Tag: poetry

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.”

        

All Over

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101

They run in the rafters.

They knock on the door.

Sometimes with no warning,

they’ll rise through the floor.

They come from all over

to answer your call.

That you didn’t mean to

means nothing at all.

“You owe us a blood debt”

is what they will say.

“We’ll soul-snatch your spirit,

your flesh we will slay.”

They’ll watch from

the fiery corners of hell,

and grant you the wishes

you tossed down the well.

So then, when you see them,

you won’t die of fright.

Just follow them, follow them,

into the night.

Just follow them, all the way,

all through the night.

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 FEATHERED WAND

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101

The hatchlings’ tiny, shiny feathers

gild and grace the handle of the pipes,

and all the peace in the world

that was never attained,

broken by the strife and suffering

of humanity’s merciless

love of power

over other forms of dust,

is healed in the smoke,

blessed by

colorful fledgling feathers

that will never

feel the sun and wind and rain,

and

master the sky.

The Gauntlet of Forgotten

by smithaw50, posted in Uncategorized

Silent now,

this once rambunctious band

of warriors.

All of them

silent now,

except me.

All these years later,

I still remember

the Elder’s advice

as she covered her knees

with her blanket.

“The cause you fight for

will never be absent

in the world,

for the hearts of men are

ever self-serving.”

She watches from among the stones

and remembers the day

she saw her son die.

I mourn with her,

prayerful, fearful,

in the light as she fades from view,

her tears gray as

rainclouds,

and colder than

death.

Tamed Voices

by smithaw50, posted in Blogging 101, Uncategorized

I’ve been made to understand

you’ve tamed the voices in your head,

and slaughtered to silence those

around your heart.

It’s no small thing you’ve accomplished.

You must yell ever louder,

and cut yourself until they bleed too.

Twist them slow and painfully,

like a rusty top forcefully pried

off the warped rim of a broken jar.

Grind them until their screams stop.

Take, then, the piece of you that survived the

furnace and the crucible,

and withstood the elements

of scientific arrogance

eroding the world,

and escape to

the quiet of your soul.

Watch the chaos of life leak,

streaking down the windows,

streaking down your face,

in the silent wailing

of the tamed voices,

and name yourself their

Master.

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.