Loving Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar, leading your flock 
of raven hounds,
could you smell it on me: 
despair and weakness
with a whiff of amontillado?

Do you possess a sixth sense?
Am I the low hanging body 
on your corpse tree?

Would you love me, 
then leave me, bury me,
mourning me with a proper lament?

Brick me in with your own hands,
whisper sweet nevermore in my ear.

Could we role play in a sepulcher?
Let me call you cousin.

Rise and fall for me, Edgar.
Swing your pendulum round and round.

Feel the tell tale beat of my heart,
served just the way you like it:
cold and seasoned with despair.

Find it here.

Ghosted

I offered you my heart,

plattered. You weren't hungry.

The silver was tarnished.

You bricked it in,

untasted, to your hollow chest,

bloodied and beating,

unconcerned that you

might be killing me.

I chose poorly.

Your vision was narrowed,

blindered and staring,

seeing only the inside

of your own skull.

I carved away my pound of flesh.

I could never slice off enough.

You taste nothing;

your appetite, ravenous.

Can I have my heart back now?

The buffet is closed.

Find it here.

Peeled

My reflection is worn and weary.
I check every day.
She never alters for the better.

The mirror cracks.
Alice stranded on the wrong side.
Impossible Alice,
flushed from her victory
over the Red Queen,
fresh and full of hot tea and cakes,
smoked and delicious.

I peel her apple skin,
round and round and round,
from bottom to top.

I wear her well.
She hangs a little loose.
I can make adjustments.

I left her lying there,
flayed and quiet,
cored and tasteless.

Dig the hole deep.
Six feet.  Twelve feet.
A nail through her forehead,
heart staked.

She will not grope her way out
of her grave.
She will not rise, to walk,
a zombie at rest.

I prefer my pie 
with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Find it here.

3Muse Challenge - Gotta Dance

My black, white, and red image ended up being a little off color.

Sigh.

I LOVE Halloween - TAW Challenge

Our challenge this week from Take a Word blogspot was Halloween.

I started with a photo that I had taken of Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans.

I made up this piece but the more I looked at it, the more it felt like two separate pieces.

It seemed as if the two halves don't really belong together or that 

the Victorian bat girl is too far from the Halloween tomb.  

She seems so beautifully framed in the middle of the 

walkway so I hated to try to scoot her closer.

So I decided to break the first artwork into two pieces.

I left the bat girl intact in her walkway, ready to fly up and create Halloween havoc.

I added some elements to my Halloween tomb.

I went back and forth with my tomb poem, finally deciding on a quote from 

Samuel Coleridge's Kubla Khan.  It seemed suitably romantic and eerie.