp ’til red and raw
her skull was totally bereft
no single witch-black tuft was left

Evicted lodgers in retreat
sped off on their four pairs of feet
and fled the scene of carnage where
grim piles of wild uprooted hair
lay scattered — miles of weaving wrecked
to hideously bald effect

                        *****

She lives in peace now — spider-free
with three fine wigs for company
she wears in turn — they fit so snug
there’s room for neither moth nor bug
all creepy-crawlies shun her den
that’s if they know what’s good for them

Since she has sealed up every crack
and cranny in her rustic shack
a warning on her door makes clear
“No bats or spiders welcome here —
go find some other place to dwell
among the nightmares down in Hell!”

THE WITCH EXPLAINS HER PLIGHT

Where do you find a woman like me? —
I am like no other
a puzzle — conundrum — a riddle-me-ree
a bane to my mother

Don’t be misled by the face you see
masking what’s behind it
a concoction of fey and ordinary
and will too wild to bind it

There dreams a war inside of me
unsettling the day
I know with a vague sort of certainty
this fight’s the only way

And prophet might spell a word for witch
no difference in truth
both ancient and new — simply flick a switch
and search the dark for proof

How can you trust a woman like me? —
always under cover
dragging tradition’s damned mystery
tagged as demon-lover

Please don’t imagine my life’s been fun
it’s low on happiness
Fate set me apart from everyone
no choice — I was born to this



THE WARNING

A dream of standing on a very high and isolated cliff-top
staring down to the sea-lashed rocks below
A very dark angry sky
Gusts of cold wind whipping hair across my face
Distant voices in the wind — floating there — foreign
                                                unintelligible — menacing

A huge black crow flies overhead
high up at first, circling ... slowly descending
repeatedly cawing harsh and unnerving
wings flapping urgently
their downdraft bringing a cloying smell of decay
as from an opened tomb

The repeated caw has a rhythm to it — emphatic
in its need to communicate a message
the bird’s eyes have an hypnotic stare that chills
boring through my skull with relentless intensity

A bell tolls, far off
The ringing changes to the jangle of the alarm clock
I wake to a jaundice-weary dawn, the weak winter light
hardly able to make any impression on
my shadow-filled room

A sense of dread anticipation haunts the morning
skin prickles at every small sound
as I dress and make ready
for the day and whatever it holds ...

Then a sudden loud rap on my door
and a thin envelope slid through the crack under it
I stare at it, heart thumping
the crow’s harsh voice still ringing in my head

I can hardly bear to touch it, but bend
and grab up the scrap of paper, my name
a smudged scrawl demanding attention —
they were coming. Or someone was

Mouth dry, I steeled myself to lift the flap
barely sealed by the sender
No note enclosed, but a coal-black feather
falls out and flutters to the floor

In the next frenzied few minutes
I gather only those things that seem essential
abandoning the rest, mad to keep
ahead of whatever storm approached

Leaving the key in the lock, I flee
no destination planned, the crow’s feather
tucked deep in my inside breast pocket
I can feel it there, pressing warm
                                with afterlife



DOCTOR FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER

My father, Doctor Frankenstein
creator of my crazed design
look on me now and love your child
my monster heart unreconciled
to being how you had me born —
a thing to shun — to fear and scorn

O take my feeble, stunted arm
I am your pet and mean no harm
but Man is foolish to explore
what only God could do before
Have mercy, Doctor — be that kind
to free my flesh and cleanse my mind
abominations such as I
should never live — I crave to die

I hurt, I suffer — worse than you
I’m less than human, frightened to
explore a world which can’t be mine
please end me — then forget your crime!

THURSDAY NIGHTS

Always on a Thursday night
she had the same dark dream
a street with shuttered windows
in some town she’d never been

A clock that chimed the midnight
a face from shadows spun
locked doors all said NO EXIT
and nowhere left to run

That face was worn and weary
expression dazed and glum
a hand reached out to hold her
unease had made her numb

Her leaden legs so clumsy
she tripped and fell full length
her body burned high fever
she lacked all will and strength

At last she’d wake — exhausted
and bathed in a cold sweat
heart banging like a hammer
from some unspoken threat

And thus she dreaded Thursdays
tried hard to stay awake
all night until the morning
for sanity’s sweet sake

But the nightmare came to get her
and drag her to the brink
of a sea of understanding
where all dreamers swim or sink

When consulting so-called experts
she threw a casual pitch —
how could Thursday nights reduce her
to this sad deluded bitch?

Not one could offer answers
the mirror told her more
as her image greyed to someone
she was sure she’d met before

Her wrinkles deepened weekly
her closest friend amazed
how soon age overtook her
she looked so frail and crazed

She loathed the institution
despite that they were kind
indulging her — believing she
had simply lost her mind

*

It was on a winter’s Thursday —
a night of storm and rain
when she went missing from her bed
and wasn’t seen again

Now an inmate tells his story —
he’s quite certain where she’s gone
disappeared into that other world
and in time he’ll follow on

They’ve a secret bond between them
dreams map the way across
age is nothing but illusion
and this life is no great loss

It’s the strangest explanation — yet
each match conceals its spark
so Thursday nights reveal to some
a tunnel through the dark

THE MIDWIFE'S TALE

The mother seemed to ride the pain
her body arched, then calmed again
she hardly uttered one harsh sound
while through her hair long fingers wound
curled golden strands and tugged them tight
as wedding rings that salt-soaked night

The hours stretched, she rose and fell
exhausted but serene as well
until at last she heaved and gushed
and waters blue as oceans rushed
a tide across to swamp the bed
and brought a glimpse of the child’s head

The mother spoke no words I knew
some language aimed to bubble through
and urge her offspring to make haste
no time or energy to waste
I saw her squeeze, then one push more
he squirmed and slithered to the floor

The mother gave a gurgled laugh
my own response half-choked — a gasp
the babe lay winded, goggle-eyed
panting — fish-like —tail fanned wide
the mother’s gaze fell square on me
a nod sealed our conspiracy

I swore to her my lips were sealed
his nature could not be revealed
but as the only witness there
and surely such events were rare
thus anyone I told would think
me crazy or the worse for drink

I wrapped the creature in a shawl
to hide his tail from one and all
those prying eyes who probably
would class him a monstrosity
take photographs and call the press
promote sensation — cause distress

I looked into his trusting eyes
so innocent yet strangely wise
and found the smile within me spread
my thoughts swam free, all doubting fled
his mother watching, satisfied
it seemed gave up the ghost and died

A blue light filtered through the gloom
the air rocked gently — soothed the room
the baby moaned — a cry so deep
it tugged on secrets love must keep
I sat and waited trembling there
then came a footstep on the stair

I knew before the doorknob turned
who’d come for him — the moment burned
its chill right through me — coloured raw
in every detail that I saw
his natural father had arrived
washed in to meet birth’s early tide

The man glanced once towards the bed
his sea-wet hair clung to his head
his shaggy clothes green-tinged with rime
his footprints pools ... He lost no time
in gesturing for the small mite
I cradled close, my breath held tight

I gave him up — I had no choice
a sigh, a sob my only voice
I watched them go, I heard them leave
the quayside dive as morning breathed
a soft farewell. Found on the floor
three pearls in payment. Nothing more

A phantom pregnancy, they say
but off the record I still pray
for her that died in giving birth
to one wasn’t of this earth
He was my last delivery
The pearls flung in the estuary

*****

Since my retirement I dream long
within the reach of siren-song
and twice beside my seaward door
I’ve found those perfect pearls once more
their milky moon-blind eyes can see
the little fish love spawned in me

THE NIGHT WHISPERERS

They come late at night
when all are abed
and squeeze themselves through
thin gaps in my head
one breath at a time

Those voices mere hiss —
some radio wave
that whispers between
old age and the grave
a faint party line

I’d chance a reply
but caution admits
the coward in me
would have fifty fits
should they prove malign

I wish they’d shut up
they keep me awake
their mithering on
with hardly a break
come rain or starshine

Those murmurs that mock
from some murky brink
they make little sense
except when I think
they’re echoing mine

THE REAL HARE-SKULL BROOCH

Its glass eyes stared out
from her coat’s lapel
like its spirit watched
from some other world
and observed us all

Its metallic sheen
by mere whim of art
and preserving skill
of taxidermy
made it seem surreal

And the gems that decked
that so-narrow skull
designed to make it
appear fashion’s friend
winked sly at the joke

Her trophy pinned proud
where most would notice
and surely comment
old superstitions
suddenly aroused ...

Something familiar
almost forgotten
stories of magick
hare caught by moonlight
a shape-shifting witch



BYRD

I saw it first at dusk — the creature came
half bird, half child — a vision with no name
that hovered at my window — pressed its face
against the glass and gazed at me — I traced
its silhouette — a shadow on the sky
heart pounding, hesitating, eye to eye.

The look upon its face filled me with dread —
I feared it was a phantom — something dead
that visited with purpose —warning me —
a portent of impending tragedy.
And yet there was a wistfulness — an air
of longing in that look — near-sweet despair.

The room was still, the moment felt insane —
I put my hand up to the window pane
touched the coldness thin between its cheek
and my warm fingers — felt myself go weak
as though it sucked my energy away
while darkness fell that January day.

Strange — I’m almost sure the creature spoke
before it melted — atoms gone to smoke
left me peering out into that gloom
of coming night besieging my small room.
I drew the curtains, increasingly afraid
some other-world connection had been made.

The oddness of it faded like a dream
and I reasoned things are seldom what they seem
but there persisted an uneasy doubt
that would not go — too stubborn to rub out
with logic — so it lingered like a stain —
the knowledge I would see that face again.

I found I watched the sky as evening fell —
my eyes strayed to the window of the cell
my single life had furnished warm with wood
old books and pictures comforting — I stood
and witnessed day depart — my breath held tight
anxious in the dwindling grey light.

Long weeks went by — whole months of waiting passed —
an owl, a bat or two and then, at last
that haunting face peered in. I sent a prayer
and crossed myself for fear of evil where
I hoped for something else — a clue or sign
confirming that its nature was benign.

It fixed me with its stare and hypnotised
I answered to its wild, entreating cries
slipped the catch and threw the window wide
welcomed it to enter — watched it glide
pale as mist and chill, with bitter breath —
it smelt of earth and leaves — the scent of death.

I shuddered as its feathers brushed my arm
barely managing to hide my deep alarm
when from those bloodless lips came just one word
that shocked me more — I prayed I had misheard
but ‘Mother’ it repeated, edging near
its voice a child’s, its motivation clear.

Emotion filled me, rocked me like a boat
and a response rose choking in my throat —
the face that looked up solemnly to mine
might be a demon or a soul divine —
the air around us crackled like a storm
and conjured me a half-child never born.

I cradled her to soothe that fearful shake
as any mother would for comfort’s sake
this misbegotten being — eyes grown wide —
who’d somehow bridged that shadow-filled divide
between reality and lands unknown
unmapped in some eternal twilight zone.

I sang to her a lullaby — strange words
slipped from my tongue — a language I’d not heard
or learnt from books —a memory displaced
from distant, ancient worlds time had erased
and all the while I crooned a sharp-edged moon
carved cold pictures — hollowed-out my room.

How long we sat I cannot guess or say —
dawn came and yet she lingered while the day
stripped the shadows — peeled the skin of night
and she grew paler — greyer — pierced with light
unravelling, unpicking that frail form
until, like fog, she drifted and was gone.

I mourned her loss — grief floated like a veil
before my eyes — I never told the tale
to anyone, but kept all to myself
an all-consuming languor stole my health
my energy — my last few dregs of youth
dried to dust. One scrap of lasting proof

she left behind — I found beneath my chair
a feather — downy-soft and curling there
I have it pinned close to my wasting heart
and feel it flutter when night breezes start —
the dreams come back — they wheel about the sky
and I remember how it felt to fly.

GOTHIC FISH

My lady swims in darkness
her skin a web of stars
the weedy lake her chamber
bulrushes her bars

She breathes the thick green waters
swallows deep their chill
brewed among black pebbles
nightly takes her fill

Her mouth an ache grown hollow
where shadows swarm to hide
lose themselves in horror
welling from inside

Her eyes like cloudy moonstones
sightless as she drifts
cold between the currents
aimlessly she sifts

Dredging out each echo
every drowning wish
tastes their bitter nature
bloodless as a fish.




DROWNING IT OUT

I’m thinned to scales and water
grey gristle, flesh and air
a soul worn through with longing
my ocean spirit bare

This life attuned to fluid
deep thinking has me drowned
I thrash in streams of darkness
the warmer blood not found

The day-weed has ensnared me
I’m tangled in its wild
no morning ever knew me
I am the night’s cold child

I swim the course of habit
where elements sustain
such accidents of spawning
salt dreams choose not to name

RAVENWING

The bird of ill-omen
and I have a tryst
I linger in shadows
he’s fashioned from mist
I whisper forebodings
he cackles a tune
and labels me crazy
in thrall to the moon

He plucks me a feather
to darken my hair
the spirits breathe deeply
weave plaits of despair
until I’ve a headdress
as black as the night
that brands me a stranger
to dawn’s silver light

Our meeting brings comfort
unravels old fears
while sky rolls its thunder
releasing jet tears
this bird spells disaster
doom colours its wings
yet high in the ether
an angel still sings

LOVING TO DEATH

I watch the sun go down — its orange glow slow-fading
the night bird cheeps brief answer to my prayer
and sly the shadows creep until their shapes are blending
then from shifting depths quite suddenly he’s there

My gasp is no glad greeting nor a lover’s welcome
yet I can’t refuse his hunger come what may
for I am deep in thrall to this charismatic demon
who manifests each grey dusk to have his way

I canot tell a living soul of these encounters
I am bound to keep this secret to the grave
in truth I love and loathe him both in equal measure
his prisoner, paramour and willing slave

I long to fight and fiercely show my true defiance
instead I crumble at his first icy touch
unable to resist his stare that’s so hypnotic
so my fervent protests fail to worry much

I surrender like an addict — as warm and wanton
blood’s bouquet afire to tempt like finest wine
so why would he not succumb to his basest nature?
I’m the juicy feast — his passion is to dine

He drinks his fill — then pain and awful pleasure mingle
it’s agony yet pure ecstacy combined
I’m weak and dizzy as he leaves me in confusion
drained of life-force — wrecked in heart and ravaged mind

So how to break his spell? I spend all my waking hours
imagining there’s a way I might break free
and thus I fantasize a love that’s safely human
thereby salvage my soul’s immortality

THE INFESTATION

It is likely that
it’s as many as
one in three people
just aren’t what they seem —
not really human

Old horror movies
present less fiction
than we’d like to think
some walk among us
who are alien ...

They’ve lived on this earth
we imagined ours
undetected for
decades in plain sight
mimics to a T

It’s all theory
so far unproven
and insubstantial
as a tribe of ghosts
slipping through stone walls

We’re infected by
a race of reptiles —
go check eyes today
for nictitating
membrane give-away

TALES FROM BIRD ISLAND

They are a species
that live only here
they roost high on cliffs
where none dare come near
birds few men have seen

The ancient tales tell
of flocks like a cloud
who tracked an egg thief
with hunting cries loud
drowned out his last scream

On wings dark as night
they circled the moon
obeying the tides
their natures in tune
with some gothic dream

Demons once fled from
a neighbouring perch
bleak and unwholesome
they’d failed to research
who nested between

Birds believed evil —
ferocious and wild
keep the isle lonely
its rock undefiled
their barren demesne

THE DEMON BABY

The baby squealed like
newborn babies do
in nurseries that
sound more like a zoo
nigh on feeding time

Its small face turned black
in a fit of rage
then bent wide the bars
of his heated cage
left puddles of slime

dripping here and there
squirming made his way
to a nearby room
where his mother lay
reading Mills and Boon

‘Oh my darling boy!’
she licked his scabby cheek
squeezed him like a toy
made him snarl and squeak
splutter fart and fume

‘You’re so like your dad!’
he chewed her finger off
she grew a new one
scolded ‘That’s enough —
Nurse will be here soon!’

THE FEATHER AND THE FLAME

It floated down the chimney
one night besieged by snow
a raven’s feather black as soot
attracted by the glow

It danced above the embers
flighty — full of craft
rising, falling, whirling
caught dizzy in the draught

The fire was slowly dying
its orange tongues grown still
no heart to keep on burning
no fuel to feed its will

The feather touched on ashes
soft-kissed the fading heat
one spark of life returning
reigniting fiercely sweet

A flame arose and flickered
pale gold lit up the gloom
caressed the raven’s feather
enrapt in fate’s cocoon

Fire sated its raw hunger —
that all-consuming need
the sacrificial feather
a soul on which to feed

Pure elements of passion
where nature’s rules apply
the night’s enchanted chimney
ever-open to the sky

NOTHING YOU CAN PUT YOUR FINGER ON

                Something like a shiver
               but much more than that
               a passing psychic quiver
                    unsettling the cat
             simply a very odd feeling ...

   There’s someone walking on your grave
               the strangest sensation
right down the backbone — wave after wave
             of now ice-cold circulation
              quite illogically stealing

    Half-heard whispers that tease awake
            nerves suddenly grown taut
          listening as night winds shake
  the trees outside ... But nothing’s caught
  on camera except the shadow of a doubt
   when something unseen creeps you out
         till the blood in your veins slows
                    as if congealing

INDOOR GARDEN

She bought a rug — a floral rug
a vigorous and bright design
of fanciful exotic blooms
a garden plot to dream among

All pinks and oranges and reds
with luscious leaves on strong green stems
and she imagined insects dwelt
beneath their shade and nibbled them

It pleased her toes — this petal-fest
luxurious its silk-soft touch
and fancy had her think there might
be butterflies — the peacock sort

and swallowtails to flit and float
around her tenth floor living room
she pondered on it quite a lot
and heard a voice beside her ear

that told her fling the window wide
she upped and did it right away
then stood and watched a small grey cloud
invite itself and squeeze on in

With it came a purple bird
dropping feathers in its wake
trilled one note — the cloud obeyed
released its sagging weight of rain

The rug absorbed it with a sigh
of gratitude — the atmosphere
grown warm and misty — tropical
and worlds away from this dull plain

She witnessed how the rug transformed
becoming jungle — wild and deep
and far from frightened found herself
plunging in keen to explore

her private Eden lest it woke
and vanished in a puff of smoke
she pushed aside the outstretched arms
of greenery that barred her way

as colours sang and scents rose ripe
intoxicating heart and head
she left this earth as though unlived
and sought another side to death

*****

Who mourned her and what tale they told
explaining how she’d disappeared
made little news — the withered rug
hid her footprints — let them guess

Her garden odyssey goes on
she’s found a ceiling sprung with stars
and leaves to comfort loneliness
while love-lies-bleeding bold as flowers

GOTHIC FISH ESCAPE

He had me cornered
caught me by the toe
and no he wouldn’t
in a million years
ever let me go

I used a green spell
then a rarer blue
but the fish was deaf
his teeth keen to chew
meany miny mo

Black as a nightmare
in his sing-song way
the leviathan
gnawed on my mute bone
resigned to decay

Biding my sentence
I dredged for a key
undid his secrets
spontaneously
the holler broke free

My screams summoned light
dark sea split apart
the Goth Monster shrank
dissolved when I laughed
totalled up ten toes


GRACE

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” Romeo and Juliet
                                                        by William Shakespeare

Who was that lady I saw in the park?
It was soon after Christmas and getting quite dark
On a day when the ducks floated still on the pond
And the willows hung weeping and mist rose beyond
To veil all the buildings and deaden the sound
Of the traffic that crawled through the cold-weary town.

I was walking my dog as the dusk gathered thick —
He was running around as I threw him a stick
Then I saw her — a figure so pale and alone
A glimpse of a face that I fancied I’d known
From old family snapshots — but failed to recall
Her name or relationship — nothing at all.

She was elegant, slender — her gown brushed the grass
As she strolled with her parasol, strayed from the path
Like she followed another that wound through the trees
And her hair was unpinned, lifted by a soft breeze
That blew only for her in that intimate space
Where she shone from the shadows — poured beauty and grace —

Then the late chill engulfed her and put out her light
And the sky purpled over its mid-winter night.
I waited some minutes — went searching around
As the seeping mist closed over leaf-covered ground
But I found not one trace she had ever been there
Yet a sense of the tragic had sorrowed the air.

*****

I ransacked the attic and delved deep within
Long-undisturbed boxes— their cobwebs like skin —
In my quest to discover a link or some clue
To confirm her involvement — the story I knew
I had heard when a child at my grandfather’s knee —
Some connection that proved she was kindred to me.

But the search was unfruitful — so I tried to forget
Though I dreamed of her nightly — my slumber upset
By the scene playing over — the mist swirling dark
And the swish of her hem through the grey empty park...
Every night I was woken — a voice in my ear
That whispered, breathed words that I couldn’t quite hear...

I was troubled and anxious — I grew so to dread
The boom of late hours that doomed me to bed
Where sleep was no longer a solace or friend
But a torture — a madness — a grief without end...
I became melancholic and rested by day —
Nocturnal in habit, near-faded away.

But I could not escape her when shadows grew long —
With the park being near and compulsion so strong
And I knew I must meet her at last — face to face —
To learn what I could of the facts of the case.
She was waiting — I felt it — I put on my coat
And, shaking, secured a gold cross at my throat.

What instinct provoked me, I couldn’t quite say
Why I muttered a prayer as I went on my way
With acute trepidation, yet desperate to see
If she really existed — was waiting for me
By the trees near the pond in the twilight’s strange hush
With a slither of moon squinting slyly at us.

There she stood — like a statue — cool marble her skin
With her eyes so intense and her shroud whisper-thin
And I gasped, and was smitten — entralled by her gaze
Thus I went to her willingly — walked in a daze
‘Til I fell on my knees — hit the ground at her feet
As a beggar might plead for a few scraps to eat.

She leaned over slowly, her sleeve brushing dank
Her expression salacious — the heart in me sank
As I saw how she hungered — her lustful mind set
On the blood in my veins and the pulse in my neck.
Then my crucifix glinted — she hissed like a snake
and vanished — the smell of dead flesh in her wake.

The shock galvanized me — straight homewards I fled
With the thrill and the horror all mixed in my head
And needful to find her — wherever she’d gone —
’Though I knew what she was — how her spell lingered on —
An obscene fascination — a fever that ran
Hot and cold through my body and conjured a plan...

I searched local graveyards and studied each stone
I loitered in crypts until chilled to the bone
I trawled every record the parish clerk kept —
Every birth, every death — with exhaustion I wept
As I hunted through registers yellow with age
Then saw, quite by chance, at the foot of a page

A curious entry — the handwriting faint
In a copperplate script both flamboyant and quaint
It noted the death of a woman not named —
A victim of drowning — her body unclaimed
But deserving of charity, buried unmourned
Beneath a young willow — her grave unadorned.

Now I had it — the tale that my grandfather told —
A family scandal — a skeleton old
That had rattled the cupboards when he was a lad
When no one dare speak of the trials they had had —
Some mysterious cousin — a beauty — a witch —
Enchanting but wicked — found dead in a ditch.

There were dire repercussions my grandfather said
Folk reported they’d seen her, he shook his grey head
Even those who had witnessed her corpse, plain as plain
Simply swore (cross their hearts) she was walking again
And set on revenge for the wrong she’d been done
They would all pay the price and would die one by one

I had shivered in horror, but as children will do
I pressed him with questions though answers were few
He said memory failed him ... except I was sure
From the tone in his voice that he knew a lot more
But considered it wiser to leave things unsaid
That might give me nightmares or worse — raise the dead!

But thirty years on I had seen her and knew
That those rumours she walked were, for me at least, true
And the fact that she haunted me daytime and night
Gave me no other choice but to do what was right
And release her poor soul — give her some kind of rest
After dark years imprisoned, her crimes unconfessed

Deemed a creature of fiction but such are the rules
That Art mimics Life in its various schools
Reading volumes to learn all I could to prepare
For the final grim conflict, if only I dare
Go to meet her again and with spiritual aid
Undo bloody evil and leave her ghost laid

*****

It was almost romantic that gothic full moon
That mocked me in silence — declared me a loon
As I nervously opened the park’s creaking gate —
And quick-silvered the path to the spot I would wait
For an hour or more in the sickly thin light
Then an owl gave a hoot and a mallard took fright

Wings beating near-frantic it rushed past my ears
As though she’d been summoned her figure appears
And that moment is etched for I cannot erase
How I quivered and shrank from her worm-ruined face
As she floated towards me the gleam in her eyes
Just as cold and unholy as ‘undead’ implies

The chill that came off her in waves almost fixed
Me in petrified state but I gathered my wits
And murmured a prayer, showed the cross at my throat
Which made her cry out — a quite pitiful note
And her monsterous look slowly morphed, changing back
To the beauty she’d been and her body went slack

But I feared it a trick so good distance I kept
First the wringing of hands, then she broke down and wept
While she poured out her heart — all the grief that she’d known
Such hardship and cruelty — too few kindnesses shown
And I came close to weeping but for one warning bell
That urged me be cautious or risk certain Hell

Her tale an exposé of rich ‘Christian’ men
Who’d seduced and ill-used her time over again
And when she’d accused them they’d judged her a witch
Had her stoned and half-strangled, then dumped in a ditch
Where she cursed-up a demon who offered a pact
In order to pay all of her murderers back ...

But the curse was on her — satisfaction wore thin
For she knew drinking blood was a cardinal sin
Plus the contract was endless unless she could find
A compassionate soul with a truly broad mind
With the courage and fortitude needed to break
A penitent vampire for pity’s own sake

Her expression grown woeful, my reason felt sure
There was truth in her words and the face I now saw
For the menace has melted, her manner ashamed
And the blood-lust at least, for the moment, was tamed
As we studied each other her distress grew and grew
And conveyed like a dream the dread deed I must do

I reached into my coat for the weapon it hid
Then took a step forward, she sighed as I did
And bared her pale breast to the stake that I drove
Through her heart, half in fear, yet the act felt like love
For the second I held her we shared a deep trust
Before her weight shifted and crumbled to dust ...

