Snow White & Rose Red

It’s their favourite story
though they argue over who should get the prince.
Sometimes they see the bear-skin hearth-rug
twitch as if it wants something back.
Out of the dwarf’s bad-tempered beard
they are knitting socks for their father
full of hidden brambles and burrs.

Jennifer Copley

try to smile

love was always
a lie

and the dirtiest
trick of the
ages.

there is no electricity
in a fleeting
brush of
skin –

no
telepathy

no
hope.

there are simply
sands of
time

and they wait
for no-
one.

Ross Leese

Down in the Orchard

Down in the orchard
the grasses creep,
covering a grave
dug fair and deep.

Down in the orchard
where nobody goes,
earth is over him
heard and toes.

And nobody cares,
and nobody weeps,
for that bitter secret
the orchard keeps.

While I sit safe
in a fire-lit room,
outside the wind
is cold as doom.

Once to bed early
two filled with hate;
now I alone sit
when the hour is late,

He cannot hurt me
anymore,
he can only stare
at the worms that bore.

A step upstairs, right over my head!
Who walks so late
When all are abed?

The stairs go creak,
and the door goes crack;—
who is that standing
at my back?

I dare not move,
nor turn to see,
lest he should be staring
there at me.

But I am drawn
in a close embrace
by arms as thin
and white as lace;

Arms that are more
bone than flesh—
my hair is over me
like a mesh;

Golden and silken,
a shining coat;
closely it tightens
round my throat! . . .

Down in the orchard
the grasses creep,
covering two graves
dug fair and deep.

Richard Ely Morse

Private hells…

The uncanny first impression was again one of private hells coexisting in public space.

Patrick McGrath
Asylum

That is why they throw bombs…

They have two objects, to destroy first humanity and then themselves. That is why they throw bombs instead of firing pistols. The innocent rank and file are disappointed because the bomb has not killed the king; but the high-priesthood are happy because it has killed somebody.

G K Chesterton
The man who was Thursday

(Something published in 1908 still carrying such a weight of truth as to almost be prophetic)

your words

your words cut like razors when you pierced me with
them I did not deflect them on my shield for I knew
not that you’d be the one that turned against me;
once you knew the curve of my body and the touch of
my lips yet you refuse to think of me kindly you
regard me with such flaming hatred that I can hardly
stand to breathe, once you were a man of understanding
and peace now you’re just a shadow of your former self
turned bitter and stale once your kind heart turned
blacker than the ashes of hell and just as cold as the coldest
winter to unfurl her frigid wings upon the sloping land.

Linda M Crate

Spider

Another Vagabond Lost To Love

And the rain drops kept falling like the sweetest music
leaving tears on the glass,
which is what music does to me
most of the time
but silence too. and rain.
Silence, I learned, is sometimes the most beautiful sound.

Charlotte Eriksson

personal demon…

You have become my own personal demon. You haunt me, tempt me, drive me mad with wanting you, and I can no longer blame prophecies or powers or fate. It’s just you. I have chosen you.

Kristina Douglas
Demon

Materializations…

Materializations are often best produced in rooms where there are books. I cannot think of any time when materialization was in any way hampered by the presence of books.

Shirley Jackson
The Haunting of Hill House