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.
DARK POEM
Published
Yesterday 5:28pm
Yesterday 5:28pm
To Nathan
I think about you sometimes and
it’s all too clear you’re probably dead.
You weren’t an icon of stability
back when we used to speak,
your bald and elongated skull
reminding me of a criminal
my mother used to know
(not to use phrenology).
You wrote dark poetry
and were the reason why
the underground started to give
warnings of extreme themes.
If I was older then I might
have been more curious
and asked the pertinent questions,
less wrapped up in my own traumas.
I thought perhaps some scary man ...
it’s all too clear you’re probably dead.
You weren’t an icon of stability
back when we used to speak,
your bald and elongated skull
reminding me of a criminal
my mother used to know
(not to use phrenology).
You wrote dark poetry
and were the reason why
the underground started to give
warnings of extreme themes.
If I was older then I might
have been more curious
and asked the pertinent questions,
less wrapped up in my own traumas.
I thought perhaps some scary man ...
#abuse
#death
#friendship #memories
#friendship #memories
30 reads
1 Comment
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
19th Dec 2024 3:06pm
19th Dec 2024 3:06pm
Santa Claus Did It
a Christmas detective story
Lord Sixtus Runcorn had been murdered with an axe, by Santa Claus. Lady Runcorn had seen it through the window of the library while she was walking the primrose path about the house and promptly screamed the estate to a standstill. A doctor was on hand to administer a sedative and she was now sleeping in her chambers, attended by a close friend.
Inspector Frodsham gathered everyone in the drawing room. It was a tradition among the Runcorns of Arrowfield to retire early on Christmas Eve, so the suspects were dressed in pyjamas and robes,...
Lord Sixtus Runcorn had been murdered with an axe, by Santa Claus. Lady Runcorn had seen it through the window of the library while she was walking the primrose path about the house and promptly screamed the estate to a standstill. A doctor was on hand to administer a sedative and she was now sleeping in her chambers, attended by a close friend.
Inspector Frodsham gathered everyone in the drawing room. It was a tradition among the Runcorns of Arrowfield to retire early on Christmas Eve, so the suspects were dressed in pyjamas and robes,...
#Christmas
#murder
#mystery #ShortStory
#mystery #ShortStory
35 reads
2 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
15th Dec 2024 5:35pm
15th Dec 2024 5:35pm
The Snowman’s Revenge
a Christmas ghost story
Not one person knew who made the snowman,
they said in the end it was “kids”,
that venerable answer to
such articles of mystery.
A year had passed since Peter’s dad
had shot himself where now the snowman stood,
on losing his job in the pits,
to bitter end cursing his faithless wife.
The carrot nose and coal buttons,
the dotted smile, eyes, top hat, and scarf;
it looked like some kind wizard stopped
and filled the drive with cheer for passers by.
With child’s logic, though, Peter...
Not one person knew who made the snowman,
they said in the end it was “kids”,
that venerable answer to
such articles of mystery.
A year had passed since Peter’s dad
had shot himself where now the snowman stood,
on losing his job in the pits,
to bitter end cursing his faithless wife.
The carrot nose and coal buttons,
the dotted smile, eyes, top hat, and scarf;
it looked like some kind wizard stopped
and filled the drive with cheer for passers by.
With child’s logic, though, Peter...
#Christmas
#ghosts
#murder #revenge
#murder #revenge
49 reads
1 Comment
LOVE POEM
Published
11th Dec 2024 1:42am
11th Dec 2024 1:42am
Love is…
An obligation carved across
the leaves of stone, genetic book
of life, sometimes diluted by a loss
of love given by those supposed to look
to your development, give care.
I can’t say my genetic book will close.
I still receive its meanings now, for those
I’ve long since disavowed, would soak
in time, indifference. We don’t deserve
but neither are we unworthy of love.
It glows in darkness like a bellied stove,
its heat sometimes a secret thing.
the leaves of stone, genetic book
of life, sometimes diluted by a loss
of love given by those supposed to look
to your development, give care.
I can’t say my genetic book will close.
I still receive its meanings now, for those
I’ve long since disavowed, would soak
in time, indifference. We don’t deserve
but neither are we unworthy of love.
It glows in darkness like a bellied stove,
its heat sometimes a secret thing.
#aging
#family
#love #memories
#love #memories
77 reads
0 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
4th Dec 2024 5:56am
4th Dec 2024 5:56am
Reading Victorian ghost stories
Reading Victorian ghost stories
can sometimes leave you wondering,
when authors say that what she said
when haunting yonder glen
cannot be written down ‘til dead,
because it be wrought with unpleasantries
unfit for ears that need guiding.
