October 2024, Poetry challenge A: Oh this is just horrible

[vagrantx]

It's that time of year again, so fetch your flashlight, throw a sheet over your head...and let's tell some horror stories!

Absolutely anything goes, there is no need to adhere to form or meter, rhyme or reason.
Throw your sanity out the window and share some horrific poetry!

Oh, and, feel free to talk in the thread; critique, argue, praise, shriek...

---

come children, gather ‘round
fetch my tankard and I shall
regale you, with a tale
a somber story
from beyond
the pale

take a moment, close your eyes
and picture this, in your mind
there once was fire, in the sky
not only shadows,
and others
up high

there was an Orb, it gave us light
it burned, eternal, it chased the night
far beyond these blackened shores
and blessed the world
up there
‘bove the Doors

then came a horrid flutter
the beatings of misshapen wings
a gaping maw
a thousand teeth
a wretched hunger reaching out for Sol
the jaws clamped shut
and darkness fell
as the Orb
was swallowed whole

our world grew cold, the air stopped still
a wave that froze; like snow-clad hill
from cracks in earth
a whisper came
an ancient horror
without a name

the stars blinked out, they all died down
a broken silence, a hungry growl
the night’s now endless, d’ye hear?
‘ver since It came
to feast on fear

 

[AlinaX]

She died a year ago last night
A year she's laid in earth
Imagine thus my unholy fright
To witness her rebirth

Her hand thrust up, ghostly pale
Made bright by stars and moon
Still more emerged, hale but frail
I felt that I might swoon

Unclothed she stood regarding me
Miraculously clean
“My love,” she said, “my patience wears
Wherever have you been?

“You promised you would follow aft
Instead you've dined on meat
While I have lain here all alone
For worms! A tasty treat”

Her words were false, her beauty bare
And grown more true in death
Her sweet and so voluptuous breasts
Trembled without breath

Her long and golden tresses fell
Cascading to the ground
Where to I dropped upon my knees
Staring at her mound

“Forgive me, love,” I whispered loud
My nose between the curls
I dived within and lost myself
In teasing licks and whorls

“Return with me,” my true love said
“Tonight into the grave
You'll feast for all eternity
But only if you're brave”

So cold her skin but such a heat
Was burning in her core
“I'll come with you,” I said at last
“For this I do adore…”

 

[vagrantx]

She died a year ago last night
A year she's laid in earth
Imagine thus my unholy fright
To witness her rebirth

Her hand thrust up, ghostly pale
Made bright by stars and moon
Still more emerged, hale but frail
I felt that I might swoon

Unclothed she stood regarding me
Miraculously clean
“My love,” she said, “my patience wears
Wherever have you been?

“You promised you would follow aft
Instead you've dined on meat
While I have lain here all alone
For worms! A tasty treat”

Her words were false, her beauty bare
And grown more true in death
Her sweet and so voluptuous breasts
Trembled without breath

Her long and golden tresses fell
Cascading to the ground
Where to I dropped upon my knees
Staring at her mound

“Forgive me, love,” I whispered loud
My nose between the curls
I dived within and lost myself
In teasing licks and whorls

“Return with me,” my true love said
“Tonight into the grave
You'll feast for all eternity
But only if you're brave”

So cold her skin but such a heat
Was burning in her core
“I'll come with you,” I said at last
“For this I do adore…”

As though Rob Zombie covered Wuthering Heights.. Disgusting! I love it!

 

[Ashesh9]

'Twas the darkest of moonless nights....
In the dead of night
The Neemtola cremation ghat , North / Uttar Kolkata.....
burning corpses littered the yard
Bones cracked under tremendous heat...
Sanyasis [ Hindu monks] pulled on chullas full of opium....
Foxes howled.....hair raised on the back of scalps...
Relatives wept as they said last goodbyes to beloved patents, spouses.....even kids...
As Fire devoured the familiar features....
The smell of Death was real....
Dracula and Frankenstein sat invisibly on parapet,
Grinning....
" our time to feast hath come, Bro!!" They silently telepathically communicated....
Yamraj the God of Death , mounted on His steed the massive Buffalo.....
Gazed on the souls he had bound with celestial lasso to take back home to Hell....
Lord Shiva the Destroyer merged in deep Yogic Nidra/ Slumber....sat in Padmasana.....the Lotus pose....not visible to Mortal eyes...
A normal weeknight@the burning cremation Ghat.....
Next to the river Ganges......flowing inscrutiably
Bearing away the Sins of Humankind for all Eternity....

 

[SalaciousMonkey22]

I’m no poet. I just like rhymes. And I’m thinking about werewolves.

