Tag: darkfantasy

A Strangling Silence

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101, Dark Poetry

How silent now, these pretty streets.

The bells no longer ring,

for weddings nor for funerals.

No children’s chorus sings.

The bodies rot in sun and wind.

The blood has long since dried.

The scavengers have had their fill.

For decades, no one’s cried.

Their open eyes long plucked away,

their stilled tongues taken too.

No youthful knees to bend in prayer,

and pale skins tinged with blue.

No, no one knows what killed these kin

in this barbaric way.

And soon the moon will rise, my dear,

so here we cannot stay.

The silence here has

strangled every single spirits life.

The butcher’s table just as full

with mutilation’s knife.

The rising wind now lifts the stench,

and laden tree boughs sway.

It drops into the silence

like a phantom touch to say,

We must not tarry anymore,

so come child let’s away.

We’ll leave the strangling silence

here to speak

another day.

So far behind, in silent wake,

to speak another day.

*art by Carole

Lilac Lane

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101, Dark Poetry

Many have lived here through the years,

marking centuries of generations,

making obscene amounts of wealth.

And there were times such as now,

when evening clouds harvest the shadows

from the ground,

and blood runs in red rivulets

between the well laid stones.

You wouldn’t know this to look at it.

The lamps provide solace and comfort

from the gloom,

but when the fiends accost you

their faces are no longer hidden,

and your life is no longer yours.

Over the years they planted the lilacs

so the coppery scent of life

was as masked as the fiends that crave it.

Screams were seldom heard,

and just as suddenly silenced.

Pleas to be spared went unheeded

and echoed through the streets that trapped

prey with its charm, then gave it over

to things best left in gloom and darkness,

not soft lights and pretty scents.

Leave now before the evening stars appear,

before you slowly dissipate into the

unclean afterlife that snares you with its perfume,

and leaves you to rot.

Lenore’s Raven

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101, Dark Poetry

Lenore’s a raven of her own 

that no one’s seen or heard.

She comes in false dawn’s early hours 

but will not speak a word.

And yet Lenore inclines her ear

to hear within its mind

what so disturbs the bird to 

seek her presence for its kind.

I wonder what it tells her

in the room of sunny light,

when all its ebon pinions seem

more suited to the night…

“Your cousin mourns ‘the lost Lenore’,

  and cries the whole night long,

  and asks for respite and nepenthe

  In his mourning song.”

  “My brother sits upon the bust 

  of Pallas o’er his door,

  and there your cousin smiles at him,

  it seems, forevermore.”

    “Perhaps you should now go to him

     and tell him that you’re whole,

     not waiting on the hellfire 

     to scorch your very soul.”

     “That you did not return his love

       will ever break his heart,

       and yet your honesty did have

       no edifice of art.”

       “Tonight, again, he’ll search for you

         among his many books.

        Go take to him the balm of your

        intoxicating looks.”

“Don’t come to him

         the black clad witch 

         and harridan you are.

         And tell my brother we must leave,

         for we must travel far.”

         “And no, we shall not speak again,

          and I will miss you sore,

          but he and I must once again

          plumb night’s Plutonian shore.

Our feathers paint the shadowed stars

of night’s Plutonian shore,

to never dwell in Pallas’ light again.

No, nevermore.”

        

Reading Tomes by Candlelight

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101

Researching tomes by candlelight,

the old library smells

of tea and flowers, parchments,

and Indian ink wells.

Along here with the candlelight,

a fire crackles low,

and in the shadows of the shelves

dark laughter echoes so.

The dark and dusty shelves are full

of dark and dusty lore,

and spells to summon love sublime

or terror at its core.

The hairs and hackles of my hide

now stiffen in the air.

Of malevolent presences

I’m suddenly aware.

“What is it that you want?” I called,

but only silence came

in answer to my query

and the quelling of the flame.

Now sitting in the utter darkness

terror binds me still,

and all the will within me

chooses ‘cower’ over ‘kill.’

I know not when these things will slay,

they play with me the while,

and snarl and snap the air nearby

with fanged and feral smile.

They close the distance daily,

incrementally it seems,

So reading tomes by candlelight

yields nightmares and mad dreams.

