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.
The Sheridan Women
The women of the Sheridan family always disappeared at some point in their lives, normally before fifty but at least once at seventy-two. (She was a powerful old woman called Ma Sheridan, who ruled her henhouse with an iron claw.) Eleanor became dimly aware of this truth when she was seven years old, and overheard her mother explaining family photographs to her grandfather, already short of memory at sixty-eight. His name was Granddad Chips and it would take another twelve years for the old boy to require hospitalisation, by which time Eleanor would have made her disappearance, the youngest...
#magic
#pagan
#prose #witches
#prose #witches
34 reads
2 Comments
O flower
O flower
in the paving cracks,
carved in relief
by Spring’s chisel:
you’re a foot in the door,
a field post-war,
a Tower of Babel up
towards the blazing cup
from which all light will pour.
in the paving cracks,
carved in relief
by Spring’s chisel:
you’re a foot in the door,
a field post-war,
a Tower of Babel up
towards the blazing cup
from which all light will pour.
#flowers
#nature
105 reads
5 Comments
An Exorcism
We waited until he came home
and tied him to a chair.
We knew what had been going on,
and weren’t afraid to tell him so.
He said he didn’t know
what we were talking about
and I, I must confess, faltered
a moment on seeing him so scared,
our 16-year-old son. But we held firm
in faith and carried on, we knew
he wasn’t like the other boys,
and hadn’t been since 12 or thereabouts.
The moonlight came in slats
between the bars
of our cellar windows, high up and rectangular,
like heaven’s watchers keeping time.
I...
and tied him to a chair.
We knew what had been going on,
and weren’t afraid to tell him so.
He said he didn’t know
what we were talking about
and I, I must confess, faltered
a moment on seeing him so scared,
our 16-year-old son. But we held firm
in faith and carried on, we knew
he wasn’t like the other boys,
and hadn’t been since 12 or thereabouts.
The moonlight came in slats
between the bars
of our cellar windows, high up and rectangular,
like heaven’s watchers keeping time.
I...
#abuse
#religion
#devil #hell
#devil #hell
82 reads
3 Comments
A Little Mystery
A sandwich half,
rectangular,
balanced on its crust-less side,
outside a workmen’s breakfast bar,
as if awaiting transport from
the wet concrete
of this grey business street.
Was it placed like that,
a doll-maker’s hands
arranging his new
and gay-painted Victorian
upon a matchstick chaise?
Or did it land that way,
a mere anomaly of chance?
rectangular,
balanced on its crust-less side,
outside a workmen’s breakfast bar,
as if awaiting transport from
the wet concrete
of this grey business street.
Was it placed like that,
a doll-maker’s hands
arranging his new
and gay-painted Victorian
upon a matchstick chaise?
Or did it land that way,
a mere anomaly of chance?
#mystery
69 reads
2 Comments
A Dog
He talked about sin and regret,
renouncing same-sex lust like this,
eternities in hell… but it didn’t stop him
taking off my clothes
and when the sin was done,
curling himself in my arms for comfort.
He trembled like a dog in the woods
waiting for its owner’s car to return.
renouncing same-sex lust like this,
eternities in hell… but it didn’t stop him
taking off my clothes
and when the sin was done,
curling himself in my arms for comfort.
He trembled like a dog in the woods
waiting for its owner’s car to return.
#LGBT
63 reads
2 Comments
Walking Home
Between the shops are strings of lights,
crissing and crossing the street as I walk home,
enlightening tea rooms, sweet shops, salons.
Occasionally life seems just about okay,
the old imbalance of mood tipping then my way.
crissing and crossing the street as I walk home,
enlightening tea rooms, sweet shops, salons.
Occasionally life seems just about okay,
the old imbalance of mood tipping then my way.