Luna was quite accursed
The phases made it much worse
When the full moon rose high
Folks were likely to die
For being too dumb to disperse.

 

[XShadynzX]

Horror is not my thing, or kink
But others enjoy it, so
I give you a tale so gruesome
That although it isn't true
It could well be so

A lady,fair of face and form.
did travel the whole world over
to find her lover true
he left her in the dead of night
to find his comfort in the arms of another
She tavelled far and wide, and although
Her heart was rent and sore
She vowed to love no other

Upon a certain day ( or was it night)
she came upon the man
Entwined with his new love
and sharing food and wine
She took the dagger, closely placed
and thrust it deep
With his dying breath, the swain
cursed her for eternity
"No man shall ever love you
for you do me wrong.
I am not untrue to you, I merely
saw this lady fair, and aided her
in her distress"

"What have I done?" the woman shrieked
as her true love's blood poured out upon the floor
"He was not faithless as I thought and
now I must be alone forever"
She wanders still, a pale ghost
No one to love her,or even see her as she glides
from one room to another
Forever bound to that one place where she wails
for love found then lost
a cautionary tale..

 

[vagrantx]

I’m no poet. I just like rhymes.

Pfsht, that's bull, Monkey. Limmericks are poems; you write them, you're a poet.

I barely have even a tenuous grasp on meter and rhyming schemes, but I have ideas and concepts and visions I want to share - that urge makes me a poet. Not a good one, but one nonetheless. As with you.
Love you Monkey, and thank you for participating in my challenge

 

[Tzara]

Tor Johnson in Love

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
—Midsummer's Night Dream, II i

I carried my love like cord wood
But when I tried to lay her fire
I could not ignite those cold, stiff limbs
For life or funeral pyre.

So I broke her bones, played dominoes,
Lined all up in a row
Then tipped them down, enjoyed the sound—
They rattled, blow by blow.

My love is now a dead, dead rose
Whose body parts I grind
Between my busy molars, as
I hunger all the time.

 

[UnquietDreams]

Something of a palate cleanser as I work on something more structured.

An American Horror sentence:

She returns to me, again, repentant. I still smell the grave on her ...

 

[vagrantx]

Tor Johnson in Love

I'm not sure if you've picked up on the fact that I am Swedish, as was Tor, but I really really loved this either way.

Thank you Tzara, for digging up such an obscure reference (unless one's really into classic B-horrors) for my little challenge

 

[UnquietDreams]

One more.

An American Horror sentence: Strangela

In my throes I feel her hands constricting. Coming and going at once.

 

[Tzara]

I'm not sure if you've picked up on the fact that I am Swedish, as was Tor, but I really really loved this either way.

Thank you Tzara, for digging up such an obscure reference (unless one's really into classic B-horrors) for my little challenge

Jag är glad över att ha tillfredsställt dig.




(I hope that Google Translate didn't muck that up too badly. )

 

[Tzara]

Lycanthropy

Of course it’s a curse.
Don't even ask about the pain,
how the bones snap and shift

in my elongating face,
how hair bursts like hot wire
everywhere through my skin,

how my back weakens
and I’m cast onto forelegs,
like the canine I’m becoming.

Oh yes, it is awful.
But then consider—
how when I hear fetch

it is your slim neck
I will be gathering.

 

[Angeline]

Succubus

It was a dark and stormy night*
I lay abed (sleep was a trial)
When she appeared by candlelight

Her hair jet black, skin marble white
Teeth gleaming sharp as from a file
It was a dark and stormy night

She reached for me, how could I fight
Her lilting voice, seductive style
When she appeared by candlelight

Chiaroscuro shade and bright
Red lips, round hips built to beguile
It was a dark and stormy night

She bent to me, leaned in to bite
Meant to have me, meant to defile
when she appeared by candlelight

Oh I went willing to my plight
My lips curved in a bloody smile
It was a dark and stormy night
When she appeared by candlelight


* With apologies to Bulwer Lytton

 

[Ashesh9]

Succubus

It was a dark and stormy night*
I lay abed (sleep was a trial)
When she appeared by candlelight

Her hair jet black, skin marble white
Teeth gleaming sharp as from a file
It was a dark and stormy night

She reached for me, how could I fight
Her lilting voice, seductive style
When she appeared by candlelight

Chiaroscuro shade and bright
Red lips, round hips built to beguile
It was a dark and stormy night

She bent to me, leaned in to bite
Meant to have me, meant to defile
when she appeared by candlelight

Oh I went willing to my plight
My lips curved in a bloody smile
It was a dark and stormy night
When she appeared by candlelight


* With apologies to Bulwer Lytton

Full on Gothic Horror'n Spine tingling thrills!!!

