Old Mrs. Gable stared from
her porch with cold, hollow
eyes.
Children avoided her rotting
mansion, fearing her sharp,
bitter tongue.
When she died inside, the
neighborhood breathed a
sigh of relief.
Yet the heavy velvet curtains
still twitched whenever
anyone walked by.
The rusted front gates would
screech open, inviting the
curious inside.
Those who dared enter
found her scowling portrait
watching their steps.
Her rocking chair swayed on
the hardwood with no wind
around.
A raspy, phantom voice
hissed from the dark,
demanding they leave.
Then the doors slammed
shut, locking the trespassers
in her trap.
She is still entity, and now
they belong to her house
forever.
People get jealous.
They say she's too much.
Too arrogant. Too dangerous.
They talk their and such.
Words get to her —
but she doesn't care.
She knows better than anyone there.
They say she thinks she rules the world.
But how would they know she didn't?
Watch how fast their teeth get gritted.
She knows every fear, every weakness —
and uses it with confidence, no less.
No mercy.
They call her evil, cursed, insane.
But she knows clearly who's to blame.
She is in control.
She rules the earth.
Under her hand? No peaceful birth.
The world burns slow inside her palm.
She watches the chaos — eerily calm.
But once… she was like them.
Soft. Small. Afraid.
Because of the mess they made.
She became what they made her.
She became what they fear.
And now she's standing right here.
Not lost. Not broken.
She is here with revenge.
And the world's end is near.
Dark is the night
with shadows and bleached bones
of leafless trees
Limbs frozen in time
A sculpted beauty
shroud below her thighs
Dark is the night
and so many trees
buried near the corpse flowers
Has he ever watched them bloom
or were his eyes transfixed on the shovel
Dark is the night
yet the moon shows its phases
always a sentinel of fate
never able to help the inculpable
as the black clouds devour
Dark is the night
Slithering tentacles glide atop
And s stormy abyss beneath
One abyss staring into other's heart
Between stands the light,
desolate and discreet
When did the mermaids
sing the melodious songs
Why did the mighty Neptune weep
What swallowed the mighty sun
When did this eternal night creep
Years, months or centuries passed?
Or has it been barely just a week
Men weren't taught how to cry, so I will teach.
Any mere person would run away if they knew
the devils my brain shelters.
I feed my monsters with my thoughts
and entertain them with crime stories.
I love the taste of my blood—
the tint it leaves behind,
that perfect shade of red once it dries.
I’m the one who drives past the howling dogs,
rolls down the window in the middle of the night,
watches horror movies
like I’m preparing for a battle that hasn't happened yet.
I collect every way there is
to track, to hunt, to kill.
I live for the moment
I stop being prey
and become the predator.
I’m a lover, not a hater—
but nobody ever mentions
"gore cinephile".
Every movie becomes a spectacle
when red is its main color palette.
Coming back to men—
the most boring topic in this entire journal—
would he savor the violence on screen the way I do,
or curl into my arms instead?
Honestly, I’d love both.
As long as he’d let me taste his blood.
Let me be clear—
I’m not a serial killer,
not a sadist.
…I’m just a girl.
I can hear It dying.
Over and over, its screams won’t leave me be.
Voices, not mine, they’re not real.
It’s not real.
In silent air, this quiet night,
Grey fog shields it from my sight.
The farther it sounds, the closer to me.
Out here is not the place to be.
It lingers, stalks, and does not sleep.
Empty eyes, a missing soul.
A broken vessel with no mind of its own.
A Ship of Theseus that shouldn’t exist.
Estranged limbs, countless shapes.
Contouring into something?
No,
Someone.
Multiple masks, hiding behind false innocence.
Deer, sheep, dogs, It hides.
It hides. It lies.
It lies.
Your flesh will rot
but mine will not.
I’ll wear your skin
I’ll be your kin.
As today, we gather to celebrate
a created monster, judged first rate,
we credit, not just Frankenstein, but you,
the cadaver that made this dream come true.
Now is the certain Winter
Of collective discontent
Descending with the steady steps
Of predators among us,
Eyes cold and clear
Like ICE.
No compassion for strangers
In those eyes,
No warmth for others
Behind those masks
Just coldness, hardness
Like ICE.