In the aftermath somehow I stumbled away
Unsure as a drunkard — in shock some would say
And almost regretting the service I’d done
With my conscience at war and good reason out-run
It’s perverse this sad longing that drives me insane
There’s no calling her back — ‘Grace’ was not her true name

But one that I gave her — a gift chosen when
First I wrote of our meeting, and my flowery pen
Insisted some suitable alias might
Embody both virtue and spiritual light
My youth’s diary then bursting with naive ideals
Till Life gave me a taste of how irony feels

How Love, Fear and Hate can exist side by side
When the gates of our fantasies swing open wide
To allow creatures in who will haunt all our dreams
And we know beauty often is not what it seems
While Nature is mutable — savage or tame
Every object of passion needs pinning by name

FISH-WIZE

With age the scales fall from my eyes
I feel I’m more akin to fish
odd bubbled thoughts in clusters rise
the floating bottle holds one wish

The ocean in me rolls its tides
sea voices call me to my home
I taste of salt, my spirit glides
with moonlit shoals across the foam

Slow metamorphosis so dull
that few would recognise the switch
reversing evolution’s pull
blood turns saline, rhythms glitch

This incarnation’s badly served
limbs too feeble, paper-skinned
a blueprint haunts my dreaming nerves
of a sleek body deftly-finned

that swam so easy — buoyed along
on currents as with all my kind
born to water’s cradle song
which sibilates — seeps though my mind ...

Imagination spins its lure
I’m sinking into dark’s abyss
mortality has no known cure
yet souls survive to swim like fish

END OF DAYS

Last night I had a dream that ran with blood
every surface covered with the gore
a butcher’s dream — an abattoir in flood
the world a crimson sea without a shore

I had a boat — an old and battered craft
I sculled awhile — there was no tide at all
no sight of landfall neither fore nor aft
but from above a lonesome vulture’s call

There were no clouds, a flaming sun hung high
and nothing else beside that bird and me
still living — breathing under that fierce sky
and circling our unsure destiny

The heat it grew intense and seared my skin
blistering it peeled down to the bone
sheer agony the state that I was in
then glancing up I saw I was alone

All at once a fearful darkness fell
thick and fast — no moon nor one star’s light
broke the blackout cast like a strange spell
to plunge me sightless into realms of night

Moveless now, my senses all shut down
I waited for a sound, a smell, some sign
I was not dead or doomed — about to drown
or maybe crossed unwittingly a line

between dimensions? How was I to tell
the real from the unreal in this black pit? —
It might be the chill anteroom to Hell
and I’d no way to gauge the size of it

Dreamtime cannot be measured by the clock —
How long I floated aimless and adrift
was broken by a distant crowing cock
the dark becoming grey — a conscious shift

Picking out familiar shapes through the gloom
the steady bed beneath that did not rock
a sigh of sheer relief surged through my room
as memory absorbed the nightmare’s shock

It’s sketchy now — the detail and the fear
experience has filed it in the A s
for Apocalyptic vision — warning clear
it’s just a foretaste of the End of Days

DOWN NIGHTMARE ALLEY

A strange shop in the
seedy part of town —
a sign that said ‘WE’RE
OPEN — PLEASE COME IN
WE STOCK EVERYTHING

FROM SHRUNKEN HEADS TO
DRAGON’S EGGS — THE MORE
EXOTIC TYPES OF
MERCHANDISE IN OUR
PARANORMAL STORE’

Inside it was quite
cavernous — Hell-bright
floor to ceiling stuffed
with huge black boxes
all numbered thirteen

‘How may I help you?’
asked a ten foot tall
ghost in a top hat
‘I’ll take one of those’
‘Sorry — they’re all sold.

‘We’re about to close —
so please leave your name
and address — we will
keep in touch. Thank you
so much for calling!’

CRAWLING OUT THE CRYPT

Creature of the dark
slithering and sly
leather-winged, long-clawed
one black rolling eye
inch by inch it crawled

gave a ghastly cry
anguished — like in pain
an unearthly yowl
screeching and insane
horror on the prowl

through the rotting door
out into the night
shaking off death’s thrall
flapping it took flight
terrorizing all

who in nightmares saw
shadows on the wall
demons hunting souls
victims squirm and fall
lost down gaping holes ...

fear and loathing race
legs to jelly turn
as hope’s fuse is tripped
and the insides churn
evil haunts the crypt

THE DARK INSIDE

The awful dark has wormed its way inside
and taken up uneasy residence
each minute swallows scraps of liquid light
thin stubborn beams faith scattered far and wide
to keep alive an ailing memory
drawn into shadow — lost to callous night

One thought’s shrill ghost still worries at a nerve
twitching sightless — nowhere left to go
and vaguely knowing there was once a time
when things were different — random glimpses blur
before the dark achieved its serpent-hold
and blindfolded the vision — stole all sign

Black stretches cold and slithers through deep caves
expands to fill raw spaces in my head
it gnaws on stillborn bodies of regret
dismembered and displaced — no glimmer saves
this dizzy soul that stumbles dumb with fright
grown desperate for a dream it won’t forget

NOMAN’S STREET

There was a figure in the distance
                                hunched and shambling
coming my way painstakingly slow and awkward
no one else abroad at that late hour
the closeknit houses dark and the street ill-lit
it was as if the whole world listened
to his clumsy footfalls and his tap-tap-tapping stick

His coat flapped raggedly round his thin bent body
as he stumbled closer, his breathing becoming audible
each wheeze matching the rhythm of his stick
there was no wind and yet something was transmitted
coming through the air like a trembling wave of apprehension
as he came nearer — but so gradually it seemed
the night had switched everything to slow motion
the street’s long shadowy slope now a flickering film set

Slow but inevitable — he was almost upon me, his features visible
there was something familiar about him and yet not
He was impossible to describe — too ordinary to be a stranger
and too strange to be completely ordinary. Neither old nor young
he was everyman and no man. The ghost of a ghost
His downcast eyes were checking the progress of his feet
and alert for obstacles on the pavement — anxiety almost tangible

I had thought he wasn’t aware of anyone else but as he passed by
he lifted his head and his gaze momentarily met mine —
his eyes were full of pain and they blazed the full strength
                                                        of their terrible agony
That pain hit me full on — flooded my entire body — it felt like
being eaten alive — devoured by a forest fire. It was Hellish
If I passed out it was only for a split second ...
All sensation faded. Then I heard the sound of his stick tap-tap-
                                                                        tapping away ...
round the corner — gone from sight

I have no idea who he might have been or what it all meant —
this spontaneous sharing simply due to proximity — this taste
                                                                of extreme suffering
Since when it stays inside me like a scar — the memory of a wound
                                                                                in common
Was it supposed to be a warning? A kind of portent?
What lesson should I have learned? I often brood on it —
recall the man’s fierce look and I shudder — go hot and cold with
                                                                                        dread
And these days I do everything I can to avoid going out at night

I hear his stick tap-tap-tapping through my dreams

EFFIGY

She picks out
wet twigs that have been left
soaking all night in a small pail
of the old ram’s pungent urine

Such treatment
makes them more pliable
she moulds them with her long clever
fingers to a rough human form

Stretches, bends
each wooden limb to test
its strength, trims them to equal length
with a sharp pocket knife and ties

each ankle
with blood-red twine, wrists too
and neck all trussed up tight. They need
to withstand the stress of torture

The features
she takes much less care with
eyes, nose, mouth just cartoon daubs on
a pale disc of worn-out bedsheet

Crudely stitched
only as lifelike as
it needs to be for the purpose
of a voodoo ceremony

Chanting harsh
old words she dedicates
the stickman to his fiery fate
twisting in stolen strands of hair

dark tokens
by which the spirits will
know him. Till then the spell is done
She stares — invites this ugly doll

to twitch or
make some attempt to live
before it dies. It just lies there
unnamed — that’s for others to say

It’s late when
the man comes to collect
she exchanges the small bundle
for silver coins. The door bangs shut

A shrill wind
blows all night making sleep
impossible while far voices keep
howling ‘Murderer! Murderer!’

THE GRAVE

It was a small and lonely grave
high on a windswept hill
a patch of weeds, a weathered stone
a name that haunts me still

Josiah Caine — just hours old
the son of God-knows-who
no other details but the first
of May nineteen-o-two

He barely lived to draw a breath
before somebody chose
this barren and unhallowed spot
none but the rambler knows

Why put him here — so far outside
the sacred churchyard’s fence?
What awful sin could he have done
in newborn innocence?

I visited that grave three times
in my long weekend’s stay
and took a yellow rose for peace
no words could better say

the sorrow that I felt for him
the guilt that hung its cloud
and had me murmuring a prayer
then call his name out loud ...

The wind grew fierce and whipped my hair
I heard a baby cry
I smelled fresh blood and tasted death
a tear rolled from my eye

And I admit I turned and fled
a witness to some crime
buried for a hundred years
regretted for all time

Some nights I suffer the same dream
I’m standing on that hill
a baby cradled to my breast
his body pale and chill

It makes me question who I am
since I’m not conscience-free
but bound by blood of distant kin
a share of blame taints me.

THE KNOWING-WOMAN

The knowing-woman has the gift —
her ministry of sight
she reads the stones and summons rain
she walks the fields of night

She kens those things that few dare ask
her secret’s like the grave
as dark her art and dear the price
for souls she bids to save

No beast can bear her on its back
no child will meet her eyes
the knowing-woman reads all hearts
and fear has no disguise

The knowing-woman feels how fast
and deep Fate’s tide will run
the winds they whisper — tell which way
each death has cause to come

Such is the gift that leaves her old
denying faith or friend
she plumbs the darkness in herself
aware there is no end

THE BONE TREE

There is no grass beneath this tree
the ground is white with bone
small skeletons of birds who come
to sing and die alone

These tiny ghost-birds have no name
unrecognised and rare
they fly in ragged — tossed by storm
one night then perish there

Thin yet shrill their wind-whipped song
sent soaring plaintively
across the miles of empty moor
it travels to the sea

And when they’ve uttered their last note
they settle into sleep
before the fall to join their kind
whose fellowship they keep

Devoid of grass and white with bone
around the withered tree
quiet insect feet like mourners come
time sets dark feathers free

APPLICATION FOR NIGHT SCHOOL

What can the night school teach me
I didn’t know before?
I’ve studied its dark secrets
I’ve pondered on its lore
I’ve peered beyond the shadows
I’ve questioned the full moon
her magic failed to fool me
the trick revealed too soon

And be it Art or Science
I’ll sit that strange exam
tick all the starry boxes
and pretend I’m who I am
what qualifies for wisdom
confuses the urbane
if I don’t pass the first time
I’ll try my luck again

Though not the brightest student
I’m not inclined to cheat
but there are certain lessons
not really up my street
I’ve supernatural powers
my imagination’s rich
I’ll design my own diploma
and declare myself a witch

AFTER HOURS

They had a party in the graveyard
with their friends all gathered round
just a couple of them living
countless others underground

As they drank to all the good times
sang old songs and sipped champagne
they ignored the cold wind blowing
and the drops of freezing rain

Waltzing through the tilting tombstones
to the tunes of yesterday
chatting with the dear departed
like they’d never gone away

It was Jake the sexton found them
where they’d tumbled in a heap
amid rainbow paper streamers
and he’d thought they were asleep ...

*****

Two more gravestones in a corner
where there shouldn’t be a sound
but the party’s far from finished
there’s rejoicing underground

Late arrivals find a welcome
newborn spirits dance away
happy nights in celebration
they’ve hung up their coats of clay

Such reunions are endless
while a funeral plodding past
might think closing time’s a killer
after hours is a blast!

EVEN CRAZIER

It was early in December
on the beach outside our door
the angel fish were singing
songs we’d never heard before

Bands of fiddler crabs were playing
Christmas carols in the deep
the noise was so tremendous
Rip Van Winkle couldn’t sleep

Though the tide kept turning over
till the limpets lost their grip
huddled urchins on the seabed
cried for some place quiet to kip

The whales joined in the chorus
and the sealions roared applause
while a lobster wrapped up parcels
saying he was Santa Claws

All the oysters woke from snoozing
irritated by the din
popped their precious pearls like baubles
falling from a broken string

The vibrations from this concert
rippled over oceans wide
bouncing off each rocky cliff face
on the rugged other side

Where shrill choirs of lonely mermaids
screeched an answering refrain
so unmusical and painful
they should learn their scales again

Then even crazier was the encore
by a tone-deaf killer shark
who whistled while a storm blew up
his voice lost in the dark

FEARFUL

A dark man knocked upon my door
he had no hair, he had no shoes
his withered foot trailed on the floor
he had no skills that I could use

That was another life ago
when I was free of so much care
I’m burdened now by all I know
and in my dreams he’s standing there

His eyes bore through — his pain is mine
I flinch but cannot turn away
his skull a bowl of bitter wine
the price far more than I can pay

Yet still he knocks — the echoes ring
what empty gun deters a ghost?
and who said love could kill a thing
when God knows who fears who the most?

BACK TO THE SEA

She sang to the basking fishes
and they swam in close to listen
great shoals of salmon lingered
by the ruined harbour wall
her voice penetrating idle waves
with a salty mix of sweetness
down to dark forgotten caves
to waken and enthrall

Her words were in some language
past all human understanding
the melody a breathless stream
that drowned all worldly thought
imagination floated free — a dream
from lost Atlantis
it hooked on sunken memory
a wish that waits uncaught ...

The ocean gave a murmur
and allowed one eye to open
the current interrupted
as a shadow cleaved its way
up through the murky greenness
to hear the Selkie singing
a restless spirit hungry
for some love long-gone astray

A face beneath the surface
drew the seamaiden’s attention
and she faltered on a high note
with a gasp that cut the air
then she donned her shaggy coat once more
and dove into the breakers
her fate sealed in that moment
with an echo of despair

The sea god grabbed her by the hair —
the prodigal returning
after seven years away
this daughter he reclaimed
and tore apart her human heart
land-memories still burning
the cold ocean swallowing pearl-tears
regrets dissolved like rain

BACKWARDS INTO THE SEA

It was simply a misjudgement
there had seemed smooth rocks and sand
where the dying sun threw shadows
we imagined solid land

The water gleamed a good way off
and stretched all millpond calm
the beach curved soft with whispers
so we’d no cause for alarm

We waltzed a little tipsy
from the romance and the wine
fizzing through the mermaid’s slipper
you mistook for one of mine

Did you hear that salt-voice calling?
I was sure it said your name
as the tide turned like a sleeper
that old rising moon to blame

You danced me round the headland
wild-stepping on and on
then you tripped and stumbled backwards
just a splash and you were gone

Now you’re down there with the fishfolk
lost to life up here above
confined to chill sea-caverns
and denied warm-dancing love

A LITTLE CRAZY

It was twilight — it was snowing
one hot morning in July
I was standing on a hilltop
watching flocks of fish float by

The sky was green and purple
the snow was flecked with gold
the fish were in their thousands
and a wonder to behold

Strange I never stopped to question
how the fish could swim in air
I was dazzled by a rainbow
and so happy to be there

Then a cock crowed in the distance
and the moon and stars came out
which all seemed a little crazy
so I had my first small doubt —

Was this real? — what I was seeing
too unlikely to be true
but such fun I kept on dreaming
till my hands and feet turned blue

When I woke I wrote this poem
and if this verse seemed odd before
now there’s a whale outside my window
and he’s eager to read more …

A STRANGE STORY

It started on a Saturday —
one neighbour upped and gone
all the street were talking of it —
guessing what was going on

Monday morning and another
late for work had disappeared
left their car, its engine running
back door open, table cleared ...

Tuesday and a further shock when
they found vacant from their beds
two small children and four uncles
and a pair of newlyweds

By Wednesday lunchtime figures doubled
twenty missing and no clues
as the story spread like wildfire
featured on the midday news

Then a sighting Thursday evening
of a figure dressed in white
lighting candles in each window
to hold back the thieving night

Friday found the street deserted
not one soul remained at home
every living thing had vanished
air hung silent as a tomb

In a month the houses crumbled
bricks and mortar turned to dust
and the cars parked in the driveways
fell to heaps of cheap tin rust

There were theories of Rapture
or abductions by green men
but no lasting explanation
they were never seen again

Wind erased all human traces
blew the dust far out to sea
busy weather wiped the landscape
and in time the memory

Those recording the location
might adopt a sceptic’s view
and think it’s some strange urban myth —
except the story’s true

CONNIVER

A stray conniver one cold night
cried soft outside my door
I let the poor thin creature in
its blood trailed on the floor

I bandaged up its wounded paw
and fed it half my meat
then content it curled upon
a cushion by my feet

I’d heard connivers can be tamed
but doubted it was true
the forest was its natural home
and something in me knew

there’d come a time when I would see
the need shine in its eye
for freedom and the day would dawn
I’d have to say goodbye

****

She stayed with me the winter through
and slept upon my bed
safe from howling wind and snow
she let me stroke her head

I talked to her and told her my
life’s secrets — joy and pain
she gave me warm companionship
hope grew in me again

But slowly, slowly Spring arrived
the bushes by the door
spread their newly bursting buds
it wasn’t long before

I recognised those restless signs
head raised to sniff the air
ears pricked to every noise outside
like something waited there

The day came — as I knew it would
she cried beside the door
I opened it to let her run
she paused a moment more

then sprinted off across the grass
the sun warm on her fur
that picture etched in memory —
the last I saw of her

****

I cannot count the cold nights since
I’ve wondered how she fared
and if she ever thinks of me —
recalls those months we shared

when isolated from the world
two spirits forged a bond
I dream we’re bound to meet again
some nameless place beyond


GREENWOOD

I met him in the greenwood
on a dew-damp April morn
where the primroses were peeping
tiny buds so newly-born

and his eyes flashed wild and wanton
hair and skin shone berry-brown
so it somehow seemed quite natural
as he laid my body down

Then he loved me in that greenwood
while the birds sang overhead
like a gathered congregation
witnessed how we two were wed

Gentle sun reached through the branches
and the flowers opened wide
joy and warmth flowed without measure
until all were satisfied

Time trod soft along old pathways
hours drifted — day wore on
Was I drugged? Perception shifted
I came to and found him gone

Years had passed. I’m left a gypsy
married to a roving life
no gold ring as love’s reminder
yet every inch his bonded wife

As Spring returns to bless the greenwood
I wander down sweet April’s track
where pale and shy fresh buds are peeping
ever-hopeful he’ll be back

AMULET

Oh how vividly I remember
one dull day in mid-November
when the morning’s frost so unrelenting lay
on my walk beside the river
something strange evoked a shiver
a long shadow fell across the narrow way

Air hung grey its brittle curtain
I stood rigid and uncertain
should I try to pass or turn around and flee?
then a voice so sad and lonely
asked a favour if I’d only
stop awhile he wished to speak with me

Hearing words pitched soft and soothing
the pale trees close-by unmoving
I was gripped (in truth) by curiosity
quite dismissing superstition
and without the least suspicion
so keen I listened sympathetically

What happened next came quickly
the river mist rose chill and thickly
and I felt my body lifted from the ground
how loud my poor heart hammered
as I pleaded and I stammered
for release. A chuckle — then no further sound

As oppressive silence followed
and in fear and dread I wallowed
as cold unnerved and seeped into each bone
my consciousness was fading
darkest fantasies pervading
like I’d slipped into some eerie twilight zone

The gentle soul who found me
wrapped a feathered wing around me
until my frozen blood began to flow
whether flesh or apparition
he revived my numb condition
and kissed me once before he had to go

Time moves on yet I remember
that strange morning in November
and the memory still haunts my wondering mind
I have never shared the story
of the peril nor the glory
that great gift of love the angel left behind

I keep safe one gold-tipped feather
which I wear in winter weather
as an amulet to shield me from all harm
and when the dawn breaks swathed in mist
I linger where I once was kissed
and recall the comfort of his wing so warm

UNDESIRABLE RESIDENCE

If bricks and mortar could be said to brood
then this house cultivates such a grim mood
its window-eyes dim-lidded curtains drawn
against long shadows creeping up the lawn
and nothing stirs as though the breezes knew
much better than attempt to whistle through

A visitor might heave a nervous sigh
when unprepared for silence brushing by
and suffocating — thickening the air
with morbid thoughts of loss and deep despair
enveloped in this dreadful cloying cloud
each carefully-placed footfall sounding loud

Tall trees stand solemn grouped along the drive
like mourners wait some funeral to arrive
in heavy contemplation of the day
they blot the light — turn warming sun away
and any living creature — man or beast
might feel their vague uneasiness increased

as they approach its towering façade
anxiety ramps up — the heart beats hard
the urge to flee wipes all else from the mind
but leave this ghastly gothic pile behind
to slowly crumble as all buildings must
in time fade into memory and dust ...

Yet for the present holds its secrets fast
gives sanctuary to ghosts, preserves the past
with all its tragic echoes — gives full room
for apparitions to infest the gloom
FOR SALE the rotting notice states in vain
Nobody knocks        The roof lets in more rain

HUNTING GAMES

I lay in bed and hold my breath
I think I hear you on the stair
your foot is light upon each tread
soft and slow, you creep with care
in fear you’ll wake me from my dreams
yet every night I sense your aim
I’m waiting for your famished ghost
anticipate our subtle game

From out the corner of my eye
I glimpse a shadow move at will
familiar although indistinct
the dimness ripples then grows still
my ear cocked keen for any sound —
a murmur or a wistful sigh
quite sure I’ll recognise the source
immediately identify

your brooding mood of passion tamed —
the beast that raged so wild before
railed in by death’s dark cage and forced
to pace its chill forevermore
and watch me from a distance while
I watch in turn and guess the play
when all is changed and it’s unclear
who now is hunter, who is prey ...

TRANSMUTATION

An old woman crept into an alley
as the daylight faded to dusk
her expression dull and world-weary
skin browned to a thin brittle husk

She curled up real tight in a corner
as though she would hide her poor head
lay so still that a casual observer
might conclude she was actually dead

The November night became bitter
her small body betrayed not a sigh
while the shadows closed thicker and thicker
and a curious ghost drifted by

The moon was a struggling sickle
roughly jostled about by dense cloud
and the wind down the alleyway whistled
as a dog in the far distance howled

Then the bundle of rags in the corner
split wide as if shedding a skin
a creature emerged — something born there
that shook itself free — spread a wing

The remains that were found the next morning
no more than a pupa-like shell
and a weird possibility dawning
but not one living witness to tell

WITCHWOOD ROAD

The night fell so quickly
it blacked-out our view
of the road up ahead
as we journeyed on through
that steep wooded valley
no dwellings in sight
just the beams of our torches
to lend us their light

It was quiet — it was eerie
the trees either side
unmoved in the silence
that spread far and wide
nothing stirred in those branches
like Nature struck dumb
resented our presence
and wanted us gone

Dark swarmed all around us
rolled chill as a tide
as our batteries flickered
and finally died
then we stood lost in blindness
knocked sideways by Fate
and wishing once more
we’d not lingered so late

What now? — was the question
How could we go on? —
with no moon in the sky
not a single star shone
and nothing to guide us
surrounded by pitch
and no way to tell
what was pothole or ditch

So we huddled together
our words soft and small
but came up with nothing —
no ideas at all
as the cold ate on through us
we tried to decide
how best to keep warm
while a voice deep inside

worried and taunted
with stories we knew
from childhood but never
believed might be true
yet now as we crouched there
the old fears flowed back
and we shuddered and stared
at that vast shroud of black ...

Did we doze for a moment?
Does cold freeze the brain?
Noise jerked our attention
we listened again
and heard distant chanting
somewhere through the trees
and a faint string of lights
brought a sense of unease

We were three in our number
we counted thirteen
and if they were real witches
we dare not be seen
so we stayed still as statues
and let them pass by
with their strange-smelling candles
we turned a blind eye

while we prayed and we prayed
as they shrunk from our sight
and we were once again
just us three in the night
then we each kept strict vigil
all the grim hours through
until Dawn streaked the sky
with its yellow and blue

Exhausted we trekked
down the one road that led
out of that valley
so spellbound by dread
and we never spoke once
or exchanged any word
about what we had seen
or the ritual half-heard

Years on we have learned
from our lucky escape
to ignore local legend
can prove a mistake
much better be cautious
and not risk a fright —
keep out of strange woods
most especially at night

COVER-UP

A winter night one hundred and eleven years ago
the moon shone white upon a frost so thick it seemed like snow
the village street deserted — not a single light on show
every silvered tree stood moveless — no breath of wind to blow

The scene was like a Christmas card — too perfect to be true
the silent chill forbidding any change to spoil the view
for time itself had surely stopped so nothing could pass through
with every dreamer frozen tight — their nerveless fingers blue

It was some spell — what else could cause the living to play dead?
each man and woman, child and pet unconscious in their bed
their breathing slow and limbs unstirred — dreams idle in each head
and nothing to explain why flesh should turn to lumps of lead

The picture held — framed by the hills — and dawn forgot to come
the cockerel never rose to crow — the farmyard dogs stayed dumb
along the street like steely bars the icicles all hung
the garlands withered on the doors — no Yuletide carols sung

An unrecorded week went by — no footprints did traverse
the crisp and even-crusted frost still rigid in its curse
this wild extreme of weather supernatural and perverse
any colour bled to whiteness — no improvement, nothing worse

The whole valley lost to sickness — elsewhere the world moved on
far too busy celebrating till the merry feast was done
the New Year saw the village covered over — signpost gone
such history seems callous — hence a legend has begun ...

while truth waits for another age to thaw its frozen tongue

THE DROWNING POOL

It’s cold out on the lake tonight
quiet water sealed with crust
a silver rime coats stiff tall reeds
the moon lets fall its dust

Far out a smudge of grey on white —
a row boat’s frozen hull
moveless in the creeping ice
a ghost-hand left to scull

Then cutting through that silent air
one pitiful thin cry
shivers ranks of sentry reeds
that creak in soft reply

No other sound — no bird or beast
disturbs the atmosphere
as though a sense of dread forbids
the living to tread near

It’s bitter on the lake tonight
that voice cries out in vain
the so-called witch some innocent
condemned to drown again

THE LONE DARK MARE

Night has brought the lone dark mare
rearing and rolling her eyes
her hooves pound the wood on my sill
her mane blending black with the skies

She snorts and her breath clouds the glass
she curls her lip in a leer
then whinnies my name like a curse
I flinch — feel the prickle of fear

The air in the room grows chill
wind howls with hurricane force
I plead knowing no words can reach
the ears of that hideous horse

She stares with wicked intent
I pray out loud for my soul
while evil intimidates good
I struggle to keep my mind whole

A sudden deafening crash
like shattered glass hits the floor
as I quake in my bed I hear
fading hoofbeats cross the bleak moor

THE GHOST OF AN ANSWER

A whisper came out of the darkness
a cry barely uttered one name
that slid through a crack in the silence
as though out of nowhere it came

It hung on the air like a question
it chilled the whole room in a trice
’til breath was too painful to swallow
and blood in the veins felt like ice

Then again —seeming nearer and urgent
this voice that demanded reply
yet the name wasn’t known to the hearer
so their thought rattled soft as a sigh

A low sob echoed round in the absence
of anything visual — no clue
to the nature of this bizarre haunting
even while dregs of sorrow soaked through

Sheer empathy stirred like a sleeper
who is woken from some heartfelt dream
and calls to a shade passing over
to beware things are not as they seem ...

