Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
I write poetry on a range of subjects and in a range of styles. My privacy is extremely important to me, though I hope that you enjoy my work and that I enjoy yours.
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
Yesterday 00:55am
Yesterday 00:55am
songs of loss and innocence
they play forever in your head
the temples expanding
as all our bodies age
and store up memories
until they die
and all that loss and innocence
flies out and impregnates the air
the temples of our thoughts
and feelings fall apart
the temples expanding
as all our bodies age
and store up memories
until they die
and all that loss and innocence
flies out and impregnates the air
the temples of our thoughts
and feelings fall apart
#death
#LifeCycle
#memories #spiritual
#memories #spiritual
36 reads
1 Comment
DARK POEM
Published
7th Nov 2024 9:59pm
7th Nov 2024 9:59pm
Teenage Vampire
how can you know the distance run
between the longing and the sun…
when I was just a little boy
they caught me with a rat,
about to sink my fangs in it.
the sun slanting between
the houses on that row
to where I crouched beside the hose and bikes
and contemplated blood.
they called me mad
and locked me up
and gave out pills
like sweets on Christmas morn.
they tried to unlock a room in my skull
that would contain the answers to my self.
abandoned at just four years old, ...
between the longing and the sun…
when I was just a little boy
they caught me with a rat,
about to sink my fangs in it.
the sun slanting between
the houses on that row
to where I crouched beside the hose and bikes
and contemplated blood.
they called me mad
and locked me up
and gave out pills
like sweets on Christmas morn.
they tried to unlock a room in my skull
that would contain the answers to my self.
abandoned at just four years old, ...
#murder
#suffering
#teens #vampires
#teens #vampires
48 reads
2 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
6th Nov 2024 4:07am
6th Nov 2024 4:07am
The Party on the Stairs
We had a party on the stairs,
the ghostly belles and I,
and in that space between the dawn
and when the cockerel cries
we talked of many things,
including how I’d one day wear
a death mask just like theirs,
of powder and patch
and one beauty mark
to anchor the face to the room.
How in this world a woman is a ghost
before even her limbs have stilled,
her heart stopped beating in its cage,
her corset loosed at last.
the ghostly belles and I,
and in that space between the dawn
and when the cockerel cries
we talked of many things,
including how I’d one day wear
a death mask just like theirs,
of powder and patch
and one beauty mark
to anchor the face to the room.
How in this world a woman is a ghost
before even her limbs have stilled,
her heart stopped beating in its cage,
her corset loosed at last.
#beauty
#feminism
#ghosts #historical
#ghosts #historical
51 reads
0 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
4th Nov 2024 12:24pm
4th Nov 2024 12:24pm
Whorehouse Music
The carriage pulled up outside a gabled house with bars on the upper windows, below a full moon beaming light on the scene as if it was a stage play. A small, stout man in restrained courtly dress emerged from the carriage, pursued by a younger man in full royal regalia, sleeves slashed to reveal silk lining the colour of green jade, thick hair greased and waved in the modern style.
They were met at the door of the establishment by a madam whose wrinkled skin and flat chest were supported by shimmering black lace. The stout man found her attractive for what he perceived as her grit...
They were met at the door of the establishment by a madam whose wrinkled skin and flat chest were supported by shimmering black lace. The stout man found her attractive for what he perceived as her grit...
#horror
#ShortStory
#werewolves #witches
#werewolves #witches
60 reads
4 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
4th Nov 2024 00:57am
4th Nov 2024 00:57am
Demon
I’ve been around ten thousand years or more
(who remembers things as dull as time?)
and in my age have seen such crime
that crows would blink and blush, a whore
cry “etiquette!” I’ve seen a desert-dweller kill
his own brother, for gold sewn into his saddle.
I’ve seen a Pope rape and molest. A chill
sweep down a modern street as holy twaddle,
to justify sin, strives to make sense of a girl
shot dead. Her bicycle lay in the street,
the ribbons on the handlebars like wheat,
still dancing when stirred by the wind. The twirl
of...
(who remembers things as dull as time?)
and in my age have seen such crime
that crows would blink and blush, a whore
cry “etiquette!” I’ve seen a desert-dweller kill
his own brother, for gold sewn into his saddle.
I’ve seen a Pope rape and molest. A chill
sweep down a modern street as holy twaddle,
to justify sin, strives to make sense of a girl
shot dead. Her bicycle lay in the street,
the ribbons on the handlebars like wheat,
still dancing when stirred by the wind. The twirl
of...
#despair
#devil
#evil #horror
#evil #horror
81 reads
2 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
2nd Nov 2024 10:54am
2nd Nov 2024 10:54am
Meditation on Disorder
Fourteen in 1970,
reared in the blackstuff and the piss,
and gone before the concrete gave
to bad fashions and closed coal pits.
You feel as though a prophet out of time
has raised his head to talk not Godly things,
but sanctified despair, disorder beautiful, a bird that sings
of coffins and of crime.
About you films and plays and shows have been made,
I'd like it if you stayed
in only those disordered sounds
that so clearly evoke
a car that hurtles down the M1 late at night,
a walk home through the darkness rent ...
reared in the blackstuff and the piss,
and gone before the concrete gave
to bad fashions and closed coal pits.
You feel as though a prophet out of time
has raised his head to talk not Godly things,
but sanctified despair, disorder beautiful, a bird that sings
of coffins and of crime.
About you films and plays and shows have been made,
I'd like it if you stayed
in only those disordered sounds
that so clearly evoke
a car that hurtles down the M1 late at night,
a walk home through the darkness rent ...
