Halloween Poems Iii

No One by Michael R. Burch No One hears the bells tonight; they tell him something isn’t right. But No One is not one to rush; he lies in grasses greenly lush as far away a startled thrush flees from horned owls in sinking flight. No One hears the cannon’s roar and muses that its voice means war comes knocking on men’s doors tonight. He sleeps outside in awed delight beneath the enigmatic stars and shivers in their cooling light. No One knows the world will end, that he’ll be lonely, without friend or foe to conquer. All will be once more, celestial harmony. He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then, but worlds can be remade again. NOTE: This poem's No One is a cross between an angel and a demon, God and the Devil, a warlock and a goblin. Bikini by Michael R. Burch Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming, by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye, through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming like tangled hair where cold currents rise . . . something lurks where the riptides sigh, something old and pale and wise. Something old when the world was forming now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye, and with tentacles about it squirming, it feels the cloud above it rise and shudders, settles with a sigh, knowing man’s demise draws nigh. Ceremony by Michael R. Burch Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring, heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me. Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings. Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair, whispering, “I do!” . . . as the gaunt vultures stare. The Witch Contraire by Michael R. Burch Where there was nothing but emptiness and hollow chaos and despair, I sought Her ... finding only the darkness and mournful silence of the wind entangling her hair. Yet her name was like prayer. Now she is the vast starry tinctures of emptiness flickering everywhere within me and about me. Yes, she is the darkness, and she is the silence of twilight and the night air. Yes, she is the chaos and she is the madness and they call her Contraire. Dark Twin by Michael R. Burch You come to me out of the sun? my dark twin, unreal . . . And you are always near although I cannot touch you; although I trample you, you cannot feel . . . And we cannot be parted, nor can we ever meet except at the feet. East End, 1888 by Michael R. Burch Past darkened storefronts, hunched and contorted, bent with need through chilling rain, he walks alone till down the glistening cobblestones deliberate footsteps pause, resume. He follows, by a pub confronts a pasty face, an overbright smile, lips intimating easy bliss, a boisterous, over-eager tongue. She barters what she has to sell; her honeyed words seem cloying, stale? pale, tainted things of sticky guile. * A rustle of her petticoats, a flash of bulging milk-white breast . . . the price is set: a crown. “A tip, a shilling more is yours,” he quotes, “to wash your privates.” She accepts. Saliva glistens on his lips. * An alley. There, he lifts her gown, in answer to her question, frowns, says?“You can call me Jack, or Rip.” East End, 1888 (II) by Michael R. Burch He slouched East through a steady downpour, a slovenly beast befouling each puddle with bright footprints of blood. Outlined in a pub door, lewdly, wantonly, she stood . . . mocked and brazenly offered. He took what he could till she afforded no more. Now a single bright copper glints becrimsoned by the door of the pub where he met her. He holds to his breast the one part of her body she was unable to whore, grips her heart to his wildly stammering heart . . . unable to forgive or forget her. Evil, the Rat by Michael R. Burch Evil lives in a hole like a rat and sleeps in its feces, fearing the cat. At night it furtively creeps through the house while the cat sleeps. It eats old excrement and gnaws on steaming dung and it will pause between odd bites to sniff through the scat, twitching and trembling, for a scent of the cat ... Evil, the rat. Keywords/Tags: Halloween, eve, supernatural, horror, dark, gothic, paranormal, evil, witch, witches, crone, crones, Jack the Ripper, goblin, warlock, angel of death, fear