horror – Page 2 – poems 2 die for

AFTER THIS

AFTER THIS

after this
you ask me

not what
forgiveness

but what
salvation, what
resurrection?

but in the absence
of principle
I cannot answer
I do not know

mine is a ramshackle
up-down, on-off
lesser evil, beyond
good
and evil kind of spirituslity

but this is
a crime beyond crimes
in the eyes
of God
were he willing
to open them
were he
prepared to see

and all this
blood
this carnage

it cannot but have stained us
smashed that mirror into
shell shrapnel, bomb
splinter sized
     needle-like fragments
the one
     in which
divine likeness
         was seen

wounds
need healing, and
all these wounds

are
self-inflicted

ask me
later

not now not now
later I may again believe
in something, in humanity
in purpose
and vision

today
but today

just short of hopeless for me

silence better
than these paltry words here

BUT THE SYMMETRY IS PERFECT

BUT THE SYMMETRY IS PERFECT

and now we
know that horror

the depth and extent of
its shadow

cast forward in time
for over eighty years

but time
future and past

it is all meaningless
relative

is thing of moment and instant
running forward and back

causality, karma, punishment
for those beyond time
who escape the limits
of our bound
wisdom
racing
helter-
skeltet to collapse, inescapably
fast-erroding

know that shadow forward
is also
shadow back

and your horror now
is your horror then

we see
no sense, no logic,
but the symmetry: this is perfect

DREAMCATCHER

DREAMCATCHER

glad to see you installed
your dreamcatcher

hanging over your bed,
very best place to be

so many twists and turns
these days in the fabtic of the real

and therefore
one should position
this transcendent web

for
optimum screening

would not want
to find a baby xenomorph
and its twin

chomping their way through
your chest

to celebrate first breath
with the simultaneous
death of
its mummy and daddy

terrible in film, or real life,
let alone a dream

not that there are not
dreams more disturbing,
hideous and

altogether more poisonous

involving ships and planes
missile tracking radar and
self-
appointed
policemen of the seas

IN THE BEGINNING

I was very small. I felt very small too: lying in my bed curiously warm, not frozen with fear.

The thing was massive and its violence was unimaginable. I heard the screams and the seconding sounds of slaughter through my bedroom walls, solid brick though they were.

Then there was silence. The dark shadow shape towering over me filling the room came through the door, then slipped into bed next to me as it did so diminishing in size and then disappearing entirely.

I knew it was there. I knew that it would remain with me forever. Sleep came quickly. As I slipped away I knew that this creature, this beast, this entity and I had an affinity. Whatever it was, whatever its nature it would be spending a lifetime with me.

Turning all the dark vision is churning my head into words, this would be its legacy and terrible gift.