A third time — mere trick or illusion? —
for it seemed that another voice spoke
who placated the first with an answer
and thus peace was restored at a stroke

FINS & WEBS

I dream I was a mermaid in a former life —
my affinity with fishes keen to show
there’s blood between us — cool but running
                                                        ocean-deep
with understanding only sealfolk know

Blue-green my eyes and salt the taste that haunts
                                                            my tongue
the fins and webs imagination weaves
like scars upon my skin — they trace another shape
an image lost and one my body grieves

The lithe and limber motion through a quieter world
the liquid flow that cradles — rocks the heart
slips past the walls of memory — a gap in time
                                                        and space
to where the myth began — the story’s start

I was sister to the selkie — a daughter of the surf
the seducer of a sailor loved to death
while the tide tugs wild inside me ’til it floods the
                                                        cavern’s mind
I’m hungering with every brine-sharp breath

The moon-drag has me listless — its silver fullness looms
wave follows wave — the inward waters churn
then down a dream’s grey-shingled beach I watch my
                                                                shadow go
back to the sea —long-fated to return

DEAR HEATHER

We are not at home to Heather
she’s a cranky New-Age witch
just her glance unsettles weather
pressure drops — the grasses twitch

Vague unease nags at the night
to infect each infant dream
’til all gentle thoughts take fright
and drown in dread’s dark stream

Her name’s enough to chill us through
we lock and bolt the door
though superstition’s rarely true
we pour salt on the floor

Cheap lucky charms can’t keep her out
she saps the strongest will
with such strange powers there’s no doubt
we’re at her mercy still

Yes, we’ve sprinkled holy water
burnt church candles in the hall
but nothing seems to thwart her
she’s indifferent to it all

She has this scary beauty, too
when standing in poor light
her skin takes on the ghastly hue
of death’s translucent white

She insists she’s our soul sister
to both of us she’s kith and kin
but we really haven’t missed her
since the coven took her in

Her visits are an awful trial
our nerves are shot to bits
we wear a welcome mask and smile
but hide the crucifix

We’re warned she’s coming Wednesday next
her cryptic email said
she’s bringing someone (bolded text)
her latest chap — undead —

to introduce him to her folks ...
Just how bizarre is that
to drag this creepiest of blokes
to our small council flat?

So, we’re not at home to Heather
or her gruesome zombie guy
we’re now packing hell for leather
there’s no prize for guessing why

DAYLIGHT SAVING

I cannot stop the dark —
I sense it hover near
it leaves no telling mark
this foretaste of fear

It wraps around the hills
it seeps between the trees
it trickles and it spills
by varying degrees

I cannot keep it out
it slides inside the house
it leaves no room for doubt
it’s quieter than a mouse

And when there is no moon
it thickens into mist
a breathless grey cocoon
a glove on Death’s cold fist

It does not knock the door
assumes its right of way
proceeds across my floor
presumes I have no say

The candles flicker pale
I light a dozen more
yet it’s to no avail
I can’t see what’s in store

It hides upon the stair
infiltrates my dreams
it stalks me everywhere
and suffocates my screams

There is no bolt or lock
can keep the beast at bay
for darkness rules the clock
until I’m saved by day

COTTAGE

It was a tiny white-washed cottage
on a wet and windy moor
with one grimy little window
and a crooked wooden door

The quick photo Father took that dull
and dark November day
showed it looking hunched and sorry
those who’d lived there gone away

We all tiptoed around its garden
where a thorny rose still grew
as a blighted sad reminder
of the summers it once knew

Then we rattled on the handle of
that door warped by the rain
but the rusted lock held stubborn
it felt wrong to try again

We each peered through that grey window
and observed the scene within —
a cracked jug upon the table
and although the light was thin

on the wall above the mantel
hung a painting — pride of place
the striking portrait of some woman
a rapt expression on her face

as though she’d witnessed some rare vision
her bold image warmed the room
still — despite the desolation
soft eyes glowing through the gloom

like protection for this dwelling
till the owners came back home
and we supposed it was a warning —
best to leave the house alone

Father grabbed another snapshot
before we hurried on our way
yet something followed after us —
she haunts me to this day

In dreams I hear her calling faint
she lures me back again
as though to dwell among those ghosts
who weather wind and rain

in that so-desolate a cottage
so far off the beaten track
no name on any gatepost
and no mention on the map

And I would doubt my recollections
(for it’s sixty years or more)
but for two slow-fading photographs
I keep tucked in a drawer...

QUEEN OF SOLITUDE

If I were the queen of solitude
and you were my prince of grief
we’d ride the lonely beach at dawn
and feel the wind’s cruel teeth
tear our ageing rags awry
and chill us to the bone
as an indifferent sea rolls on
abandoning each stone

I’d sit upon a high-placed rock —
some hard and ancient throne
and at my feet my grieving love
would sing to me alone
sad-sweet songs that echo round
then lose themselves in sleep
where heartsick lovers meet once more
a thousand fathoms deep

Far, far below I’d hear those wrecks
call out from where they lie
for all ghosts have a tale to tell
such legends cannot die
so I’ll hold court upon the cliff
for those who know the cost
the bottle bobs on countless waves
then sinks — its message lost

In winter’s realm I’d wear a crown
my prince of sorrow near
December snow my regal gown
a blizzard veil hung sheer
and solitude would serve me well
its colours weave a sign
“No trespassers beyond this point ...”
such wasted lands are mine

SCREAMER

It comes with a chill —
a thin finger of ice
noise startles the air
then repeats itself twice

That voice is a nightmare
no language but screams
such fear’s universal
all dread what it means —

No sleep for the wicked
good souls shudder too
for the pitch rattles windows
unease seeping through

Obscure in direction
its source crosses time
and every dimension
such cries undermine ...

The call is half-strangled —
a sob — then a screech
sounds shush to a whisper
of waves on a beach

that roar out in fury
yell frantic and fade
dry up to near-silence
all reason betrayed

A lull in the haunting
a pause to draw breath
as suffering dwindles
its soul done to death

For the painful finalé
moans fractured and raw
that linger a moment
then worry no more

NIGHT TERRORS

The darkness has me in its grip
it whispers poisonous and slow
the anger trembles on my lip
undoing all I think I know

Sorrow winds me in its coils
as sinuous as any snake
disillusion seethes and boils
the streets of reason shift and quake

My city is consumed by night
the stars are gone, the moon is dead
there is no law of left or right
love’s scrawny child survives unfed

The heretics are gathering in
their surly choir, its hymns uncouth
and wild with curses splattering
religious walls — they raise the roof

Old demons howl their base desires
the sound’s enough to curdle blood
no rain can douse unholy fires
the graveyards lie bone-deep in mud

Fear rises to its breathless peak
as black as pitch the future seems
foul waters flood and forests creak
in protest at slow-drowning dreams

Dawn breaks moody — spitting grey
thin on hope but keen with knives
it cuts the edges clean away
and offers back small sunlit lives

THE GIRL IN THE BASEMENT

The door to the basement was narrow — the paint
flaking off like it had some disease
and the steps leading down were so steep one might faint
or feel breathless and sink to one’s knees

There were none in the house who had reason to knock
or witnessed the girl come and go
the occasional sound of a key in a lock
and the door creaking soft down below

was all that was heard in the echoing hall
of the house at the end of the street
and afterwards none could for certain recall
if they had at some time chanced to meet

the mysterious tenant who lived like a nun
in a cell so impossibly chill
just one window so small it avoided the sun
and an atmosphere broodingly still

The house had a cat kept to keep down the mice —
a big tom with a fearsome bold glare
but even this feline appeared to think twice
and would not venture down the dark stair

A mere slip of a girl — the old landlord was sure
as she counted rent into his hand
although neat she was thin and undoubtedly poor
palid skin and hair yellow as sand

She vacated one Thursday full seven years on
her unwelcoming door left unlocked
and her neighbours quite suddenly knew she was gone —
they were baffled, bewildered and shocked

They consulted but no one remembered her name
it was odd — all those years with no post
and no visitors called since the day that she came
she had lived quite apart like some ghost ...

The skeptical ones weren’t so hard to convince
once they’d bricked up the door in the hall
now none will admit they have thought of her since
and insist no one lived there at all

THE HAUNTED MIRROR

I have her mirror — one square foot of glass
hung in a quiet corner of the hall
yet I avoid it every time I pass
I’m careful not to glance at it at all.

It hangs a little crooked on its chain
I notice out the corner of my eye
and there’s a cobweb clinging to the frame
I will give it my attention — by and by.

But not just now — not when such thoughts recall
the way she used to stop to check her hair
how sharp her shadow fell against the wall
the light behind ... her silhouette still there.

Maybe the mirror holds her — like a charm
as it sits and gathers dust high on its hook
although I’m sure her ghost would never cause me harm
I simply cannot bring myself to look ...

I fear I’ll see a face that isn’t mine
caught within dull mercury’s domain
and should I glimpse the merest hint or sign
more shunning and denial would be vain.

So I’ll ignore the mirror’s grimey glass
and hope thick dust will grey it into sleep
it’s seen too many faces from the past —
I wish they would rest peaceful — six foot deep.

WHAT LURKS BENEATH

There’s something in the water
something’s living in the lake
it hides among the rushes
deathly still but wide awake.

And some men who claim they’ve seen it
say it’s eight or ten feet long
while others judge near twenty
though their guesses could be wrong.

One man came face to face with it
and swore its eyes were green
it gnashed a double row of teeth
with weed stuck inbetween

and asked him a straight question
in a tongue he couldn’t name
so he failed to give an answer to
the creature’s favourite game.

Then it roared a note of anger
and thrashed its silver tail
spouting jets of water skywards
as impressive as a whale.

While it didn’t try to eat him
it seemed wiser not to stay
so he sang a song to calm it
while he slowly crept away.

Another sighting — years ago
reported eyes of flame
and a stench that turned the stomach
no two details were the same.

The last encounter — six months gone
described a loathsome hulk
that wallowed in its reedy bed
where moonlight glossed its bulk.

It merely rolled one marble eye
and watched the girl go by
she did not run and later swore
it gave a heartfelt sigh.

The girl — a pretty, simple child
appeared under some spell
and languished like one stupefied
as far as folk could tell.

A week went by, then two, then three
a fever flushed her skin
she muttered strange, unholy words
that reeked of shame and sin.

Then just as sudden as it came
the fever left her brain
she rose up from her bed and smiled
but never spoke again.

One afternoon she took a walk
around the placid lake
a nurse beside her felt the land
and water start to quake.

The wide-eyed girl ecstatic now
without delay jumped in
as ripples closed above her head
nurse witnessed one huge fin.

Then nothing stirred — a dreadful calm
descended on the scene
and nurse was never quite the sane
person she’d once been.

The gossip spread like forest fire
men gathered to the site
investigators led the search
no body came to light.

Whatever happened to the girl
remains a mystery
and harkens back to far-off times
in pagan history

when gods demanded sacrifice
thus monstrous creatures fed
on innocent unlucky girls
and not one protest said.

Some chronicle bizarre events
and legends grow with time —
there’s something living in the lake
unpunished for its crime.

Wild speculation mingles with
a primitive deep fear
the curious keep well away
and only fools go near.

Poor Nurse sits in her padded cell
and scribbles on the wall
symbols — pictograms and such —
that make no sense at all.

While those who read this narrative
are sobered by the threat
whatever lurks in that dark lake
is far from finished yet ...

SATYR

Early, it was
in the young part of the year —
that moment Winter turns
and finds the first
blue egg of Spring

I saw the goatman in a field
barkbrown was his skin
wallowing in newgrown grass
bold as anything.

I only caught the barest glimpse
our eyes met
then I knew
I shouldn’t look at gods at play
or dryads in a ring.

Though it was cold
I felt the rush
of hot blood to my cheek
old goatman laughed to see me blush
I swear I saw
him wink
before I turned my back and walked
nervously away
while all the things I felt and thought
in truth
I dare not say...

THE GIFT

I dreamt I by a river slept
when from the water rose a child —
a beauteous boy who shook and wept
he rained a storm-cloud, wet and wild.

“Why criest thou?” I asked, amazed.
He turned on me his tawny eyes
and had me spellbound as he gazed
his sobs now calmed to long, deep sighs.

“I weep for you,” he whispered low —
“For what the passing years have done —
it’s cruel that you’ve been cheated so.
How can you bear it, ancient one?”

I smiled, then begged him to explain
what awful fate he witnessed here
and maybe he should look again —
his vision might not be too clear!

He bowed his head and took my hand
in his pink fingers grasped my paw
so-withered, thin, age-spotted, and
beheld the length of tooth and claw.

Yet where he touched me, flesh grew warm.
It seemed his blood flowed into mine.
Reality’s dark curtain torn
and light leaked through in shades of time.

I felt the surge of life pulse through
dull nerves awoke as if on fire
each flagging cell revived anew
infused with love’s intense desire.

As I grew younger, he grew old —
the smooth skin puckered on his cheek
all fervour drained, his gaze went cold
he thinned, his body turning weak.

My turn to cry. “What trick is this?”
He struggled with an old man’s breath.
In pity, I leaned close to kiss
his lips, but all I smelled was death.

He shrank from me, ghost-pale and slid
into the river’s secret brown.
It pulled him under fast, and hid
all that remained of him to drown.

I woke — a strange name teased my mind
an ache of longing stirring deep
for something — someone — undefined —
his gift impossible to keep.

WHAT WALKS THE NIGHT

Dark is a different country
it keeps unpeopled hours
and has a government of owls
who murder from high towers.

Invisible, the field-side lanes
run soft while all are sleeping
one human footfall in the night
its wakeful rhythm keeping.

Deeper shadows part like mist
grey on grey, then greyer
through leafy coppices and woods
where paths divide each layer

a figure — flesh or phantom — goes
across the midnight border
travels through this otherworld
of strangely altered order

where silence dwells and size deceives
dimensions slide and shimmer
pale blowsy moons might disappear
so leave such prospects dimmer.

Old landmarks move about the map
immune from close detection
while fancy has the mind believe
it’s sure of home’s direction.

Then back to light — the welcome door
and foreign night receding
along with predatory eyes
denied their chance of feeding …

A DECKCHAIR IN THE SNOW

(Albino Song)

I want to sit out in the snow
and bask until I freeze
I long to feel the blizzard chill
me slowly by degrees

I want to watch my skin turn blue
cold pierce my very bones
as temperatures past zero drop
then sink to minus zones

I’ll holiday on glaciers
enjoy an ice-melt swim
the frozen tundra beckons me
I ache to wander in ...

A sterile spot with biting winds
where all the penguins go
stark — unspoilt — and there I’ll pitch
my deckchair in the snow.

ALONE ON THE MOUNTAIN OF MADNESS

(After a couple of nights spent re-reading H P Lovecraft)

I am lost on the mountain of madness —
the far side of the chasm of night.
I have wormed through its caverns and tunnels
and have measured both depth and sheer height.

It is cold in the bowels of that mountain —
there is meltless black ice on its peak
and a terror that sings to the planets
in the absence of all I might seek.

There is nothing so bare, nor so dreadful
where hope is the victim that fell
to a death with no chance of salvation
down some deep and unfathomed dark well.

And the rope that I cling to is rotting —
it unravels one strand at a time ...
There’s no voice in the ether to guide me —
tell which way — up or down — I should climb.

There are shadows that lean at my shoulder
and a cloying stench reeks of the tomb
while a presence lurks close, ever-watchful
like some ghost who inhabits the gloom.

Night finds me alone on the rock face
my fingers and heart matching sore
as I hang onto words — my one lifeline —
and fight for a foothold once more.

IN THE ASYLUM

All night a string of cries, half-human
seep through the thick indifferent walls
and dim-lit corridors play host
to the long-dead’s footsteps shuffling
back and forth between, stopping
at locked doors.

The building houses madness like a storm
forever rumbling. The barometer of sanity swings wild
as pressure grows and grows ... those peaks and troughs
no chart can measure crazy. Numbers lie.

They call to one another. There’s a code
of shrieks and moans — a kind of ghastly morse
the mindless have invented. It can mean
that Armageddon’s close, or some complaint
about a thirst unquenchable. Who knows ? ...

The air hangs stale, unmoving — reeks of pain
and solitude — cells heavy with their gloom
where breathing seems a punishment or curse
when sleep evades. Thought won’t lie down but crawls
                                        inside itself.

Dawn brings no relief. Nightmare turns to daymare
and the light is crueller than the dark.
Premature, the ghosts await their turn —
imagine death’s black gate’s their one chance of release.

NIGHT OF THE WOLF

A lone grey wolf one night made howl
in a far wood lit by the moon
and on a tree a great horned owl
sat listening to his baleful tune.

She watched as other wolves arrived
in silence through the trees they came
then formed a circle, side by side
and howled in chorus each refrain.

The moon at first half-hid by cloud
seemed loathe to show her cold round face
but as the concert grew more loud
something rare and strange took place.

She brightened — almost like she smiled
and then descended down the sky
the howling grew intense and wild
a red glow shone in each wolf’s eye.

Down she came and touched the top
of that tree where the great horned owl
still sat. The din went on non-stop
the wolves in trance — no choice but yowl.

The moon now turned a rich blood-red
a portent of those things to come
the wind grew calm, the stars all fled
as every wolf was stricken dumb.

All bathed in an unearthly light
in his hind legs one wolf stood tall
the great horned owl took silent flight
to warn all creatures — great and small.

For as the moon shone on his back
the wolf transformed into a man
who loped off down a narrow track
and after him the wolf pack ran.

It’s said that once in fifty years
the wolfman ravages the land
and superstition has few fears
worse than the dread of his cruel hand.

He opens doors and windows wide
there is no lock can keep him out
he’ll let his brother wolves inside
and all will perish, without doubt.

Lambs and chickens in the barn
will not be safe on such a night
small children, too, may come to harm
and if not eaten, die from fright.

Those who know the legend’s true
will listen for the great horned owl
and fear there’s little they can do
when hungry wolves are on the prowl

except to hide beneath their bed
and pray the pack will pass on by
and hope that swollen moon so red
wanes quickly with the blue dawn sky.

OFF THE GRID

I dream of ...
        the house at the edge of the sand
where the tide creeps up close to the fence
and the seafog wraps long arms around —
its grey layers of chill grown dense.

The narrow pier planked so darkly wet
stretches empty — thin-fingers the bay
while the gulls thus rendered too blind to fly
sit hunched as though gathered to pray.

The fog like a forlorn spirit lost
clings tenacious as any ghost.
The haunted eyes of dull windows stare
through mists suffocating wild coast.

Such silence is heavy — hangs thick in the trees
and the grass spiking tall cannot move
for the atmosphere brooding — the ache that prevails
and no change in perception can soothe...

The house so envisaged is weathered apart
standing lone by its desolate beach
and nobody lives there — location unmapped
since the road in my heart failed to reach.

NO HIDING PLACE

Home’s the place I should feel safe
but it’s not felt safe for years
the door can’t dam emotion’s flood
the walls run wet with tears.

It won’t withstand the threatened quake
dark cracks yawn deep and wide
the north wind moans and chews the trees
tall shadows tilt and slide...

Home’s the space I should find rest
instead a chill unease
haunts me nameless in the night
with grave uncertainties.

Home means faith as strong as stone
all horrors locked outside
but some black dibbuk’s broken in —
there’s nowhere left to hide.


Note: Dibbuk or dybbuk — a Hebrew word for malevolent spirit

WHAT’S INSIDE

Tight, the box is locked
and locked it must remain
for legend knows what ghosts
it might contain.
The carvings stare
wood breathes an ancient threat
and holy types believe
what other men forget.

Pure evil waits within
imprisoned there — asleep
biding endless time
for wickedness will keep.
Dark words on the lid
a warning what’s inside
should never be let out
old rules firmly applied.

Shut, the box stays strong
a voice moans through a crack
wheedling ... then enraged
at being trapped.
Ignore its cries —
each ugly hiss and howl
they’re mouthings of a dybbuk —
non-human — demon-foul.

WISH-FISH

The wish-fish nibbles at stray thoughts
inside a dreamer’s head.
It craves the taste of strange ideas —
odd crumbs of joy or dread.

The smell of fantasy will lure
the hungry wish-fish in.
It chews on every shade of worm —
however fat or thin.

Imagination spreads its feast —
the bait hangs bitter-sweet —
the wish-fish tugs upon the line
and circles round — discreet.

Which random thought it swallows whole
and grants one wild desire
is known only to those who see
bright pictures in the fire.

Black its scales and gold its fins
the wish-fish glides beneath
seas where dreams dip in and out
oblivious of teeth.

MIDNIGHT CALLER

Night peers in all the windows
cold presses at the door
long shadows shuffle forwards
gold firelight pools the floor.

Sly whispers haunt the chimney
a log moves in the grate
then footsteps tread the pathway
the latch clicks on the gate.

Rat-tat! goes the iron knocker
alerting those who sit.
But frozen still as statues
none rise to answer it.

Silence hangs uncertain
the knocker raps once more
something turns the handle
and pushes at the door.

Relief’s a sigh escaping
as ancient bolts hold good
and hinges keep their purchase
on oak’s well-weathered wood.

A groan ... a curse to heaven
before those weary feet
traipse slowly up the garden
and out into the street.

No clue — no scribbled message
explaining why they’d call
so very close to midnight
and frighten one and all.

The room stays deathly quiet
the mantel clock ticks on
they listen close with pounding hearts
and pray the caller’s gone.

*

Alternative final verse:

The room stays deathly quiet
strange shadows looming black
while pounding hearts beat loud as drums
and pray he won’t be back.

Or:

The room remains too quiet
the tension stretching on ...
ears cocked to catch the slightest sound
unsure the caller’s gone.

THE HOUSE AT THE TOP OF THE HILL

It’s a long haul up a steep hill
the road is rough with stones
and I recall the journey still
how sore it left my bones.

A narrow road from packhorse days
where weeds grow high beside
just one of those forsaken ways
that few but gypsies ride.

The ruins of a great house stand
upon the hill’s bare brow
its windows face a sweep of land
once farmed but wasted now.

The roof has let in years of rain
the door keeps nothing out
yet who would venture in again
when rumours spread about

warn casual trespassers it’s wise
to turn around and go
for something broods — the walls have eyes
it’s better not to know

the history — those gruesome tales
one strange old-timer tells
of servant girls and first-born males
and babies drowned in wells ...

A scandal like a worn cliché
repeated over time
sounds more like truth the more folk say
it was a wicked crime.

Some curse undid that family
too proud for God to save
as one by one and speedily
each found a pauper’s grave.

Some said a local witch was hired
(for none would trust the law)
and soon the eldest son expired
though only hours before

he’d been out drinking half the night
sunk countless yards of ale
got into some booze-driven fight
and come home weak and pale.

Struck down by some rare malady
he’d crawled into his bed
let go an oath — screamed horribly
rolled over stone cold dead.

His brother next to catch the germ
succumbed real quick and died.
Their sister felt the fever burn —
Hell claimed her from inside.

Mother, Father, Grandpa too
all perished in a week.
Investments failed and deals fell through
inflation reached its peak.

No money in the bank account
the debts piled up sky-high
and funerals cost a huge amount
so in a field nearby

the six were buried in a row
to save on the expense
no flowers and no tombstones — no
one left to mend the fence.

With nothing there to mark the place
the grass and weeds grew tall.
Nature soon took back the space
and no one cared at all.

The house sits on its hill so steep
a ghost in every room.
Exposed — no secrets left to keep
the air hangs thick with doom.

A shell nobody wants to buy
it steals the very breath
awaits the luckless passer-by
to trade them death for death.

GHOST BIRD

At night he sings in some far tree
sweet liquid notes float soothingly
in through my open window frame
the song repeats. He calls my name.

I listen, drifting, half-asleep
and in my mind I try to keep
the memory as he sings on
but when I wake the dream is gone.

Though not a dream — a haunting. Yet
it’s one I strive to not forget.
Instead I conjure up this bird
I’ve never seen but often heard ...

He perches high in some old pine
his song unearthly, near-divine.
He’s silver-feathered, eagle-sized
with huge unblinking amber eyes.

And how his crooning voice so clear
can cross long miles and find my ear
becomes my own deep mystery.
He sings so very 'suasively

the more I hear, the more I know
there’ll be a time I have to go
to where he’s waiting in that tree
calling, calling out to me.

ERRORS

Somewhere on a dust-dark shelf
ranged along its narrow wormy wood
a row of small jars stoppered tight
mysterious as bottles for rare scent
or poison pots perhaps
their ingredients labelled almost blank — anonymous
if only imagination would let them be just that

But shapes loom through the cloudy liquid
the yellowed limbs and outsize heads
of miniature grotesques
that have no given name
each one a stillborn nightmare
a store of pickled horrors
deaf dumb and blind

A show of freaks that neither lived nor died
yet fear preserved them
locked in their floating silent worlds
where they lie curled and hideous
creatures caught forever contemplating
a grim eternity composed of
their own mistakes.

THE PROMISE

We’ll meet on the bridge some midnight
between this world and the next
one new penny in my pocket
heartbeat wild beneath my vest

with the moon and stars to guide us
all eternity to spend
where no harm can so divide us
and youth’s passion never end.

So, no more sorrow as you leave me —
take this promise to your death
I’ll pick flowers in Love’s forest
as I take my own last breath.

I’ll make wreaths of wind-blown petals
to cast out upon the foam
for all lovers killed in battle —
those lost souls so far from home.

You will know the way on waking —
recognise the worn old track
leading to the bridge some midnight
these the words that draw you back ...

For I’ll be waiting to cross over
to a land that’s free from pain
once the link so cruelly broken
is restored — made strong again.

I will find you gazing skywards
mapping how our comet flies —
points its arrow to the future
where a golden dawn will rise.