I’ll leave the book and note for them

to find here in the day.

I don’t know if my corpse will be

devoured or on display.

Explore the tomes at your own risk,

perhaps your luck will hold.

Just know capricious spirits

have no use for human gold.

And maybe friend, just maybe,

they will bind you to the fold.

Do You Not Hear the Bells?

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101

Do you not hear the bells, my daughter,

tolling in the hills?

That is Death’s herald, daughter.

Feel how the night wind chills!

Do you not mark the sweet knells, daughter,

carried by the wind?

Death rides his gory horse to us,

your contract to rescind.

I stand above the place you lay. My tears will see me drowned,

for you have sold your soul to be once more above the ground.

And even now the vermin flee your coffin in surprise,

the earth beneath me churns and breaks and bubbles at your rise.

Now flesh and sinew cover bones once yellowed, moldy, black,

Your lovely hand breaks free and now there is no turning back.

And Death now swings his spectral scythe, and I must take your place,

but not before you kiss me once more on my ancient face.

The lack of rotting carrion no longer scents your sighs.

And Death himself has fallen for the beauty in your eyes.

The bells now tell of Death’s new bride. Be happy, and be well!

Now let my warming soul descend, your substitute in hell.

Bells in the Mist

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101

In the moments

where there are

breaks

in the mist,

you can still see them swinging

in the belfry with childish abandon,

and in our better days

knelled their notes like such, with innocent glee.

But now, in the

ever-darkening mist,

like abandoned children,

they were brought to silence,

and in the shrouded darkness,

they will also grow still.

No music,

not even muffled by the cursed vapors,

to continue their dance of song.

And all our joyless tears

float from our eyes to mingle

in the shadowed mist,

giving the lie

to happiness.

The Echoes of Ruins

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101, Uncategorized

Inside the old ruins

with vermin filled walls,

their boisterous voices still

ring through the halls.

 

How dazzling the jewelry,

the elegant gowns,

the best of the people from

best of the towns.

 

The thrill of the invite,

the calling by name

of every arrival

with fortune or fame.

 

The dark spirit no one saw

enter the space

was spreading his presence

all over the place.

 

The party grew louder,

and lewder, and crude.

The nobles were commoners,

servants were rude.

 

The atmosphere shifted

from festive to hate.

The dark spirit, watching,

decided to wait.

 

The sounds of the bacchanal

split the night air.

The dark spirit giggled

and fired a flare.

 

His cohorts arrived

and the violence began,

the fights and the sex

and the red sins of man.

 

The fires raged free

and the screaming was shrill,

the stones rained like hail

over castle and hill.

 

The dark, evil spirit’s

residing there still.

Don’t stop there. Don’t go there.

Your soul he will kill.

 

Fortune Untold

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101, Uncategorized

A glowing candle in the dark,

an old man sits alone.

Across the dusty table,

there sits an older crone.

 

“I’ll tell ye of yer fate,” says she,

her eyes aglow and wide.

“I’d like to know if good or bad.”

He sat his chair astride.

 

She closed her eyes and muttered

at a fast and fevered pitch.

He didn’t see

the demon woman form

behind the witch.

 

She smiled with a dripping grin,

and stared with hungry eyes

so longingly, she’d come to cause

his dimming soul’s demise.

 

She pinned his body to the chair

and feasted on his heart.

“Your fate is bad,” the old witch said.

“And that completes your chart.”

 

She laughed as she got up to leave.

“Enjoy your meal, my dear.”

“Well, why stop now?” the demon said.

“The two of you are here.”

Unearthed

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101, Uncategorized

Perhaps the artifact you unearthed

was waiting for you.

Perhaps not.

The ancient wraiths of your fathers bear witness

to your own thievery.

Doubtless, the dormant curses will

begin to manifest.

The sleeping souls of the past

stumble as they walk toward the light

they’ll never reach.

The old soil encrusting your stolen treasure

is crumbly with dreams, fertile with memories,

and yet, nothing grew.

The redolent scent of the earth’s loam

gives way

to an afterbirth of blood.

Perhaps the artifact will break your clutching fingers

and release itself.

Perhaps not.