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.
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
27th Nov 2023 5:59pm
27th Nov 2023 5:59pm
One and Done
Writers are not very interesting.
There’ll always be another one.
What’s important is what they make,
what in their mediocrity’s been done.
There’ll always be another one.
What’s important is what they make,
what in their mediocrity’s been done.
#books
#LifeAsAWriter
#WritingPoetry #art
#WritingPoetry #art
29 reads
2 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
27th Nov 2023 5:56pm
27th Nov 2023 5:56pm
A Perfect Lore
Look into the quiet place
and ask it what you are.
I am of course an atheist.
When I look at creation I see
the great and ready-made chaos,
proliferating always like
the strain of some disease.
I cannot see in anything
the hand of some kind scientist,
observing us as Harlow did
his lovelorn simians.
But in this chaos there’s
a fire clean and pure,
a reason still to learn what’s here
and make at last a perfect lore.
and ask it what you are.
I am of course an atheist.
When I look at creation I see
the great and ready-made chaos,
proliferating always like
the strain of some disease.
I cannot see in anything
the hand of some kind scientist,
observing us as Harlow did
his lovelorn simians.
But in this chaos there’s
a fire clean and pure,
a reason still to learn what’s here
and make at last a perfect lore.
#love
#atheism
#spiritual #LifeCycle
#spiritual #LifeCycle
35 reads
1 Comment
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
20th Nov 2023 00:34am
20th Nov 2023 00:34am
BOOK REVIEW The End of Alice by AM Homes (1996)
I read this one because it’s featured on many BookTuber’s “disturbing books” list. It’s certainly… an experience. My feelings about The End of Alice are extremely mixed. On the positive side, it’s written with a literary prose style that’s engaging if you have an ear for language, and I was intrigued enough by the story and characters to keep reading to see how they ended up. However, some elements as well as the overall approach felt far too derivative of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – perhaps understandable, given that it’s the most iconic novel to deal with this subject matter – while...
#books
36 reads
0 Comments
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
20th Nov 2023 00:28am
20th Nov 2023 00:28am
FILM REVIEW Thanksgiving (2023)
I just saw Thanksgiving, the new slasher film by Eli Roth, and it was fun. Featuring a great cold open wherein a Black Friday sale leads to a deadly rampage of greed in a small town, we cut to one year later as a slasher in a Pilgrim hat and mask starts insisting on the real reason for the season, one mutilated corpse at a time. It therefore becomes incumbent upon Jessica (Nell Verlaque), daughter of the owner of the store where the stampede took place, to solve the mystery with help from local sheriff Eric (Patrick Dempsey) and boyfriend Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks) before they end up in the...
#PopCulture
38 reads
0 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
13th Nov 2023 10:42pm
13th Nov 2023 10:42pm
The People in the Trees
Across the snowy mountains glimpsed
Through her windshield
Are slight elevations of green
And I think about living in the midst of those trees
In perfect isolation from
The world of bricks and astroturf
Just she and I and others who
Have fled the burning light
Through her windshield
Are slight elevations of green
And I think about living in the midst of those trees
In perfect isolation from
The world of bricks and astroturf
Just she and I and others who
Have fled the burning light
#sadness
#love
#beauty #escape
#beauty #escape
86 reads
4 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
19th Oct 2023 00:57am
19th Oct 2023 00:57am
Forbidden Treats
a Halloween tale
It’s been eleven autumns since
the toffee apples made their rounds
and all fell down, with two not getting up
again; the keening sounds
of parents filled the little neighbourhood,
but it’s been more than a decade now,
and trick or treaters must make good
the promise of sweets on Halloween night.
‘After all, McGillicuddy’s dead…’
kids heard their parents say behind doors,
the French teacher still in each head,
the night he went insane and gave
the apples a stench of bitter almonds,
ushering boys...
It’s been eleven autumns since
the toffee apples made their rounds
and all fell down, with two not getting up
again; the keening sounds
of parents filled the little neighbourhood,
but it’s been more than a decade now,
and trick or treaters must make good
the promise of sweets on Halloween night.
‘After all, McGillicuddy’s dead…’
kids heard their parents say behind doors,
the French teacher still in each head,
the night he went insane and gave
the apples a stench of bitter almonds,
ushering boys...
#Halloween
#scary
#ghosts #horror
#ghosts #horror
79 reads
0 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
17th Oct 2023 1:03am
17th Oct 2023 1:03am
Halloween villanelle
The pumpkin patch is where we go
to see the Jack o’ Lantern rise
and walk with eyes and mouth aglow.
The year before we saw him throw
his orange skull at Halloween skies,
and so the patch is where we go.
He clambers down from where the crow
would never dare to make its cries,
and walks with eyes and mouth aglow.
The town since Æthelred’s been low
in place and piety, a hive of thieves and lies.
It’s to the pumpkin patch we go.
