Category Archives: horror

Skeletal

all the days of a life
in misery’s company
its dark bird upon the shoulder
visible to none but its host
but not in mirrors.
its hooks,
in the trapezius,
do not disturb much
unless rebellious thoughts foment.
it tells
what may say
what may think
what is self
until at last the Self cries
bring me the hydrogen winds of the bomb,
make vapour of my body
my love
and render my bones to the sun.

27: Electric babyland (may offend)

I got lotsa babies in here she says to me.  Her voice comes from the ceiling, but I can see her lips move.  Yellow teeth.  No irises.  On the cracked linoleum floor she stands, in stained sweatpants and a T shirt that goes to her navel.  She shifts from one foot to the other, as if she needs to go to the bathroom.  She drums her fingers on her tight beachball belly.  Lots.  Inside here.  

No smile, though.  She looks angry, crazed.  I lie on the floor, bound and gagged, while stark Tesla trees of pale blue crackle and branch about the ceiling.  She kicks the side of my head with a bare foot, and, just before I black out again , I see her turn and walk down the hallway.  My swoon is only seconds, I think,  because I hear the sound of someone peeing.  Then a flush.

The slap of bare feet comes closer and she reenters my room, this time wearing only the T shirt.  She squats and bows her head, greasy hair dragging the floor.  There is no moaning or groaning as she gives obscene birth.  Only the repeated sounds eck, eck, eck.
Small wet things dangle and drop.  Sharp yellow teeth, no irises.  They tear at my restraints with piranha frenzy.  I gain my freedom, but am paralyzed in stiffness and horror as they set upon their unwilling mother and begin to eat.

 

26: Fluids ***GRAPHIC***

On the tilted table I lie.
Sore arm injected with serum.
Paralysis abides.
In the dim, I see tools
hanging, dangling,
clanking in the vacuumed wind
of a swiftly opened door.
And, in walks DeSade.
Aye, what will it be today?  says he.
(From his trouser belt hang more questionable instruments.)
*He pushes a little trolley with silver trays on it*
Aye, the sutures have healed remarkably well!
Let’s see, how many toes have we left?
It’s too too bad, we ran out of anesthetic last week.
Oh, but look!  Eight fingers, two thumbs!
But don’t worry, we won’t remove any of those today.
I’m a man of my word.
But I do have bamboo, for you, hoo hoo!
(On the silver tray, shaved wedges of wood, a tiny silver hammer which he picks up)
This used to be Maxwell’s you know.  Hah!
What about a little cleaning of those dirty fingernails of yours?
*I piss myself*
And, for dessert, it’s the bolt cutters again.
(A moan escapes me, unarticulated.  I taste the salt from my nose and my tears)
(I wish, I wish they could paralyze my eyes as well)
*My moronic scream as he drives in a wedge, right down to the quick*
Then, swiftly and deftly, he grabs those cutters of awfulness, and CLACK!
The spray of my red life blooms on his clean white apron.
I see my mother in a cloud.
I pass out, in radioactive pain.

If I should die before I wake

Shocked out of brooding dream
and evil education.
A match is struck, a flare of bright sound.
It brings semiconsciousness,
but illuminates naught but contrived shadows.
They make weasel movements,
peeking obscenely through the blinds of the high up window.
What are they, eh? What are they?
In sudden fear, the tongue cleaves to the palate.
A scrabbling is heard within the false ceiling,
as of excited crabs in legion, far from the sand.
Transmuted, by faithless imagination, into spiders’ horde.
They spill through crevices and knit
a shawl, a caul, a shroud.
A sack of suffocation.
Adrenalin’s injected into a mortified heart.
Too much, it seems. It runs apace,
pursued by a murder of crows
and the blackest of harpies, whipping them on,
but fading. Faded by the day.

Pie face

Don’t go out tonight, 
my little man.
Oh no, don’t.
Especial, not behind the broken barn
by the woodpile
under the crooked elm.
I seen him there last night
when I was takin’ a pee.
Buddy kilt ‘im.
Cooked ‘im up in a pie.
It’s he’s ghost, I tell ye.
Got lips so horble.
He’s eyes drippin’ blood.
He grab me,
says “Yer not the one”
“be bringin’ me the younger fer a bite”
“Oi wait tomorrer and then the night”
“If ye don’t come, then yer the one”
Don’t go out tonight,
little man.
I love ye so.

Finders keepers ***graphic***

In this year of China’s moon,
there ends a life too soon.

On the cliff’s outcropping I stand,
not yet daring the mile-down view.
I wait for the scene seekers to disperse,
then pin this sorry note to the grappling tree.

You see,
I cannot shake them.
Like brain bees they buzz.
Dark stories they tell, without end.

All help seemed too busy with life.

Now, I will walk backwards,
fixing on the air’s horizon,
leaving no room for second thought.

I will count the paces.
Ten, twenty, thirty.
I will wait for the surge of crazy strength.
I will run, arms wheeling,
and be gone.

Good person,
I hope to make the river,
winding in the sun’s silver,
to spare you the sight’s abomination:
my pile of jellied bones,
entrails of pastel,
abalone membranes.

If the punctured eyes contrive a stare,
it is not accusatory-
only a mirror
of a hell that slowly did go by.

Wake me up. Wake me up!

Ghostless spirits fast convening

Faces full of fearsome meaning

Fallen angels, minions of the One

Assembled is the shoreline throng

They’re moaning an unearthly song

In penance for the wrongs that they have done

And I, among them, poked and prodded

By the grinning ghouls applauded

The lake of fire is hotter than the Sun

On weakening knees we mouth our pleas

Our souls absorb a dark disease

The inner onslaught makes us want to run

And now, there is but no escape

They’re closing in, our Selves to rape

“The Fire, or by your necks be hung!”

A Dali in Delhi

As I was walking through the gloom
(a Delhi night without a moon)
I heard a cry, as from a loon,
but could not spy the creature.

“ ‘Tis Whom?” I said, all quivery,
my voice of scant delivery,
my constitution shivery,
(but still could see no feature)

There came a creaking and a squeaking,
as from a chest of wooden drawers.
Then ’round the corner, something peeking
and blood was oozing from its pores.

It had a black sardonic grin.
Its head towards me swiveled.
Its rotting bones were caving in.
Its eyes so dark and shriveled.

Upon its chest and down its legs
were doors and cabinets,
and things of brass and wooden pegs
and ornaments elaborate.

Its breath so foul, but it conveyed
a misery of sorrow.
Its drawers and cabinets open stayed
in want of Souls to borrow.

I stood transfixed, within this alley
and hardly dared to move.
It seemed a creature, made by Dali,
escape-ed from the Louvre.

It creaked and clacked, and came so near
we almost did embrace.
And I, so rooted in my fear,
did stare into its face.

And now I knew just what it wanted.
My essence, it would steal
to fill its drawers and cabinets haunted,
my sorry soul its meal.