***

We are children of the golden dawn —
angels in the making
visionaries freed by love
our wordly lives forsaking.

We’ve minds that travel swift as light —
no barriers — no prison —
weightless as a passing breeze
kissed by a sun new-risen.

THE FACE BENEATH THE ICE

On a cold winter’s night, far away, long ago
a simple young novice awoke in her room
and drawn to the window’s square riot of snow
she watched the flakes tumble from out the sky’s gloom.

The wind caught and whirled them as in frenzied dance
blown round and around in the dense, dizzy air
hypnotic, it held her as though in a trance
face pressed to the glass, she remained standing there.

The blizzard grew fierce in its polar extreme
she peered to see figures blurred into the white
and feared for their safety. As though in a dream
her kind heart responded, alarmed by their plight.

She ran down the hallway, she raced down the stairs
and unbolted the abbey’s ornate wooden door
the cold rearing up stole her breath unawares
as she staggered half-blind, all direction unsure.

But drawn on by sheer impulse, insanity led
her into the wild, giddy waltz — bourne along
on the waves crashing silent as blood in her head —
that flurry of movement in time to a song

wordless yet meaningful — some revelation
the gleam in her eye and the snow in her hair
and the magical thrill — an unearthly sensation
lifted her spirit and freed her from care.

Like a dervish she spun through the curtains that parted
their billowing acres of smother and chill
and something within her pursued what she’d started
she felt herself driven — unthinking — until

a shape from the chaos resolved its lines slowly
of human proportions and fluid of limb
sculpted from snow with a skill seeming holy
she found herself lost to the power of him...

He glided across, took her arm, almost gentle
then gazed in her eyes with a piercing bright stare
and the truth wounded deep — his desire elemental —
she fell like a child and abandoned all care.

They danced through the night — an ethereal ballet
their fantasy frozen by Winter’s decree —
a swan and her mate in some frost-hidden valley
enraptured and tireless her soul floated free.

*****

Come morning, they found her — the nuns from the abbey —
heaped small by the door, frozen through to the bone
and she tossed in a fever and wailed like a baby
her eyes clouded over, her flesh cold as stone.

The sisters were fearful — they prayed as they nursed her
and Mother Superior sat by her cot
wishing she’d die (for she’d secretly cursed her
for raising dark spectres far best left to rot.)

The novice grew calmer and smiled at the sisters —
a strange little smile — otherworldly and sad
trapped in a landscape where endless white vistas
stretch haunted — enchanted and icicle-clad.

One breath after midnight, with all the nuns sleeping
the novice again left her hard, narrow bed
and soft down dark corridors, carefully creeping
chose the stark dazzle of snowfields instead.

The crystal air rushed so her lungs ached with gasping
she plunged through the carpet, its crust crunching loud
with a mist rolling thin and its silver veil masking
the figure she searched for stood silent and proud.

She called — her voice fluting but baffled by branches
hung heavy — fresh loads bowed them close to the ground
where they smothered his name — for such magick entrances
all those who might hear its faint echo bounce round.

He stepped into view — her cool marble-skinned lover —
pale Price of the Polars — crowned Emperor of Ice.
She swore her allegiance — vowed over and over
she gave herself gladly and never thought twice.

At daylight, her sisters discovered her missing
and found her half-dead in a drift by the wall.
She lay on her cot in a coma, hands twisting
and muttering things that made no sense at all.

She spoke of a man — with such frenzy of passion
the nuns were appalled and embarrassed in turn
alarmed she should speak in such intimate fashion
on subjects too heathen for pure souls to learn.

Quite sure that the Devil had sampled her sweetness
they sent for the Bishop — his holiness would
drive out the Dark One — restore her lost meekness
back safe in the fold for her mortal soul’s good.

But the Bishop was ailing — he sent his advisor
on kinds of possession — demonic and such.
The man came and went very little the wiser —
as perplexed as the nuns. So it didn’t help much.

And the novice (named later as Sister Maria)
had moments of stillness and madness by turn
her rapture dissolving to monsterous fear
as feverish notions continued to burn...

She raved and she ranted, she prayed and she fasted
she tore at her habit and screamed for release —
her torment a storm that shook all while it lasted
her sisters her gaolers — their watch never ceased.

The calm,when it came, like an answer from Heaven —
the clearing of sky to a virginal blue
blessed a cold Sunday in sixteen - o -seven
the sun a pale candle — faint warmth burning through.

She woke from a dream with her lips and eyes smiling
though her tongue was as still as a bird frozen dead
light shone from her face so intense and beguiling
she seemed like a bride just about to be wed.


The nun in attendance was ’witched by some power
that filled the small cell — fixed the moment in thrall
and of all that went on in the subsequent hour
she’d no recollection — no memory at all.

The savage restraints that had once bound so tightly
dropped from her limbs so the novice slipped free
while most of the nuns gone to chapel sang brightly
of beauty and all God demands they should be.

She could hear them all singing — a soundtrack to leaving
this jewel of a day cut from destiny’s rock.
Her heart diamond-hard and her mind caught believing
enchantment would keep her from Death’s final shock.

In just a thin nightshirt, its cotton stitched plainly
she went to the lakeside barefooted as though
the cold didn’t touch her, still smiling inanely
she walked on its surface laced over with snow.

With a crack like a gun shot, the perfect ice ruptured
and two silver arms reached and pulled the girl down
her joy knew no bounds in the thrill of his capture
as he peeled from her body the prissy pale gown.

All trace of her vanished — no clues were discovered
explaining the whys and the wherefores of Fate —
not a hair of her head nor a bone was recovered
and the subject’s taboo. Firmly closed to debate.

*****

The lake is still there with its secrets grown lonely.
The sisters departed, the abbey long-sold
to businessmen — practical — hard-nosed and only
thinking of profit. This history untold

and waiting for someone whose mind is less rigid —
a soul that is wise to Love’s true sacrifice.
Who will seek Winter’s grace in a landscape turned frigid
and glimpse that ghost-face staring up through the ice.

A LITTLE SIN WITH THE SANDMAN

A book on her lap
and the sun slowly sinking
while a blanket of heat
lingers long on the shore
like a lover who’s loathe
to abandon the moment
and clings to day’s dying
so-wishing for more.

The sand stretching empty
far waves susserating
hypnotic their rhythms
their language like balm
soothing the ache
where the land edges lonely
to meet the dark ocean —
surrender all calm.

The pages are blurring
the words lose their meaning
a breeze is erasing
all thoughts from her head
the hour grows late
and the tide’s set for turning
its swell like an army
flagged orange and red.

A shape in the water —
some creature of legend
swims with the current
its silvery sheen
catching the light —
a bizarre illustration
created from fancy
obscurely marine.

She gasps as he stands there —
a god on the shoreline
surveying the beach
with his opal-moon eyes
freezing fast in his gaze
filled with strange pangs of hunger
for romance, she wonders
if caution applies...

He is there at her side
in a frenzy of movement
his lips on her own
in a fierce briny kiss
his length ’gainst her skin
like a sword pressing urgent
and nothing — no, nothing’s
more potent than this...

They share true abandon
while melding their bodies
his tenderness to her
near-human. Her heart
accepting his love
though the words are unspoken
that time creeping nearer
when he must depart.

Her flesh claims a keepsake —
a memory growing
already inside her
to last all her life —
the gift of his bloodline
her duty to nurture
and the knowledge forever
she’s now a sea-wife.

With their passion slow-ebbing
still warm in her body
they say their farewells
with a touch and a sigh
the swift sea draws him back
like a son to his mother
as a low-skimming seagull
cries shrill at the sky.

She awakes in the dusk
half the beach lost in shadow
a mist on the ocean
a chill rolling in
and the echo of ecstasy
whispering — wanton —
and flooding her veins
with a sweet sense of sin.

And who was her lover? —
An angel? — A demon? —
Some seawater deity
man-like but fish
resplendent in scales
with a voiceless intensity
keen to possess her
and sate his base wish

for a woman — a virgin
whose mind is unsullied
and open to dreamworlds
however surreal
youth’s bloom on her skin
and plump flesh that is willing
a slave to some stranger’s
seductive appeal.

Now she picks up her book
grains of sand in its pages
that trickle like time
what remains of the day
fading impressions as soft
as the twilight
the taste and salt-smell of him
drifting away...

She walks through the dunes
the long trek to reality
back to a house
where she harbours strange dreams
and writes in her diary
events past imagining —
a fanciful fiction
more true than it seems.

Half asleep in her bed
she recalls every detail
the sin safe inside her
sings smug in its shell —
her miraculous egg
a reward from the sandman
for giving such pleasure
and taking love well.

In through the window
the sea sends its promise —
a breeze like a lullaby
croons to her child
who’s genetically primed
as a rare elemental
with a nature designed
to be fickle and wild.

Resigned to her secret —
for who would believe her? —
a tale such as hers
surely labelled absurd
for only in myths — those
famous old chronicles —
might anything like it
have ever occurred...

She rocks her small fish
in his dark little chamber
and thinks of his family
shoaling in sleep
his father holds court
in some great coral castle
its towers and ramparts
untold fathoms deep.

And once she has birthed him
he’ll take to the water —
drawn like a turtle
makes tracks for the surf
while she, the mere vessel
a singular mother
is bonded by science
restricted to earth.

What, then, of love? —
those ties so maternal
tightening daily
as chemicals swirl
and the heart grows so fond
it is loathe to let go —
like the oyster regrets
it must give up its pearl.

An idea stuck fast
in the flood of her brooding
thrown in at the deep end
no rescue in sight
a thought tossed ashore
by a wave of sheer fancy
glittering strange
in the cold breath of night.

She plans she will bathe
in a saline solution —
encourage a change
metamorphically sound
by devolving, perchance
to some versatile creature
amphibious — freed
from this too-solid ground.

So strong her desire
for a mermaid mutation
spontaneous scales
greenly patterned her skin
her fingers grow webs
and her legs fuse together
and out from her feet
fans a flexible fin.

Her laugh’s silver bubbles
burst thin, sounding glass-like
their tinkle of victory
strung on the air
while some teleport spell
makes its magic connection —
she yearns for the shoreline
and finds herself there!

Celebrating the surf
with unconscious abandon
she gives herself up
to the ebb and the flow
for there’s no one to witness
her love-blinded madness —
the moon’s in her eyes
countless leagues still to go...

000ooo000

All that remains
is an ache — a faint echo —
a memory pressed
in a book she once read
on a hot afternoon
one so-long-ago summer —
since she’s gone to the sandman’s
deep undersea bed.

THE HAUNTED CASTLE OF THE HEART & MIND

There are rooms I rarely visit
where the sun can barely see
through such narrow slitted windows
shadows reign eternally
in those corners cold and brooding
dark with secrets huddled deep
and the walls stand grey and silent
as the bones they’re bound to keep.

There are hallways long with echoes
from a time now veiled and dim
with the dust of years upon them
and a chill that lingers grim
for the damp of tears undrying
penetrates from floor to floor
and the wreath of love slow-dying
withers frail against the door.

Those bare chambers scarcely lived in
save a pulse that’s hard to catch
candle-warm nostalgia’s breathing
scented by a striking match
of some memory ignited
burning thin affection’s flame
sending nervous ghosts a-running
even as I call each name.

In the dungeons dreams lie rotting
guilty of romantic crimes
foolish thoughts and idle plotting
relics from more simple times
when the castle gleamed in sunlight
from its turrets flags streamed bold
straight and strong its white stone ramparts
nothing worn or tired or old...

Now the heart is bruised and broken
now the mind is torn and scarred
and the ache that’s never spoken
haunts the ruins locked and barred
but for spirits caught in cobwebs
those the yawning years invite
tread the stairs forever upwards
into attic realms of night.

TO A GRAVE BEETLE

His skull is now your home
you roll in the hollow of his eye
where I used to live
when my image filled his thoughts
I was the one who took up the pulsing space
beneath that perfect dome.

Deep in the earth you have usurped me
for he feels nothing now
all nerve has gone
with flesh long-eaten
his mental hallways empty — clean
no living trace.

I wonder — when you scurry through
those thin white walls
if you ever sense an echo —
a memory still trapped inside —
some obscure graffiti cut into the bone
that has outlasted death.

But what can any insect know
of human thoughts?
You are a beetle programmed from a grub
and have no soul —
no concept of love
or the hereafter.

You thrive on our decay — absorbing
but giving nothing away.

LITTLE RED

There is a werewolf crouching on my bed —
his muzzle harsh against my shivering flesh
teeth pressing sharp and desperate to be fed —
he wants my grief to bleed itself to sleep —
free its layers — peel back love’s raw skin
reveal the thigh bone he’s so keen to gnaw —
splinter wide and lick the marrow clean —
I know his mind — his appetite — his lust —
his eyes consume me — yellow — in the dark
of our private forest growing more intense —
full of scents and echoing with threats —
worrying the air alive with dreams.

I feel him breathe — a swell that stirs and chills —
impatient from his hunger his flanks heave —
he’s soiled the sheets with markers — lupine musk —
shed hair and gritty skeletons of leaves...
he needs me to forgive his fabled kind
and let him be my moon-crazed fantasy...

He growls at rolling thunder — nerves on fire
he claws the wooden bedpost — wrecks the room —
his voice half-threat half-plea for understanding
lightening shows my cloak torn on the floor —
a scarlet pool — symbolic savagery —
(with granma dead a dozen years or more)
I stroke his head — he nuzzles — drooling warm
while we hide together — creatures of a storm
we can’t control — his bite will kill or cure
this unbeliever strayed from safer paths.

THE GLIMMER MAN

No body speaks about him —
no one will say his name —
ill-fortune dogs the fool who does
and madness fogs the brain.

That fear no one will utter
is legend hereabouts —
a shimmer on the water
a silhouette that melts —

a figure etched in moonlight —
a shade aslant the wall —
a menace half-imagined
if he exists at all.

Through winter frosts at midnight
should footprints cross the lawn
’tis best to never mention
nor track the route they’ve gone

into the silent forest —
the ancient trees in thrall
and practised with such secrets
they hide them — one and all.

He lurks in thorny thickets
peering through dark leaves
the silver of his eyeballs
like mercury beads...

His look can chill a brave man —
freeze him to the spot —
strip away all reason
and leave the mind to rot.

Nobody speaks about it —
no one dares offend
the glimmer man — the myth survives
despite what we pretend.

THE DARK USE OF A CAT

Here, kitty — come let me lay my hand on your black fur
let me feel its sleekness moulded tight
to sinews — how you peel yourself from night
then blend back into shadow like a creature
fashioned out of thickened darkness — green eyes lit
from energies divined long-stolen from the stars — the feline wit
and wisdom of the ancients fills your soul — those deities who’ve
                                                changed their form
a thousand times across the rise and fall
of countless empires — yours the shape, the symbol
outliving all the rank and file of gods —
surviving when their temples were abandoned to the tide
you slunk away — sinuous through the grasses
biding time — knowing those mysteries of the wild.

And now I call you to me — summon up
by spell of words and instinct deathless laws
that govern form — their shifting fluid art
you’ve long excelled in — recognised — reviled
by superstition and religious minds
who fear your power — shrink back from your gaze —
are ignorant of magick and its revealing ways
where flesh dissolves — the bones, the skin, the teeth
recompose — disguise the witch beneath
whose name, when uttered, draws down charge. I stroke
the fur electric — tap your dark-fuelled coat
experience the surge and tingling shock
that prickles along the arching length
of your thin spine — let it jump the gap
like lightning — sizzle deep and find
the ceremony is the same as ever.

We use dark forces, kitty
trade back and forth our shady
multiples of seven — those unmeasured spans
that link us all ways fated through
our reincarnated lives.

GHOST HORSES

In every shade of grey they loom
sudden through a door ajar in mist
hooves smothered into silence wrapped
nostrils flared and flanks sweat-darkened
heavy, heaving still
as though they’ve run a mile or two
to reach this weathered hill.

In single file quite close they pass
eyes rolling, manes strung knotted-black
twitching nervous ears laid back
they have that wild nightmare-ish look
beloved of artists gothic with their oils —
keen on gloom’s intensity — its chill —
                                its awful seeping ache...

Restless, they move on — depart
this phantom herd of eight or ten
                                lumberers slow-journeying
back through low cloud that sucks them in
denies they ever came this way
no single print but fear’s harsh-scented trail
betrays them while it lingers —
smell unwinds its echoey unease
and spooks the mind.

SOMEONE WATCHING

I almost see them
where they hover — waiting
on the very edge of perception
lingering as though anticipating
a reaction. I know they’re there
I can nearly hear
them breathing.

And there will come a time
not so very far off now
when I will turn and catch
someone watching.
Just a glimpse before they fade
from view
and they will probably smile, too
knowing well the game
we all end up playing.

This hide and seek dimension
spliced with life’s long hall of mirrors
becomes a trick of light
a shadow thrown upon
a moving curtain.
Breath mists the narrow glass.
Time slides so quietly past
the air shivers.

POSSESSED

I dream about a man once met — long ago
who touched me with his eyes and stole my breath
his gaze knew all my body — seeming loathe to let me go
he held me in that space 'twixt life and death.

That moment stretched forever — linking dream to dream
and down the years of countless restless nights
he haunts me from the other side of time’s dark stream
and makes me moan — play host to strange delights.

It is as though my burning flesh remembers him
my singing blood recalls its passion well
the image in my head infects my fevered skin
I hunger more than simple words can tell.

He’s claimed me for a lover and I have no choice
my limbs obey the magick that he cast
not a vestige of resistance — no protest in my voice
need welcomes him like each time is the last.

I am the rare elusive moth pinned through — resigned
to being trapped within his shifting frame
his breath the night wind stirs my hair and whispers low
repeats the incantation of my name.

I know that death will marry us in some bare grave
unmarked except for flowers that survive
all the frosts of heaven and the fires of hell
fed warm on bones that dream themselves alive.


INVADER

Forever on the edge of dark you stand
sinister beneath the night’s broad wings
and threatening to fasten on my hand —
the idea chills — sends shivers — warning sings
its one-note clamour instinct’s shrill alarm
insisting your intent’s to do me harm.

I shy away — won’t parley — push you back
and keep you at safe distance — shut you out
stay resolute — avoid all thought-contact
but somehow fail to rid myself of doubt —
maybe I bought you here... the veil grows thin
and once it tears you’ll bully your way in.

Some nights I feel you scan my drifting mind
and test its walls for frailty — one weak spot
to gain you entry — stealthily unwind
my nest so tightly woven where I’ve got
a clutch of eggs — their blueness speckled with
a trace of code that tells where passions live.

I’ve worn the nun-ish cowl of sanctity
and thought I heard you ridicule my prayers
and mocking such naïve hypocrisy
your rancour caught my spirit unawares
defences down and straightway on you came
to steal some small advantage — take the game.

A close-run thing — this battle head to head
its strategies played out on shifting ground
and sly the propaganda that you spread
your voice invades — its threats fly all around
my sanity’s high tower leans and sways —
your shadow looms — unsettles my last days.


ARTEFACT

Battered, bulky, left like luggage
waiting to be claimed,
half-buried now by desert sand,
its out-of-placeness drew attention.

It had the look of antique leather
but the tactile shock of something
almost familiar evoked shudders —
instinct fought with logic for recognition
and sudden fear unsettled reason —
raw sensation lingered, crawled upon the skin.

Inside, the pages held a cold dead smell
of empty dust-dry worlds and burned-out stars,
and writing, three-dimensional, that blurred
revealing patterns in the multi-layered text,
subliminal suggestions rising
in tides of half-caught memory.

Dense with its own strangeness,
its weight of secrets pressed
like extinct flowers, forgotton,
it told eveything and nothing.

PREDATOR

The city streets are quiet tonight
the wind is multi-voiced and finds
each whistling crack to penetrate.

The moon’s a restless blur of light
that dips behind a skyline sharp with roofs.
The shredded clouds migrate —

unravel where dark wings beat slow
home in upon a gothic spire
above a graveyard where a drunkard snores

sprawled on a stone — the dead below
him an indifferent couple gone to bones —
all are blind and deaf to swooping teeth and claws...

Who cares about a ‘down and out’? —
the victim has no name — no claim — no place
on anybody’s Christmas list.

There is no fight — no scream or final shout
swift and clean the brutish kill —
a homeless Joe unlikely to be missed.

Another murder unresolved — a stubborn few might doubt
what clues there are... remain convinced — insist
that vampires don’t (and never did) exist.

CONJURED OUT OF DARKNESS

Silence — except for the tedious ticking of the clock
and yet I know that he has come
for the heavy curtain moves — the vacant pillow dents
a rush of terror holds me still and dumb.

He makes no sound — not one soft sigh or rustle heard
and yet I’m sure I feel him lying there
beside me as the darkness presses close as cold cold limbs
I smell him — sense the hardness of his stare.

It is as though he has me caught —enraptured by some spell
perverse in my desire — base instinct led
my wants in frantic chaos — how it hurts to even breathe
my mouth is dry and oh such thoughts invade my spinning head!

Who is this dark invader with such power to excite
and terrify — evoke the wildest need
against all reason? — logic fails to grasp what quickly slips away
those arguments I will not even hear — much less heed.

Instead I offer myself up to whatever demon lover’s come to call
and imagine him as handsome — virile — strong
knowing I’ll be more than willing to obey each whim and fancy
shrug off all moral chains — come right or wrong.

A sense of liberation floods right through me ’til it overflows
and I let out a low involuntary moan
as though expressing a divine anticipation
of some pleasure that I cannot wait to own.

His weight is full upon me — in that second I let go
and lose myself — a torrent takes me down
and in those depths I glory — out of sight and out of mind
deep in lust’s depravity I drown.

Fathoms — countless fathoms — lost in nightmare realms below
exploring fantasies I now acknowledge as my own
I face the beast I’ve conjured out of darkness — this private world
evolving — a strangely erotic pleasure zone.


SEA SONG

It was a balmy summer night
the moon was up — the tide far out
and I was strolling on the shore
the view was clear — the breeze was light
and there was no one else about —
no footprints in the sand I saw.

The sea so calm it barely sighed
as waves rolled lazy with their foam
I sat and watched them from a rock
the smooth horizon stretching wide
it seemed the beach was mine alone
the time approaching twelve o’ clock.

I’d sunk so deep in wistful thought
I didn’t notice right away
the sudden turning of the tide
and worried that I might get caught —
cut off in that secluded bay —
and time no longer on my side.

We raced — but those swift waters won
the currents dragged me as I swam
and prayed some miracle might save
me. Then — when hope was nearly done
a creature rose — half fish — half man
and bore me shorewards on a wave.

My arms around his sinewed neck
he ploughed the water — sure and strong
we reached the land — he put me down
I gave his salt-rough cheek a peck
in gratitude — the moment long
I gazed — entranced — and wished to drown

in ocean eyes so deep and wise
his face like marble tinged with green
his breath so cold upon my skin
I felt strange passion wake and rise
so pressed my body — lost in dream
against the solid chill of him.

We lay like statues — toppled — still
and drank each other — pooled desire
in a cold furnace iced with bliss
as though we’d never get our fill
of this intoxicating fire —
full-length our wordless body-kiss...

What passed between us can’t be told —
emotion flooded thrill on thrill
while we stayed drugged in this pure state
then Dawn’s horizon streaked its gold
and it took every ounce of will
to part — acknowledge our love’s fate.

The sea — his mother — called him home
he left without a backward glance
my tears were on him like a claim
denied by the possessive foam.
I watched him go in a dull trance
and ached with loss that has no name.

Now fifty empty years are done —
night after night I trawl the shore
and sing my song like one insane
who mourns the lover dead or gone
and craving darkness more and more
relives the passion and the pain.

NIGHT CHILLS

Through the partly-open window by the couch whereon I rest
a strangely-scented night wind softly blows
and it teases at my body while I slumber — thinly-dressed
and — although I shiver — some base instinct knows
that somewhere in the shadows — like a whisper taking shape
a creature born of passion breathes my name
along with a chill warning that there can be no escape
repeated — like a mantra — his refrain.

And I dream him standing waiting for the moon to find his face
and silver him with romance — lend him fire
while imagination weaves itself a tale of time and place —
twin mysteries of terror and desire...
For even while I tremble helpless — the blood within me burns
and I hear myself call out in restless sleep
inviting my dark haunter who so constantly returns
and hovers — letting expectations keep.

Thus anticipation stretches through the hours aching grey
with hunger groaning for the promised feast
still beyond all calculation — I am searching for a way
to quench this longing — satisfy the beast —
and accept his crooked nature — as an ancient mirror crazed
reflects a flaw trapped deep within the glass
like an aspect of his being that can never be erased
however many times the runes are cast.

Destiny has set our meeting in the labyrinth that runs
twisting corridors between the realms of sleep
and those purple plains unconscious of the brooding cloud that comes
slow-drifting where emotion’s hills rise steep...
And tonight I sense he’s close enough to match him pulse for pulse —
each heartbeat sounding loud inside my head
and the echoes pound a rhythm so I’m hearing little else
but the blood-call with its message hot and red.

Is that his touch upon me — his jagged claw that rakes my skin?
The air has parted cold inside the room —
disturbed — the silence shuffles back — defers to broad-spanned wing
that covers — brings a suffocating gloom.
If I’m lost to demon-kind — infected by this dream made real —
then something in me welcomes such a fate —
darkness seeks another darkness as old arteries congeal —
May he drink before the hour turns too late!

NIGHT IN THE PALACE OF PAIN

Strangely intimate, these halls
that throb with fear’s discordant thoughts
unwinding from a hidden spool
of film inside the brain.

Down corridors its camera pans
the blank expanse of doorless stone,
following the treadmill’s rut
worn deep by plodding pain.

Back and forth, the shadows swing,
dim in the unfocused eye,
and sleep’s a stranger to these rooms —
resists the shutter’s click.

While terror glides, soft-shod and grey,
where fever shivers, lost in gloom,
projects upon a private wall
a wide-screen horror flick.

No censor snipped or edited —
this footage rolls entirely raw
and savage as the vision snags
the jagged edge of fear.

The script, imagination penned —
bizarrely peopled, demon-starred,
and Death, in his seductive mask,
leans perilously near.

The movie plays the whole night long,
its captive audience of one
riveted as credits roll.
The hours come and go

while Art reflects the living dream,
and pain distorts the silvered glass,
Death directs a grim release —
the final picture show.

