Submissions by AspiringLibrarian (Rebel Scum)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Wine and Cot
A monkhouse is a pit.
The end of the adventure comes
like an attic freshly discovered
in a house you thought you knew,
yet here it is, naked and alone.
A school of sunbeams swim past your attic window,
and though you know a monkhouse is a pit,
you seek your wine and cot.
The end of the adventure comes
like an attic freshly discovered
in a house you thought you knew,
yet here it is, naked and alone.
A school of sunbeams swim past your attic window,
and though you know a monkhouse is a pit,
you seek your wine and cot.
953 reads
6 Comments
The Impenitent Thief
The thief and his girl, a pretty blonde number with legs like giraffes’ necks, parked outside the kook's house. The kook was Mr D’Amico, an Italian by nature and Irishman by disposition, having inherited the latter race's potent sense of sin. A rusted iron cross hung in his office; he resisted any suggestion that he restore it, its rust reminding him, he said, of mortal things' tendency to rot. (The cross held no body.)
His guests discussed this eccentricity as they walked to the door. 'I never did like Catholics' said the girl. 'No-one did' said the thief, 'not even Catholics. If...
His guests discussed this eccentricity as they walked to the door. 'I never did like Catholics' said the girl. 'No-one did' said the thief, 'not even Catholics. If...
990 reads
0 Comments
The Leech
It was in the summer of 1928 that we met him, stood beside a gigantic Grecian plant-pot sprouting palm leaves, on the back porch of my wife’s country estate. A tall, rake-thin, somewhat middle-aged man in an ill-fitted brown suit, with clashing white Panama hat, he looked like one of those amiable leeches who flit between wealthy sponsors. He was certainly a raconteur, amassing an audience like some Homeric poet. Women adored him, the way they adore a handsome man who also inspires their matronly instincts. If my marriage to Floss (whom I called Florence, given her floss-white complexion) was...
881 reads
1 Comment
Bone China
A long time ago, in a dark and heavily guarded palace, there lived Princess Gale, named for the wind which howled outside her parents’ chamber when she was conceived. Her father, the king, was a jaded and sadistic tyrant, forever devising new reasons to be murderously aggrieved. A year before this story, he ordered the execution of a tailor whose garment irritated the skin of the Prince, Gale’s brother. The king did not care for his children as individuals, but saw them as extensions of himself, so any perceived slight against them was a slight against him, and any slight against him was...
1010 reads
1 Comment
Message in a Christmas Card (from me to you)
No snow is falling, but we know it's time
to drink the wine and cheer the birth of love.
What greater season could our loving chime,
the trees and cards and food a greeting dove,
with holly in its tiny yellow beak.
The snow will come and make of us a shrine,
but we have coats which never chill or leak.
They are the coats of energy divine,
expressed with flames in hearths across the globe,
and soldier-trees with tinsel for a sash.
As to an eye a face and ear a lobe,
so friendship and the Christmas season mash.
So join me in this...
to drink the wine and cheer the birth of love.
What greater season could our loving chime,
the trees and cards and food a greeting dove,
with holly in its tiny yellow beak.
The snow will come and make of us a shrine,
but we have coats which never chill or leak.
They are the coats of energy divine,
expressed with flames in hearths across the globe,
and soldier-trees with tinsel for a sash.
As to an eye a face and ear a lobe,
so friendship and the Christmas season mash.
So join me in this...
807 reads
2 Comments
Salvation
I know the geography of Sin.
Acquainted with its hillocks and valleys,
copses and crests,
I walk like one with knowledge earned, but not revered,
a soldier with light from a bladed spire
crouching in his looks. I live among dust and dunes,
doorways the eyes of the Outer Darkness,
that beast, that maggot, that germ,
likened to a flaming hearth, but colder,
much colder than that. If I know Sin's geography,
I have not ventured outside it, beyond those borders
where mighty ships fall, deep down into Nothingness,
where saints of the Underworld use...
Acquainted with its hillocks and valleys,
copses and crests,
I walk like one with knowledge earned, but not revered,
a soldier with light from a bladed spire
crouching in his looks. I live among dust and dunes,
doorways the eyes of the Outer Darkness,
that beast, that maggot, that germ,
likened to a flaming hearth, but colder,
much colder than that. If I know Sin's geography,
I have not ventured outside it, beyond those borders
where mighty ships fall, deep down into Nothingness,
where saints of the Underworld use...
