The Monsters' Bowl

Ten pins on thin black strings,
Dangling corpses lacking limbs,
Their necks adorned with bloody rings

Infected bowls, three elfin holes,
Gouged eyes and vacant nose,
Roll like headless phantom souls

The waxen lanes, that entertain,
Howl and screech and squeal with pain,
As heads roll time and time again

Eyeballs, in darkened stalls,
Delight in echoed wailing walls,
As legless torso's maul and fall

A spare, a split, a gutterball,
A strike is what they're braying for
It's the moan of slaughter they adore.

 2012 © LH

Hide and Seek.

I don't dream of you anymore,
Where did you go to, are you hiding?
I wander the corridors,
With their white washed walls
Opening door after door,

Each room hollow, as a whales belly
The removal men in their white coats
Took every scrap of furniture,
With their rubber block,
And conducting jelly

Except for the bed!
Rattling metal, leather straps,
And the sweet smell of ammonia
Are you hiding under there?
Like when we played hide and seek.

Ready or not here I come,
Come out come out wherever you are.

2012 © LH

Anxiety Attacks.

I have throat cancer, I think,
I smoked some cigarettes,
Four maybe, in a week,
And I don't smoke.
That was weeks ago
I keep waking up,
In the middle of the night,
And I can't breathe,
Like the time you put your hands
Around my throat and squeezed,
Then you slapped my face, hard,
And I saw stars
I had never felt so alive before,
So close to the brink of death
I can feel it climbing into my brain,
Wrapping itself around,
Like a bittersweet nightshade,
It must have crept into my mouth
When I inhaled
It's arrow burned a path to my throat
Now it's suffocating me
With its tumorous tendrils
I'm paralysed
I need you to slap my face
So I can see stars,
So I can feel alive again,
Because right now it feels like
I'm dying.

2012 © LH

Birth of a Poet

Don't read my notebook I say,
I have nothing to hide..

But this is me, totally naked,
Spat out, raw, from a deep wound
Flailing, my lungs,
Taking their first breath,
A gulp, a high pitched scream,
And fat tears.
Little fists for hands
And screwed up face
Witnessing my birth,
My thoughts on paper,
In all this commotion,
Then words, delivered,
Like afterbirth.
Confessional poetry?
If I wanted to confess,
I'd visit a priest
Ten decades of the rosary
And I'll be saved!
No I bloody won't!
Confess to God? Where are you?
Where were you when I was on my knees,
In the darkness, pregnant with anguish,
Groping for my pen?

 2012 © LH

Arthritis

Why do you fail me?
Cadaverous claw,
Fourteen flaming phalanges,
A fire breathing Chimera,
Gnawing through bone
With your primitive saw. 

2012 © LH

The Stigma

I never knew you,
Half an inch, with webbed feet,
My lungs forming,
Yours, giving up

Buoyant in amniotic fluid,
Whilst you were drowning.
Silent.
Enveloped in darkness,
Both of us, with no voice.

You wrote her a letter
On paper, the colour of the moon,
Delicate white lace,
Her wedding dress,
Never worn. 

She held it,
Hands like nervous butterflies
Fearful a breeze would steal it from her
Unknowing,
She had already been robbed.

Then she carried it with her,
She carried me,
Carried the burden.
She was slowly drowning too.

A bastard child,
A shipwreck on the ocean floor,
Casualties of the war,
The three of us. 

2012 © LH

Loveblind

In our past lives
We passed as ghosts,
We briefly touched,

It left a mark
Invisible upon our skin,
Burrowed deep,

It scarred our hearts

Our eyes will search
The darkest vault,
Discover stars
That doth align

They'll burn our eyes
And leave us blind
Blinding love,

Immortal sign

Stumbling forth,
We query why
Compelling love

So long, suspended

We had but to
Open our eyes
Enlightened now

Our torture,ended.

2012 © LH

Mindfield

Grinding teeth, bleached white tombstones
Sleeping soldiers, lost in dreams
Buried deep, the caustic tongue
Whispers of a war beneath

Behind the poppy coloured lips
She masks an agonising pain
The copper taste and sanguine froth
Spill forth in conflict once again

Foaming as a rabid dog
The kindest cure, to take her life
Sleep with soldiers in their tombs
And flick the trigger switch to night

Dark tendrils stroke her war-torn head
Her tongue is silent in its grave
He stole her mind, her heart escaped
In the end that was all she gave.

2012 © LH

The Sycamore in Winter

Curious Corvids skirt beneath the cinereous clouds
A tumultuous wave of curling and swirling
In the crepuscular light they inhabit your bough
Rooted to the spot, scrutinized, analyzed

Disrobed and shivering, you reach out to me
I find you ugly, however, it's alluring
The guise of your sway,
When the light caresses your languid limbs,
For a brief moment, you appear radiant.

writerscafe
2012 © LH

The Parting.

To kiss your lips
And steal your breath
I swear will be
The death of me
To hold your stare
Whilst there before us
Others glare
Oblivious of the love
We share
To feel your fingers
Through my hair
A stray wisp
Pushed aside my face
And on my cheek
Your lips doth grace
As gentle as a feathers touch
Will surely be a feat too much
To see a smile purview your eyes
A sadness there that woe implies
To watch remorseful as you part
I stand forlorn with heavy heart.

2011 © LH