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.
LOVE POEM
Published
18th Jan 2022 1:58pm
18th Jan 2022 1:58pm
accident time, or, love song for a ‘90s playwright
after and for Sarah Kane
how the mind fragments
and wakes
at forty-eight minutes past four
your plays
it could be said
were part a way of dictating
the breakdown of your inner world
that palace of despair
baroque depravities
crumbling brick by brick
until only roaches remained
as residents
one looking to the sun
and thinking with its insect brain:
“what sort of place is this?”
end scene
how the mind fragments
and wakes
at forty-eight minutes past four
your plays
it could be said
were part a way of dictating
the breakdown of your inner world
that palace of despair
baroque depravities
crumbling brick by brick
until only roaches remained
as residents
one looking to the sun
and thinking with its insect brain:
“what sort of place is this?”
end scene
#unicorns
407 reads
2 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
14th Jan 2022 9:26pm
14th Jan 2022 9:26pm
the necromancer
to love as I wish to be loved...
the necromancer wanted this
and in his lonely cave
cast many spells
unaware that just outside
was a metropolis
we took him out
and showed him all
the streets and taxicabs
but he could only cry in pain
that nothing here
was kindred to his world
he looked as lost
as a dog in a barn
the necromancer wanted this
and in his lonely cave
cast many spells
unaware that just outside
was a metropolis
we took him out
and showed him all
the streets and taxicabs
but he could only cry in pain
that nothing here
was kindred to his world
he looked as lost
as a dog in a barn
#unicorns
288 reads
1 Comment
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
14th Jan 2022 00:45am
14th Jan 2022 00:45am
the night
the night is mystical with tears
wept by lost women
and lonely men
and every other type of soul
for mysticism’s not just flute
and other instruments of wood
but also instruments of bone
and toenails
and ducts
wept by lost women
and lonely men
and every other type of soul
for mysticism’s not just flute
and other instruments of wood
but also instruments of bone
and toenails
and ducts
#unicorns
425 reads
4 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
11th Jan 2022 10:38pm
11th Jan 2022 10:38pm
Jack of the Frosts
going to Alaska in a week
as a kid I often dreamt
about the place
walking through the dreamy frosts
and living like a hermit in
some shack that still had warmth
but looked out on the snowy wastes
like a kindly old woman
going there now
with naught but a suitcase of clothes
my laptop
phone
other electronics
and books to read on the plane
I’m more concerned about
deep vein thrombosis
and whether my debit card will work
that’s adulthood I suppose
as a kid I often dreamt
about the place
walking through the dreamy frosts
and living like a hermit in
some shack that still had warmth
but looked out on the snowy wastes
like a kindly old woman
going there now
with naught but a suitcase of clothes
my laptop
phone
other electronics
and books to read on the plane
I’m more concerned about
deep vein thrombosis
and whether my debit card will work
that’s adulthood I suppose
#unicorns
302 reads
3 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
31st Dec 2021 9:17pm
31st Dec 2021 9:17pm
FACT & FICTION
back in the days when I read true crime
my brother bought me a book
by a female serial killer
well
partly by her
it needed to be filled in
by some journalist
because her bits were all in capital letters
and barely coherent
all I WENT TO THE PLACE & THERE
WAS THE JOHN
AND I WANTED HIS CAR
SO I SHOT HIM
that’s the thing about true crime
and why I stopped reading it
murderers are rarely raconteurs
(in fact they’re quite sordid)
my brother bought me a book
by a female serial killer
well
partly by her
it needed to be filled in
by some journalist
because her bits were all in capital letters
and barely coherent
all I WENT TO THE PLACE & THERE
WAS THE JOHN
AND I WANTED HIS CAR
SO I SHOT HIM
that’s the thing about true crime
and why I stopped reading it
murderers are rarely raconteurs
(in fact they’re quite sordid)
#unicorns
402 reads
3 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
24th Dec 2021 2:07pm
24th Dec 2021 2:07pm
The Rambler
a ghost story for Christmas Eve
A light Christmas lunch was served in the dining room while a radio played popular songs and soap operas of the 1950s. It was an old green radio, a Roberts Rambler, with dials and a leather strap. It seemed to have come with the building. No one ever changed the station it was set to.
An episode of Mrs Dale's Diary, in which the titular character confuses her motorcar's clutch with a hook for her handbag, was playing. Meanwhile, the widowed Mrs Roberts was being helped to eat a slice of "traditional" Christmas pudding. 'Traditional pudding...
