T.C. Clark has been published in the Pill Hill anthologies, Solstice Publishing, and the Western Fictioneer’s anthology The Traditional West. Do enjoy his most recent work, a 33-lined poem titled The Hand From Above.
Nathan J.D.L. Rowark has been published in Horrorzine.com, Forward Press, Bloodmoonrisings.com, Staticmovement.com, Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine, Taintedtea.com, among others. Please do enjoy his collection of poems.
For a PDF of the February Poetry Collection click here.
Poetry
by
T.C. Clark
The Hand From Above
I woke one night screaming.
My wife, she woke with me,
Touching me gently,
Asking me where it hurt.
I told her I had seen
Something horrible,
Something grotesque:
An image borrowed from
My childhood fears.
I was alone in my dream…
The last man on earth,
The last living thing
Aside from one blue flower.
I sat and I stared
At the flower, my companion,
Watching it wilt very slowly.
Then something appeared
From where I cannot tell;
For we, Blue and I
Were all that remained.
But the something that appeared
Snatched my blue flower
And took it to a place unknown.
And left me to sit
All alone in the word,
And mourn for my losses,
All the while wondering
If I would be plucked
By the thing that appeared
Or left to sit with my grief
Until, like Blue, my soul wilted
And turned into something
The wind could easily carry.
______________________________________
Poetry
by
Nathan J.D.L. Rowark
Culinary Defence
Last light of a panelled row, flickers to then dim.
A signal of a voice cut short, of opinion on a whim.
Circuit breaker had gone bad, worse behind the gate.
Baying mob of eyes and teeth, express non-appeasements wait.
Hard became this soldier’s life, in days that lay before him.
He had no time to wonder why, in a world of abject sin.
Final comfort, a screenshots glow, fades as little known show.
No line expressed from a monitors behest, could make this terror go.
Within his mind, the group’s unrest became shorter by the second;
And itching for his rifle butt, a clear shot of leaders reckoned.
But how much of the fear resides, internal and unspoken;
In the guarding of these food supplies, for a countries morale broken.
______________________________________
Spider Class
There’s a spider’s class amongst us, who will devour without fuss,
The hopes and fears for breakfast, of this man and woman cast.
To make them trickle down their money, shimmering upon dark net of honey;
A trap for those who sought success, at lairs feet, they now confess.
Repent, the screaming voices; souls trapped and bound for choices;
Under belly too increase, beneath the legs of spindled wreath.
Their many eyes, they focus tight on our social web and social fight.
Next casualty, a neighbour known, now bite size snack on arachnid throne.
I have a duty, don’t we all, to cut the strings and watch them fall.
To long, we’ve lost our way for feeling, from hairs aroused on despised ceiling.
Wrapped in worried, blanket thighs of ordered insects lullabies;
We must unleash our conscious side; repackaged thoughts now pesticide.
I make it nervous, shifts about; the word, my lifelong title bout.
Another round is rung, it’s posing, next one squares us up for the closing.
Dancing for the very debt, no KO’d rights from pinched castanet.
My freedoms tune, they like to play, known assailants to my better day.
A countdown shows he won’t recover, from sack arrive, ten more from mother.
Hopeless instinct, lot increased, the numbers held are born for feast.
Greed, that letters can erode, shows their stomachs full, to then explode;
Entangled, invertebrate charade, eight legged end to our lives forbade.
______________________________________
Skullery
The creep that crept below the hall, inside the sewer on urines squall
Stalks the site it once had fell, strolls the trail of those unwell.
Digs a trench beneath the life of lives above that tortured rife;
A Shadowed soul that under sits this lighter lineage that fits.
In the larder, soiled goods, like those once stolen from the woods.
Birds a family sought to borrow, covered by a store hands sorrow.
Never forgot, the ingredients blended, to now avenge a time quick ended.
Cooks with cauldron in the kitchen, adds a spice for sour depiction.
They never had their conscience pricked, looking to this right arm kicked.
Ever faithful put to test when hiding crime at their behest;
Once saved the face of family line to end upon a thief trees twine.
Now fluffs the pillows right to keep until guilty lose their flight for sleep.
They wonder on mis-fortunes rot, why an echo sounds around this plot.
Negative, a minus hurt now floods this future co-ordinate.
Fleeing from a house ill soaked, a well of blood in throat he chocked;
Was all this presence had to float, such twisted heart to drown their boat.
He follows coffins just to savour the pain avenged to win their favour;
No longer scapegoat laugh of many, but ferryman to place their penny.
Chooses heads from older tales to reside with him amongst the wails;
Companions struck by sudden death and angered so as not to rest.
The house now moans with lives he took, woman and child now forced to cook.
Insidious dish waits for she that moves to land beneath his tree.
Child eyes to soon branch hang, that branch held fast as old friend swang.
The line to come he’d once defend; now scullery shall prove to end.
♦
