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.
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
327 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
295 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
241 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
388 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
485 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
331 reads
4 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
28th Nov 2021 3:48pm
28th Nov 2021 3:48pm
A Minor Poem
I cannot enjoy one poem by Shelley and am delighted by every line of William Barnes, but I know perfectly well that Shelley is a major poet, and Barnes a minor one.’ - WH Auden, Nineteenth-Century Minor Poets
Am I a hedonist to say
that pleasure’s all there is, really?
To read alone is worthy of the cause.
Is that a statement so profane?
I shall confess, my Lord, I just don’t care,
when all’s been writ, who holds the gilded glove.
I’ll salt my sweet ambrosia with pulp.
And you can say I lard my soul with crap.
Yet in...
Am I a hedonist to say
that pleasure’s all there is, really?
To read alone is worthy of the cause.
Is that a statement so profane?
I shall confess, my Lord, I just don’t care,
when all’s been writ, who holds the gilded glove.
I’ll salt my sweet ambrosia with pulp.
And you can say I lard my soul with crap.
Yet in...
#unicorns
#WHAuden
317 reads
5 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
25th Nov 2021 8:45pm
25th Nov 2021 8:45pm
It was a dark and stormy night
The hotel was more populated than the proprietor, a tall and thin man, had ever seen it.
He said as much to Abigail as he led her to her room. 'The usual ghosthunters?' she asked. The proprietor paused on the landing. Beside him was a small Gothic window looking out on the forest that ran parallel to the hotel.
Opposite the hotel was a bluff that plummeted a hundred feet down to wind and seaswept rocks. 'I don't like to talk about them' he said, referring to the ghosthunters. Abigail left the matter there and followed him to her room.
It was old-fashioned,...
He said as much to Abigail as he led her to her room. 'The usual ghosthunters?' she asked. The proprietor paused on the landing. Beside him was a small Gothic window looking out on the forest that ran parallel to the hotel.
Opposite the hotel was a bluff that plummeted a hundred feet down to wind and seaswept rocks. 'I don't like to talk about them' he said, referring to the ghosthunters. Abigail left the matter there and followed him to her room.
It was old-fashioned,...
#scary
361 reads
4 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
21st Nov 2021 2:18am
21st Nov 2021 2:18am
Making Love to a Witch
She walked up to me as I collected
firewood. She giggled and kissed
me on the lips, this grown woman,
and I felt bashful but not cross,
nor any sort of mad. I felt Woman
was only of the shaming dross,
once she had left and I was left alone.
What else to call my spitting on the throne
but sin? I’ll say it clear: I wanted her again.
Somehow I knew. I’d see her in the woods that night.
Her hips were wide, and freckled fine as dew.
Her shoulders too. In among the fallen
locks of thick red hair I found the Sapphic
witch anew;...
firewood. She giggled and kissed
me on the lips, this grown woman,
and I felt bashful but not cross,
nor any sort of mad. I felt Woman
was only of the shaming dross,
once she had left and I was left alone.
What else to call my spitting on the throne
but sin? I’ll say it clear: I wanted her again.
Somehow I knew. I’d see her in the woods that night.
Her hips were wide, and freckled fine as dew.
Her shoulders too. In among the fallen
locks of thick red hair I found the Sapphic
witch anew;...
#lesbian
564 reads
3 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
14th Nov 2021 2:00pm
14th Nov 2021 2:00pm
The Old Days
1
you wonder how we did it in the old days
as if sex really was invented back
in nineteen sixty-three
and gay sex in sixty-seven
but sex is sex
just as eating is eating
it's all the same innate wanting
whether you like Red Leicester with beef
or casserole
or whatever
I can't sum it up
except with an anecdote
2
there were guys who were better at it than others
who could pick up sailors
morning noon and night
and never get beaten up
I wasn't...
you wonder how we did it in the old days
as if sex really was invented back
in nineteen sixty-three
and gay sex in sixty-seven
but sex is sex
just as eating is eating
it's all the same innate wanting
whether you like Red Leicester with beef
or casserole
or whatever
I can't sum it up
except with an anecdote
2
there were guys who were better at it than others
who could pick up sailors
morning noon and night
and never get beaten up
I wasn't...
#gay
703 reads
7 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
13th Nov 2021 10:23am
13th Nov 2021 10:23am
Son of the Fascist
After all, you don’t dress all in black, skulk in the shadows ..., weigh eight stone and hide in your college room doing equations, then get into heroin and do it until you die at the age of 39, alone in your west London flat, to be found the next day by the cleaner, because you feel loved and nurtured by a family of whom you are intensely proud, do you?" - Giles Coren, "This is one Mosley whose name should live on", The Times
on reading that Oxford University is planning to end the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, due to the namesake's father's and grandparents' ties to Fascism...
on reading that Oxford University is planning to end the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, due to the namesake's father's and grandparents' ties to Fascism...
#unicorns
288 reads
1 Comment
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
12th Nov 2021 12:41pm
12th Nov 2021 12:41pm
The Path Out
Sometimes I think about God,
or any force personified
as a robe-and-sandals man,
hacking away at my flesh.
Tearing away all the flab,
the veins, fat, and muscle,
until just bones remain.
And inside that the mortal strain
allowed at last to step beyond
the bars of its profane prison.
All flesh is profane.
That's why the Mohawk Saint
tried to burn a path out of hers.
With hot coals on the wild shore,
Heaven looming as a cross
out on the dark water. The core
of time degrades all flesh.
or any force personified
as a robe-and-sandals man,
hacking away at my flesh.
Tearing away all the flab,
the veins, fat, and muscle,
until just bones remain.
And inside that the mortal strain
allowed at last to step beyond
the bars of its profane prison.
All flesh is profane.
That's why the Mohawk Saint
tried to burn a path out of hers.
With hot coals on the wild shore,
Heaven looming as a cross
out on the dark water. The core
of time degrades all flesh.
#unicorns
308 reads
5 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