A light Christmas lunch was served in the dining room while a radio played popular songs and soap operas of the 1950s. It was an old green radio, a Roberts Rambler, with dials and a leather strap. It seemed to have come with the building. No one ever changed the station it was set to.
An episode of Mrs Dale's Diary, in which the titular character confuses her motorcar's clutch with a hook for her handbag, was playing. Meanwhile, the widowed Mrs Roberts was being helped to eat a slice of "traditional" Christmas pudding. 'Traditional pudding...
#unicorns
448 reads
5 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
19th Dec 2021 8:45pm
19th Dec 2021 8:45pm
Harvey Fierstein’s Slippers
So maybe it’s just me,
but Harvey Fierstein’s slippers
in Torch Song Trilogy
are signs that it’s okay
to not be manly, like your dad,
like boys he wanted you to be.
but Harvey Fierstein’s slippers
in Torch Song Trilogy
are signs that it’s okay
to not be manly, like your dad,
like boys he wanted you to be.
#unicorns
322 reads
3 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
9th Dec 2021 3:52pm
9th Dec 2021 3:52pm
conversations on the internet
there's no point talking to anyone
because everyone's just trying to run you down
they don't want to hear your opinion
or engage with it
they just want to hear that you disagree with them
and then rip you to scraps verbally
like a cage full of angry monkeys
hopped up on adrenaline
and pheromones
waiting to impress the nearest females
because everyone's just trying to run you down
they don't want to hear your opinion
or engage with it
they just want to hear that you disagree with them
and then rip you to scraps verbally
like a cage full of angry monkeys
hopped up on adrenaline
and pheromones
waiting to impress the nearest females
#conflict
289 reads
2 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
8th Dec 2021 2:34am
8th Dec 2021 2:34am
December Haiku
Blinking lights are out.
Cold winds fill the marketplace.
Home is on your mind.
Cold winds fill the marketplace.
Home is on your mind.
#Christmas
238 reads
3 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
6th Dec 2021 11:29pm
6th Dec 2021 11:29pm
water on stone
nights in the city in winter
are like long sad kisses
from the ghost of a person
who’s been dead a long time
and I don’t know if it’s just my humours
imbalanced as they’ve always been
but lamplight reflected
in puddles on concrete
as cold winds howl by are enough
to make me think that if I died
in that instant it’d be with gods
lined up to receive my spirit
once when I worked in a call centre
I told the girl next to me
that I was struck in the early mornings
by calm blue shades...
are like long sad kisses
from the ghost of a person
who’s been dead a long time
and I don’t know if it’s just my humours
imbalanced as they’ve always been
but lamplight reflected
in puddles on concrete
as cold winds howl by are enough
to make me think that if I died
in that instant it’d be with gods
lined up to receive my spirit
once when I worked in a call centre
I told the girl next to me
that I was struck in the early mornings
by calm blue shades...
#unicorns
379 reads
3 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
3rd Dec 2021 5:16pm
3rd Dec 2021 5:16pm
To an Imaginary Child
If I believed,
I'd say that God made me
both queer and asocial
to stop me making you.
I'd only be half-joking, too.
Wrapped in myself,
and all of my anxieties,
I know that love is not enough.
And furthermore not an excuse.
The ties of endurance fray loose.
The baby in the barn
is just, in truth, an empty crib
with wind against its crude supports.
I'll never give you name, or form.
And leave you in the light deformed.
I'd say that God made me
both queer and asocial
to stop me making you.
I'd only be half-joking, too.
Wrapped in myself,
and all of my anxieties,
I know that love is not enough.
And furthermore not an excuse.
The ties of endurance fray loose.
The baby in the barn
is just, in truth, an empty crib
with wind against its crude supports.
I'll never give you name, or form.
And leave you in the light deformed.
#unicorns
474 reads
5 Comments
ANGER POEM
Published
2nd Dec 2021 4:19pm
2nd Dec 2021 4:19pm
An intellectual
Five French writers have resigned as jurors from a literary prize inspired by Marcel Proust because of rape and sexual assault claims made against its chairman, a well-known television presenter." - The Times, December 02 2021
An intellectual
is someone who
sits on a panel and
tells you it's okay
to have sex with children
so long as you write lots of books
that no one wants to read.
An intellectual
is someone who
sits on a panel and
tells you it's okay
to have sex with children
so long as you write lots of books
that no one wants to read.
#unicorns
319 reads
4 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
