Once he had one he wanted to constrict it, like a boa; a python, to hold closely guarded the thing for which demure closets stay closed like iron-waitresses pervading the hostel with lime-light the lemony-snickett cackling in the born-and-bred flames, curling irons prod the paper-clip open but the stamp endures, a timid interred girl beghosts the earls. The favorite simple plan, favored in heavens gamma, where brightness surely waits in pavilion the concert. My concerto is made-man italian, the devise impregnated, like hollow bells that sour, the grim sugar from said waitress, we wildly call the crows to set and chime on the lines where workmen craft blue ribbons atop the farmland graves.
See the Orphan smile!
A storm that teaches peace blooms
on black forgiveness.
A child's shoe lies interred
With cold, steely resentment.
Winner: Third Place, The Beautiful Impossible, Sotto Poet (Sponsor) 9/02/26
Faint,
spark,
smothered,
frail flicker,
doused by wanton strafe,
of bogus blitz on firefly swarm,
whose sintered flecks luminous once a mint meadow rash,
fetid stench on sombre marsh morgue deathly plummet in wet woodland, squelching plot interred,
winsome wing glow worm surreal,
larval lantern love, a spring twilight trail flash mate signal in mid-flight flare, haphazard helix of red flame,
lightning mimicry from maiden whose passion quest quenched querulous by nightmarish callous earthling hand clamped coffin dull click, twilight yellow, blue ghost, witching hour green tint spectaclenow grave entombment, mourning planet sheds tears
A superluminal orb, like frightful ghosts interred, have met this bead halfway and lighting struck the hearth, for another better dance, keening deerish prance, the mute mother said strung about them were dolls which pearls know are afowl and created another cart of food pulled by oxen run-to-mill that pulled the bead to start.
I implore,I implore the westerly gust
To take me or at least my pendowned ink
Many a time-my fingers are encrust
Traveled never so far, barely within a page's brink
In a chilling hour when the candle shines bright
And while the poor soul begins to sway
I snug a pen like a primed gallant knight-
To beguile my darling; possibly fanciful any-way
O I implore,I implore my fanciful maiden
You were,ever were to whom I indite
Gals of ink and bales of pages are laden
Untill the lantern bug took their earliest flight--
Though the countless letter I engraved
The means and will of it was never heard
Every is being trodden and depraved
In every swarty night mine visions are blurred and Interred
I was,never was the flower that sprung about
But the gloomy cloud of June;what I was merely a lout
This, untrained as unvoiced
Brahmin in the bee;
Chants, in a repetitive drone
Its own sacred tone.
This, for its temple's space
My private garden's!
Minds of its calm, once entered
Are deeper interred!
42 Mirrors
By Lucien Quincy Senna
Mirror, mirror
tell me all,
Who I am
Who I was,
painted seagreen with vanity
or socketed modesty.
Pride and pain
my old pretenders.
I am full of dead men's bones,
their advance over me.
I trashed and trotted
other people's causes,
statecraft of the most
sinister skull-duggery.
Mirror, mirror
see me now,
my strawberry leaves
for I am no longer twenty-four.
Pinking the raw edge of silk,
trusting it all.
Then that Ramshackle Empire
came clattering for me
a penal code
institutions for troubled women
"Pull your bellies between your knees!" said the nurse.
The hours pass upon the eastern turn
my faith anew while I was interred there,
until I somersaulted
out of the deep waters.
An ocean greyhound
who was simply considered
a whited sepulchre.
A mask for women over forty.
Incessantly it trods and plods
perpetual the pendulum.
So long before the abbey bells
tolled and told of hours passing
before the ticks and tocks of clocks
or shadows crept with solstice gods
no one to worship at its start
that knew not of a perfect love.
The kindest heart left drowned in tears
and wrapped in gross deformity,
yet sheltered by cathedral walls
in disrepair as much as he.
'til Esmerelda's gentle hand,
he knew no love, just hate and scorn
and like the brand from tempered flame,
it's burning love that made him strong.
So like the edifice was he,
an ugly house that held God's love
and Quasimodo's lonely heart
who'd toll the bells that silence hears.
Then in the end he found her dead
and sacrificed his mortal life
to sleep with one who truly gave
the only love he'd ever known.
Interred, yet not forsaken souls,
whose bones became entangled vines
that turned to dust when first exposed,
then blew to heaven ~ found in time...
