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WHAT DO YOU DO?
What do you do when your whole family’s strange,
And you have their sickness polluting your veins?
How do you cope with the future ahead
When you know you’ll be crazy before you are dead?
What do you do when it starts to take over
And robs you of reason the few times you’re sober?
How can you fight this congenital disease
That comes from the roots of two warped family trees?
What can you do to defeat the dark urges
And beat back the devil each time he emerges?
How can poor Madeline escape what will crush her
Imprisoned in a place like the vile House of Usher?
THE RAVEN TREE
The raven tree
grows scaly & sick
with withered leaves
& plenty of perches
for witch birds.
Bark peels like
leper’s skin from
its bent trunk
& bare limbs shine
like exposed bone.
The raven tree quivers
with the slightest breeze
as if plagued by ague
or some strange
nervous disorder.
THE RUINS
The ruins were overgrown
with brambles & briars.
Crumbled walls cast shadows
in the moonlit gloom
& toadstools crunched underfoot.
Cold drafts seeped from
subterranean vaults.
Ghostly lovers embraced
like tangled roses.
LUCRETIA’S LOVE
Lucretia’s love is
insipid as gruel.
Her needs are shallow
as a vagabond’s grave,
and her songs
contain one octave.
Her kisses are cold
as a dead trout’s.
Her only excess
involves razors
and foreskin.
MENACING SHADOW MEN
Transports trundle from the dusk.
Death squads erupt into the oak,
probing with red laser beams
and high tech scouts.
The wind retreats through the trees,
gasping like a lung-shot beast.
Bark eyelids snap shut
as menacing shadow men
root for the spirit of the forest.
THE GOOD SHIP DEATH
Impressed by mist,
the good ship Death sailed
close-hauled and harried.
Icebergs loomed
on every tack,
and walruses bellowed
from invisible islands.
Watchmen cursed,
cabin boys blubbered,
and bosuns’ pipes squealed
like scalded demons.
Old salts sweated
in the rigging,
praying for passage
to the aurora borealis.
ALIEN ABDUCTION
My heart is numbed
by alien abduction.
I float in a glittery void
alive with whispers
& slippery skin.
The earth is strangled
blue sunshine.
My favorite options
are death or insanity.
THE ZOMBIE CHEERLEADERS
The zombie cheerleaders
shook rat-shaped pompoms
as they gyrated in the gym.
Their eyes were hidden by dreadlocks;
their skirts bared more
than we cared to see.
MINI MARTS ATTRACT MONSTERS
Mini Marts attract monsters at 2 a.m.
Tall, gaunt, they enter from the mist
wrapped in bat-winged leather.
Cold snot runs from sewer-sized noses.
Corroded earrings dangle from infected lobes.
They hover in the cigarette aisle jingling
pockets full of strange European coins
or root through the frozen food cases
as if seeking out a dead friend.
Finally, they exit, wreathed in smoke,
like blue movie vampires from Wales.
BONE MARROW DRIVE
On Bone Marrow Drive
lycanthropes stalk
through neon grottoes,
their manes glistening
as they snuff the trail
of triple-x coke queens.
Leather conceals
needle marks
& necromantic skin.
Lambent faces flash
in the gloam.
The wolfsbane blooms,
sowing lupine appetites.
AN UNFINISHED PUZZLE
The sky is a Ouija board of bright stars.
Frost glows on the frozen lane,
and wolves glide ghostly from a thicket.
Owls worry the marshes with their calls.
The night is an unfinished puzzle
with plenty of pieces missing.
NO ONE WONDERED
The bride chose black
for her wedding gown.
A frightening amount
of mascara
entombed her stare,
and her ears were adorned
with upside down crosses.
Her arms were strands
of overcooked spaghetti.
Her hips were straight bone.
Spiked high heels
completed her ensemble.
No one wondered
when the groom
drove up in a hearse.
PLAYING HEADSTONE LEAPFROG
Playing headstone leapfrog
Beneath the haunted moon
Makes me glad I’ve risen
From my rime-stitched tomb
I imitate the night wind
And shriek and huff and howl
I screech along with the panther
And scowl with the owl
Darkness raised my spirits
I soar thru the graveyard with glee
I shake the mist from my cold fist
And scare the caretaker for free!
JIM MORRISON
Jim Morrison created an organ-mad world
where spooky sideshows churned
to a Whiskey a Go Go Gothic beat.
His leather pants housed love/death drama
while Indian beads completed his mystique.
Jim had the face of a troubled angel,
the voice of a banished one.
He drowned the stage in his anguish,
unleashed a vision of social rot
& emotional wilderness of stone.
Morrison was a satyr & an oracle bard.
He chanted tales of homicidal hitchhiker
& unknown soldier blood meal.
He used his words like a conqueror deploys troops.
He dared confess that we are ruled by television.
Jim Morrison was a stoner lord
who took his toke of life & OD’d on it.
He died naked in a Paris tub
freed from the eyes
that vaporized his star.
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