#dark
#depression
#love #music
#love #music
69 reads
1 Comment
STORY POEM
Published
31st Oct 2024 12:25pm
31st Oct 2024 12:25pm
Witch
I think that I'd have been happy
if I'd been born a witch.
Without any toes but still able
to dance, and ride above
the steeples of
this green Jerusalem's churches.
To creep in through the chimney pots,
to make brews in the dark,
to draw a set of lots
on each Samhain
to see whose cattle dies this night.
A mark impervious to pain
spread out inside one arm, a dark wine stain
that says I'm joined
in what God leaves as undiscerned,
the skittering, the sins conjoined.
if I'd been born a witch.
Without any toes but still able
to dance, and ride above
the steeples of
this green Jerusalem's churches.
To creep in through the chimney pots,
to make brews in the dark,
to draw a set of lots
on each Samhain
to see whose cattle dies this night.
A mark impervious to pain
spread out inside one arm, a dark wine stain
that says I'm joined
in what God leaves as undiscerned,
the skittering, the sins conjoined.
#Halloween
#historical
#pagan #witches
#pagan #witches
69 reads
2 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
25th Oct 2024 7:35pm
25th Oct 2024 7:35pm
Plantation
Next on the docket is an odd little item from the early '90s that should have gone straight-to-video and was likely made with the intention of using it to fill NEW RELEASE shelves, which in those days were the equivalent of streaming services filling themselves with junk so as to have some kind of consumer product available. Nothing really changes, except on a surface level.
Using the post-Civil War US South as a theme but made by a British studio on backlots off the motorway, pop culture legend has it that Christopher Lee was going to appear as a favour to someone or other until...
Using the post-Civil War US South as a theme but made by a British studio on backlots off the motorway, pop culture legend has it that Christopher Lee was going to appear as a favour to someone or other until...
#ShortStory
57 reads
1 Comment
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
23rd Oct 2024 3:10pm
23rd Oct 2024 3:10pm
The Girls in the Van
I see the van sometimes, idling by
the nightclubs and the bars,
the drive-thru restaurants.
They wear the uniforms of girls
of their respective periods: leg warmers,
tees, scrunchies, hairspray (gallons
and gallons of that), and each
is wrought with some old wound:
a slash across the throat
is most common, on occasion
a stab to the chest. Nothing can staunch
the laughing, though; the endless
flow of youthful joy.
The youngest is sixteen, the oldest twenty-three.
And now across the parking court tarmac, ...
the nightclubs and the bars,
the drive-thru restaurants.
They wear the uniforms of girls
of their respective periods: leg warmers,
tees, scrunchies, hairspray (gallons
and gallons of that), and each
is wrought with some old wound:
a slash across the throat
is most common, on occasion
a stab to the chest. Nothing can staunch
the laughing, though; the endless
flow of youthful joy.
The youngest is sixteen, the oldest twenty-three.
And now across the parking court tarmac, ...
#ghosts
#murder
#violence #women
#violence #women
93 reads
3 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
21st Oct 2024 1:53am
21st Oct 2024 1:53am
They Come Back Through
a psalm for Samhain
They come back through on Halloween…
The line between the living and the dead
is frailest come evensong, when light is seen
to die beyond the farms, and bread
is broken one last time before the winter sheen
outspreads across the roof of each homestead.
They come back through on Halloween,
the sailors lost when campfires
became confused with lighthouses,
the children dead by violence,
the battle-scared and lost, all echoes of whence
we go when forced to cross the line between.
They come back...
They come back through on Halloween…
The line between the living and the dead
is frailest come evensong, when light is seen
to die beyond the farms, and bread
is broken one last time before the winter sheen
outspreads across the roof of each homestead.
They come back through on Halloween,
the sailors lost when campfires
became confused with lighthouses,
the children dead by violence,
the battle-scared and lost, all echoes of whence
we go when forced to cross the line between.
They come back...
#ghosts
#Halloween
#mythology #winter
#mythology #winter
88 reads
2 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
18th Oct 2024 00:27am
18th Oct 2024 00:27am
totems
my dad once told me about
a boy he served the Navy with
whose girlfriend ended things
across the sea
and over broadcast radio.
he took his broken heart
and then an axe
and turned them on the radio
destroying it
with Lizzie Borden zeal.
the totem needed to be killed
for taking on her voice
and ruining (he felt) his life
the box that stole his future wife
a boy he served the Navy with
whose girlfriend ended things
across the sea
and over broadcast radio.
he took his broken heart
and then an axe
and turned them on the radio
destroying it
with Lizzie Borden zeal.
the totem needed to be killed
for taking on her voice
and ruining (he felt) his life
the box that stole his future wife
#depression
#despair
#love #MentalHealth
#love #MentalHealth
72 reads
4 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
17th Oct 2024 12:54pm
17th Oct 2024 12:54pm
Victorian Sermon
The tranquil face of cruelty
behoves the devil as a mask.
Than that of domesticity,
there is no hate more intimate.
The girl who can't believe that love
need not be so conditional,
the boy who's long since lost
a need for love consensual...
These faces do not pulse
and burst with necrophilic pus.
They're often deeply false
with lines of youth, beauty.
You find the Devil in its voice,
in how it exercises choice.
behoves the devil as a mask.
Than that of domesticity,
there is no hate more intimate.
The girl who can't believe that love
need not be so conditional,
the boy who's long since lost
a need for love consensual...
These faces do not pulse
and burst with necrophilic pus.
They're often deeply false
with lines of youth, beauty.
You find the Devil in its voice,
in how it exercises choice.
#hate
#historical
#love #religion
#love #religion
88 reads
2 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