Tho' not with a dagger in the library
nor candlestick in the conservatory
someone done the dirty deed
and yet of bodies none were found
perhaps the evidence had been concealed
interred deep down underground
so no one's doing time
it was eventually revealed
for the heinous crime
of thuggery and skullduggery
terrible as it may be
where the skeletons are buried
only the gravedigger knows
and after all allegedly it was purportedly
merely a murder of crows
"She reassured me with an unfamiliar line."
Love is a mystery school, yearning for sages
well able to reckon sixes from nines.
True wits should elect sin's disbursements
rather than reflect on love's scenes of rushing bunglers.
Love is sick, blind, unkind. Aren't we cruel?
She chided: brush your flapper, dying blue
between that pair of cheese crackers.
Remove the Devil's Pitchfork from your hair.
Doubling as Dracula, your zeal repealed
by loving an unpersuaded other.
Stay not inconsolable, my weaning one!
She knelt beside me, interpolating my orations.
Entreat for veritable blindness to take better blame.
Apathetic to any flame, resisting even sipping sunshine
interred in the long night of voluminous drapes,
pray for cardiac arrest to efface 1700 hours of shadows.
Perhaps, pray you would love me, and I shall say something of it.
lazy bones, bound in poverty’s grip
in a garden, where hesitation weeds grow~
filled with s t r a n g l e d d e l i c a c i e s…
a recipe of wisdom, never tasted
couched like a fly in an endless stupor…
abandoned in a ship, lost in the doldrums~
in a dark tunnel, where
echoes slowly f a d i n g
doomed to sail a sinking ship with no lifeboat
yet your arms can still push a boulder uphill~
so put your shoulder to the wheel...
never stop, reach the mountain's peak
sharpen the saw, dig for gold, tame white horses~
while sweat streams down your brow
for once you're interred in a grave
with nothing to illuminate the darkness
mountain of your strength will only enrich the grains of sand...
and fork in the road will give you no direction to choose
you'll just be lost in the maze...
like a deer in a headlight
as confused as a dog watching a magic trick
Eavesdropping
the liars
where poison is stirred
Their message
rings toxic
the future interred
Foreboding
forsaking
all hope is unstrung
While deaf
to the mantra
— where truth waits unsung
(Dreamsleep: January, 2025)
I breathe; I think; I slumber and I wake
I feel; I hear; I scream for pity’s sake
I push; I shove with little left to give
But six feet neath new fallen leaves, I live
I breathe the fumes of my putrefaction
As I lie cramped with limited action
I hear the sound of my life below ground
Six hundred years worth of worms slinking round
I feel the splinters of oak ’neath my nails
Each - one less day till persistence prevails
I sense that I shall enjoy the night soon
And be undead by the light of my moon
And now, there it is; the smell of the night
Your silver glint in the sky gives me flight
Those who interred me are many years dead
Their progeny live; and I must be fed
Shall any man notice your renewed glee
Your moonlight to them is daylight to me
I knew you were waiting, o light of mine
For we are coupled by ancient design
Warm me, my moon, my midnight accomplice
Restore my flesh; we’ve much to accomplish
Descendants of men who left you to grieve
Shall scream in the night when they hear me breathe
On the outskirts of town there's a house on Brooding Hill
that leaves those who pass by with shivers and a chill.
It's rumored that murders have taken place in the home
since it's been haunted by ghosts and ghouls who roam.
It's surrounded by a forest where shadows take to flight
and whispers echo upon the wind on a full moon night.
Red eyes stare out of windows from skeletons that talk
and no one ever dares to go near that house after dark.
Crows perch on moss draped limbs of trees, long dead.
Their caws summon the master goblin lesser demons dread.
The stench of death lingers near when screams are heard
begging help from graves where bodies have been interred.
That macabre haunted house is not a place I will ever enter.
Gossip around town is that it's soon to have another renter,
but it won't take long before they will feel the terror and fear
when in the house on Brooding hill, hobgoblins will appear.
Over the hill and far away
There is a small but lovely bay.
Not one building spoiled the site,
Just old tombs that give me some fright.
Seen from the top of each tomb is a soul,
Interred, all dust not one a whole.
Many suffering ere they died,
No person praying near their side.
The cemetery paths rough plunge down.
Poor souls in deep sorrow they drown.
Why does no one care to visit?
Bring a rose, cheer up their spirit?
My husband lies in one of them
Kneeling I uttered an Amen.
The future bid another day
So leave the hill, go far away.
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