Miss Leatherface masked with demons for the world
to face them, or get caught in the teeth of the abattoir psalm. Prove me wrong__
Skin peels back. Fingers branch.
Seeds sprout wings. Body art in hues of blue.
You burst into iridescent dragonflies.
Foxes grin. Ginsberg's Howl made of bark.
Fractal skies. A living mandala.
Jefferson Airplane's cryogenic supernova.
The ground goes liquid, a swirling tie-dye quicksand.
A harlequin paints the world magenta.
This ain't no picnic. This is the vortex.
Flying on a carpet of pure pandemonium.
Hurricane vortices of phosphorus green.
Insects crawl from beneath and consume your frame.
Every orifice, defiled and used like a subway.
Phallus-trains of centipedes pour from your ears, your mouth, your nose.
Eyeballs melt. Skin blisters to bursting boils. Spiders cover your shell.
You claw and roll, screaming, as a mahogany cigarette liquefies, revealing ME.
This never ends. The paradox begins.
Welcome to the Bosch Painting. My laughter, your shriek of agony.
Back to the beginning. My plaything.
Smooth as the vorpal descent.
MAKABRÉ MINUET-!?
An eerie stillness enshrouds,
the street I lodge in,
lone shadows loiter and lounge,
dark ink creatures peep
wet croak from a gaunt hermit,
slumped on granite bench,
faint cry from flitting figures
estranged by night chill
It’s whispers.
Can you hear them?
I don’t want to,
but they force me to.
Sitting in an empty room,
with no one—
just a cigarette in my hand.
Every time it touches my lips,
it kills me
and makes me want to avoid it—
I know that cigarette is not good for me,
but I like doing something
I know is going to kill me.
But he likes that I do that—
killing myself, he whispered to me,
saying, “Can we switch places?”
I said, “How can I get into the wall?
You are a shadow.”
But how…
I was talking to a shadow
in a room
completely empty and dark.
The whispers say to me:
“Look at me.
Look at the darkness,
and feel both sides of it
that you don’t think exist.”
I thought something was wrong.
I kept hearing him
until he said:
“Come closer…
to someone else in the room,
because my name isn’t dead.”
When I turned on the light,
I saw nothing
but my shadow dancing in front of me,
my body frozen, watching.
And when I looked back,
something was coming out of the wall
with a cigarette,
saying to me:
“I like doing something
I know is going to kill me."
I had blood on my face. Dirty. Gracious. And… disgusting. Blood dripping on my face. Didn’t know it. It just smelled bad.
When I looked at my face in the mirror, I thought… that the mirror had the blood.
I kept cleaning it. Cleaning it. Rubbing it. With my arms. With my palms. With my fingertips.
At the fatigue, I could get in my fingertips until that blood dripped from my face onto the mirror.
And now I understand that I had a problem. Who caused problems on both me and the mirror.
Now I can clean the blood on my face. But what about the mirror?
I am not certain sea
is always deep,
no-matter its depth --
As professed love is sometimes
only speech rehearsed, well prepped.
And the sun, though illustriously
shines, can be blind, victim of
self undulating light --
as all
stars, in time, blink out~ sliced from
the heavens by, the eternally appointed,
darkly shrouded, Ever-cleaving Scythe
of Night....
Clutched jaw, grinding teeth against pulp,
until ash and blood coat a deadened tongue.
The nightsong quiets—a pulsating silence encapsulates the land
as I walk up to a pyre built of withering dreams and deadly nightshade.
The cold, bitter air brushes against protruding flesh.
Looking toward the skies, faith stripped and shamed,
I climb and take my place among my ancestral spirits.
The silence of the night breaks, with chants of *Burn the witch* filling the void.
Leering eyes and foaming mouths scream obscenities my way.
But even among this fanatic freakshow, I hold on to my dignity.
I do not let them see the fear festering beneath my eyes,
nor does my lip quiver.
With insurmountable strength, I hold my head high
as I watch the torches preparing to set me ablaze.
Closing my eyes one final time, I breathe in everything I have ever held dear.
Memories flood—of loves lost and gained,
of the changing seasons,
of my connection to this glorious earth.
I can feel the flames licking at my feet now.
But I will not scream,
for my resurrection will come soon enough.
Yet again another light appears in the dead of night , Waking me from sleep with a majestic sigh
Yet a sigh I’m unable to grasp, gazing into the light, dwelling while it lasts
But I know the beam will soon die out, the light will be dimmed amidst the clouds
I will tilt my head and stare as the light fades away, wondering why such a sigh can never stay
Once again the night returns before my eyes, no longer consumed by the lies of the light
The deception that captivated my brain, must have been a delusion I made in vain
I’ll remind myself the simple truth, there was no light, there is simply darkness in the dead of night
And yet I know tonight, I’ll stay awake eager to see the sigh, waiting for my eyes to illuminated by the beauty of the light
I’ll wait for what is nothing but an illusion, I’ll stare into the darkness, trees and pollution.