NOCTURNE

Oh, come away —
don’t heed the door —
it’s wind that’s knocking
nothing more
or rain that’s tapping
like a claw —
so come away
and leave the door.

Don’t turn the handle
or unlock
leave fast the bolt
ignore the knock —
the wood will stand
each thump and shock
the door is strong
and stout the lock.

Don’t open it
the merest crack —
it isn’t him —
he can’t come back
from where he’s gone
night’s narrow track
runs past the hour’s
empty black...

Block up your ears
draw down the blind
shut out the dark
and leave behind
macabre dreams —
the gate’s dull grind
upon the path
is in your mind.

That’s not his laughter
nor his cry
where echoes rise
from roof to sky —
it’s not his voice
his tone or sigh
it’s just the wind
careering by

slap-hammering
upon the door —
thin drafts across
the bare stone floor
the wail that lingers
ghostly-sure
whatever haunts
the night-barred door.

So, come away —
stay by the fire
while downpours lash
high winds get higher —
do not believe
its off-key choir —
those notes are cruel
each one a liar.

BROWN MOTH

Today I am a brown moth on a board —
skewered by thin random points of pain
my wings are spread — their patterns a dark stain —
their dust a trail — once through soft starlight soared...
I landed on night’s flower — drunk — a net
descended — then the jar — then I forget...

I still recall the scent — that dizzy swoon
that claimed me — a poor insect in a trance
and was it love — the power of the moon
or insanity ? Drugged into a mad dance
my senses feared cruel science from the start —
sick perfume overcame and stopped my heart.

Thin silver runes gleam subtle — read my scales
they tell of all the magick in the world —
decipher these — watch how brown mottle pales
with glamour — vision altered — life left curled
around a pin that kills — a final spell
etched on fleeting love’s too-brittle shell.

REMORSE

Perched high on some bleak haunted hill
the Devil sits alone
his ruby eyes grown dull as rust
his heart a splintered stone
rain falls as guilty drops of blood
no cleansing can atone.

His brutish horns are filed to stumps
he bites his curling nails
and kicks his hooves against the rock
but misery prevails
strange voices echo in the night —
a host of screams and wails.

He feels he’s just an old cliché
the wicked joke’s worn thin
life’s not the fun it used to be
his days choked up with sin
it’s surely time to mend his ways —
escape the rut he’s in.

The fires of Hell have burned so low
he’s come down with a chill
so sad and sorry for himself
has taken to this hill
to nurse his cold and ponder on
the state of being ill.

He can hardly bear to think about
the dreadful things he’s done
there’s fat chance of redemption
such a crooked race he’s run
since rowing with Our Father
he’s been tagged ‘The Fallen One’...

Thrown from his place in Heaven
what’s a bad boy s’posed to do?
The world of men seemed pretty dull —
depressing through and through
all those holier-than-thou types
much too pious to ring true.

And so he tempted men of God —
corrupted those he could
undermined what faith they had
and ruined them for good.
He got the blame for every sin
his point misunderstood.

By now he’s hung around so long
known by that many names
like Satan, Lucifer, Old Nick
the Bogeyman of games
he feels he’s kind of lost the plot —
an emptiness remains...

The puzzle that now plagues his mind
is how to make amends —
there’s few he even dares to ask
he hasn’t any friends
for all believe he cares not who
he pleases or offends.

He phoned those good Samaritans
he even called the Pope
explaining his predicament
his one remaining hope
dwindling — for when he said
who he was the line went dead.

Thus he broods his crimes unheard
condemned to stay unshriven
alone in all the universe
too bad to be forgiven.
His agony obscene of course —
the irony of true remorse.

THE SKINNERMAN

Sly fate is my stalker ceaselessly creeping
I have no defences.
He skulks shy of sunlight — seeks moonlight or shadow —
he’s ancient and faceless.
I hear a twig snap in sleep’s bramble thicket
imagine him breathing
and freeze in the moment — his scythe worries under
dry layers of dreaming.

Years fan comet tails in a fall of dark dust
drifting achingly slow
fear his cold mantle — the cloak that he hides in —
he rides incognito
close on my trail with my name on his lips — mouths
a sly incantation.
Words hiss and fly dumb at the cowering stars — they
deny intervention.

Age fashions the snare — its invisible wiring
the planets’ alignment.
I’m trapped by an ankle that twists useless angles
enraged by confinement.
While sanity shrinks to a pinpoint of light
in reality’s fancy
Life’s vision is flawed — the corruption floods in —
admits necromancy.

Crazed scalp all a-tingle — a numberless trophy
at odds with its culling
I gnaw bloody tethers — the mind’s knowledge shredded
its wreckage appalling.
Death steals behind me — a skull gawping ghastly
a phantom — a devil —
his game never-ending — he loiters intently
that playground unlevel.

Odd chance rolls a dice among wilderness grasses
luck’s weed rarely blooming.
On a black stump a vulture hunches — dread passes
and settles for gloomy...
The outcome predicted — how flesh seldom escapes
to keep its precious skin
when camouflage fails and keen eyes spot true shapes
deceit’s veil stretched too thin.

THE ROOM

Mousehole-small in scale to her hunched shape
the room was crammed — packed tight from wall to wall
and floor to ceiling — so little space at all
for her to move far from the feeble lamp
its light so thin the shadows had no fear
and crowded round — leaned ominously near.

I watched her squinting low above her task
that focus so intent she failed to see
I stood there — broke her quiet privacy
by opening the door. My stifled gasp
unheeded in that claustrophobic space
so dim I only barely glimpsed her face.

The air was stale but chill — no natural light
no window square or narrow chink of sky
just one faint glow for her to struggle by —
her world always the same unending night
a prisoner trapped long by some cruel spell
to spend her years crushed in that dismal cell.

It was a dream and yet it seemed more real —
the dread stayed with me — haunted through the day
yet who she was there is no clue to say
or what empathy between us made me feel
the loss of hope past all imagining
and growing fear as darkness closed her in.

INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS

The night before heart surgery I heard
wolves howling from the carpark’s wooded edge —
prowling like they could already smell
blood upon the air — as though my fear
seeped through slow-pulsing walls and greeted them
with promises — the gory feast to come

a natural invitation — so they’d run
with hunger in their bellies all the while
that I made ready — bathed to calm each nerve
ticking with the clock against the dark
gathering of voices — whispers — sighs —
soft moans among the crowding trees outside.

The midnight owl called once — a warning low
as sleep surrounded — blotted anxious thought
with random consolations — odd ideas
melded sense to images surreal
and lost me in a maze of horrors — trapped
in fiction’s world of old style black and white.

Shadows flitted — shapes suggested form
the glint of eyes showed yellow by the moon
relentless in pursuit they tracked me down
their panting growing louder in my ear
and terror like a knot too tight to bear
had me cornered — feeding off despair.

I dreamed I was the sacrifice laid out
helpless while their metal teeth bore down
to split me open — share the spills and spoils
of hunting for beginners ending thus
in ritual slaughter — civilized with drugs
to pacify the victim — please the gods.

The chorus followed — Greek as tragedy
long-ruined temples raised their altar stones
men run as wolves — their appetites the same
desiring flesh they squabble over bones
and lurk on boundaries — kept for now at bay
until I’m rescued — facing Judgement Day.

HANGING THE MOON

She’s proven guilty of so much —
fills our nights with unquiet dreams
her shallow silver cold to touch
her promise nothing like it seems...

False, her pale romantic face
her image calculated guile —
she loiters, coolly claims her space
displays an egocentric smile.

She leads us on — ensnares, deceives
with whole mythologies of lies
flirts brazenly with tops of trees
and fascinates adoring skies.

Some she holds in desperate thrall —
they languish, cursed within her sight
whole companies of werewolves call
and wakened vampires stalk the night.

Her power drugs the helpless tides
invades the heart and turns the mind
where lurking superstition hides
and darkness has us running blind.

Her light is stolen from the sun —
she has no life to call her own —
the fantasy is all undone —
the goddess is unfeeling stone.

We won’t allow a last appeal
but hang her justly in the shed
forget the way she made us feel —
the cheating moon’s already dead.

TREE FORM

I am a tree of blood and skin
my wormwood world is dark within
another cold dimension where
fate’s engine pumps its crazed despair.

If I was ash I’d chose my white
by leafy evening’s purple light
or churchyard yew with poisoned beads
dropped sly amongst the stones and weeds.

If I was willow for my sins
I’d dip to touch the fantail fins
of sleepy carp below my shade
their bubbled dreams my passing trade.

Should I be oak or elm or beech
my height — my girth — my full sky-reach
the measure of forgotten years
my anchored life’s unquiet frontiers

the shape of every breeze-led song
that wends its lisping chant along
and mocks me cruel with freedom’s notes.
I seize — entwine — each taunt that floats

among my branches — finds the core
of flexing pine and sycamore —
I’m bound in trees — my greenman soul
in every brooding stump and bole.

I’m rooted ancient — deep my sap
that rises — earth both crib and trap.
My heart bleeds amber while I wait
through rot and rain beside death’s gate.

THE HAUNTED ORCHARD

There are gravestones in the orchard
close beneath the gnarled old trees
whose apples wither sour on the stalk
and tucked between long grasses
five small plots quite peaceful lie
except for nights when unquiet spirits talk.

Then voices in the branches drift —
those whispers haunt the leaves
as though a gang of children are at play
while shadows move at random
down a moonlit winding path
that’s vanished in the harsher light of day.

The orchard seems a different place
as creeping dusk makes claim
and time undoes its changes like a spell
the air hangs vaguely honeyed with
the promise of ripe fruit —
no hint of what dark tragedies befell...

Faint choruses of laughter ring —
far-off glad shouts and cries —
the ghosts of children skipping in the sun
that prematurely set upon
their short and unknown lives
and closed their eyes before the race was run.

The stones are rain-washed free of names
anonymous they rest
tilting under coverlets of moss —
not one small clue or letter left —
blank-faced and unconcerned
how each frail hold on history is lost.

A hundred years — most likely two —
has freed them of all ties
to memory — the links to kith and kin —
for no one leaves a flower where
the weeds have blanketed
and hidden what is past remembering...

Their bones are scattered — nudged by roots —
so they’ve become the trees
and rise with sap — are wakened weather-wise
to do those things it’s natural
for children’s souls to do —
swing from branches — reach for starry skies.

The orchard still their playground where
thin shades slide greyly through —
repeating games — their childhood never done
while moonlight silvers apples —
hints the future’s shining bright
’til dawn reveals the canker in each one.

PERFORMANCE

Vespa Fleming has no past
no memory of who she was —
the rôle that Destiny had cast
mislaid somehow — a total loss.

She’s scared that she will never find
the key to this cruel mystery —
unlock the doors inside her mind
retrieve her personal history —

discover who she was before
a switch was flicked — some screen turned off
Fate changed the costume she once wore...
Now cryptic dreams lend clues enough

to keep her searching — clutching straws
ad-libbing in surreal play
so passionate about her cause
she acts her heart out every day.

ORIGIN OF SPECIES

Vespa Fleming’s History — is she/was she once a vampire?

She has come here seeking answers
followed a cold trail through a long black night
braved the ice-arrows of the rain
and the blank stares of disinterested strangers
with no name to offer her
not one morsel of kindness tossed — no dregs of pity.

Instead she has found other mysteries
in the rambling maze of the city
the madness that lurks where its streets have narrowed
whispers haunting doorways where gangs of
shadows melt edgy — where the wind carries knives
in its teeth and bricks are scarred
                                from old wars never settled.

Behind the rows and rows and rows of walls
boxed in their lumpy beds the sleepless pray
for a way out — and some of them sense her tuning in —
scanning worry’s wavelengths — sifting fractured echoes
like panning for gold in an unmapped stream
peering through the shallows hoping for
some glint that might yield up a clue
                                make real the dream.

For someone somewhere must recognise her face
each denial has the sickly sour taste
of stale conspiracy
as though the burying of history —
erasure by consensus somehow alters things —
might drain her of all her latent power.

But she discovers memories half-hidden
by their failure to disguise
fear — instinctive — triggered by a bell
sent wildly ringing down the centuries
the city all aflame
she knows they know her
even as they shake their heads and shrink away because
she’s seen that look so many times before.

GATEWAY

Turned midnight
and the mind’s gate swings slow
on its invisible hinge.

Shadows walk the curving path
kick against old familiar stones
smoothed winter-white —

touched by lunar light
scribbled runes predict for me
a listless destiny.

Ovals grainy out of darkness
faces loom their pressing crowd
of owlish eyes

track some mousey memory —
grey-furred and nameless
creeping by the hedge.

Who lurks there? The wrought iron squeeks —
the catch unoiled

MOON GARDEN

Is it by charm of moon, or quirk of sight
how strangely altered landscapes seem at night?

By day, the lawn was just a patch of weeds
run wild with lanky buttercups and dock
tall thistles armed with thorns, crowned grey with seeds
plus dandelions’ bold flowers turned to clocks.

The orchard, too, showed symptoms of neglect —
its ancient trees were stunted, gnarled and bare
diseased and rotting branches lichen-flecked
and skeletons of leaves lay everywhere.

From dawn to dusk it was a sorry sight
the narrow path completely overgrown
but magick happened with the fall of night —
gave life to wood and resurrected stone

the moment that the moon revealed her face
the garden filled with blossoms rich and rare —
exotic lilies twined around the place
and clouds of silver moths whirled through the air.

The barren trees burst suddenly in bloom
the lawn transformed to plump and tender turf
and waxen petals crafted by the moon
drew succour from the dark-enchanted earth.

Old statues, cruelly weathered, stood like new
their features marbled clear by lunar light
proud godly limbs pearled subtly with dew
they glowed from out the shadows — ghostly-white.

And if they moved or whispered now and then
no witnesses could ever make sure claim
for such are dreams — they fade the moment when
the daylight breaks and sun comes up again.

So — mere trick or magick — who can truly say?
the power of the moon to rule the mind —
encourage fancy — tease or strip away
all logic — seems intrinsically designed

to fool poor mortals eager to believe
and so the moon plays to their hopes and fears —
she conjures visions solely to deceive
the credulous...
                                and then she disappears.

TO THE SACRIFICE

Woken by the dawn light —
morning’s steel knife slicing the hour
for they have come —
come to fetch me — unwrap
me from the night’s too-shallow comfort
plunge me deep in water — purify
by ritual cleansing that already deemed pure
by accident of being.

Their awful sanctity is chilling —
murmurs from stone would sound
more human by comparison
as they bathe my body unable to ignore
the shudders running fever-like I fail
to hide from repeated soft admonishments —
Be still now! Be still child! While
blood’s already frozen.

They want virgin skin — pale tender meat
to feed their black-faced god —
the leader of some breed of prehistoric sheep
unseen — imagined in their garbled testimonies
part-animal — the ever-hungry goat
they pander to on feast days — raise a drunken toast
above carved bones and choose the perfect feathers
as they slit a throat.

The cup is waiting with its numbing draft
of opiate — compliance blended sweet
with apathy — rocks will bruise and cut my
unshod feet but I’ll feel nothing
of the path or fear that hammers loud
until the last grey cell gives up its light
I’ll play angel versus devil — none will guess
what poisoned barb waits holy in my breast.

ENTRAILS

I do not know how much has
already spilled out of me
nor how much is still to come —
how much I can afford to lose —
let tumble outwards through the gap —
the open wound I plunder
like a cupboard where I hide
and hoard the long gelatinous coils —
all those secrets from another life
that snake inside of me.

Each time I move its mouth
gapes a little wider — lets slip
another uncut yard or two of pink
and pulsing rope — I marvel how
easily it slides away — almost painless
both brain and body numb with shock
witness to a slick departure — noiseless
and no fuss.

I watch the serpent memory squeeze out
and note its pattern — viperish with wit-
releasing poison — glad to exile it
even as the darkness closes in
I’m emptying myself — confessing
ancient terrors. I let them go
sin by slithering sin.

BURGLAR

I know the night has windows and looks in at me
he finds his way round curtains — under doors
with peacock eyes he peers at all he wants to see
observes the shadows — highlights cracks and flaws.

I am the marble creature in a nest of dreams
he breathes on as he ponders his slow way
the moon hangs on his arm — she tosses torch-like beams
they whisper — but I can’t hear what they say.

The stars — cold children trailing — stay far-off and mute
their father’s wrapped them in his purple cloak
there’s too many to imagine — mere fancy can’t compute
all those faces — or the vision they evoke.

The night’s a petty burglar who steals nothing but one thought
left anxious on a table by my head
he has a key to everywhere and thus is never caught
by the living or the all-forgiving dead.

INNER LANDSCAPES

There are a host of no-go areas —
dark and nameless on the rambling map
marked ‘HERE BE DRAGONS’ in perverse italics
that so invite the curious adventurer
to take a short diversion from their journey —
explore the region’s odd seductive gap.

Thought wanders off the path — gives way to whimsy
and all the madness that imagination lends
to landscapes veiled in mystery and lonely
for footsteps in their vast untrodden tracts —
no sign of habitation — just an echo
and a breeze that chills the body through and through...

And from a ridge above a hidden valley
the view unrolls — a wasteland white as bone
with stunted trees, some shattered rock detritus
and nothing else for eyes to rest upon
except the thin bright line of the horizon
mocking with its shifting angled light.

What seems far-distance keeps that distance still —
maintains the unattainable reserve
of secret places — forbidden to disturb
the dust of sacred graves and buried loves
and yet the urge to visit and exhume
braves the barren desert — finds the deepest tomb

despite the risk — the peril threatening —
sly creatures drawn from every myth and dream
who lurk and roar their monstrous fantasy —
spread fear upon the air so every breath
is tainted and hangs heavy as a stone
inside the chest — aching — sensing more

than sight or sound can bring or nerve translate.
This journey is a strange unravelling
of shadows and bizarre vague patterning —
abstract — sudden detail carved — designed
by wayward gods who send truth-seekers through
the inner landscapes of uncharted minds —

to wander those grey netherworlds until
enlightenment drops grainy subtle dusk
across the hills to mollify — placate —
the ghosts of legend gathered in their caves
to whisper names and etch them ages deep
in memory — the oft-flooded labyrinths of sleep.

SINGLED OUT

There are gods that walk the earth along with men —
I see them in the high street — catch the eye
of beings who aren’t mortal — recognise
their energy — the vapour trail that leaves
a heightened sense of living — sharpens air.

Who they are — or why they come — I do not know
except they single me out from the crowd
and fix me with a certain stare as I pass by
as though it is significant — a sign
I should interpret while I have the time.

They all have faces — perfect marble brows
uncreased and ageless — x-ray vision that sees through
the masks of humans hiding their inherent perfidy —
to where bones keep quiet an aching hollowness —
the skull’s dank cage for every dangerous ideal.

It seems I swim forever in their slipstream
of elusive power — drawing a deep breath each time I almost touch
some floating hem. I search the wayside for a footprint
in the dust but they are mist — air and drops of water —
there is no earthbound proof of them.

All is random — it can be any day’s glad mirage —
this glimpse of deities coupled arm in arm along the strand
who taunt me with their ‘come and join us’ silent gaze —
had I the nerve to dare I would accept the invitation —
stroll the world with gods and know their changing names.

WARNING SONG

Beware the sea-witch — she has charms
To turn the strongest weak —
A stolen body her disguise,
A mouth that doesn’t speak.
So, Look away! Oh, look away!
And do not meet her eye,
And never kiss her salty lips
Or earthly dreams will die.

She’ll find you in the dawning light
And stage a touching scene
’Til pity brings you to your knees
And sense can’t intervene —
But, look away! Just look away!
Recall the warning’s true —
Pray for faith and strength of will
To see this madness through.

The sea-witch dwells in darker realms —
But she is drawn by need
Up through the waves on stormy nights
To hunt for souls and feed.
So, steal yourself, and look away! —
Save yourself instead —
She doesn’t live, she doesn’t breathe —
A ghost invades your head.

Heed the legend — know the witch
Behind sweet flesh and bone —
She wears a mask to tempt and trick
That flesh is not her own —
Best look away! Oh, look away!
Resist her mute appeal,
Banish beauty from each thought —
This vision is not real.

The sea-witch has a magic strong
To mermerize the mind —
Her victim caged — a tiny bird
In darkness — lost and blind.
Oh, look away now! Look away!
Before it is too late,
Avert your gaze, defy her strength
And leave her to her fate.

It’s told she has unmeasured lives —
Far more than tales might tell,
Her evil can take many forms
All spawned in some black hell.
So, look away! Oh, look away!
She may appear a child,
But show no mercy, turn your back
Or risk your heart beguiled.

To kill the sea-witch, break her spell
With purifying fire —
Burn the creature while she sleeps —
Heap driftwood for her pyre.
But look away! Oh, look away!
Don’t watch her cold moon eyes
That glow so baleful, cursing all
Who crave her swift demise.

Be vigilant! The sea’s old witch
Can turn the purest heart
Away from love and all that’s true.
She’ll rip the soul apart.
So look away! Oh, look away!
From her hypnotic glare —
She’s ugly underneath that veil —
Her loveliness a snare —

So, look away! Turn right away!
Don’t hesitate or doubt
The wisest man is on his guard
For fear she’ll catch him out.

CULTIVAR

Blown in from some flesh-garden dream
spores settle on uncovered skin
and find a hold — an old scar’s thin
fissure — moist — to bury in.

They worm and worry down — slow-thrust
their needle roots through my warm dust
spreading wide — they anchor — suck
unfold new baby leaves and grasp
with plump and shiny blood-rich hands
that ripple — wave to every sigh
as I give succour — let them thrive —
allow them all their needs.

I look for flowerheads to pluck
as they grow wilder — hungrier
for light and space — I must prune back
and discipline unruly shoots
that drain me even as I cut —
before they choke me — use me up —
my body’s water table dropped —
whole layers lost — eroded — gone —
my contours changing — peeling sand
I’ve fast become a desert land.

A trace of nurture lingers still —
that instinct to protect the young —
propagate unlikely spawn —
but evolution’s lost its way
this time. The deep maternal urge
is overturned — I rip and tear
these parasites who swarm like hair
across my body’s boundaries —
invade me like I do not own
the country of my birth.

This horticulture’s suicide
so I commit infanticide —
I slash and burn them free —
recycle every limb-like stem
while guilt wants to remember them
as more than rampant weeds.

THE GHOST OF FUTURE PAST

I dreamt one night I sat and ate
when sudden by the dim-lit door
a shadow lurked — stood faint and grey
where certain there was none before.

It wavered like a candle flame
and as I stared incredulously
a face familiar as my own
but old and tired looked back at me.

I felt no fear but shared its pain
and when at last it spoke to me
the taste of food upon my tongue
corrupted — sickened bitterly.

I traced the wrinkles on its face —
this crone — my likeness — as she lisped
a cryptic warning from beyond
some temporal obscure abyss.

I woke — cold sweat upon my brow
and troubled by an unsure state
of wondering what all this meant —
this preview of my haunted fate.

All the next day my thoughts returned
as that same question nagged my brain —
I felt detached — apart from life —
and worry drove me half-insane.

Night came — the same dream in reverse —
I was the ghost — a younger me
sat selfish — gorging warm and snug
while I observed her hungrily.

I felt strange words rise to my lips
like poison — spat them into air —
they burned to smoke and left the tongue
seared and blistered with despair.

Again I woke in fevered mood
frantic for unconscious peace
and praying dreamless sleep might come
and such disturbing visions cease.

They would not leave me — thick and fast
the nights that followed crowded in —
a host of shades — all figures known —
a pageantry of kith and kin.

Like some macabre and tragic play
the scenes unfolded — held me fast —
the leading actor trapped in time
and overshadowed by her past.

And so I travelled — went abroad
convinced a change would do the trick —
out-distance demons of the mind
and thus their senseless schemes outwit.

They chased me — silent — mile on mile
their voices chiding at my ear —
a constant chorus indistinct —
their language harsh and never clear.

I journeyed further — into lands
my worn imagination found
soothing for their simple ways —
a calm pervaded — wrapped around

and lifted doubts that had weighed long
on sanity — my sleep was blessed
with kinder dreams — their flavours sweet
and there — at last — I found some rest.

The room I have is white and plain —
no rug upon its wooden floor —
and medication is my friend —
no shadows now beside the door.

The mirror tells me time goes by —
I seek its silver and recall
a younger face a brighter eye
of someone lost — not me at all.

For change within and change without
has brought contentment — I’m resigned
to years ahead — meanwhile I’ll take
what drops of comfort faith can find.

HIGH ON THE SCALE OF WEIRD

A stranger in the city and the surging crowd
indifferent — I was drowning in that sea
grown rough — a human tide that flowed so purposeless
                                and loud
it didn’t feel or hear anxiety
rising through the squirming crush —
the choppy waves of shove — the parting push...

thus I was torn away — borne off — and cast adrift
currents swept me helpless with their rush
of random pulsing energies — the separation swift
and night on the horizon — a fluttering of dusk.
I felt around — seeking some sense or direction but
                                finding none
amidst an archipelago of unfamiliar stone.

The buildings morphed from modern — losing height
they straggled — poorly planned — a maze of archways
and half-abandoned dwellings unconscious of their semi-
                                ruined plight
where children — thin unhealthy creatures — played
as though this was their reality — not mine —
and I’d wandered like some vague unwitting ghost
                                into their time.

Fearful of reaction — and unsure I could be seen
I approached a young girl of maybe ten or so —
she gave me a grave look — so serious — her perception
                                keen
— as though some unspoken communication let her know
I was a stranger — lost — somehow misguided through
                                a gap
needing directions — a kind word pointing the way back...

If she was an angel she was a grubby one
and the clue she offered was cryptic and offhand —
                                then she was gone.

Beyond there was a field of tents — roofs of coloured canvass
stretched and sprawled — mushroomed gaudy — sprung
                                from weary browned-off green —
the earth a trampled dust under guy ropes — what remained of
                                grass
wove a narrow canyon inbetween
the rides — the stalls — those novelties on show —
a penny just to spot the freak in some dark space where lights
                                where turned low...

An odyssey through landscapes alien — where monster shadows
                                loomed —
a dream of obstacles — symbolic — a new variety of fear
that froze me like a runner on the spot — a gibbous moon
trailed along — recording every phantom that appeared
noted in quicksilver faces — sketched rough among clouds
as the city square fell back in place — bigger now and emptied
                                of its crowds.

