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.
pyre
#love
#childhood
#abuse #LGBT
#abuse #LGBT
112 reads
2 Comments
innocence
what is innocence except
a monkey on a rack
or in a hole
observed by scientific eyes
bespectacled and sheer
and hands above a golden watch
delineating notes
on how the monkey’s eyes reflect
a dimming of the light
as if its love’s capacity
is withering like plants
in an abandoned house
a monkey on a rack
or in a hole
observed by scientific eyes
bespectacled and sheer
and hands above a golden watch
delineating notes
on how the monkey’s eyes reflect
a dimming of the light
as if its love’s capacity
is withering like plants
in an abandoned house
#love
#oppression
#science #evil
#science #evil
171 reads
2 Comments
Making Love
The phrase once meant not maritals
but merely pitching woo,
a chap made love with words, not swords,
an open heart and not a fly.
And so imagine my surprise
when as a ewe I read
Jane Austen’s Emma, in which she said
the vicar made to Emma “violent love”,
as their carriage rattled home.
Blimey, I thought,
sixteen and unwise in love and art,
and I thought Clacton girls were tarts…
but merely pitching woo,
a chap made love with words, not swords,
an open heart and not a fly.
And so imagine my surprise
when as a ewe I read
Jane Austen’s Emma, in which she said
the vicar made to Emma “violent love”,
as their carriage rattled home.
Blimey, I thought,
sixteen and unwise in love and art,
and I thought Clacton girls were tarts…
#books
#funny
#PowerOfWords #historical
#PowerOfWords #historical
115 reads
2 Comments
Engraving on the Tomb of an Unloved Patriarch
May the light accept in death
what it refused in life.
May this cold-hearted scion’s breath
not linger like a scented wife.
He wasted all his woman’s charms
and she in turn, wasted on him,
withered like a drunkard’s alms
for want of joy and loving whim.
The country seat he habited
is like a cancer of the moor,
the rolling fields once rabbited
remain a dusty ballroom floor.
What we can hope is that his son
will bring to his bleak house the sun.
what it refused in life.
May this cold-hearted scion’s breath
not linger like a scented wife.
He wasted all his woman’s charms
and she in turn, wasted on him,
withered like a drunkard’s alms
for want of joy and loving whim.
The country seat he habited
is like a cancer of the moor,
the rolling fields once rabbited
remain a dusty ballroom floor.
What we can hope is that his son
will bring to his bleak house the sun.
#family
#death
#nature #historical
#nature #historical
152 reads
4 Comments
Dark Valentine
I bought for my love a Valentine’s card
shaped like a heart and frilled with lace,
a corny bit of doggerel inside
to show that I’m thinking of him.
The normalcy of that simple gesture
thrills me when, alone, I sit and think
about what’s brought me here, the single love
that could have saved my soul.
The rage relaxes then, a white dove
settles on my breast. Reposed in this dark flat,
I look out through the skylight and
am ready for another day. He’s not replied,
of course. It’s been eight years since I started. ...
shaped like a heart and frilled with lace,
a corny bit of doggerel inside
to show that I’m thinking of him.
The normalcy of that simple gesture
thrills me when, alone, I sit and think
about what’s brought me here, the single love
that could have saved my soul.
The rage relaxes then, a white dove
settles on my breast. Reposed in this dark flat,
I look out through the skylight and
am ready for another day. He’s not replied,
of course. It’s been eight years since I started. ...
#love
#abuse
#suffering #DomesticViolence
#suffering #DomesticViolence
222 reads
3 Comments
Punch an Author
Punch an author,
do it quick,
before she makes a kiddie sick.
Punch an author,
do it right,
or else the watchers of the night
may bloom like flowers in the light
and thick like kudzu choke us all,
before they pierce with points of view
the generation soft and new.
Punch an author,
do it now!
He’s unimportant, anyhow.
And in our bland utopia
no thought will cross
a quiet mind, because no mind
will be quiet. Quiet’s suspicious, after all,
it breeds a dark, Satanic thrall…
the lure and...
do it quick,
before she makes a kiddie sick.
Punch an author,
do it right,
or else the watchers of the night
may bloom like flowers in the light
and thick like kudzu choke us all,
before they pierce with points of view
the generation soft and new.
Punch an author,
do it now!
He’s unimportant, anyhow.
And in our bland utopia
no thought will cross
a quiet mind, because no mind
will be quiet. Quiet’s suspicious, after all,
it breeds a dark, Satanic thrall…
the lure and...
