Category Archives: poem

poem

Dark Side

monstermirror
She sees her in the mirror
from the corner of her eye.
Pretending to be strong,
she’s actually quite shy.

When she sees others suffer,
she sometimes feel her grin.
As much as she dislikes her,
she’s trapped within her skin.

She’s cold and mean as iron.
She helps her get ahead.
She stole someone else’s husband
in someone else’s bed.

She tries to reason with her
before she lashes out,
but her anger and her cruelty
are all that she’s about.

So she looks into the mirror
and once again she’s there.
When she asks her why she’s bad
She shouts that life’s not fair.

Her charity and kindness
are things she can despise.
She sees them as a weakness
in a world that runs on lies.

She wonders what to do
to make her go away,
but she’s everything that’s strong,
so in shame she hopes she’ll stay.

monstermirror3

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poem

Strange

megfallon2

Little Meg Fallon is a beautiful one
only when compared to none.

An airy look about her face,
a different kind of inhuman grace.

She is quiet and alone all of her days,
unable to navigate the social maze.

Instructors find her strange to teach,
a quicksilver mind they just can’t reach.

But little Meg knows deep in her heart
lessons worth learning require an art;

a stillness of soul at which she excels;
a talent for reading natural spells.

Education came in a secret way,
while in a snow-bound wood one day.

The exquisite drifting of the flakes that fell
imparted a knowledge she never will tell.

Such patterns she saw by sitting so still
will never be transferred to paper by quill.

The teachings of books and lectures dry
cannot touch what is taught by watching the sky.

An instructor as vast as the atmosphere,
open to children with the talent to hear.

So little Meg reads what nature has written
and smiles to herself like a satisfied kitten.

A mind full of magic she cannot share;
such children of mystery need special care.
megfallon

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poem

The Drive Home

greenwaterfalling

She walks along the brink,
a land of moon-washed stones
and white-lipped currents.
Whispers hang over the water.
She inhales their damp,
dark call.

This late, only one car passes.

She is framed in his rearview mirror,
for a moment
at the edge.
Odd, he thinks, that someone
is there.
On the cliff.
So late.

He spares another glance.
The mirror reflects her absence.
But it’s late,
and dark,
and he doesn’t think
she’ll mind
if someone else finds
the body.

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poem

Sparrows Fall

sparrows

 

 

 

No one saw the sparrows fall
or noticed when they ceased to call.
For weeks their flinty beaks were still,
unable to announce the kill.

At night a wanderer fleeting past
saw the feathers in the grass,
felt the first foreboding chill
at tiny corpses on a hill.

Stumbled back when at his feet
bony wings began to beat.
Launched into the moonless sky
a flock of things that would not die.

So have a care when sparrows fall;
they may not be true birds at all,
only husks of restive dead
who fly a darker path instead.

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poem

Dream Lover

nightmarelover

Sleep is such a risky thing
knowing what the night may bring.
What visitations may come
before the rising of the sun.

What creature’s lidless eyes may peer
from ravaged face that once was dear.
What fetid draft may mist your cheek
redolent with graveyard reek.

Whose scrabbling fingers, jointed bone,
struggle for purchase on your own.
The twilight grin and tender touch
once adored, now missed so much.

But not the one from your mind’s eye
this fragment left when he did die,
beckoning with fleshless arms,
hungry for your mortal charms.

Leaching color from your skin,
a lipless kiss, a rictus grin.
Soundless whispers in your mind
trap you in this fevered time.

In sleep is when he comes to hold
a body free of coffin-mold,
when lust survives the fleshly state,
when bones and dust still wish to mate.

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poem

Kayla

Image

Kayla never understood
the dangers lurking in the wood.
Never did set any store
by lurid tales and grim folklore.

Didn’t know why the scare
others felt wasn’t there.
Truth be told, she felt a thrill
while others suffered morbid chill.

Dusk would find her forest-bound,
following each nightly sound.
Any shrieks or moans she heard
she’d believe nocturnal bird,

sure that under starlit sky
prowling perils passed her by.
Kayla never reasoned why
she was not afraid to die.

One night she found a meadow green,
where ancient gravestones carved a scene
of leaning, broken, granite teeth.
Wondered what lay underneath.

Trailing fingers ‘cross the moss
she uncovered what was lost.
“Here lies our child, loved but gone.
Sweet Kayla waits eternal dawn.”

Hands to face, bones she felt
poking through as flesh did melt.
Looking down, no gown on her,
a tattered shroud the breeze did stir.

Kayla’s cries fell into dreams,
waking parents with children’s screams.
Back along the trail she flew,
headed for the home she knew.

But doors stay barred against the ghosts,
wandering souls, and hellish hosts.
So huddled on the window sill,
Famished Kayla is waiting still.

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poem

Nymph

Image

A water nymph with ice-white eyes
Watches nearby as the sailor dies.
No pity within her liquid heart
For a creature who doesn’t know the art
Of ocean travel through wind and storm,
Since leagues from land, such is the norm.

Her pearly skin glows and shines;
Lighting his way as he sinks in the brine.
A gift from the nymph to a silly mortal;
A vision of wonder as he enters the portal
Where his breath will stop and his mind will fill
With sea-borne phantoms as his heart falls still.

The nymph smiles as he slips beneath the foam,
Knowing his spirit now enters her home.
Tonight as storms darken the sky,
The sailor will learn that he did not die.
His bones and hair and soul will change
Into something enduring, rich and strange.

The water nymph’s salty kisses will stir
A transformation, if he wishes, into one like her;
A creature of river and sea and stream
Of ice and chill and rain and steam.
Hand in hand the nymph and her mate will go
Wherever currents pull and waters flow.

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poem

Shadow People

shadow people

Shadow people live
In the corners of his mind.
Incessant conversations
Of the most unholy kind.

He tries not to listen,
But the voices are so loud,
Drowning out his reason,
He is swallowed by their crowd.

Tiny little demons,
Or angels – he’s not sure –
Demanding his surrender,
Insisting there’s no cure.

He’s tired of the battle;
There’s no one on his side.
Doctors, drugs and clinics
Leave him nowhere else to hide.

So he’s thinking maybe this time
He’ll listen to their voices;
Shadow people in the corners
Defining all his choices.

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poem

Urbana

 

Image

When streetlights dim and pavement steams,
When passions peak and neon screams,
The urban fairy takes a chance
And breaks into her glamour dance.

As smokestacks turn the sky to red
And children are all sent to bed,
She leaves her lair and paints her skin,
Damp with fragrance sweet as sin.

Her laugh like chimes drifts on the night
Sometimes heard…almost…not quite.
It stirs the trash lying in the gutter.
Makes mortal hearts speed and flutter.

Her flight has sound that whines and shreds
And enters the dreams of those in bed.
A sleeping metropolis unaware
Of enchantment spun in polluted air.

Given the chance, she wouldn’t change
These concrete canyons with their magic strange.
She lifts her wings at a squad car’s lights,
She loves the wild city nights.

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poem

Cursed

On All Hallows Eve the veil grew thin.
The moon was bright, the starlight dim.
She laid her cards upon the table
And read the times as she was able.
With crystal orb and deck of Tarot,
With talent deep within her marrow,
She watched the year to come unwind,
Birthing images in her mind
Of horrors, joys and blood yet unshed,
Of a handsome lover new to her bed,
Of death for both beloved and strange,
But one painful thing would never change:
The visions seen with her witch’s art
Would remain locked within her heart.
Her curse, her gift, her ancient sorrow,
To leave others blind to their tomorrow.

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