But from the vantage point of “modern day”
I cannot really say if what D Dinglet said,
as Parson spoke to her (the upright Cornishman
misled, perhaps, by some prudish morality)
was truly horrible - that she was murdered, say,
or forced upon by him she claims wronged her.
Or if she simply...
can sometimes leave you wondering,
when authors say that what she said
when haunting yonder glen
cannot be written down ‘til dead,
because it be wrought with unpleasantries
unfit for ears that need guiding.
But from the vantage point of “modern day”
I cannot really say if what D Dinglet said,
as Parson spoke to her (the upright Cornishman
misled, perhaps, by some prudish morality)
was truly horrible - that she was murdered, say,
or forced upon by him she claims wronged her.
Or if she simply...
#culture
#ghosts
#historical #morality
#historical #morality
78 reads
4 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
1st Dec 2024 2:26pm
1st Dec 2024 2:26pm
Blindness
People, young man, are stupid.
You won’t realise how stupid they are
until you understand
that you’re just as stupid as them.
You scrabble in the dark as much
when it comes to the meanings of things
as he who blamed a temple God
for his wife’s miscarriage,
and she who thinks she won’t be gay
if she’d just pray that sin away.
Or him who felt that science said
that other races must lay dead,
or anyone from dunce to polymath.
We all just wriggle in the dark
like worms fearing the child’s wrath
when its...
You won’t realise how stupid they are
until you understand
that you’re just as stupid as them.
You scrabble in the dark as much
when it comes to the meanings of things
as he who blamed a temple God
for his wife’s miscarriage,
and she who thinks she won’t be gay
if she’d just pray that sin away.
Or him who felt that science said
that other races must lay dead,
or anyone from dunce to polymath.
We all just wriggle in the dark
like worms fearing the child’s wrath
when its...
#anxiety
#atheism
#death #fear
#death #fear
71 reads
2 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
27th Nov 2024 6:34pm
27th Nov 2024 6:34pm
destroyed, renewed
Something like a category fault...
a crease in what should be
the logical cleaving
of masc to femme.
But as the cold of '55
becomes the spring of '56
I'm folding into you
and it feels utterly perfect,
in those moments between
the tentative movements
of hands on arms
and when I spin to push back into you -
the record player singing its old songs -
and when the last thrust leaves us both
destroyed, renewed, destroyed, renewed.
a crease in what should be
the logical cleaving
of masc to femme.
But as the cold of '55
becomes the spring of '56
I'm folding into you
and it feels utterly perfect,
in those moments between
the tentative movements
of hands on arms
and when I spin to push back into you -
the record player singing its old songs -
and when the last thrust leaves us both
destroyed, renewed, destroyed, renewed.
#gay
#LGBT
#love #sex
#love #sex
97 reads
2 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
25th Nov 2024 1:42pm
25th Nov 2024 1:42pm
Tops & Tails
They gathered in a room of the hotel that served as a sort of dressing room for waitresses, who functioned essentially as entertainers. The girls weren't dressed in formal wear but in a showgirl ensemble that combined tops and tails with fishnet stockings. A few of the more imposing waitresses even wielded canes like Old Hollywood tap dancers.
Mrs Berkeley sailed into the room, all frontage and steerage. Her chest and rear were of proportions that the girls in her care could only have nightmares about. She wore her hair in the tortured bob of women her age and size. She was...
Mrs Berkeley sailed into the room, all frontage and steerage. Her chest and rear were of proportions that the girls in her care could only have nightmares about. She wore her hair in the tortured bob of women her age and size. She was...
#fiction
#revenge
#ShortStory #violence
#ShortStory #violence
65 reads
2 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
22nd Nov 2024 3:55am
22nd Nov 2024 3:55am
innate
a friend of mine talks of conversion
as if there could be such a thing
when what I am is just… innate, a fact,
like grass is green
and Mexico is a country in North America…
and sex has little to do with it,
it’s just an urge that carries no shame,
or shouldn’t. but somehow I can’t say
that I don’t care what St Paul said,
perhaps because a doubt lingers
that maybe it’s a sin, though I doubt it…
more like it’s just because I’m still learning
to state myself and claim a pride
in who I am, to simply be without caring, ...
as if there could be such a thing
when what I am is just… innate, a fact,
like grass is green
and Mexico is a country in North America…
and sex has little to do with it,
it’s just an urge that carries no shame,
or shouldn’t. but somehow I can’t say
that I don’t care what St Paul said,
perhaps because a doubt lingers
that maybe it’s a sin, though I doubt it…
more like it’s just because I’m still learning
to state myself and claim a pride
in who I am, to simply be without caring, ...
#faith
#hate
#LGBT #love
#LGBT #love
58 reads
2 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
20th Nov 2024 00:55am
20th Nov 2024 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
67 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
70 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
87 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