No argument nor explanation
Attended to;
No appeal is heard above the cutting wind
That follows in their wake
Like ICE.
Serve your country in defense of its ... culture?
Defend the indefensible
Send someone to tell
The poet woman's boy
So sorry, Mommy won't be coming back
Shot in the face 3 times
Brought it on herself
For lack of instant obedience
"Not mad at you, man",
Brought it on herself
So sorry
3 times
Not coming back.
So go down, O Patriot
Go down and announce it hard,
Carry it to her 6 year old son.
Wear his face in your heart
Frozen in unbounded grief
To the day you die
And they put you
On ICE.
There's gravel grinding in my gut; a godless gearbox of grief growling in my belly's black cathedral.
My heart hammers like hell's hooves, hauling the hearse of every hope I ever had.
I eat dirt for dinner and call it divine, choking on crumbs of my own creation.
My lungs lurch like dying engines, exhaling elegies of exhaust and extinction.
Every breath burns a furnace of forgiveness that refuses to cool.
The devil drums on my ribs like thunder made of teeth and tin.
My tongue tastes of tombstones and tar and a sermon spat through shattered glass.
Even silence stabs sharp sanctified hollering hymns of pain through the marrow of midnight.
I am the meat of my own misery devoured by despair divine.
And stll the gravel grins inside me, grinding and glorying in my ruin.
The traveler stands alone,
a trespasser in dust and rot,
and then the sounds begin.
not rain,
not time's heavy sigh,
but a persistent,
liquid malice striking a rusty pot
somewhere in the black gut of the house.
Drip
A tiny bullet of sound fired into the deep quiet.
Drip
The sound
a tiny hammer
on the anvil of silence,
chipping away at the night.
Drip
An unwelcome guest,
insistent
monotonous
filling the vast emptiness
with its small, steady rhythm.
Drip
Each drop a moment passing,
marked by the sound
in the dark heart of the night
What horror hides behind these walls
That seem to stare with piercing eyes?
The halls--they echo sound like calls
For aid as from tormented cries.
Why do dark shadows seem to reign,
Usurp what little light remains?
This room breathes doom or some such bane,
Each creak gives off some death-like strains.
And who are these whose faces masked
Bend over me with visage grim?
They prod, they pinch, they poke unasked
I struggle but can’t move a limb.
October 26-27, 2025
Among 3rd Place
A Spooky Haunted Poem 8-12 lines of rhyme Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Tania Kitchin
for-A Spooky Haunted Poem 8-12 Lines Of Rhyme Poetry Contest-Sponsored by: Tania Kitchin
summoned from the underworlds brimstones and fires;
nightmare beast howl to midnights lustre light-
fangs drip with a lust to bite.
summoned from the underworlds brimstones and fires;
an unholy choir echo a demons song-
from inside deaths memorial, shadows long.
summoned from the underworlds brimstones and fires;
the chants of mystical incantations to raise the dead-
releasing souls from eternal slumber, their forever bed.
summoned to the underworlds brimstones and fires-
dark, lost souls, feeding hades funeral pyre.
In the middle of the night
I dream and I wake
Who is it that awakens me from my sleep?
confusion slips into our beds
games the minds of gentle heads
twists familiars to never-beens
personas dark mask every scene
far away from hearth and home
on echoes' endless shouts I roam
in vain retrieve my former life
confusion wakes ~ a butcher knife
White Cars Haunt
My dreams awake in wasteful
Flights fantastic blight
Each headlight flares
Restless into the outer fields of memory
The oppressive, hot, humid twilight
Passing out of my sight
They haunt my wakening eyes
Along the way, hollow roads of soul
Down endless maps of history
The endless engines thumm
An echo old still lasts, sitting
White cars are empty and cold
Bloody taillights trace each past
Black rubber burns distant futures
White cars sit idle, haunting
Engines' hot air rises to
Meet my blurry vision of yesterday
As white cars haunt
Passing me on the left and then the right
Ghostly in the pale moonlight
In a parking lot, idling, hot
As neon bars pop and flicker
Feel the rot of endless horizons
White white cars travel, burning
Into the enigmatic magnetic night…
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