Maiden AL13

Cold aluminum filigrees, like lace, bend and twist in pretty patterns across my arms, looking for all the world like lady armor made for the modern age. Yet it pinches, wears down marks, leaves scratches red as the stains in Liz Bathory's linen-lined tub as I lay here, for now unbroken — forever, save I…

However After

Mirror on the wall, whose face lies behind this mask? What doll, what cracked porcelain pride, dares ask after her now-lost youth? What etheric rot rises like exhaust into air from raw, open graves, smacking the blue sky, lacking filters for free breath — does vanity hold any cell…in this hell? She shall count her…

COVID CORVID

Coronaviral conspiracy some say, snubbing Overt deaths and the tear-dampened masks Reigning on thrones in one-room lives. Other Vicious veils of plague mask cosplay make light In the face of fear, collecting as unkindness Driven from murders to belong to longer laughter. Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Pexels.com Preview from my upcoming 2023 collection The…

A Ghostly Gale

My moon soul whispers of tell-tale dread among the dead… silent screams unseen in the empty gray sunrise. A bone howl. Dusk spirits scatter through the broken storm. Bitter is the lightning. Dreadful their thunder. A passing crow cloud is cawing for earth death by crypt and cellar: I shudder between them within a dream.…

Empty

Once I had a heart, but life stole it away. The stress of spending seconds counting sighs down to abyssal eyes — peace, a waste of time. I used to be a dreamer, but shame came of desire, clouding all my visions until the stratus sky suffocated my lies overhead and inside. "Serve, serve, serve!"…

Little Sisters of Niagara

Dancing naked 'neath cascades, my eyes are blinded by the water  as I face the safety of a dark cave. I feel nimble hands snake around me from a tall skeleton casting shadows, blocking the sun's diamonds from illuminating the red apple peel of my closed lids. I know it's you  by the movement of skilled fingers  supporting…

Succubus

She’s in love with a new preacher: a chaste charismatic angel, young and full of the Lord’s fire. His is a life she longs to claim — a mortal life promised to eternity, a mortal life repulsed by carnality. She knows this, but it doesn’t stop her.   She’s in love with a retired preacher:…

She

Star-borne, dust-kissed, waiting for a bastard prince to take this weak host body and poison Soul with soil, sod, persuade all that seeds grow in Dirt. Growling is what dead animals provoke. Isn't carbon comely as the source of His glory with no story of her Own? Photo by Alise AliNari on Pexels.com From the 2021…

Hearsay

About That Ugly Girl:  “She’ll certainly never charm  A boy’s eye or be asked to prom.  She’ll never hear the words I do  And have a partner by her side.  She’ll never know the touch  Of love from a soul mate’s arms.  Poor thing, look at her face…  Oh, isn’t she pathetic?”   They don’t…

My Tantrum at Barnes & Noble

About an hour ago, I decided to throw a semi-quiet mini temper tantrum at Barnes & Noble in which I loudly exclaimed how many of the books in their expanded poetry section were trash shock value greeting card instapoetry along the lines of "Fuck," she said, "I'll never get him back." THIS IS NOT POETRY.…