A familiar strangeness or — more accurately — strangely familiar
the trick would melt on waking for such dreams deceive...
the everyday a blend of the peculiar —
illogical — far-fetched — too wild to be believed...
the brain measuring as the moment of consciousness neared
how high the journey scored on the scale
                                of weird.

BANSHEE

She had a feyness spun about her —
more than just the wildness in her eyes —
their blue-grey shift hid under lashes dropped wingdark
to shield a mock-shy cunning — her disguise.

Slender-armed, long-fingered
flesh as fresh as springtime stems
that curled around him — possessive
she ensnared him with illusions — love-magick spells

danced him dizzy in the full moon’s glow
and lured him to the fields —
those long-grass uneven acres never ploughed
for fear of waking those best left asleep.

She wore a ribbon threaded through her hair —
green silk gleamed in that nest of thick red-brown
she picked a spray of nightshade’s purple stars
with yellow centres — pinned it to her tattered bridal gown

and on Midsummer’s Eve she led him down
beside the brooding river’s edge
where willow curtained them from view
and she showed him her true face.

From that day on he was a man in thrall —
emptied of all spirit — hollowed out —
thin and pale — an echo of himself
addicted — trailing her — ceaselessly — about.

His farm fell into ruin and decay —
crops withered and the animals took sick
it seemed he hardly noticed when they died —
his thoughts on her — distracted — untouched by loss.

The legend says he disappeared — or maybe drowned
she’s found a new love since — some unsuspecting youth
who caught her eye and lacked the strength of will
to turn away temptation — send her back — wailing —
                                to her mound of earth.

She’ll live off him until he, too, gives up his life —
trading promises for myths
while she gives nothing of herself except
an echo that believes in this world — or the next —
                                every dream exists.

NIGHT VISITOR

Unannounced — and always after dark
you find my door — defy both bolt and lock
I smell that subtle blend of woodland musk —
your breath upon my skin provokes a shock.

You move about my room — a shifting cloud
of particles like dust caught in a draft
then settle in your chair — the quietness loud
and waiting to be broken — minutes pass...

What makes you come? — What draws your presence here?
What can you want from me? — A soul alone
in every sense — none other living near —
this refuge is the only space I own.

Yet uninvited — like some restless tide
no walls of stone can keep from rolling in —
you bother me — take up your place inside
my thoughts — these overwrought imaginings...

I feel your eyes invade my private dreams
your sympathy is suspect — I’m afraid
I’m falling for your supernatural schemes
for madness lurks when sanity’s mislaid.

This slow seduction when the moon is high
and bats are streaming nightwards from the eaves
there’s no one more susceptible than I
to spirits redolent of earth and leaves...

I dread your kiss — and yet the heart of me
perverse and tuned to matters strange and fey
would welcome that embrace — atomically
merge form with form — then weightless float away...

I long to trust you with my fragile fate
but life has robbed me of all true belief
in anything — and thus I hesitate
to shed this flesh along with all its grief

and dwell in a dimension rarely seen
peripheral to vision’s forward view —
the ghost of someone who I may have been —
a thin amorphous shimmer sliding through...

If you are phantom charged to tempt me home —
back to some realm that’s virtual — free from pain —
this last existence deemed a time on loan —
my days unsure — the future less than sane —

then touch me now — infect me with desire
to leave this life and join with you in yours
the hour’s late — I feel resistance tire —
I’m flinging wide those timid mental doors

that locked me in. My soul takes on new shape —
such transmigration dreamed and dreaming on
while crafting wings to ease the mind’s escape —
and knowing — come the dawn — we’ll both be gone.

ALONE WITH THE DEAD

They are undemanding company —
sympathetic to my tales of woe —
I sense their quiet empathy —
silence indicating that they know
exactly how I’m feeling — bowed by grief
shared sorrow merging — rising from beneath.

This dusty air hangs comfortable —
I’m easy with its shadows closing round
death’s perfume faintly hovering
where marble leans on consecrated ground
and names erode — all things will fade and rot
yet dreams persist that love alone will not.

Romantic ghosts are gathering
crowding me for comfort like a fire —
they warm themselves in memory
nostalgia our sole theme — they never tire
of listening — absorbing every word —
the hush intense — confirming that they’ve heard.

THE NUN’S CURSE

Oh I was unholy when I lay myself beside him —
a novice — penitent — I hoped that he would fill
my hollow reed with wine I’d never tasted —
swamp my spirit — drown whatever evil
                                he might find...

I am a child of flesh — first and foremost
a vessel tainted by the things of earth
and I dreamed that he would cleanse me as he took me
and peeled away black layers in the dark
                                and touched my mind.

He chanted over me with sour breath and did not heed my cry
of fear when he found my sorry skin and pressed
his body down and in — forcing me to give
my unworthy self — he stifled my distress
                                with a rough hand.

Pain is the blessing he insisted — hissing in my ear
as he punished me with bruises and with blood
and I suffered long afterward and kept
our secret in the way he said I should —
                                it was God’s plan.

And now he’s gone — I’ve come to pay respects
and witness how a bishop’s bier is strewn
with the whitest flowers sacrificed — those buds
barely opened — petals pure in that stale gloom
                                given up to death.

And although my sisters mourn I cannot weep
or find any scrap of pity — my heart’s as cold
as he is now — for goodness — true compassion — he had none
in all his life — resigned as he grew frail and old
                                to Hell I guess.

Hard vows of silence cover more than Mother knows —
she keeps her questions to herself — her beads are worn
from fingering — her eyes are moist these days
with secrets and suspicions so long-borne
                                they weigh her down.

I watched her place one flower on his stately tomb —
one lily when she thought we were at prayer
but I had followed when I saw her slip away
and witnessed how she trembled — lingering there —
                                crying without sound.

Her guilt is safe — I hoard it with my own
and wonder — just we two? — or maybe more
in this house of women he once plundered as his due —
did he take a virgin every time he blessed the poor
                                the sick and dying?

I have glimpsed it in my sisters as they kneel
so intent in their devotions — meek and other-worldly-mild —
many young as I was — naive — for wisdom comes too late —
he stole my innocence — killed that too-trusting inner-child —
                                I hope he’s frying!

THE MERMITE’S SONG

From deep inside the realm of dreams
a bubble rises up and gleams
reflecting like a window pressed with faces
and soft as lullabies among
the coral drifts the mermite’s song
in echoes from a thousand far-off places.

The sea’s both cradle and the grave
and down in its forgotten caves
the mermites live — their legends blue with longing
for mothers who without regret
abandoned them — their babies fret
existing in a world of not belonging

to anyone or anything
so comforting themselves they sing
their voices haunt the very edge of sleeping
with lyrics rippling through our dreams
and touching on those childhood themes
we recognise our own hearts quietly weeping

and all those secret sorrows we’ve been keeping...

BITE ME!

Oh, those men who look as though they want to eat you! —
Taste you like some vintage rare and warm —
the wine that bubbles through the skin’s rose tissue
a lure to which the hungry beast is drawn.

It’s in their eyes — their appetite shines chilling
in contrast to the heat that drives them on
to search for victims — feast upon the willing
once mesmerized all reservations gone.

So dangerous and dark — so charismatic
their brand of sinful loosens every bow —
buttons give — right down to prim elastic —
it’s Hammer time — film’s old scenario

shot horribly exciting and explicit —
that awful need erupts from every pore
as love and loathing curdle to exquisite
and nothing seems forbidden any more.

There’s no censoring for souls who fail to fathom
how fascinating vampire men can be —
for who wants to contemplate the fiery chasm
when swaying on the edge of ecstasy?

So, come bite me in my dreams you dashing demon! —
I’m ready to surrender my rich blood —
I know your type — you barely pass as human
while smiling like some bold seducer would.

And I swear that I won’t scream — such pain is passing
or so I’ve heard — there’s nothing like your kiss —
it’s fair exchange for life that’s everlasting
all hunger sated in one moment’s bliss...

So, bite me — go on — bite me — I implore you! —
I’m frozen in the searchlight of your stare —
across the room I let my heartbeat draw you
pulsing its quick drumbeat like a prayer.

If hooves you have — and horns — they will not fright me —
I quite expect a wicked show of teeth —
so take a bite and thoroughly delight me
or sling your hook and leave a girl in peace!

HALF-BLOOD

She somehow knows she has wings — they are without true
shape or form — intangible in every normal sense
except for instinct’s simple eye.

They bud at night — break out from mental skin
slit like a sheath — unfold and start their beat
grown keen to part the air.

As sunset cuts the river’s bright umbilical
fresh blood streaks a dying sky
and she’s left flying blind.

Thrown from the earth — an offspring with no name
evolved from recent congress — an anomaly —
some Lolita angel with a holy man.

Now one foot’s planted in each world —
she skims the edge so close to an idea of heaven
she feels her mortal spirit burn.

The human half of her pulls back — afraid of pain
while seeking immortality’s ice-glow — her off-
white feathers mute a host of questionings.

Limbo offers what it can — a haunted ruined halfway house
for every being judged impure — souls tainted
by cross-birth. She flutters blameless — spurned.

VISITATION

There are those nights when — wistful — a faint sigh
almost-heard — disturbing — flutters by
and curtains move a fraction like a draught
has caught their hem as something brushes past

air trembles in its wake — invisible —
but some slight sense perceives the room is full
of fine vibrations — notes too high to hear —
they gather — hum — infest the atmosphere

with vapour-streams above a quiet lagoon
that glimmers — shards reflected — pale as moon
shapes swim through ether — rise like pensive souls
of lonely creatures — shadows unconsoled —

now visiting — drawn close by empathy —
a layered calm — thought’s grey geology
receptive to whatever forms that come
to press themselves for comfort — find a crumb

of human understanding — one whose mind
accepts world-weary spirits — every kind
of guest who seeks a corner of the night
to rest awhile and share the candle’s light.

SPIRIT GUIDES

They say the dead are all around us —
some nights I would agree —
I feel them close —
the sighs, the soothing whispers
hover — crowding me —
they seem a friendly host
and keen to share my worldly cares —
they gather in to hear
my thoughts — as though I draw them near —
a sympathetic audience.

If ghosts they are — they are benign
not fretful beings sent to warn
or frighten — but visit from time to time
to reassure I am not forgotten
now that they’ve moved on to higher things
yet stay in touch on some tangential plane
communication subtle — voices soft —
the far-off hiss of steady rain
that lulls the senses — takes the mind way back
down nostalgia’s never-changing track.

STEEPLECHASE

Night gallops wild
a foam-flecked horse
eyes staring wide
a crazy course
of obstacles
piled deep and high
the shadows loom
on every side
each sneering face
with awful grin
stick fingers poke
breath wheezes thin
the rider kicks
tall treetops whip
the moon a prize
her lamp unlit
the clouds have thunder
in their bowels
ghosts are hunting
white as owls
across the meadow
rolls the mist
every blade
and bush is kissed
hangs their silence
like a veil
the toss of mane
the swish of tail
the drum of hooves
a blood-shot eye
the sweat-soaked mare
goes pounding by.

UNDER LOCK AND KEY

There is a lock — the key is lost —
and those strange things half-seen — half-dreamed
stay protected — kept in a deep vault
unmeasured and unmeasurable — the mind
unable to imagine so much space
for hoarding what may — or may not — exist.

The lock is old — impossible to pick —
its mechanism triggered by an exact
combination — tone and words — that work
the elements — a psychic smelting not
of this world but ancient-born
from realms ruled by magick.

The ones who made it knew no other way
of separating out the impossible —
the illusions that haunt and shadow — bridge
gaps in conscious thought — melt — distort
the edge of twilight — shapes in smoke
conjured out of superstition’s fear.

All these are secreted safe in there — shielded
from exposure to the sun — all mystery
herded — unnamed monsters caged primitive
in concept — demons — dragons breathe an unquiet air
that presses a dark storm against the door — denied
all the while the lock holds — the key words left unuttered
                                best forgotten.

SPELLBOUND

I dreamed I loved a woodland prince
deep in his brambled bower
bedded soft in silk-webbed sheets
kissed thrice on midnight’s hour
while starlight dressed the lacy ferns
quicksilvered oaks and beeches
and stranger trees — rare-berried — hung
with fruits like frosted peaches.

Among the shifting shades I glimpsed
a host of faeries winging
while every mortal creature froze
enchanted by their singing...
such sweetness held me like a drug
it claimed both heart and soul
and every memory I had
their magick quietly stole.

The prince beside me charmed my eye
his skin so pale and glowing
his tender look upon me fell
and I was lost — not knowing
the ways of faeries and their spells —
their trickery and guile —
he did not need to tie or chain
but bound me with his smile.

A full moon in the branches sailed
its witchery beamed down
drew night’s sly creatures from the dark
to gather all around
with faces fay from myth and yarn —
tradition’s folk tales told
to every child on mother’s knee
brought shivers — turned flesh cold.

A fancy fluttered through my head
a whisper chilled my ear
and settled soft as scattered dust —
a feathering of fear...
then as I watched my handsome prince
transformed before my eyes
without one word of warning shrugged
and peeled off his disguise

recalling some old picture book
whose illustrations show
a likeness truly hideous —
the shock unnerved me so
to think I’d nestled in those arms
kissed lips now sneering cruel —
a willing slave to love proved false
and me the witless fool.

The singing turned to laughter harsh
that stung me through and through
I struggled from the bramble’s nest
all scratched and drenched with dew.
Moon hid herself behind a cloud —
made black as pitch the night
I fled between dense-crowding trees —
took blind and frantic flight.

I stumbled — fell — got up again
in fear of swift pursuit
their laughter followed — mocking me —
I tripped on every root
as though the whole of Elfland was
in league — had cruel intent
I found no exit — no escape
whichever way I went.

At last — exhausted by the run
I crouched and caught my breath
fearing sense and sanity
were failing fast — and Death
waited in that haunted wood
to snare me — trap my mind
in some deluded half-wit state
condemned by humankind.

I prayed and felt the draft from wings
beat fierce as they flew past
and eerie lights streamed ghostly-green
their long thin shadows cast
nightmare shapes — eyes everywhere
and still the laughter came
echoing while one voice called
repeatedly — my name.

I held my breath until my lungs
near-burst and terror filled
my heart — which pounded painfully
despite how hard I willed
myself to calm — it thumped as loud
as any warning drum
and hope gave way to crushing dread —
prayers died upon my tongue.

A prickle travelled head to toe
hairs stood up on my skin
I felt his power charge the air —
it tainted everything
with malice — like a curse called down —
a spell done out of spite
with no concern — no thought at all
for moral wrong or right.

I felt his bite — his rodent teeth
his skin now cool with scales
his bony limbs as strong as steel
his hands grew claw-like nails
he cackled in a language old
I could not understand —
I swooned in horror — dreading what
his wickedness had planned.

Darkness dragged me down and down
I lost all sense of time
I floated in a netherworld —
no reason and no rhyme —
then from that dream I came awake
one morning found me cold
and curled upon a mossy bank
my body thin and old.

And none believed the truth of it
they ridiculed my claim
that faeries stole my precious youth —
my sorry plight became
a joke at first — and then I found
my listeners ignored
the tale repeated — blow by blow
they rolled their eyes — looked bored...

For weeks I searched the woodland paths —
sought long that brambled spot
where once I’d lingered so enrapt
all jeopardy forgot —
and sometimes when the day grew dim
I fancied that I caught
the echo of that laughter shrill —
cruel creatures at their sport —

imagined some poor innocent
and unsuspecting child
had been waylaid — enticed away
and callously beguiled...
In realms of sleep I see his face
since love and hate seem one
I wane a little with the moon
and hide before the sun...

Something in my nature’s changed —
I wash my hair in dew
and sing strange songs with stranger words
I never dreamed I knew
while scented breeze is blowing soft
to lift my hem and sleeve
stitched with cobwebs — a fine gown
to wear Midsummer’s Eve.

I have no way of sifting out
the happy thoughts from sad
nor judging things as others might
or choosing good from bad —
the blood that trickles through my veins
is tainted with a hex —
I’ve one foot in this mortal land
and one foot in the next.

His shadow falls across my life —
Hear how he chants my name!
He’s waiting for me in the wood
and memory’s a flame
that flickers dim — Fate has me cursed
and spellbound — doomed to cross
that dark divide to claim back youth
but stay forever lost.

LISTENING TO THE DARK

Wordfall — odd cryptic warnings pitter-pat
tones icy as cold showers punishing
blown in from some far foreign part
annexed on the tired mind’s map.

A plague of doubt consumes fresh-budded thought
devouring sleep with buzz-talk — worry rasps
grinds sanity to crumbs and still hums on
gathers — moths to light bulb — strings along
a bumbling logic nagging up a storm.

The dark grows thick — the whisperers crowd in
crushing silence in a seat right at the back
the room a box of groans and shuffled sighs
insisting air should echo — savour sound.

Shallow dreams of language — rumours swarm
against the ear half-cocked in dread
and not wanting to hear anything except
one distant voice that ushers in
expiring night’s last breath.

EXPERIMENT IN ESP

‘Imagine a room,’ they instructed,
‘people it — give it some life.’
And I pictured a young woman playing
a piano by soft candlelight.

Her face was a study in sorrow
and the music was painfully sad —
the tune chilled me through like a river
in flood and the feeling I had

told of loss — I was swamped with sensations,
dragged down by the weight of her grief,
as I struggled to keep myself focused
and clutched mental straws for relief.

Then she stopped with a sigh and a shudder
that echoed the ache in her soul,
and it flew like an arrow to pierce me,
left a deep and unpluggable hole.

And, turning, it seemed that she sensed me,
somehow knew that somebody was there,
watching and sharing the moment —
a presence that shadowed the air.

Her low voice broke the gathering tension,
‘Is it you?’ And I longed to reply —
send word from another dimension
that might meet the faint hope in her cry.

She stood close — I could smell English roses,
her sweet, subtle eau de cologne
wafting its false scent of summer
that mourning had claimed for its own.

And I fancied I heard the silk rustle
of the widowhood skirts that she wore,
making marble-pale skin look the paler
against the black badge that she bore.

Once again she addressed the strained silence —
‘Are you there?’ And I felt something break
like a heartstring within me had parted,
snapping clean for sheer pity’s own sake.

And I answered in thought waves transmitted
on a frequency tuned long and low
and the ghost of a smile lit her features
like a winter sun’s rays touching snow.

Was compassion misguided or foolish
to reach out across Death’s abyss
and offer a sign to console her,
albeit a counterfeit kiss ?

For it seemed then her spirit was lifted,
she returned to the keyboard and played
a melody tranquil and mystic,
her fear’s raging turmoil allayed.

Moments later, and contact was broken,
I returned to the present alone
with the knowledge that what passed between us
had escaped on the ether and flown.

‘And what did you see ?’ came the question,
I searched the far distance and sighed,
evasive, I nurtured my secret
and, when pressed for an answer, I lied.

She lives on in my thoughts, playing Chopin —
her music a landscape of themes,
and I follow her notes as they echo
through the paper-thin walls of my dreams.

ALMOST VISIBLE

Like a lake disturbed by one rogue ripple
the air in this room dithers — swirls
light patches tremble
colour dissolves as the moment’s tautened surface —
gauze-flimsy — is broken
greyed by some vague cloud.

Nothing shows — no shape
or shadow looms —
presents itself as cause
while walls exhale a silence that feels close
to a low utterance.

The door — tight-lipped and wooden —
stands past expressing
what might be a dim-light fantasy —
a presence passing through —
stray atoms balanced on the edge of mirage
so nearly seen
but sight and sense not keen enough —
the pattern too elusive and oblique.

ULTERIOR

There are reasons beyond reasons
the mind is loathe to tell —
the crazy stuff pushed deep and shadowy
too nightmare-ish to confess
it seethes its own dark logic —
bubbles quiet as a buried well.

The sun has a bloody tinge — an ancient stain
that will not lift despite
the morning smile — the brightness of the day —
it broods a memory —
a scar upon the skin
no clever mental trick can quite erase.

Thoughts run to liquid — seep
up through the rock and bone
despite the voice that quells —
whispers to undo the spell of bitterness
its acid trace
like bile from some dead belly.

Sometimes the madness spills a drop
of its slow poison and corrupts
the view — a black sun sets
behind Death’s mountain
and the moon’s cloud-blinded eye
can’t find the stars.

A LITTLE MAKE-BELIEVE

A lisping voice unnerves the breeze
A bubble pocks the lake
A hare’s transfixed where grasses freeze
A cloud drops one white flake

A dozen more then follow down
A rook flies arrow-straight
A clock chimes in the distant town
A stranger climbs the gate

A silence spreads across the land
A rumour haunts the sky
A lantern flickers close at hand
A shadow shivers by

A tension broods deep in the wood
A phantom stalks the track
A figure goes where no one should
A wiser man turns back

A howling starts as snow falls fast
A blizzard’s setting in
A spell upon the evening’s cast
A chill knifes sharp and thin

A winter’s scene in black and white
A sketch in cold and fear
A hint of what is out of sight
A clue to what lurks near

A hut whose chimney wheezes smoke
A window gleams with flame
A legend told by local folk
A creature with no name

A picture in a children’s book
A clump of spindly trees
A reader half-afraid to look
A tingle of unease

A story born so long ago
A yarn to match the age
A mystery no mind can know
A riddle on each page

A rhythm dogs the ghostly tale
A heartbeat measures time
A tooth bites anxious on a nail
A sigh forbids a rhyme

A volume bound with brittle spine
A cover scuffed and torn
A flight of fancy near-divine
A parody of form

A view of life the author brings
A fiction through and through
A pause while reason weighs such things
A chance they could be true.

WAR GAMES

Black ants are rolling round tiny skulls the size of sugar grains
expressions of surprise frozen on those white once-human faces
as the insects, pitiless and methodical according to their nature
pass them down the line like it is some age-old game

strict in its rules — their clockwork team streams confident
all precision kick-along played on some narrow unmarked field
where goals and goalmouths are imagined and the count
is kept a secret — numbers swarm and fade in drifting fog.

A skull makes a last bid for freedom — slides down a slope
                                grown slick from blood’s slow soak
the ants too regimented to break formation and retrieve
one frantic escapee — their waving conveyor belt of legs
programmed — no room for innovation.

Alone and camouflaged in a thin covering of mould, the skull sings
bitter of its fate, mourning unknown others — all the races ever lost
to that dark nest where monsters gather in remains —
stack high their staring pyramids of skulls — gloat over worthless
                                trophies.

KILLED

I had such dreams last night —
the wind like Satan’s dog
howling in the trees —
the beast came back for you
found you once again
and dragged you off.

The forest’s full of rain —
the paths a maze of blood
I heard the nightbird’s call
and knew it was no good
to follow — try to find
the tracks your killer left.

I know you fought him well —
the light was very dim
eyes were all around
watching you with him
waiting for a sign
that it was done.

In faith you had a sword
but strength had bled away
wounded as a lamb
in thorny thicket lay
you gave in to the night
let death begin.

Dawn, untroubled, came
saw you fallen where
two hidden paths had crossed
fixed your final stare
past leaves and broken cloud
to glimpse the moon.

WHY THE SHE-GOD ATE HER OWN BABY

It had a smell so succulent and sweet
squealing on her nerves — all piglet-pink
it nuzzled, grizzled, wouldn’t let her sleep
denied her any space to dream or think.

A monster held her in its dimpled hand
demanded that she feed it, give her time
it wasn’t the scenario she’d planned
her powers drained, she contemplated crime

convinced herself she’d given birth to one
who was a demon formed in chubby guise —
this being was unnatural — not her son
she saw deception glinting in his eyes.

She felt unwell — her hormones gave her hell
her mood and temper fluctuating wild
she lashed out with a plague, and drought as well
and blamed it on the fat and greedy child.

Her worshippers grew nervous, in their fear
prepared a more than generous sacrifice...
erratic now, her logic far from clear
she vent more spleen and cruelly cursed them thrice.

They sent a wise man, humble, to her shrine
he chanted verses endlessly that rose
and caught her ear, tapped in to the divine
his soothing voice acknowledging her woes.

She drooled a little — hunger made her ache
grown desperate for some feasible excuse
to feed on her own flesh and coolly break
that old taboo — the ultimate abuse.

Maternal feelings (had there ever been
a bond to sever) melted like spring snow
the boy was irksome — noisy and obscene
and there were plenty more like him below.

He tasted much like all the others had
she gave a subtle burp, a gentle cough
an accident — the tale she’d tell his dad
consoling — since they’d both be better off.

WELCOME TO THE WILDERNESS

Welcome to the wilderness — the growing church of the outdoors —
hear the hallelujah chorus of the river’s throaty roar
as it celebrates each season with exuberant display
and tumbles over boulders strewn along its narrow way.

See where water fashions limestone into shelves of living rock
and a host of hanging lichens spread their patchwork altar cloth,
and nature carves dark shadows in a pagan bas-relief
with untempered blades of sunlight thrust through canopies of beech

whose columns soar, cathedral-sheer, above their crooked aisles
and mossy hassocks, scattered round, leave visitors beguiled,
believing that a spirit moves and lends a mystic sense of grace
to all who meditate and feel at peace within this hallowed place.

Like incense, woodland smells arise, from underfoot the ancient mast
pressed to a carpet soft and damp, gives pungent hints of summers past
and mist descends, wrapping trees in lilac-greys and smoky-blues —
a breath of mystery that veils their timeless beauty. Glowing through

the black-laced intertwine of twigs, vivid scraps of stained glass sky —
moving multi-coloured clouds float their miracles on high —
remaindered glories, distant red and burning gold, as day allows
its revelation to unfold — a glimpse of heaven through dark boughs...

The river sings old, sacred songs — its organ music thunders out
where gorge and gully squeeze the flow of passion through its
                                green-lipped mouth
in praise of this wet wilderness... echoes sweep the forest floors
inviting all who hear its voice — come join the church of the outdoors.

A VISIT TO THE SWEAT LODGE

Cocooned, wombed
in the belly of the tent,
gathered in hot, near-darkness,
rocks steam, release the ripeness of
scattered herbs and damp skin.

Sounds of breathing,
heavy, laboured,
in the intervals between chanting,
while souls float and freed minds
go wandering in the heat

as trance takes over —
fast and dehydration strip
the senses raw and hunger leaps
to those images of faith
tradition carved.

Gods are present,
pressing through heavy air,
touching the blind with visions,
answering prayers,
space fills with the sensation

as spirits join them,
mingle with the scent that rises,
the tang of sweat like incense
from a dozen panting bodies
locked in ceremony.