We’ve long since buried God to stow
in each our hearts the elder gods, like...
to see the Jack o’ Lantern rise
and walk with eyes and mouth aglow.
The year before we saw him throw
his orange skull at Halloween skies,
and so the patch is where we go.
He clambers down from where the crow
would never dare to make its cries,
and walks with eyes and mouth aglow.
The town since Æthelred’s been low
in place and piety, a hive of thieves and lies.
It’s to the pumpkin patch we go.
We’ve long since buried God to stow
in each our hearts the elder gods, like...
#Halloween
75 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
14th Oct 2023 5:53am
14th Oct 2023 5:53am
This Is Not a Poem
I’ve always written about things that appal
and terrify me; it’s kind of what I do.
From killing and rape to loneliness and death,
I take the cheap accoutrements of fear and pain
and dress them up in archaisms,
the style called Gothic.
But this isn’t a poem like that.
It isn’t a poem at all.
There are no trees nor shades,
no wheelbarrows, no waste lands, hollow men,
or claws. No silent seas or gaping maws.
For what can I say about what’s been done?
And what is going to be done.
...
and terrify me; it’s kind of what I do.
From killing and rape to loneliness and death,
I take the cheap accoutrements of fear and pain
and dress them up in archaisms,
the style called Gothic.
But this isn’t a poem like that.
It isn’t a poem at all.
There are no trees nor shades,
no wheelbarrows, no waste lands, hollow men,
or claws. No silent seas or gaping maws.
For what can I say about what’s been done?
And what is going to be done.
...
#war
#death
#evil #horror
#evil #horror
82 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
7th Oct 2023 11:38pm
7th Oct 2023 11:38pm
Walking in Essex on a Saturday Night
Old men crouch and beg.
A murder of lads
stripping branches from trees by the bridge,
bewailing the night, and making you
uneasy as you move between
the Nando’s and the off-licence,
to whither you walk to waste
your money on junk food.
And twice you pass the patron saint
of stab victims, the spotlit Knife Angel,
a sculpture built of blades outside
the Mercury theatre, the old Greek boy aloft
with winged helmet and serpentine sceptre,
now painted white with guano like
a ship’s mermaid. You pass a Roman...
A murder of lads
stripping branches from trees by the bridge,
bewailing the night, and making you
uneasy as you move between
the Nando’s and the off-licence,
to whither you walk to waste
your money on junk food.
And twice you pass the patron saint
of stab victims, the spotlit Knife Angel,
a sculpture built of blades outside
the Mercury theatre, the old Greek boy aloft
with winged helmet and serpentine sceptre,
now painted white with guano like
a ship’s mermaid. You pass a Roman...
#home
#night
86 reads
4 Comments
UPBEAT INSPIRATIONAL POEM
Published
6th Oct 2023 6:16am
6th Oct 2023 6:16am
Accepting a Treat from a Ghost
We celebrated Halloween,
he let me peek inside.
But in that candy dish was nil
to justify the phantom’s pride.
he let me peek inside.
But in that candy dish was nil
to justify the phantom’s pride.
#lust
#fall
#Halloween #funny
#Halloween #funny
90 reads
1 Comment
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
28th Sep 2023 10:50pm
28th Sep 2023 10:50pm
The Death of the Author
The madness of art is such
that anyone can make with it
what she or he may want.
An author’s not definitive;
they’re often wrong, in fact.
The madness of art is much
more interesting than
the details of what he wore to bed,
and whom she hated most of all.
A great artiste can be worse than a fool.
that anyone can make with it
what she or he may want.
An author’s not definitive;
they’re often wrong, in fact.
The madness of art is much
more interesting than
the details of what he wore to bed,
and whom she hated most of all.
A great artiste can be worse than a fool.
#books
#learning
#art #philosophical
#art #philosophical
71 reads
3 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
25th Sep 2023 5:39am
25th Sep 2023 5:39am
Male Tears
I haven’t processed half of what I should.
The constant state of man is such:
we shed tears in the dark, as understood
at five or so that even death is much
preferable to girlishness,
or what’s perceived as such.
We wander in the deadly wilderness
whose spirit quests were forced by other men;
the system justified, even while it kills.
We strip the song from out the wren,
the boys from out the men.
And pack the hearts in stone that chills.
And so do male tears collect, in clay fleshpots
in silence stored, inscribed...
The constant state of man is such:
we shed tears in the dark, as understood
at five or so that even death is much
preferable to girlishness,
or what’s perceived as such.
We wander in the deadly wilderness
whose spirit quests were forced by other men;
the system justified, even while it kills.
We strip the song from out the wren,
the boys from out the men.
And pack the hearts in stone that chills.
And so do male tears collect, in clay fleshpots
in silence stored, inscribed...
#sadness
#depression
#LifeStruggles #masculinity
#LifeStruggles #masculinity
113 reads
5 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
