FRAGILITYFRAGILITY
Poem written for Body Possession Horror Poetry contest, Micheal Fulkerson, sponsor, 7/22/2025
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Locusts serenade me as I rock,
suspended, in the soft embrace of my hammock.
The air is lovely and eerie,
heavy with the ghost of jasmine.
But then—a change,
a shudder in the atmosphere,
a flicker, a spark, a pulse of light, getting brighter,
a fiery arc...
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Categories:
12th grade, horror,
Form: Free verse
Body Possession
Twisted and taunted,
I stood in the wintry path where
sparkling silver slivers of mercury
searched for their brethren
to merge as one.
Colder than my path, a clammy cold
from the nitrous night, crept through as winter winds
coming from the chill of the grave,
and blasted me with icy shards, scraping at my bones
and freezing my soul.
Its harshness racked me as...
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Categories:
horror, body, corruption, evil, fire,
Form: Narrative
Wonderland
Day 1
I fall—not through space
something thinner—
like light stretched
too far
across the skin of a thought
I buried years ago
The tunnel hums
with memory—
a child’s scream rising into laughter,
the sting of ozone before the storm
the flicker between blinks
where everything vanishes
Darkness
Sun blinds—
Day 2
The sky is a calm equation—
no clouds, no noise,
just light folded neatly
like fresh hospital sheets
The grass soft...
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Categories:
horror, dream, surreal,
Form: Free verse
The spiritual horror of psychological tortureWhen the mind slowly decays
It doesn’t just affect the mind
It affects the body, the spirit, the soul
The spiritual horror of psychological torture
Is how you treated black people
The way you penetrated our minds with accusations of inferiority
Treating us less than animals
Less than the dirt on your shoes
Generation after generation
You have tortured my people
Psychological...
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Categories:
discrimination, horror, prejudice, psychological,
Form: Free verse
An Outlook: The Supernatural BeliefThere once a place
Filled with people from dark side
They were cold and unwilling
Some unaware life has ended
They go here and there
Or perhaps beside you
In front or at your back
Looking at you now
Going to forsaken places
May lead to a dark path
Not aware of what’ll happen
Hence will be bewitched...
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Categories:
horror, life, society,
Form: Free verse
HOPEHope barely breathes
its chest tight beneath the smoke
as grief spreads like fire
through streets that once knew laughter.
Haiti, now a land of shadows
where joy is muffled by gunshots
and dreams lie broken
on corners no longer safe to dream in.
Yet still, the sun dares to rise
a quiet defiance in the sky
reminding us that even in ruins
light remembers...
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Categories:
12th grade, hope, horror,
Form: Free verse
America Lost Its Innocence 7/14/2025
Oh, how could this have ever happened here?
A free naton with baseball, movies and beer?
Those days when other nations cry against...
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Categories:
america, betrayal, horror,
Form: Rhyme
Here Smells HellHell smells on this nice land
Land where there is severe killing
Killing of innocent people
People hating their neighbors
Neighbors with grudge
Grudge against everything
Everything has decayed.
Decayed, as morals are in danger
Danger of living on this land
Land with endless fire
Fire from the morning until in the evening
Evening, when death squadrons chop and shoot
Shoot and set ablaze fellow...
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Categories:
abuse, conflict, hate, horror,
Form: Free verse
Memory at the Door
She knocks on my rib cage
seeking access to my heart again
The knock—the pounding pestle—
taunts, its echo won’t stand to be ignored
I hold my knees and cover my ears
as if that’ll keep my walls untampered
I let my flesh wrap me whole—
so tight I might suffocate,
but I cannot breathe outside this
prison, no—this haven
She’s still...
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Categories:
horror, memory, metaphor, scary,
Form: Free verse
Sister By Blood
She walked towards me,
I never had a sister by blood.
Maybe that was about to change.
Blood was all over her
as she walked towards me.
It seemed like I already knew her.
She is from another time,
I must have met her somewhere.
Familiarity permeated my mind.
Blood was all over her,
still I wasn’t the least bit fearful.
In this moment I’m...
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Categories:
emotions, feelings, horror,
Form: Free verse
The ToyA treasure untreasured, abandoned and forgot
In a darkened closet much like a burial plot
Misremembered kisses, hugs no longer felt
Twisting into bitterness, where lonesome dwelt
Memories wrapped in soft stuffing
Threadbare keepsake suffering
Cracked plastic smile full of secrets
A slow darkening uniqueness
Awakened within static button eyes
And malevolent intent began to arise
Replacing the love long since perished
Within the toy once...
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Categories:
fear, horror,
Form: Rhyme
Murder in the Red BarnA couple soon to be said newly wed,
yet swiftly snuck behind the family’s back
to swear the vow inside th’old shack,
quick forgot’n, buried a secret dread;
A reek awaftin’ out a country shed
left long and fast behind by Spring-heeled Jack,
the stench o’ rot stinkin’ from a sack
discovers a soiled corpse ‘n’a mangled head;
Well…, they ‘was a...
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Categories:
dark, death, horror, murder,
Form: Italian Sonnet
Mother at the GateThe gossamer on a child’s frame, looked new and ancient,
all at once. A ghostly smile, a trick and treat, directed at me.
No wrinkles on the hand of time, his godforsaken finger
pointed at the stabbed pigeon. I followed the tracks of blood
down to the river. I seemed to have no choice, in this misty
sequence. A grief-stricken...
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Categories:
horror,
Form: Free verse
Evin PrisonKhaled was a bodybuilding champ in Iran
A photo shows a smiling and very strong man
Then in Evin Prison, at the mercy of nasty folk
His spine fractured, kidneys failed, heart was harmed, leg was broke.
Evin is a bad place, 113 degrees and no A.C.
I'm sure you can think of better places to be
One woman tells us...
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Categories:
horror, abuse, courage, evil, freedom,
Form: Lyric
Rafah
I hear voices in my head,
I touch pain
On every television
Except the typical symbols
Of hegemony
Except in a white building
Miles and miles away,
I touch pain!
For every leaf that falls,
Swallowed by the burning hell
From the mighty birds
Of weird names F 16, F 35...
I hear these voices,
We hear these voices -
Miles away, node in unison,
"The world...
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Categories:
allegory, allusion, corruption, horror,
Form: Free verse
Specific Types of Horror Poems
Definition | What is Horror in Poetry?
Poems Related to Horror
dismay, consternation, fright, apprehension, dread, disgust, terror, awe, panic, hatred, abhorrence, repugnance, hate, alarm, antipathy, abomination, trepidation, aversion, detestation, monstrosity, dislike, loathing, chiller,