#happiness
#home
65 reads
4 Comments
A Response to Roy Orbison
I was so unused to sound
evoking such a strong,
emotive pallor that
on weeping through the strains
of “She’s a Mystery to Me”,
I thought forgotten trauma
was now coming out,
but no,
the ripping of my soul,
the splitting of my personality,
the dull machete through my heart
was just his rich and supple voice,
the clear enunciation of each word
and simile, a masculine build
but ripe with loving art.
evoking such a strong,
emotive pallor that
on weeping through the strains
of “She’s a Mystery to Me”,
I thought forgotten trauma
was now coming out,
but no,
the ripping of my soul,
the splitting of my personality,
the dull machete through my heart
was just his rich and supple voice,
the clear enunciation of each word
and simile, a masculine build
but ripe with loving art.
#music
79 reads
1 Comment
For Those Who’ve Never Been Beautiful
There may be a place
for faces like ours,
even if not on a television screen.
The boys and girls born to be seen
are not our milieu,
but in the wafting grasses of the night
a flower grows that’s just for us,
the petals prised apart
by careful hands of rain,
its scent dispersed like new gossip.
I’ve always been an ugly one.
Legs like tree trunks, chipped tooth,
a fleshy and amorphous face.
But in the sprawling human race
we are at least unique.
for faces like ours,
even if not on a television screen.
The boys and girls born to be seen
are not our milieu,
but in the wafting grasses of the night
a flower grows that’s just for us,
the petals prised apart
by careful hands of rain,
its scent dispersed like new gossip.
I’ve always been an ugly one.
Legs like tree trunks, chipped tooth,
a fleshy and amorphous face.
But in the sprawling human race
we are at least unique.
#identity
#beauty
144 reads
6 Comments
Dead Poetry
Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage.” - Adrienne Rich
We don’t recall today
the verse of Jessie Pope
and others down their way,
the propagandists whose rope
has been tightened by time,
allowing Owens and Sassoons
to take their place in rhyme.
The Popes of art now seem buffoons
for cheerleading the First World War,
as dead boys wet the killing floor.
This is the essence of bad art,
the lecturer concludes,
returning Pope to their ignoble place.
The vast...
We don’t recall today
the verse of Jessie Pope
and others down their way,
the propagandists whose rope
has been tightened by time,
allowing Owens and Sassoons
to take their place in rhyme.
The Popes of art now seem buffoons
for cheerleading the First World War,
as dead boys wet the killing floor.
This is the essence of bad art,
the lecturer concludes,
returning Pope to their ignoble place.
The vast...
#WritingPoetry
#art
69 reads
1 Comment
Pieces and Reasons
#childhood
#abuse
#memories #suffering
#memories #suffering
105 reads
7 Comments
The Bibliophile
Carry yourself with the confidence
of the convict in that
Louis Theroux documentary
who claimed that
he was only “cataloguing”
the illegal porn,
due to his obsession with order.
(And whose Batman villain name
should therefore be The Bibliophile.)
I don’t know about you, bub,
but when I see evidence of crime,
I don’t start arranging it by genre.
of the convict in that
Louis Theroux documentary
who claimed that
he was only “cataloguing”
the illegal porn,
due to his obsession with order.
(And whose Batman villain name
should therefore be The Bibliophile.)
I don’t know about you, bub,
but when I see evidence of crime,
I don’t start arranging it by genre.
#funny
67 reads
2 Comments
Modern Content
I try to not dance with the tinfoil hats
but sometimes I wonder when looking at life
if tech isn’t grafted to children too young,
the tyranny of YouTube videos
of turtles belching Taylor Swift
and sketches by middle-school kids,
in front of green screens, evoking the latest
video games. At least kids played them once,
and didn’t just watch some Illinois dopes
remake the bloody things. But I don’t know,
I was born an old man, was never young,
and probably would have decried the move
to parchment from tablets. I just wish that books ...
but sometimes I wonder when looking at life
if tech isn’t grafted to children too young,
the tyranny of YouTube videos
of turtles belching Taylor Swift
and sketches by middle-school kids,
in front of green screens, evoking the latest
video games. At least kids played them once,
and didn’t just watch some Illinois dopes
remake the bloody things. But I don’t know,
I was born an old man, was never young,
and probably would have decried the move
to parchment from tablets. I just wish that books ...
#PopCulture
97 reads
5 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)