From the Vaults, just in time for Halloween…

((My favorite holiday is almost here again. I love Halloween/All Hallow’s Eve/Samhain, etc. I love the spookiness, the shadows, the full moons, the costumes and sense of play, the candy isn’t bad either (sometimes) and just how much fun people always seem to have this time of year. I’ve written a couple of spooky poems in honor of Halloween. These were posted awhile ago, but I think they’re still relevant. Enjoy!))

*********

~ The Wraith ~

Slipping from slumber,
into the night.
With fangs that rend,
and fears that bite.
Red eyes that glow with a gleaming heat,
ever seeking out fresh meat.
Like oily smoke, it slithering seeps
in sliding shadows,
quietly creeps.
It beckons with a blackened claw,
and amused, it laughs,
with a hissing maw.
It steals into the deepest dreams,
smothering even the loudest screams.
Tainting all the light it finds,
and feasting on the shell-shocked minds.
So silent, it revels in the dark,
leaving nothing, not a mark.
All through the night,
until the dawn.
And then it hides,
to sleep and spawn.
And wisping slips away again,
before the sun can scald it’s skin.
Shrinking back to places black,
It clings to every precious crack,
Hunger sated ’till the darkening hour,
When the wraith will return,
with mysterious power…

~ C.L.R. ~ © 2003

*********

Posted on October 31, 2011

((Zombies have always scared me. Bad. I can’t watch zombie movies (with the exception of “Shaun of the Dead”) because they give me terrible nightmares. Oddly enough, one of my favorite new tv series is “The Walking Dead”. Anyway, in an effort to “exorcise” some of this fear, I wrote a poem for Halloween some time ago. It’s about zombies. And it’s scary. But the video trailer below is pretty funny. You were warned. ))

~ Waking the Dead ~

 
A chill wind blows across the pregnant moon,

clouding sky and darkening night.

The midnight hour is just now past,

and the shadows take winged flight.

The blackness hovers ’round the rippling ground,

caressing the crumbling stones…

From beneath them, now, there comes a sound

of aging, rotted bones.

Filthy, ragged fingertips punch through dirt,

clawing steadily to reach night’s air…

The clods of mucked earth fall away,

Revealing a skull, and matted chunks of hair.

It groans an empty, whispered hiss,

the vocal chords all rot and slime.

Climbing slowly out of putrescent mud,

clothes naught but rags and putrid grime.

Its dead, cold, fishy eyes aware,

the zombie struggles free.

No more caged in wretched grave!

The wormy lips twist in wicked glee.

Nearby, another corpse shambles forth,

spilling liquid, from its stinking tomb.

Sliding out of the muddy, squelching earth,

it too, moans tortured doom.

Slick earthworms writhe through rotten flesh,

and the sickening death-stench grows…

Beetles scuttle through a gaping, slack mouth,

and glistening black, scurry back,

through the nose.

The soft plop of an eyeball as it wetly slides

down a cheek in a dangling glare.

Ages of maggots have done their dank work

Green, decayed meat falls here and there.

The army of Death is gathering,

 unholy groans carried on the foul wind.

All the dead shall rise and walk the Earth

and Apocolypse shall begin…

Staggering, shambling, lurching forms

announced by the ripe smell of flesh rotten,

they move with skeletal, faltering steps

towards the warm blood they’d almost forgotten.

Craving the life they’ll never have again,

their sorrow and fury complete.

Hungering, thousands of them wake!

To roam the unsuspecting streets!

By morning, none living will remain,

the fearful screams and thuds will have ceased….

The only sounds will be of the dead…insane…

as they gather to the fresh flesh feast!

Beware of the gluttony of the walking dead,

for your fear whets their appetite!

And pray that when they come for you,

you’ll be among the first to die tonight…

~ C.L.R. ~ ©