 

[SalaciousMonkey22]

Succubus

It was a dark and stormy night*
I lay abed (sleep was a trial)
When she appeared by candlelight

Her hair jet black, skin marble white
Teeth gleaming sharp as from a file
It was a dark and stormy night

She reached for me, how could I fight
Her lilting voice, seductive style
When she appeared by candlelight

Chiaroscuro shade and bright
Red lips, round hips built to beguile
It was a dark and stormy night

She bent to me, leaned in to bite
Meant to have me, meant to defile
when she appeared by candlelight

Oh I went willing to my plight
My lips curved in a bloody smile
It was a dark and stormy night
When she appeared by candlelight


* With apologies to Bulwer Lytton

Tagline checks out.

 

[Angeline]

Great stuff, poets! I'm still laughing over Tzara's "My love is now a dead dead rose."

I do love a good sneaky pun!

 

[Lazaran]

Phantom footfalls
Echo down empty halls
Echo off barren walls
Echo…
Echo…
Echo…

 

[lavendersilk]

The  Light


We wait together. All huddled.

Side by side at a street corner.

Strangers, but familiar.


I don't remember. Why? Never ask.

How long will we wait? No one knows.

Day to night. Night to day.


There are four of us. Just one more?

What will it take to send us home?

Tonight may be the night...



We watch the crash in slow motion.

The boy is only five. So sad...

We welcome him. Arms open.



As the traffic light is put up...

We start to fade away slowly.

One after one until...



Just me and the boy are left...

To walk into...


The light.

 

[XShadynzX]

In deepest night she waits
Her hunger drives her on
For the blood and flesh she craves
She smells his scent and makes her way
to where he roams

His senses high, he walks the night
To find the one he seeks
To satisfy his craving and lust
He smells her scent and makes his way
to where she roams

In the dark and cold of night,
The creatures meet
and sensing the need in each other
satisfy their common wants
in blood, in flesh and life force

A scream sounds in the night
These poor souls in their homes
close their eyes and pray
that the horrors out in the dark
will pass them by

 

[Tzara]

Low Budget Horror Film

Grandma's acting strange. The dog barks
at an empty closet. I dream of knives,
murmured voices, the sounds of chainsaws.

The old Buick's grille resembles teeth
bared as if to rend Rachel's tender flesh
as she stands under a dim streetlamp,

looking at her phone. I can't help
but be nervous, skin crawling as if ants
scurried beneath my clothing, nipping

little pathways along my veins, preparing
for their Great Harvest. I slap at my arms,
but they are always just out of reach,

and I am left to twitch uncomfortably
in the dark, trying to remember prayers
from years and years ago. Nothing

helps, nothing works, and I wait miserably
for that sudden and inevitable jump cut
where the indistinct figure raises its hands

and my bright red arterial blood spurts
across the dim gray frame of the shot
and at least I don't have to be scared

in this particular story any more.

 

[Ashesh9]

Oh this is a modern horror....
Politicos promise jobs
Set up mines....polluting factories....fracking...
And screw up environment.....
Pollution increases......trees get cut.....Climate worsens.....
Floods....typhoons....droughts....
And yet gullible voters still bring'em back

 

[LiverpoolMaster]

R.I.P.

One should always speak good of the dead.
This my teacher quite frequently said.

He's dead.


Good.

 

[JanesDiction]

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

The bedroom is like a movie set.
Staged, oddly lit, empty
because the actors are off
in their various trailers,
smoking, snorting coke,
doing actor stuff. I lay
myself like a mannequin
across the cold sheets,
wondering how much fake blood
they will splash over
the star's naked body,
how it will look like
chocolate syrup in black
and white. I wonder
if my lover would lick
the sweetness from my throat
while holding a collapsing knife
or would he prefer to drink
those long, mournful drafts
in glorious, crimson technicolor.

 

[positiveflirt]

I heard it first as a child
Too aware of the world but not yet old enough to be anything else
How hard it is to let someone go
When the time has come for them to pass.

I agreed at nine when my grandmother died
So difficult it proved to accept that she was gone
Though we'd all gathered as a family and mourned a loss
I understood fully but could still feel her presence everywhere.

I thought it would be better if I visited more often
And told tall tales of my adventures to her stone and metres of dirt
But it didn't stop me seeing her in everything.

I thought it would be better when we finally moved
A fresh start, a new beginning and nothing to remind me
But in still moments I could still smell the lavender
By ten-and-a-half I could face it no longer.

Dismissed by exasperated parents for the last time and confined to my room
I finally asked her why she stood over my bed each night and stared
Why her mouth formed endless words but made no sound
And why the others she brought were slowly getting closer.