The Dead Halloween 2o14

Friday

Yes, I is my favorite holiday . . . HALLOWEEN! And yes, I've been up all night. Too excited to sleep. So, how about my Halloween poetry for this season?

The Dead

 

Dead. We are the dead,

mere shadows lingering between
 the narrow slit of eyelids closed.
Words mumbling mournful things,
a prayer, a whimpering so lonely
the darkness weeps for us.

 

Dead, we are the dead.

Vacant minds burnt in sacrifice

slithering toward the open grave,

sores bloom to yellow plumes,

raving lunatics knocking at the door,
neatly tied up bound in every lie,
in every promise made and broken.

 

We are surely dead.

Apostles to the bone, the breath
adrift on streams of unconsciousness;
we drown in chaotic harmony
with all those other souls grasping
at malignant straws . . . they do not float.

 

We are the dead . . . breathing in

a world that spews us out
upon the dank Persian carpet
where mother lies bleeding,
receding from her life
in short agonizing gasps.

 

Dead, we are dead

from the day we were born.
rrw 1o-3o-14

In Silence Halloween 2o14

In Silence

 

Bring on the darkness, let it come.

I’ll rummage through her eyeless realm,

seeking out the quiet places,
wicked places, all those regions
hidden deep within her swollen womb.

 

I’ll wander with the vagrant shapes

that dwell behind her fluttering lids,
the ones that live
much better lives than ours
if only when the lights go out.

 

For we are as they are,

too much like them, we are.

 

And when I awake into this world,

this vengeful world that never sleeps?
I’m but flesh and blood and so unlike
those other things of flesh and blood;
I’m what they say I am, what am I then?

 

An empty corner of a crowded room

where no one dares to look,
that pathetic shadow clinging to the wall,
out of phase, out of time, out of sync,
into a whispering, a wink,
a muted clatter, garbled mutterings,
the one they never speak about in full voice.

But in that other place, the dreaming space,
the one that springs to life when eyes are closed?
That’s where we, the invisible, the weak do truly,
painfully . . . become what we become,

 

dreams dreamt in silence.

rrw 1o-21-14





 

The Gobbley Goom October 23, 2o14

Yes, it is the Halloween season. I got a few straight up Halloween poems I want to post this October. Three poems to be exact. Thought I'd start with the earliest one first. I wrote this little thing in 2009. A bit of a nursery rhyme feel to it. I tried t capture that childlike wonder about Halloween and  . . . those things that go bump in the night {smile}.

The Gobbley Goom

 

The evening moon is burning bright

The door is locked-up good and tight

The world outside burns dark with gloom

Beware sweet children the Gobbley Goom

 

He stalks on leggies made of clay

His face is yellow with decay

His breath smells like a rotting tomb

A nasty brute is the Gobbley Goom

 

When midnight comes he roams the streets

He looks for children bads to eats

The child who doesn't clean its room

A tasty treat for the Gobbley Goom

 

I heard there was a boyish brat

As dirty as an alley cat

And late one night he met his doom

Becomin’ a stew for the Gobbly Goom

 

There was a little girl they say

Who always had to have her way

She never learned to sweep a broom

Guess what? Yup! She got served up

as brunch for the Gobbley Goom

 

So all my precious ones take care

Mind your manners and brush your hair

Do all the things good children do

Or the Gobbley Goom will come

FOR YOU!

rrw 1o-31-2oo9

(rewrites 1o-23-14)

SometimesThings Change October, 2o, 2o14

You know, I should keep better records about where my poetry is at any given moment. Not sure I've ever posted this one. But then again, I don't know. But Nature's season, the one we are experiencing right know, tells me that it is the proper time to post this write. P.S. If the pic is too small to read on the site, Left click on it and it will become larger. Magic!

Sometimes Things Change

 

He loved the Moon once, way back in the day.

Lying on the warm hood of his beat up ’51,
he’d watch her all night long, watch her roll
lazily across the sticky summer sky.
The steady thud of cars passing by and over
the 9^th Street Bridge kept him company as
he chain smoked Lucky Strikes,
sipped at a cold quart of  Brew 102.
Just kicking back, staring up at her.

 

He wasn’t like them punk ass friends of his,

those young rowdy rednecks with spit
in their eyes and Saturday night
anxiously tugging at the crotch of their 401s
anytime a sweet young thing strolled by.

 

No, he wasn’t like them, nothing like them at all.

He was content to sit on the hood of his car
parked down by the dark shores of the South
Canadian, and watch in silence, just sitting there,
watching her endlessly roll.

 

Lately though, he noticed the Moon, his Moon,

her looks had started to fade, to go.
Too many large craters along her brow, these days.
Shadows cut deep gullies along the inside
of her tender Maria . . . transforming her,
bending her pale smile into a dark and dusty frown.
Her charm all but dried up, and his desire
to be with her . . . all of a sudden . . . gone.

 

Somewhat sad it is.  How time can kill a passion.

Once he smoked and drank and gawked at the Moon
with loving eyes, and now?  Now, he barely looks at her.
rrw 1-14-12 (rewrites 1o-2o-14)

 

 

Giving October 18, 2o14

As I said before, I' rewriting a lot of the poetry I've written in the past. Some of them date back to 2o11 and 2o12. A few go back much farther than that. I will try to get some brand new ones up in a few days. Until then:

Giving

 

The flesh dissolving to a fine paste,

bones splintering, cutting away
at tendons, the muscles ground
down to mists of foggy red. There
was blood once, rivers of it, rapids
rushing to the open seas of an open
heart, engorging the brain with lakes
and oceans full of malignant thought.
Rushing, forever rushing, filling
the empty knot between my legs.

 

Will I remember the feeling of fingers

impatiently tapping the back of my neck
when my desire to feel has withered away?
Will I remember you? Your kisses wet,
somewhat smoke-stained bitter and yet
somehow uncommonly sweet, your spiky
tongue drilling a path between my teeth,
impaling itself to the roof of my mouth.
Sometimes the only love we felt was
the pain we offered each other.

 

Soon the memory of time will be dead.

Days will waste away into hours, hours
will fade to moments, to seconds.

 

If I had the courage, I’d shut my eyes so hard

the sun would refuse to ever shine again.
rrw 4-15-12 (rewrites o9-o1-14)

 

Waiting October 16, 2o14

yes, quite a while, in human years, since I posted any poetry on my blog. I started a new one because the last had 100 poems attached to it. Add to that the first blog of poetry I wrote and the total comes to 148. And I haven't even scratches the surface of what my flash drives can offer up.

Waiting

I can’t wait for the horsemen to arrive
I do long to hear their bloody hoofs

beat against the bold, gray sky.

 

But I’ve learned to be patient

when the  thunder prowls the night
by breathing in its deadly scent

 

the lilac slumbering beneath
the change in seasons
while the sparrow sings of death.

 

There are no graveyards anymore
just fatalistic churches pale as ghosts

no truths or lies left to explore.

 

A few of us have mustered up

the common sense to run away
when the darker souls erupt.

 

We could walk awhile me and you
hand in crippled hand skipping past
those shattered corners of the world

 

where the barroom lights refuse to shine

on those of us the lonely ones the ones
that Jesus left  behind.
rrw 1o-o3-14