Shadows move, parted by
a beating eagle’s wing;
ground trembles under hooves
of phantom buffalo herds;
a lone wolf howls —

and so the totem speaks,
its ancient snake-tongued wisdom
falls from fevered lips,
shapes change, dissolve, disguise
their human frailty,

as in their swaying midst
great brother bear rears up,
red-eyed, all-powerful —
a sign in tribal lore
their lands are safe.

SUCKLING

Her whimpers passive now,
still danger broods in that black sweep
of sleep-glued lashes,
a soft cheek covering
claims pardon for her crime,
each grub-curled finger fisted smug —
a deception hiding claws
that clamp on contact.

The sweetness of her smell
a sickly poison seeping through the skin
sweating sundew sugar to ensnare,
beguile the buzzing hormones.

Her victim-mother chained to duty’s rock,
waits listless in her cracking flesh that bleeds —
can’t avoid her urgent questing mouth
when midnight feeds
this vampire child, hard-gummed
with nascent fangs and frantic for some goodness,
drains her dry, four-hourly by the clock —
shows no remorse.

SKY BURIAL

No cold earth bed for me
but tree-top high,
cradled in thick branches
like a lullaby
rocking in the wind
and warmed by sun,
open to the rain,
my bones undone
and every atom freed —
all I ever was
dissolving in thin air
as vapour does.

No sombre sepulchre
or expensive stone
where, uniformly boxed,
corpses rot alone.
Instead, the brush of leaves,
the pat of rain,
the stabbing beaks of birds
without the pain,
the clear uncluttered view
of sky and space —
a disassembling,
going back to base.

SHROUD

I have this skin
I’m buckled in
which masks another —
a stranger self
an unreal pelt —
no earthbound mother

conceived of me
evolving free
of Darwin’s science
and thought cells spawn
a spirit worn
in pure defiance.

The trick begins —
I am two skins —
an inner layer
none can see
while outwardly
the grey gets greyer.

The mould is thin —
sense floats within
emotion surges
in blind attack
as through a crack
truth emerges.

THE THIRTEENTH STAIR

I met a ghost one midnight
she passed me on the stair
I felt her breath upon my cheek
her lips upon my hair.

I knew not why she kissed me
what drew her soul to mine
her face glowed like a candle flame
her presence near-divine.

She paused but for a moment
though time — it seemed — stood still
I couldn’t help but tremble as
my blood began to chill.

Nor could I speak for shaking
the words caught in my throat
blind panic took a-hold of me
I feared that I might choke.

Like she’d read my thoughts, she smiled
as though to soothe and calm
help reassure my racing heart
she really meant no harm.

Then a strange peace descended
and held me in its thrall
my mind detached and floated free
I felt no fear at all.

The air was ice around me
it wrapped me tight with cold
sensation drained right out of me
I watched my skin grow old.

Each layer thinned and wrinkled
brown age spots bloomed and spread
dark whiskers sprouted like some crone’s
my nails all cracked and bled

while she grew ever-younger
more luminous and fair.
Significant it happened as
I reached the thirteenth stair...

Fate picked me as her victim
I never knew her name
my youth was what her soul desired —
the reason why she came.

She sucked out my energy
left my poor body dry —
now I’m a shell of who I was —
an echo passing by

who haunts the stairs at midnight
just one thing on my mind —
to steal the precious lifeblood from
the first young throat I find.

THE WHISPER

The whisper comes from some far place —
it lisps through chink and crack —
telling secrets dark and old —
strange chilling thoughts seep back.

It hisses — stretches ancient vowels
it threatens — spreading fear
to those who listen — ill at ease —
its voice drawn thin but clear

and piercing through the night wind’s wail
to find one soul awake
who understands its taunting words
that cause weak minds to break.

Each utterance a curse — a spell
from long-dead lips flows free —
a whisper travelling through time
for all eternity.

No guard can block pure wickedness —
such magick’s much too strong —
transmitted by the blackest heart
those waves roll on and on...

I hear it in the quiet hours
it haunts my shallow breath
slyly twists inside my dreams
’til sleep’s a taste of death.

That whisper plagues my senile years
while peace is all I crave —
not earth nor stone can shut it out —
it waits to share my grave.

STRANGE APPETITES

From nowhere it springs — this pang of desire,
this need that no reason can quell
as it grows to a frenzy of ravenous lust
like a beast that’s been raised by a spell.

Once I loitered in alleys and lingered in crypts
to feed on the quick and the dead,
gnawing on fresh or dark coffin-baked flesh,
all-consumed by a passion part-fed.

But whatever I gorged, my strange appetites grew,
though I swallowed the bones and the skins,
every tooth, every nail, not a hair went to waste,
yet my own body withers and thins.

There’s a worm in my gut and it chews on my heart,
on my liver, my lungs and my brain,
every corpse that I eat it devours in turn
and its greed drives my taste buds insane.

I’m the fantasy ogre — the monster of myth,
the blood-sucking demon from hell
that lurks in the shadows of fear’s lonely pit,
the lunatic loosed from his cell.

And this jacket’s so tight and my thirst’s so intense —
I crave that red syrup, salt-sweet,
that pulses so plainly beneath crisp, white coats
and the smell of their warm, tender meat.

They question me close but I’m muted by pain
and a rumble of hunger unsung,
for the serpent inside me has plans to break free
and has cannibalised my split tongue.

So I crunch on a cockroach and suck bitter soup —
an hors d’oeuvre of live earwigs and flies,
sip a twitching concoction with soft peppered moths
while observers attempt to disguise

the vomit reaction. I grin like the ghoul
they imagine, and slobber and drool,
for I’m biding my time as the menu looks on
while I whip up a silverfish fool.

There’s a doctor I fancy, whose portions are plump,
and his sweat has the stink of decay.
Like a lamb to the slaughter, unknowing, he’s down
as my ultimate dish of the day.

MOTHMAN

I thought I glimpsed his shadow cross the moon —
imagined I had seen a perfect myth —
a dream conjured from a story I half-knew
was fantasy — unlikely as a faerie wish...

Through sleep’s grey veil his face would sometimes stare
bug-eyed yet human — and his scent
rolled like a clover cloud — spread over me
its cloying sweetness — made my senses sing
and want him to come closer — let me see
how dark-winged he was — all creature of the night
and strange with voiceless longing — a raw need
that drew him to me
like an insect to a solitary flower
open to the rain — I let him feed.

I knew his weight — his body firm and furred
his face against my flesh as hunger bit
and gladly I gave up my fearfulness
to share our moment’s agony and bliss.

His shade remains — an echo grey with musk —
a memory of wings that whirred above
churning damp night air and thoughts unsure
of what was real — or maybe less than true.
I’d wanted love — a taste — a lasting touch
he gave me that — the feeling is ingrained —
a stain indelible — that never-fading bruise
an imprint of delirium’s glad pain
like passion’s ghost it lingers cobweb-thin —
an ecstasy that has no spoken name.

On nights the moon is empty — hollowed out
by eyes of wakeful watchers — just like me
still yearning for a promise and obsessed...
I have visions of him fluttering — far off
drawn to some fragrant nectar tree —
my mothman dream-invented monstrous soft
in the realms of his nocturnal territory
and born unfaithful — sipping where he can.

Addiction has me lulled — a gothic mix
of love and loathing drugs me to pretend
there’s hope for romance. My arms like petals bend
open in their welcome offering
desire without conditions — a full-bodied wine
fermented — corked inside me all this time.

I suspect he is a demon fiction-based
with elements of tenderness — a rare
contradiction in my heightened state —
the frenzy he instills — the fever and the chills —
as I watch the moon for shadows — wish on stars
and cradle every fear — as lovers do.

MOON CHILD

On these three nights I dream of you —
the crescent, half and full —
on other nights when skies are bare
I seldom dream at all.

I feel your face, your steady eye
that watches me in sleep
and through that cloudland gauziness
the wonder takes me deep.

And should your heart be black and cold
there’s space enough for me —
you hold me lightly in a cell
the child of fantasy.

I wear your charm around my neck —
its silver spirit sings
fills valleys inbetween the stars
I hear the sweep of wings

And through the snowshine brightness fly —
my feathers angel-spun
where life unfolds in many forms
and death exists in none.

MOONGAZING HARE

See how the moon adores me —
strokes me with her silver where I lie
in the frost-tipped grass
my fur grown crisp under her touch.

I am dazzled by her stare —
her light, my light —
the long shaft of energy we share
a pulse magnetic.

My blood sings a wild chorus
as she fills me with her vision —
her white heart welding fields — the river glows
like solder running thin down dark’s cold edge.

Am I her god or is she mine?
Her face an altar, my form a place of worship
I dream she needs me for her focus
since we are locked in some carved legend
                                for this and other nights to come.

LOCATION

It is a beach I go to in the moonlight
of my own imagining
where the sand stretches a long trail of silver
that glitters wetly
as the waves shush over it
soothing as a lullabye
and water inches its way
to wipe a single line of footprints
from a lone enchanted shore.

It is always night among these rocks —
the pools between are private mirrors where the stars
swim down to rest
and count themselves among the fishes
drowsing in the dark
cushioned by broad fronds of seaweed
and tucked deep in folded fathoms —
layered salty dreams.

The ruin of a lighthouse in the distance
islanded by the incoming tide
is a legendary place where mermaids gather —
I hear their voices singing
a thin descant to
the brine-heavy breathing breeze —
their lure is shrill — insistent —
wind-chilled bodies gleam upon the rough-hewn thrones
of sea-resistant granite
and I am drawn half-willing through the surf
to kneel in wonder — stare perplexed
at the impossible.

One princess of that ocean wears a human face
as though stolen — borrowed from some memory
for this illusion’s purpose
she has for eyes
grey-blue polished pebbles with old secrets kept
and holding me in thrall.

The moon is full of hollow promises —
complicit in a strangely sweet deception
and the souls of all the lovers drowned
struck dumb — remembering
a time and place
where dreams for that one moment seemed
entirely possible...

Lingering — gazing out towards
an unmeasurable horizon
conjured by a romantic need for exploration —
this fantasy location where
the mind’s a solitary traveller
back and forth through time —
the journey never done.

THE BALLAD OF TYLER’S COVE

One summer dawn, the tide at ebb, a west wind from the sea,
A young man toils to mend his nets, no soul abroad save he,
The early sun upon his skin, the singing surf calls wild,
And draws his gaze to where she floats — a naked woman-child.

He pulls her from the lapping waves and wraps her body round,
Her limbs are cold, her eyes like glass, she utters not one sound,
He scoops her frailness in his arms, unsure she is alive,
Implores the gods of sea and sky, prays hard she might survive.

He struggles up the steep cliff path, her dead weight like a stone,
Kicks wide the creaking cottage door and thinks he hears her moan,
A sigh — one faintly salted breath escapes her bloodless lips,
And in his heart a wonder grows as sheer obsession grips...

                                *****

The days pass idle, time stands still — he falls beneath her spell,
And rapture drugs him to a state too deep and dark to tell —
He knows not if it’s day or night, what season rules the sun,
He shuns both family and friends — his sanity undone...

His childhood sweetheart, Annie-May, beats frantic at his door,
He cannot hear her sobs and cries, he thinks of her no more.
A new love claims his witless soul — binds him in its thrall —
The world outside no more to him than shadows on the wall.

Such sorrow crushes Annie-May the shock affects her brain,
She strips the blue-black berries from the hedgerows in the lane,
Their poison stings upon her tongue, brings agony, then sleep,
Her eighteen summers destined for an unmarked grave, dug deep.

Grief gathers in the village as the sorry tale is spread,
And anger rises, quelling fear, as rousing words are said,
And questions burn in every throat, suspicion leaps like flame —
The creature taken from the sea must surely be to blame.

Churchgoing men, and women, too, shrug off their Christian shells,
As superstition rears its head, and rings unholy bells,
That vengeful mob, with torches lit, outside Gull Cottage came,
And, shouting loud in fury, call Charles Tyler out by name...

A silence answers all their threats, an echo trembles round,
Then nothing stirs — the air hangs still — no sight — no smell — no sound —
The door unlocked and no one there — the cottage bare and cold,
As though abandoned years before, its ruin long-foretold.

No sign along the empty strand — the shoreline stretches bare,
His boat, ‘The Seahorse,’ missing from its usual sandbank where
Two sets of footprints trawl a line down to the sea’s pale foam...
And, thwarted thus, the mob disband — in ones and twos, drift home.

                                *****

The years go by... One winter’s storm — the worst in memory,
Leaves driftwood tossed upon the beach — a painted name floats free,
‘The Seahorse,’ wrecked — its shattered planks like matchwood strewn along
The cove where Tyler and his boat were said to vanish from.

What fate befell him, none now care — all legends dim with time,
Ten generations heed the tale committed here to rhyme,
The bay’s since known as Tyler’s Cove, his cottage broods its stone,
Unvisited, for few would want to dally long alone.

A shadow stretches, cold and dark, across the centuries,
Imagination plays with all the possibilities...
While superstition dreads the dawn that follows a bad storm,
Fearing, out there, fathoms deep, the sea-witch is re-born.

THE DAYLIGHT DIMS AND THICKENS

The daylight dims and thickens
quickens shades of night
clawing with cool fingers
along its grey-edged sight.

The dark grows mouths to swallow
hollow shape and sense
all is disappearing
the grainy landscape dense

with sounds — the night wind keening
dreaming of the sun
the season’s clock is ticking —
a sickly moon hangs on

her beams so quickly covered
smothered by sly cloud
her sallow face well-hidden
enveloped in a shroud.

Earth’s pungent scents go drifting
sifting through the trees
a clinging mist that slickens
chills by slow degrees

sends morbid fancy reeling —
peeling shadows press
down upon the rooftops
a broody wakefulness...

The pitch of dark unending
sending waves of dread —
fear’s unfathomed ripples
floating free the dead —

lost flickers in some corner —
forlorner souls who fret —
each pasty-grey gauze glimmer
a half-drawn silhouette...

At last, when dawnlight breaking
aching, births the sun
and demons are sent packing
we keep our inmost one.

LEVIATHAN

The inventive idle mind swims best by night
and launches one enormous and unlikely fish —
a whale of a thought cast spontaneously adrift
and caught by a sudden urgent current —
pulled out into the great dark depths —
almost getting lost in its own limitlessness.

No way to measure weight or time
in this untamed and changeless — floating nameless
place where nothing touches nothing — edgeless
unreality of every sort — while
small and average varieties
of notion shoal and eat each other.

One giant of an idea that rules at least
for now the unimaginable ocean
glides on through and sullen waters part —
give way to bulk — the outsize dream
that threatens to become some monstrous and
too altogether strange obsession.

AMNIOTIC

Evening — late — and the great grey fog rolls in
                off the mumbling sea.
It wraps the beach — it winds its wet embrace
round everything and blinds the distance — muffles
every voice the banished breeze once had — and waves
wheeze in like old men rationing each breath.

Its kiss is cold, its tongue a salty sea dog’s
                furred thick with legend —
superstition has strange creatures swarm when reason
                is subdued
by forms that swirl and fade — dissolve before
their shape is ever fully realised.

Such myths are ancient — laughed at in the sun — but
                when
a winter night combines the elements in such a way
and so suspends them — invokes some binding spell
that locks air and water with a vague unease — then
stories are perceived quite differently.

Something conjured looms — formed in — and out — of fog —
a tumbling mass of fears — while screams are deadened —
lost — absorbed — the stretching land and sea transformed —
merged in all its rock and liquid mysteries —
the birthing chemistry
of monsters.

THE MYSTIC

The boy was born a dreamer —
strange visions filled his days —
imagination schooled him
and led him mystic ways...

Thus he grew to be a loner —
an introspective child
immersed in his own silence —
inscrutable — near-wild.

His thoughts translated wonder —
a poet he became —
his spirit fired by moonglow —
a prophet with no claim

to pictures in the sunset —
the colours that he saw
in new-found worlds of beauty
drawn desolate and raw.

His youthful years behind him
he loved like any man —
unwisely — beyond reason —
as Time’s cruel river ran

and dragged his body under —
drowned him in Death’s flood —
a brother for the angels —
their passion in his blood.

Dark waters smooth an altar
where fish adore his bones
and belief finds understanding
in the memory of stones.

THE JUDDERMAN

An entire existence on the edge of motion —
the trembling expectancy of launching
into what never actually materializes
but remains imminent — always close
to possibility.

He is the repressed/suppressed embodiment —
the distillation of shadows ever-changing —
of every rawness ever felt or thought
his nerves stretch semi-naked — shivering — each twitch
indicates an idea rumbling through the machinery
but fails ultimately to fire the engine.

A locked-in state where energy’s potential
ripples its long snake inside the skin
and no one knows what he knows of his plight —
his constant juddering the only clue
there’s something he would say —
has plans to do —
if only he k-k-k-k —
                                k-k-k-k —
                                                could.

PISCEAN

His coldness makes me shiver with desire —
his ice slow-burns with strange, inverted fire
that drags my latent heat from deep within
to sizzle as it freezes on my skin.

This contradiction fascinates, excites,
the chill’s divine — I plummet from such heights
to ecstasies unknown before the fall,
that sinking, writhing joy exceeding all

I ever felt before — old passions pale;
sensations I thought ultimate, whose scale
so suddenly surpassed, seem feeble since
he touched me, and now I drift, convinced

this transfer is the saving of my soul —
my spirit dreamed, half-fish, and now I’m whole
and swimming wild, tugged free by arctic tides
that wash me, flush the doubt from my insides

and purify with brine. Waves roll to soothe
old scars, internal rhythms rock and move
the silt that choked me, glued me to the land;
I’m floating now, my atoms salt and sand.

And he, who knew the secrets that I kept,
watched over me, unblinking, as I slept
my human life away; infused his kiss
with oceanfuls of icy, burning bliss.

Thus, I’m transformed — quick-silvered alchemy,
love feeds a chilled, transmuted chemistry
that simmers, boils as blue-green bubbles rise
and I’m reborn — seaworthy, in his eyes.

THE WINDOW

How it began...

Dusk — and through my window I gazed long
into the creeping shadows for a sign
of those faint figures glimpsed — too quickly gone
for me to judge as human or divine.

Flesh or spirit? Phantoms strolled the lawn
glowing soft ’til evening folded round
so melted them in twilight — I’d have sworn
I saw them kiss — just briefly — as the sound

of the church clock chimed out its lonely note
and from the eaves a string of bats took flight.
I shivered — ghostly fingers gripped my throat —
a gibbous moon slow-climbed the hill of night.

Sleep came fitfully — I heard a cry —
an owl in the old oak beside the lane
called his mate from hunting fields or sky
then later the soft hiss of steady rain.

I tossed and turned, drew back the sombre drape
of heavy curtains shielding the wet glass
and squinted through the darkness at a shape
uncertain — at some distance — drifting past.

As daylight broke I dressed and stole outside —
a set of footprints tracked the dew-soaked lawn —
they led towards the summer house — I tried
the handle — locked — so onwards through the dawn

between the pines, along a less-used path
where brambles leaned in close to scratch and tear
I found the ruins of a gauzy scarf
caught on thorns ... and one long raven hair.

Intrigued, I took the evidence and kept
my theories to myself — I’ve never told
another living soul as I suspect
they’d label me half-witted — senile — old.

But age has instincts that the youthful lack —
experience unravels truth from dreams —
thus mysteries are solved by looking back
and knowing nothing’s quite the way it seems...

So it’s become a comfort to believe
I don’t live here alone but share my space
with others — and that time has ways to weave
a nest of lives — each given their set place.

I watch them from my window — him and her —
their assignations scripted — known by heart —
they have no need of clock or calendar —
I witness how, on cue, they kiss and part.

And if they sense my presence, they’re resigned
or simply too removed from earthly cares —
perhaps when love’s exclusive — almost blind —
all else seems pale — bliss captured unawares...

I speculate I’ll never know their names
and yet I feel connected to their fate —
I walk with them in dreams — on other plains —
explore an out-of-body timeless state

that empathy allows and finds its match
in being mortal — merely blood and bones —
our histories close parallels — abstract
qualities pure rationale disowns...

I sometimes sense her in this very room —
a perfume hangs — her scarf has the same smell
of flowers — meadow-fresh — each fragrant bloom
blended to a signature known well.

I accept I am obsessed — I could be mad —
my addled brain misled by tricks of light —
delusions may explain the thoughts I’ve had —
hallucinations — fancy taking flight...

I see her in the garden, near the gate
my window faces west and gets the sun
which sets behind the trees — and there she’ll wait
anxious for her secret beau to come.

I fear it won’t end well — this furtive tryst —
for intuition reads it’s surely doomed
while she transmits a clearly loving wish
the vibe from him’s less ardently attuned.

Thus tragedy is set — he will betray
her hopes and dreams and drive her to despair
yet I can’t intervene nor guess the day —
the anticipation’s agony to bear...

As Time goes on...

The tranquilizers help — the nurse is kind —
they’ve upped the medication so I sink
deep into a placid frame of mind
though generally more lucid than they’d think.

It’s years now since it started, maybe more...
my diary long-abandoned as a friend.
There is a pattern — one I’ve known before —
I’m in a loop still searching for the end.

The riddle and the answer once supposed
quite logical, too seldom ever fit —
all questions on the subject likewise closed
and no one really bent on solving it.

So I stare out of my window and stay calm
knowing no one else sees what I see
and sad that I can’t keep her from self-harm —
I’m haunted by some girl I used to be.

HOLY WINE

He’s feeling odd this morning — overhung
and kind of queasy from that wanton feast
where he’d indulged — kept drinking — soused among
those beauties who, expiring, whispered “Beast!”

They’d tasted good — full-bodied, purple wine
dispensed so freely — gushing to excess
from generous necks seductively designed
to arch above each off-the-shoulder dress.

A dozen — maybe more — he did not count
the luscious creatures as he drank his fill
but certainly a liberal amount
or he’d not feel so stomach-churning ill.

He staggers off — afraid he might yet faint
while desperate to escape the rising sun
wishing now he’d sinned with more restraint —
and passed when he was offered the Blue Nun!

GOTHIC NIGHTS

The trees are wringing from the sky
the first few drops of rain,
black branches twist, squeeze harder yet,
the night wind squeals with pain,
devils goad the rising gale —
a beast who stamps and squalls,
snorts its rage through every crack
and kicks at doors and walls.

Rising from the forest’s depths,
a ragged choir of howls
joins the chorus echoing
from earth’s primeval bowels
and shivers run across the skin
as waves disturb the lake,
like some dread monster turns in sleep
when called to come awake.

Who knows what demons are abroad,
what horrors haunt the hills,
when shadows move and myths take shape
and trepidation fills
the heart with something half-believed
that tricks our eyes and ears,
as superstition pricks the spine
we smell and taste old fears.

THAT’S WHY THE LADY IS A VAMP

She’s a real night owl
and sleeps until late
she dresses gothic
when out on a date
she can’t remember
the people she ate —
that’s why the lady is a vamp.

She thinks it’s playful
to toy wih her food
she’s kind of scary
when she’s in a mood
her jokes are wicked
and really quite rude —
that’s why the lady is a vamp.

She likes fresh grave dirt under her nails
black widow veils —
some bloke’s
just croaked...
She hates the sunshine
adores the gas lamp —
that’s why the lady is a vamp.

She’s always hungry
and keen for a feast
she’s never bothered
or freaked in the least
what’s on the menu —
if it’s man, babe or beast —
that’s why the lady is a vamp.

She likes the chill night wind in her hair
a lonely crypt where
as dawn creeps
she sleeps —
she loves old churchyards
they’re cold and they’re damp —
that’s why the lady is a vamp.

THE DARK SQUARE

Contained in a dark square
what little light there is a shifting stain
soaking through thick air.

The angles of the walls, the floor, the ceiling are
a tight geometry of smoothness —
featureless and straight —
too clinical to comtemplate —
this cold precision alien —
no flaw to interrupt the lines
or stimulate.

The square she paces — measures with her eyes
the base of a grey cell
constructed in the deep recess
of someone else’s memory —
they keep her here — ignore her cries...

She’s suffocating in a cube of gloom
where imagination has no room
to stretch itself or breathe.

FANGS

Maybe I’m afraid of you —
maybe I’m not —
I feel the sharp edge of your teeth
against my neck
the cold rasp of your tongue
and yet no breath escapes
between lips drawn back revealing rows
of smooth uncorrupted ivory —
your perfect weapons
unsheathed and testing the tension
of my skin.

This close I smell the musk of you —
the scent of leaves and earth
that lingers — a faint dusting
of decay — dry wood and bone —
nothing that still lives —
and knowing that you are undead
should send a chill — a warning clear
to keep a distance — never let
you near enough to mesmerize
with that deep look — your stare
might stop my heart.

Yet I am calm — and wait
curious to see if you will bite
and how it could feel — that pain
so intimate and ancient in its origins
that old exchange — blood for blood —
all life boiled down to this —
a throbbing vein — desire
rising in the flash-flood threat —
our ice meets fire contradiction —
needs that burn and melt.

Anticipation goads me —
lures me with danger’s fierce attraction —
will you, won’t you
give in to the animal inside?
Does my white living flesh seduce you?
Are you torn by appetites too extreme
to mention?

All this while
your matchless fangs graze
my naked throat —
hover just by the pulse —
I am almost impatient for the chance
I recognise as madness —
to die then live again a shadow-life
in trade for one transfusion —
kiss for kiss.

THE ICE PRINCE COMETH

I anticipate his lips will press a bruise of spreading cold
that numbs me with an ache too deep to bear —
his breath a blast of arctic breeze that blues my trembling cheek
and scatters snowflake crystals in my hair.

His touch will wither — burn me — freeze the bloodflow in these veins —
my heart turns to a glacier inside —
the valley of my body with thought’s mountains veiled in mist
as nerveless as a sacrificial bride.

The sheets on which we’ll lie will be vast snowfields that he brings —
my dowry is the heat he’ll steal from me —
he’ll leave my flesh unfeeling as the Tundra’s frigid North —
a barren world — too bare for modesty.

Though pale as death, he’s handsome — but it’s best to look away
for to try to hold his gaze is far from wise —
he can dazzle in an instant — bring a woman to her knees —
there is ice-melt in his nature and his eyes.

