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
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
491 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
341 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
328 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
367 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
572 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
709 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
295 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
317 reads
5 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
8th Nov 2021 7:47pm
8th Nov 2021 7:47pm
Frenzy
Camera dollying backward across the hall
and then down the stairs, around cornices and past
spindles, bollards, the British boarding house
sublime. The creep has just walked in with
her, his new victim, a woman we've seen
and got to know as an East End girl of
sharp manners but kind and loyal heart, a local,
friend, barmaid, lover. We also know who
he is. Heartless rapist, murderer. Frenzied ripper.
The camera leaves and crosses the street.
We see the woman's window, square and blank,
and though we don’t see what’s...
and then down the stairs, around cornices and past
spindles, bollards, the British boarding house
sublime. The creep has just walked in with
her, his new victim, a woman we've seen
and got to know as an East End girl of
sharp manners but kind and loyal heart, a local,
friend, barmaid, lover. We also know who
he is. Heartless rapist, murderer. Frenzied ripper.
The camera leaves and crosses the street.
We see the woman's window, square and blank,
and though we don’t see what’s...
#unicorns
321 reads
2 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
1st Nov 2021 11:08pm
1st Nov 2021 11:08pm
The Soul is a Kitchen Knife
My soul is a kitchen knife
and I am a mad slasher
waving it at all who pass.
To touch my soul
is to wrap your hands around the blade
until blood warms the webs
between your fingers.
and I am a mad slasher
waving it at all who pass.
To touch my soul
is to wrap your hands around the blade
until blood warms the webs
between your fingers.
#spiritual
432 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
29th Oct 2021 6:04pm
29th Oct 2021 6:04pm
Men at Funerals
Men are not good at funerals.
They're not sure what to say.
Untrained in all arts of keening
and life's broad emotions,
instead they lapse into cliche.
'Of course it did', perhaps,
when told by the grieving
that it came as a shock.
'There, there', or that old trope,
the mediocre blues:
'Come far today, have you?',
used in conversation
with someone new to you,
and whom you'll soon forget.
At all of the funerals I've been to
my brothers and I have been asked
'you're David's boys, aren't you?'
One...
They're not sure what to say.
Untrained in all arts of keening
and life's broad emotions,
instead they lapse into cliche.
'Of course it did', perhaps,
when told by the grieving
that it came as a shock.
'There, there', or that old trope,
the mediocre blues:
'Come far today, have you?',
used in conversation
with someone new to you,
and whom you'll soon forget.
At all of the funerals I've been to
my brothers and I have been asked
'you're David's boys, aren't you?'
One...
#death
565 reads
4 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
25th Oct 2021 6:09pm
25th Oct 2021 6:09pm
Mr Right
I used to think that Mister Right
was a well-built buck
with perfect skin,
hands blushed as they grip
a riding crop,
lip sneered in disdain.
but as I've grown I've learned
that cruelty breeds wanting cruelty...
and there were lots of us.
boys who wanted to be hurt by men
just like they'd been by fathers,
brothers, even friends, interpreting their hate
as love, and thinking that's
what's needed to be loved.
sometimes I don't allow myself to think
how many gay boys have been lost
in...
was a well-built buck
with perfect skin,
hands blushed as they grip
a riding crop,
lip sneered in disdain.
but as I've grown I've learned
that cruelty breeds wanting cruelty...
and there were lots of us.
boys who wanted to be hurt by men
just like they'd been by fathers,
brothers, even friends, interpreting their hate
as love, and thinking that's
what's needed to be loved.
sometimes I don't allow myself to think
how many gay boys have been lost
in...
#love
#depression
#gay #sex
#gay #sex
483 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