872 reads
5 Comments
The Risen Christ (Gospel Haiku)
A blessing is made,
and lo! The Risen Christ,
caught in faltered light.
and lo! The Risen Christ,
caught in faltered light.
764 reads
1 Comment
A Psalm for Halloween
A letter in the devil’s house,
Beside his port and glass,
Might have your name within its lines:
A prison for the passed.
From ghosts to goblins, all repent!
These earthen fields will fade,
And in their place a zombie’s grin,
Outshines the mortal jade.
The human years wilt, darkling babes!
To timeless caves you’ll fall,
Where vampires and witches cry,
Their souls in Torment’s ball.
The path to shameless Paradise,
Above those torture caves,
Is drenched in blood from God’s own lamb,
Its...
Beside his port and glass,
Might have your name within its lines:
A prison for the passed.
From ghosts to goblins, all repent!
These earthen fields will fade,
And in their place a zombie’s grin,
Outshines the mortal jade.
The human years wilt, darkling babes!
To timeless caves you’ll fall,
Where vampires and witches cry,
Their souls in Torment’s ball.
The path to shameless Paradise,
Above those torture caves,
Is drenched in blood from God’s own lamb,
Its...
#Halloween
#rhyming
922 reads
6 Comments
The Vanished Scholar
dedicated to the heroes of Lovecraftian horror stories, and their writers
The bedding rots in a tidy stupor;
its tenant, a scholar, of no repute in
circles far and wide, vanished in the dark,
hid simply, like an elder's carnal sin.
His room, a dirty house its mere keeper,
looks out upon an alley and its grime,
one window of those where poor scholars live.
The normal world without, and its walking slime.
What pain our scholar felt before he left!
The daily grind of humans and their talk...
So when a world beyond opened...
The bedding rots in a tidy stupor;
its tenant, a scholar, of no repute in
circles far and wide, vanished in the dark,
hid simply, like an elder's carnal sin.
His room, a dirty house its mere keeper,
looks out upon an alley and its grime,
one window of those where poor scholars live.
The normal world without, and its walking slime.
What pain our scholar felt before he left!
The daily grind of humans and their talk...
So when a world beyond opened...
789 reads
1 Comment
the barmaid and the poet
For mikimoondancer's Bukowski/Dylan thread: http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/competitions/read/6969/
clowns and jokers
trash this dead-end bar, while i stare
at a glass of whiskey
and picture the barmaid's ass in my bed.
she reads petrarch and thinks she's dickinson.
she's not. but her ass
plays hide-and-seek with the lights
in this no-hope saloon,
hiding as she stands beside the jukebox,
seeking as she walks across the floor:
those perfect cans dappled with neon,
like a glimpse of nirvana in despair.
clowns and jokers
trash this dead-end bar, while i stare
at a glass of whiskey
and picture the barmaid's ass in my bed.
she reads petrarch and thinks she's dickinson.
she's not. but her ass
plays hide-and-seek with the lights
in this no-hope saloon,
hiding as she stands beside the jukebox,
seeking as she walks across the floor:
those perfect cans dappled with neon,
like a glimpse of nirvana in despair.
983 reads
6 Comments
Hunting haiku
White sun floats
above gored young fox,
patterned with leaves.
above gored young fox,
patterned with leaves.
699 reads
0 Comments
O Nightly Thoughts
I sweat and I sweat and I sweat,
stinking like a corpse in an African sun.
This is the first poem I've written in months,
and it comes back to sweating,
sweating in a faded Beatles shirt.
You can barely see McCartney's face,
and Lennon's the ghost of a stain by now.
I hate summer nights.
The days, at least, are attractive and gay,
giving this coastal town dignity;
in the hot light of summer McDonald's is France, almost.
The nights are repellant and aggressive.
Beside my bed is a Kindle
with an H. Rider Haggard in it, 20%...
stinking like a corpse in an African sun.
This is the first poem I've written in months,
and it comes back to sweating,
sweating in a faded Beatles shirt.
You can barely see McCartney's face,
and Lennon's the ghost of a stain by now.
I hate summer nights.
The days, at least, are attractive and gay,
giving this coastal town dignity;
in the hot light of summer McDonald's is France, almost.
The nights are repellant and aggressive.
Beside my bed is a Kindle
with an H. Rider Haggard in it, 20%...
820 reads
4 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by AspiringLibrarian (Rebel Scum)
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