I met him on a pathway, near a village drowned in white
where an avalanche had claimed a brother dear.
I knew him from a legend and he vowed he would return
and take me to his palace leagues from here.

I have waited many winters — traced the rime upon the glass
and dreamed the blizzard brings him in its wake —
sudden hail foretells his coming in the stories I have read
where his shadow looms and haunts the frozen lake.

The icicles drip slowly — grow long teeth from the roof’s edge
and glint with cruel promise like his smile.
Those jewels he sends before him as a gift meant to entrance
a soul already chilled and so beguiled.

The bitter air hangs empty — early dusk draws in the day —
its filtered light slants strange across the floor —
a shiver runs right through me like a dagger to the bone
when at last I hear his knuckles rap my door.

UNBELIEVABLE

The olden giants have come
moving — invisible — through the winter city
breathing on high windows
their hair dragging grim clouds
of gritty pollution in their wake
mouths sucking dawn’s pale blood-streaked sun.

They are silent on tarmac
fingers plucking at exhaust-choked trees
their eyes searching out uneasy sleepers
tumbled awkward in downy cots
while the great church clocks
chime against the creeping cold.

These ogres of denied mythology
have at last left their mountain hideaways
abandoned distant unmapped valleys
where the caves of night began
now they walk tall as houses through
modern streets rumoured to be paved with gold.

They too seek fame and fortune
in amongst the hubbub and the roar
but find themselves lost —
drowned in its too-frantic rush —
out-numbered by the human herd
their protesting unnoticed in the workday mêlée.

Darkness muffles in a host of sound disguises —
each howling soothed and scattered
where they lump lonely by the river
their disillusion shadowy
ambition shattered — crushed to echoes
they scavenge desperate for any dregs of ancient fear
sniff around for credibility in their gloom
while neon shines right through their monstrous bones —
man’s dread already faded over centuries
the giant threat is losing ground.

True to their traditions some eat each other —
brother swallows brother whole — live on as dreams —
the city breeds new nightmares by the dozen
clones fables for the anxious dweller
needing time-worn images to hate —
ghosts and gargoyles huddle
on jutting rooves to share thin-voiced bitter histories
weave horror with a mocking strand of truth
that chills even the hardened sceptic’s ear
where doubt lodges — unsettled by ideas
and instinct argues fiercely in defence
of the unbelievable.

DEATH SANG A SONG

Death sang a song to me last night
I heard his words quite plain
His voice an arrow, strong in flight
Each note a sweet, sharp pain.

His lyric told a world of woes
Pure sorrow filled the air
While something deep within me froze
The weight of sheer despair.

Midnight struck and still he sang
The tune went reeling round
While I half-feared each aching pang
Might find me under ground.

I blocked my ears and said a prayer
For silence — restful sleep
Unhaunted by such blues sung rare
To make a stone heart weep.

Quietness fell — like balm it soothed
Then with the dawn thin rain
Its gentle rhythmic chorus proved
To echo Death’s refrain.

And melancholy drugged me with
Its ear cupped full of dreams
Old visions lost that cannot live
Except in Death’s dark schemes.

Those echoes lingered through the day
Like webs from corners hung
Strands that caught me — wound their grey
Invisible among

The drifting minutes of the clock
That marked its own frail time
I listened for that tick to stop
Aware it counted mine.

And faint — far-off — the silence rang
With noise — the tread of feet
Souls who danced while Death still sang
And kept the same chill beat.

As dusk approached the song drew near
Until it filled the room
Suffocating — soft to hear
It cradled me in gloom.

Rocked me to a trance-like state
Locked me in its spell
It seemed I had no will to break
Its power, thus I fell

Deeper and still deeper yet
At length I sang along
Careless of his mood’s sly threat
In tune with Death’s sad song.

Then in the very midst of thrall
Another tone cut in
I heard the voice of reason call
Pitched high and questioning.

It shocked me from my frozen state
It chided me for shame
That I could dally so with Fate
Indulge in Death’s grim game.

I may be aging — weak and slow
But reason rescued self
Death’s morbid balladeer can go
Dispirit someone else.

EXORCISM

Released from those dark
cold regions beyond dream’s
measuring
sea divides itself
to let go through
a nameless body
rising slow
through grades of pitch —
the black diluting
as fathoms grey
give up their pigment
to the wash

the salted light’s thin
woven strands a net —
ragged — wide —
reaching down to gather
in what heads to meet it —
bask in weightless change
the switch between
blind and seeing...
thought bobs clear
freed from a maze
of coral-formed caves
grown thick with night

and gasps at brighter shadows
feels along the unsure edge
where elements touch
nerves that brush against
each other
tugging loose the molecules
in a rough bartering —
exchange liquid for air...

the spirit breathes
cloud-shredded harsh
the ether reassigns
each rôle and reason

mist hangs its layered limbo
vague as legend
where the twinned moon floats
her listless soul
quivering and drained —
power-dimmed
watching a ghost
dissolve.

SOUL-EATER

Something ate my soul last night —
I felt each bite — the cut and gnaw of teeth —
each loss as feeling left me
disjointed — old naïvetés chewed off
and swallowed by the dark.

The numbness, on the whole, seemed sharp relief —
the sticky sauce of every sorry year
licked clean by some strange tongue
the white bone bowl held salty echoes
of all the blood that ran.

Mine were chosen from that well-thumbed menu
of uncounted sleepless thoughts
wafted juicy in a simmering of grief —
to be relished for their agony
prey to sweet-and-sour-crusted lips.

Today, I’m spent — the sudden feast all done —
every clinging crumb of it
and memory’s a faint dried-on stain
from last night’s skinless supper —
no greasy scraps of hurt
or cooled-off dregs of gamey love
remain...

THE LEGEND OF THE COLD ONES


From far-off lands of snow and ice they came —
thinned by cold they stole the forms of men
wore flesh unchanging — time could make no claim
on shapes that shift — long years were lost on them...

Strange beauty cloaked them — flawless — hid the mark
that picked them out — this tribe of ancient ones
escaped from caves — those regions of near-dark
abandoned for a sliver of weak sun.

They walk by day — not tied to any tomb —
that legendary bed of freezing earth —
their eyes a mirror to the frigid moon —
untouched by love or pain — bereft of mirth

they have an air of superficial charm —
a smile that can persuade and bend the will
of those in thrall and ignorant what harm
they risk — so fail to heed the warning chill

that closes round when Cold Ones gather near —
a bitter tang that prickles fear awake
electrifies the quiet atmosphere
with particles to make the senses shake...

They have that power in them — true to type
these dangerous — romantic — figures blend —
close-mingle in the crowd — select a ripe
victim — quench desires that have no end.

Each murderous seduction callous theft
of youth — the sacrifice of living blood —
soft bodies like frail empty vessels left
floating — unattended on the flood.

Old horror stories whispered mouth to ear —
some local legend saved for winter nights
though most deny such things could happen here
yet others dream the sting of vampyre bites...

Few know the truth — have peeled away the myth —
revealed the creature shambling beneath
the fiction — see him clear for what he is —
a butcher’s stare — a rotless set of teeth.




And cold within that ultimate embrace
too late the lover sees through his disguise
and looks upon the demon’s awful face
frozen by the hunger in those eyes.

They feel the ache that penetrates the vein
and know his nature and his undead curse
how cold lust burns within his vicious brain
where passion rules — relentless and perverse.

DUNGEON

One window — a rough square of distant blue —
faint drafts — along with smells — come drifting through
and far-off sounds that filter... voices too...
the world out there a landscape I once knew

reduced to this one patch of shifting light
that changes hour by hour — day to night
the focus of my waking — my first sight
a box of sun that spills its liquid white.

Winter shrinks it — turns it grey and small —
high up upon the grim dark-shadowed wall
daylight barely finds the gap at all
moon visits now and then — a fleeting call —

her passing magic’s kind — her saddened face
looks in on me confined in this dire place
her slanting beams like fingers touch and trace
the contours of my cell — but can’t erase

the horrors of the fever — and the chill
despite the outside warmth its air hangs still
and thick with dread — no ray of hope can fill
these endless hours — all this time to kill...

I listen to the rain — its soothing drip
gathering in pools that slowly tip
and run in rivulets I catch and sip
sweet as wine upon my dry cracked lip.

Some days I pace — most nights I lie awake
I hear the moans and cries the spirits make
and pray out loud that a bright dawn will break
and quieten them — bring peace for pity’s sake.

I used to mark the days — scratch through black mould
that climbs the wall — peel off its crusty hold
on stones — a totting-up of time untold
now meaningless as I — resigned and old —

forget the years — how long I’ve waited here
for rescue — sure some hero would appear —
’til disillusion swamped me with the fear
I have no future — death is drawing near...

I feel dread’s weight — it settles dense as doom —
this dungeon is a nightmare ante room
and madness stalks me — gibbers through the gloom —
one foot already planted in the tomb.

THE HOWLER AT THE GATE

I hear you through my dreams —
your voice stretching its long vowels into the night —
it tears my soul — rips my peace apart
with longing that consumes me
the ache inside my heart
answers with its drumbeat loud and strong
and somewhere out there in the darkness
our spirits meet — and melt into your song.

That howl would find me even in the grave —
it seeks me out
my ear cannot evade its piercing
ever-cool and constant wave of sound
burrowing through air from where you wait
patient at my mind’s nocturnal gate
for me to come to you — abandon all
this world’s too mundane ways and listen to your call.

And I’m so tempted — half of me in thrall
bewitched and drawn to wildness — night and moon’s
slow drug that lures a primitive desire
to wander — let you take me to your lair
and know your fierceness — taste it — drink it down
experience your freedoms — passion’s fire —
the blood upon your breath — the sky is clear
the scent of you — your shadow looming near.

I yearn yet hesitate — my lone and lovesick wolf
although your yellow eyes invade my room
like lamps they shine to penetrate my deep subconscious gloom —
those netherlands you haunt are barred to me —
I fear to shake my weak but human nature free
and be as you are — animal all through —
no romance — no emotion runs in you —
I dare not change my skin and so become
a creature cursed in fame’s mythology.

Such thoughts are dangerous — I force them roughly back
to a safer distance — the perimeter drawn swift —
the absolute divide that sanity insists
will stave off this dark hunger that exists —
growls within me — claws — grows reckless when
night’s deep forest shivers and your shadow lopes again —
twigs snap along the paths — your phantom pack
approaches — I can hear them pant and paw
the frozen earth — impatient I should at last give in
and throw the dregs of caution to the howling wind.

UNDERWORLD

Every night she goes there in her dreams,
sucked deep inside dark subterranean halls
where demons lurk, the air churns wild with screams
and madness hangs fresh spectres on high walls.

The Grey Ones follow her, she feels their breath
blow hot upon her shoulder as she flees,
hears loud the rattle of approaching Death
and falls, brought crashing to arthritic knees.

They hold her down, the needle arcs and sinks,
blackness gathers close to fold her in —
there’s no escape — the fight within her shrinks
to one small nerve that jumps beneath her skin.

She’s trapped inside herself — her fear’s a bird
frantic in its withered, creaking cage,
she has no voice — dementia steals each word,
her rheumy eyes pour out their senile rage.

At night, some nameless horror claims her mind
and hauls her through a narrow shifting crack
to wander, terrified she may not find
a reason to attempt the journey back.

NOTHING STAYS BURIED

They won’t stay down — old secrets shift and rise
claw their way from subterranean lairs
to catch guilt-ridden dreamers unawares —
dark energies grown crazy with thin cries.

Fear and grief are partners for the dance —
they twirl to music seeping through the walls —
the drumming heart — the shrilling doubt that calls —
the whirling choreography of chance

resurrects emotions that were dead
and buried deep — yet now they stand and sway
to pain’s old tune — a dirge that eats away
at memory — love’s anguish freshly fed.

Grief, exhausted, staggers — arms flung wide —
a zombie — blind and dumb caught in the spell
loss has woven — too obsessed to tell
word from word where explanations hide.

The keeper of truth’s grave might do their best
to tend it — let the soothing grass grow green
but secrets buried — ugly and obscene —
will surface — for their bones are not at rest.

DIGGING

The dank earth yields beneath my spade
which slices cleanly, turns the soil
and severs sadness with its blade,
subdues my heart with humble toil

where roots lay naked, white as bone, -
anaemic limbs exposed to light -
their longings wither and disown
unlikely flowers plucked by night.

Tight-budded need tossed in a heap
with wilful weeds and barbed desire,
and stinging doubt as nettles creep
beneath the brazen skirts of briar.

One patch is clear - the carved clods gleam -,
my body aches, exhaustion pours
a draught to purge love-fevered dreams:
the incubus frail flesh adores.

But gentle through the dark you glide,
to settle like a homesick ghost
safe and tenderly astride
the brooding nightmare of your host.

I shiver, grateful for the twitch
of subtle reins; respond to hands
that urge me gallop, half-bewitched,
through night's quixotic hinterlands.

Then watch the pink-eyed face of dawn
squinting, bleary, through grey cloud.
and pace this threadbare winter lawn,
deny my fantasy aloud.

I lift my spade to break your spell
by digging - feel the muscles strain -
as steel unearths the loam-rich smell
of compost steaming after rain.

I bury Summer, dig it deep
into the plot my heart believes
is therapeutic, but I keep
two perfect skeletons of leaves.

DEATH-DREAMS

I slept with death last night —
he was considerate and kind —
his passion quiet — carnal needs subdued —
he held me — stroked fear away with murmurs
and old promises, half-heard.

And I felt light and empty — safer
than I’d ever felt before —
untouchable, untouched
by all those things the moment held away —
consigned to distance.

Relaxed in leaden arms
his face bled shadow coverings
I didn’t call his name
but gave myself quite willingly —
allowed him sole possession.

Eyes already closed, my mind
crept over him — feeling for
a space to stay in —
his body a museum of my life
and shapeless loss.

And so we rocked each other —
he and I — like forever was a phase
for going through, enduring while it lasts —
I woke alone and dizzy in the sun
of all my gathered years.

RIVAL

I smell her scent upon him — she steals into his dreams —
a succubus — a demon — her undermining schemes
rob me and my children — he’s distant to me now —
untouchable with longing — in thrall to her — somehow
she’s mesmerized — bewitched him — turned his mind away
from fatherhood and marriage. I have no heart to pray

but turn instead to magic — a counter-spell — I curse
the effigy I’ve fashioned — which squirms at the reverse —
I damn her eyes for lusting — pierce them through with pins
stitch her lips together and skewer fabric limbs.
I feel my hate surge through me — twisting like the knife
she wielded with no conscience when ruining my life.

Thus I’ll reclaim his passion and turn its tide again —
she’ll taste to him like poison — his appetite will wane...
This spell I cast is ancient — its origins belong
to those who know the old ways — and such beliefs stay strong —
the book — the bell — the candle — fresh blood signs on the floor
will rid me of my rival — she’ll plague me nevermore.


SEARCHING

She bends above the pool and gazes deep
into sun-dappled water’s idle brown
where diving beetles, nymphs and minnows keep
quiet company with those cast in to drown —
and in that silence where the spirits sleep
her eyes peer through the weeds — look down and down
searching for some clue — a hint or trace
of what lies hidden in that lonely place.

The afternoon is warm — no breeze or chill
disturbs the water — ruffles its calm air
and every leaf remains unmoved until
a sudden nameless shiver passes where
she stoops intent and absolutely still
imagining what deeds have happened there —
as though a voice has whispered in her ear
and generated a small stab of fear.

She squints at what she thinks could be a bone
resting in the silt — so small and frail
it surely is an infant’s — barely grown
to fit with local legend’s gruesome tale —
she stares again — perceives it‘s just a stone
that’s curiously shaped and gleaming pale —
her expectations keen, her eyes misled
believing she had found the long-lost dead.

THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN

Here the river boils and froths —
spewing from the dark earth’s maw
it heaves and bubbles, spits and coughs
a dirt-brown soup of root and claw.

The Devil’s Kitchen claims the pits
in every fiendish gourmet guide —
a home from home — the décor fits
the foulest menu ever tried.

The rising smells hang thick and rank —
decay and bone — that clinging air
unwholesome cooking — sickly-dank
to taint pure palates with despair.

Wave-flattened boulders ranged like seats —
what diners come as dark draws in
to savour rotting, unnamed meats —
chow down on gristle, suck on skin?

The shadows gather up their guests
as hunger drives them through the gloom
where daemons puff their napkined chests —
throw orders at the waiting moon.

Such appetites are sated by
obscene soufflés of slime and mud
consumed beneath a storm-whipped sky
that drizzles cold rare-vintage blood.

MEAL FOR TWO

The velvet night for cover
he smelled her skin, her hair
then lost himself forever
with neither thought nor care.

He drowned inside her kisses
drank her down like wine
her sighs defining bliss is
an agony divine.

She moaned and gladly welcomed
each furious caress
abandoned inhibitions —
blazé with nakedness.

He poured such frenzied passion —
unleashed it in a flood —
she writhed and bid him drain her —
all ecstasy and blood.

They fed on love together —
consumed with breathless hearts
each bite another promise
’til deathless life do part.

But dawn’s pale coat surprised them
caught unawares their lust
and covered them for pity —
dark hunger turned to dust.

INCUBUS

There is no fight —
the night has won —
the victim sleeps unknowing as a lamb
with limbs flung wide
her throat exposed
the nightmare shadows champing at her side.

A demon shifts
his awkwardness
and presses his foul weight down on her breast
his talons rip
the cloth of dreams
to penetrate imagination’s flesh.

She writhes and moans
but does not wake
while evil settles, hungry to invade
like all his kind
who violate
the deepest, darkest corners of the mind.

He plants his seed
he leaves behind
a sense of terror that she cannot name...
Dreams will haunt her
dread will stalk her
a voice suggests all nights will end the same...

The candle burns
the hour comes
her eyelids close — she fails to stay awake.
Despite her hate
she welcomes him —
insanity accepts him as a mate.

MANDRAKE

The thunder roared, the lightning struck
a tall and lonely tree —
it seared the trunk and lit a corpse
that hung there, spectrally.

The man who swung in that queer light
dripped blood upon the ground —
the stain so dark had killed the grass
no other leaves grew round.

Along a track, a couple came —
the maid, her face afire
the youth, whose hand she clasped in hers
in thrall to her desire.

The maid, she fell upon her knees
uttered some strange name
and scrabbled at the blood-rich earth
like one who was insane.

The clods of earth flew as she dug
intent upon her toil
clawing through the steaming trench
that thickly came to boil.

At last she pulled from that foul stew
a poisonous, rare shoot —
a mystic plant that screamed in pain —
the fabled mandrake root

that only grows, so legend tells
where hanged men spill their seed
and evil brews its magick ways
to fashion dragon weed.

Was she a witch? Was she a ghoul
to feast on such a find?
She gobbled like some rabid dog —
as though she’d lost her mind.

And all the while, the youth stood fixed
his gaze a vacant stare
his pallor like the moon’s white face
he seemed quite unaware

of how she danced, her eyes like lamps
that glowed a sickly green
nor did he feel her press some root
his parted lips between...

The transformation, in a flash
of blinding light and smoke
rocked the hill — the hanged man fell
as did the towering oak.

The Devil vanished, with his mate
as howling filled the sky
above that cursed and blackened hill
he winked a bloodshot eye.

And since that night, no living soul
can bear to linger long
for superstition sparks more fear
and broods a sense of wrong.

The narrow track is overgrown
as wiser feet won’t tread
a path where swelling mandrakes drink
the waters of the dead.

The oak has rotted to a stump
while sun has bleached old bones
and swinging shadows flicker, slide
among the weathered stones.

Each twilight finds its purple hush
hangs heavy — taints the breeze —
a shudder runs the hill’s dark length
and registers unease...

The mandrake flowers, spreads strong roots
the legend infiltrates —
more potent with the passing years
it bides its time and waits...

BATTLING THE DEMON

Born of molten rock and blood-red flame,
The Balrog through the choking tunnels poured
Its flood of evil — monstrous by name,
And fearsome-natured, thunderously it roared

Advancing on them, towering, its maw
A furnace puffing clouds of scorching breath,
And with each gnashing fang and ghastly claw,
Promised a most cruel, unholy death.

Eyes blazing as it tossed its hornéd head,
And lashing with a whip that streaked pure fire,
It raged and postured, filling them with dread —
Their peril great — their situation dire.

Onto the bridge it came — the stonework shook
And shuddered underneath the Balrog’s weight,
The wizard stood his ground and dared to look
Upon the Dark Lord’s emissary of hate.

He smote the stone — the Wizard’s voice rang clear,
Challenging the demon — held it back
With Magick, and the narrow bridge so sheer
Felt his power and began to crack...

The ancient arch was broken, and the might
Of Balrog seemed defeated as he fell,
Tumbled into darkness — endless night —
The hollow mountain’s deep and freezing well.

But as he dropped, he’d one last trick to play
And flicked his whip around his mortal foe,
So toppled him, and evened up the fray —
Thus each was cast into the depths below...

His eight companions feared he must be dead
Though wizards claim they’ve more lives than a cat —
And somewhere on the dangerous road ahead
He’d find them — and so prove it for a fact.

GARGOYLES

High up above the city
on the old cathedral roof
we watch over the living
ready nail and tooth
to fight whatever demons
might desecrate or foul
the stones that need protecting
with gruesome leer and scowl.

The artisans who carved us
believed our staring eyes
would spot the Devil coming
riding through the skies
so covered every corner
every point of view
with faces from their nightmares
a wild and monstrous zoo.

So here we squat forever
resisting midnight’s storm
thwarting evil spirits
from city dusk ’til dawn
some think us ornamental
our fish lips spouting rain
they call us quaint or ugly
no one mentions pain.

CRYPT

I hear the door creak softly
feel the sun dip low
sense them shuffle closer
footsteps dragging slow

their sighs mingle above me
shuddering and sad
awkward whispers echo
rising fear smells bad

they shouldn’t come to visit
when their dread’s so clear
wishing they were someplace
anywhere but here

it’s no place for the living
comfortless this room
air grown thick unmoving
in a dust-trap tomb

dull duty pulls them down here
clutching at their grief
lingering uncertain
’til with some relief

I’m back in soothing darkness
thankful to the bone
they’re gone oh someone tell them
to leave the dead alone

ORACLE

I take my troubles to the sea
we sit and suck on stones
read portents in each seventh wave
uncurl small knots of foam
pile up driftwood, add a flame
and warm our sorrows through
wait for answers on the wind
and dream some lies are true.

The sunset dance of fire and air
grows edges in the smoke
the salty incense hangs in veils
the tide-fresh converts soak
and something speaks — a thin sea-voice
strange bubble-words that sift
ring their knowledge round the moon
impart a fabled gift.

I comb the starlit sands along
where patterns beckon me —
white bones of fish are scattered wide
lie glowing spectrally
while fathoms deep the great whale sleeps
allows his wisdom rise
pebbles roll their spotless dice
the scales fall from my eyes.

GIANTS

Slumbering, hammocked high in beanpole trees
where full moon finds their thinned-out shapes
light silver-streaks splaying limbs —
dangled arms, legs, lolling heads
held in suspension
rapt in cool night air.

Branches creak
chilled bones crack softly
darkness muffles groans and the odd snore
drifting earthwards...

Roofs far below oblivious —
nobody curious
and peering up to marvel at the size
or human-ness of shadows —
there are no sleeping giants —
those monster silhouettes
are surely clouds blowing past the stars...
the moon is dreaming.

MOONEYES

The sky is clear, the waxing moon
shines full upon the mountain’s peak
and gives each ridge a silvered bloom
that shimmers coldly, rising bleak
above the pines where shadows flit
a creature stares into the night
his yellow eyes like lanterns lit
reflecting eerie, restless light.

Silence hangs, invisible
as nervous breath caught in a throat —
the spell that holds the land in thrall
will shatter with one loathsome note —
so listen, every ear cocked sharp
for the first sound — the low-pitched growl
rumbling through the purple dark
and rising to a piercing howl.

Four-footed Death, moon-eyed and grim
from out the forest’s fringes deep
comes loping, single-minded, thin
with longing for some hapless sheep
his need on fire, his soul hell-bent
incited by the lunar glow
the werewolf tracks a fresh-laid scent —
small human footsteps in the snow.

THE HAUNTING

I shut my eyes, but still I feel your focus,
your telling look that sees the world as thin,
hollowed-out, turned brittle at the edges
where sadness haunts, vignettes the space you’re in.

Small shadows spread — lay claim to slender temples,
while darker lashes arc beneath pale bone,
your hair a fallen forest that remembers
a warmer light that fell on you alone.

You sing your silent song, I strain to listen
and search your face for any clue to why
your loveliness is tinged with such delusion —
the echo frozen, weary as a sigh.

THE INITIATE

Against a shadowed bank of flesh,
the fish-eyed bubble clings,
safe beside the pulsing wall
through which a blood-voice sings


its soothing repertoire of beats,
subliminal and slow,
inherent with race memories,
imprinted undertow


of tribal rhythms echoing
around the fluid dark,
throbbing their mythology -
the finger-touching spark


that fired imagination's clay,
released a dynasty
mapped in multiplying cells -
the bubble breaking free.


THE LANDSCAPE OF A CLOUDED MIND

Out of the dawn my need created her
cool as a goddess, fragile as a shell
pearling echoes, licked by a salt wind
her pale limbs curled in shadow
brushed alive by light.

The sea-blood in her pulsed — its ebb and flow
flickering in recognition
the tide a history of all her kind
she haunts the shoreline empty —
sleeps on pillowed rock and sand.

Her eyes their own deep ocean
brimming with the wrecks of all the years
she finds the perfect calm within the storm
and binds it to her
wraps its weathered cloak around.

Her silhouette curves gentle —
an horizon touched by cloud
where mist trails, barely touching
and the filtered sun drips down
to gild the morning’s edge.

She is both child and mother — nurturing
and needful — all subcutaneous desire
laid wide open to be read
her landscape speaks an old, old language
of sea and rock and sky.

THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER

Earth and water colours her so pale —
cold skintones where the moon illuminates
and silvers folds — the thinness of her robe
the feathered headdress flowing smooth as hair.

A legend watching all the shades of night
she knows the stars above the quaking marsh
and waits for omens — dreaming gods might race
in chariots that blaze across the sky.

She has no suitors — none have chanced to look
upon her bloodless beauty — face unseen
by mortals — only long-necked birds grown proud
beside her, sense her nature, cry her name.