#violence
#oppression
#books #art
#books #art
146 reads
4 Comments
In Light of a Young Woman’s Death
What life comes to,
I thought when I was young,
is dying or hiding,
surviving on borrowed
eclipses of joy,
the darkness momentary but
a brief religious ecstasy
for any wayward girl or boy.
I’ve since lived long enough to know
there may be life out in the light,
as bright and scorching as it is
to those who don’t become the rays,
the less-than-straight and all
that’s in-between. To write a verse that plays
with what I’d like to write about
is hardly possible. Too deep the wound,
it makes me...
I thought when I was young,
is dying or hiding,
surviving on borrowed
eclipses of joy,
the darkness momentary but
a brief religious ecstasy
for any wayward girl or boy.
I’ve since lived long enough to know
there may be life out in the light,
as bright and scorching as it is
to those who don’t become the rays,
the less-than-straight and all
that’s in-between. To write a verse that plays
with what I’d like to write about
is hardly possible. Too deep the wound,
it makes me...
#hate
#murder
#LGBT #transgender
#LGBT #transgender
182 reads
0 Comments
Sylvian Elegy
You would be 90 now.
At least if cancer or
one of the other thousand shocks
hadn’t gored you on its horns.
Surprised to learn that you left
in ‘63, when intercourse too late
came both for me and Philip Larkin,
I won’t pretend to know even for this
what you’d be like now. A wrinkled prune
perhaps, leaving ill-judged thoughts
on Twitter as the verse, now grown
and hued beyond the greenhouse shades
of sickly green, a corpse behind the ferns,
keeps pouring out. The Egg Rock suicides
would never have their patroness,...
At least if cancer or
one of the other thousand shocks
hadn’t gored you on its horns.
Surprised to learn that you left
in ‘63, when intercourse too late
came both for me and Philip Larkin,
I won’t pretend to know even for this
what you’d be like now. A wrinkled prune
perhaps, leaving ill-judged thoughts
on Twitter as the verse, now grown
and hued beyond the greenhouse shades
of sickly green, a corpse behind the ferns,
keeps pouring out. The Egg Rock suicides
would never have their patroness,...
#women
#suicide
#WritingPoetry #historical
#WritingPoetry #historical
186 reads
0 Comments
Regency Romance
All week I've been making the house,
following maids as their assistant.
Fresh eiderdown, lilacs,
gleaming posts, bed knobs.
An ashtray on your windowsill,
its pewter dish prepared to receive.
A box of gentleman's cigars
concealed in your nightstand.
I picture you standing by the window,
a horsehair bustle and tweed hunting cap,
forging and breaking
each smoky wedding band.
The window looks at nothing but
an inaccessible courtyard, that's just
a mistake of angle, a flaw in the design
of this...
following maids as their assistant.
Fresh eiderdown, lilacs,
gleaming posts, bed knobs.
An ashtray on your windowsill,
its pewter dish prepared to receive.
A box of gentleman's cigars
concealed in your nightstand.
I picture you standing by the window,
a horsehair bustle and tweed hunting cap,
forging and breaking
each smoky wedding band.
The window looks at nothing but
an inaccessible courtyard, that's just
a mistake of angle, a flaw in the design
of this...
#love
#gay
#romantic #historical
#romantic #historical
314 reads
1 Comment
A Sin
Said an actor to a bishop:
‘Is gay sex a sin?’
‘Only if you do it well’
Said the latter on sticking it in.
‘Is gay sex a sin?’
‘Only if you do it well’
Said the latter on sticking it in.
#funny
171 reads
2 Comments
A 05:00 AM Bleeding
I don’t look back with fondness at
my age of innocence, the early 2000s,
the years of wars for oil and reality TV.
The birth and ominous teethings
of social media. The feelings
that should come when called,
when calling childhood to mind,
have left me cold and far behind.
What I recall are petty grievances
(or so they seem when stacked against
a life of thirst and hunger and illness).
The many times that I was beaten up,
by other kids, an older sibling and
my mother once, when I was barely out
of romper suits. My...
my age of innocence, the early 2000s,
the years of wars for oil and reality TV.
The birth and ominous teethings
of social media. The feelings
that should come when called,
when calling childhood to mind,
have left me cold and far behind.
What I recall are petty grievances
(or so they seem when stacked against
a life of thirst and hunger and illness).
The many times that I was beaten up,
by other kids, an older sibling and
my mother once, when I was barely out
of romper suits. My...
#childhood
#abuse
#memories #nostalgia
#memories #nostalgia
185 reads
3 Comments
261 reads
1 Comment
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)