Waiting for a so called “light” to return once again to conquer the night.
Her winsome smile belied her secret essence
A temptress and siren
Given to saturnine quintessence
And I a man of placid and calm complexion
Became ever more umbrageous
With each stranger she offered affection
Ciara Cybelle chose to take her chances
Unconcerned by my mood
Continued her frenzied romances
She swooned at my charm
And laughed at my wit
And yet held to another man’s arm
Ciara Cybelle a nymph out of hell
Twisting a man
With her temptress spell
I had to make her understand
She simply had to see
I must be her only man
But Ciara Cybelle laughed instead
Eyes flashing fire
She brazenly said
The likes of me would never know
The deliciousness
Of the charms she would bestow
On other men she found fairer
Then in a rage
I struck in blind error
And carefree Ciara Cybelle
Lay shattered and still
At my feet where she fell
To the dark waters I fed
The alabaster body
Of Ciara Cybelle dead
Now benthic stillness of cimmerian depths
Disturbed by the pale lifeless limbs
Of Ciara Cybelle
Now tumescent and water pruned
The once sempiternal beauty
Forever ruined
Sinister Shadowy Silhouette
Gargoyle
Eyes of stone are watching
High above the ground
Protecting from the evil
That lingers all around
Why must you old grotesque one
Dwell there all alone
What immortal sin did you commit
That put you on that throne
Somehow I feel a sorrow
I do not understand
For your are just a creation
Of a sculptures hand
Still something about you moves me
Should I even care
For I’m a free man walking
And you must sit and stare
striking f l a k e s of
w
h
i
t
e
p i e r c e through bitter cold darkness ~
stunningly
w
a
n
i
n
g
They say happiness is a flame,
brief as a match struck in rain.
I held it once—
a home, two sons,
a husband who smiled like promise.
Until his arms curled elsewhere.
Until his mouth tasted betrayal.
Until I learned beauty
was something I could not hold
no matter how tightly I bled.
The dragon woke in me that night.
Not scaled, not winged,
but clawed in grief,
fire burning holes through my ribs.
If he could snatch away my joy,
I would scorch his world in return.
My children—
his children—
became the tinder.
Their laughter, their small hands,
their faces shaped like his,
drowned in my fury.
But when the river stilled,
their silence came back louder.
My vengeance collapsed into ash.
I touched their lips
and begged them to breathe,
to forgive.
And when the willow trees bowed
like mourners on the shore,
I followed,
slipping into the water’s mouth,
hoping death would undo
what rage had done.
They say I weep at night.
They say I call for them,
cursed to wander, cursed to wail.
But tell me this—
what do you call a woman
whose heart became a dragon,
and whose bones still burn
with the tears she cannot shed?
Claustrophobic, saturated white walls constrict,
sucking the oxygen from every molecule of deprived blood.
Hypoxic cells circulate through an increasingly unstable body,
whilst rivulets of sweat flow from clammy palms.
Insomniac reality blurs with insidious shadows,
dancing upon the ceiling.
Naive faith keeps insanity just at bay,
but with each sunrise, hope is chipped away.
How much longer can a soul survive without respite
before it splits open—
spilling into the realms of delicious delusion?
Counting spots of dust in sunlight streams
now becomes the norm.
Two hundred yesterday—
is that two hundred and four today?
Slowly losing grip,
twisted nursery rhymes play out in a fracturing mind:
One, two, no one is going to save you.
Three, four, get ready for the relentless gore.
Five, six, they will play with your bones like sticks.
Seven, eight, for this occasion you better not be late.
Nine, ten, you are now in their sadistic den.
Praying for sleep, it never comes,
as reality dissolves
and this phantasmagorical nightmare commences.
Evil little faces
In little evil places
come in from many cases
Behind the glass door mazes, do we really make changes?
Do they actually change us?
I walk by the metal cages, I've come to feel the same spaces
Humbly, I have to say this
We are all on borrowed time still
I felt wars break in my heart—
violence my voice could not
bear to fight alone—
and still, despite the lies
I sometimes believe, I stand
each day in the strength
of my creations, weaving hope
into miracles—thread by doubtful thread,
even as the world screams
or turns away—
even as my hands
constrict my own throat—
I bear the unfathomable ache
of crafting the unbroken.
8.13.25
Specific Types of Gothic Poems
Definition | What is Gothic in Poetry?