Halloween Double Feature

 

I swear there were slasher-pic synths in the air.

Pacing through the near-empty retail park, trees

Like corrugated iron in the rust, a Halloween

Double Feature coming soon to the cinema –

A grey wind tiptoes fallen leaves around my feet,

As I continue, jacket collar up, through late October.

My heart was unsure that I was quite alone,

Past the outlets and the abandoned concrete

Where once Romero dreamed of undead shoppers,

To the metal-tasting scent of mud and mulch

Behind, where the bicycle lane looms darkening.

A street lamp glinted into its reddish gaze –

Just how late was it getting? By the waterway

The faded eighties boys were kicking about

On stolen bikes, looking over their shoulders.

The underpass went reluctantly down a

Graffiti emptiness, its still waters broken

By footsteps of my quickening stride. I glanced behind –

Only underpass – the boys were nowhere now – and so

I fit the mask straps, cutting into the soft flesh

Above my ears – through its pinhole eyes I see

Now the night again opens like purple dread

Over the rooftops of the unaware.

 

 

Inspired by a brief walk through a charmingly abandoned retail park the other day. It was almost nostalgic, the quiet dread of the place. Late October truly is an unsettling, and beautiful, time to find oneself alone. Or seemingly alone.

I decided to take the notion of a “double feature” not just as a double billing for a horror film night as advertised at the retail park cinema, but as a duplicity, being both terrified and terrifying, hunted and hunter: either way, looking over one’s shoulder for fear of being watched…

Dreams of Dragons and Roses

 

Who was it, placed a sleep upon our souls?

I wake to find the world in which I lie

Is misty as the greying smoke of coals,

As hazy as a watercolour sky.

 

Who cast this sleeping curse upon our towers,

Our cobbled streets, ‘til silence was our day?

We languor here as pale and wilting flowers

Left upon the casket, dreamt away.

 

How long has lasted sunset? Yawning wide

As ancient forests, the lilac light reposes

Gentle where our hopes for morning died,

Now only dreams of dragons; dreams of roses.

 

 

Driving

 

I stopped learning when the steering wheel grabbed me back:

its cold, clinging panic that made me judder and break

into shaken, stalled sobs. I fell apart each time,

I’d sit in the cell of that car, and couldn’t start.

The ignition couldn’t kick its stuttering heart.

When I came back, my trembling frame,

explained the failure, you held my hand.

 

Now, in the calm repose of the passenger seat,

lamp lights drift behind us, gold as night,

smooth as the river that carries us. I turn right,

see you at the wheel, eyes smiling ahead:

tobacco-scented seats, the quiet retreat

of cold-whispering wind at the window. Outside

the city sighs with every passing light;

and the wheel of the world turns invisible, wide

like sleep, under your warm, safe hand.

 

 

For Blair. Thank you for taking us safely together, into the calm of the night. 

The Wine Merchant

 

 

I never knew love’s wine. I sold its vessel:

My pleasant cups, my reddest touch, my bottle

Firm in the hand, its pliant cork to wrestle

Outpourings from many thirsting men.

 

Their lips would tingle to its taste and scent.

But you, a connoisseur, and older yet,

Felt for my hidden colours, and all they meant.

You felt for tones and textures hidden then,

 

Melodies of honey, rapturous taste

On your distinguished tongue to lingering-last,

Until I begged, please leave no drop to waste:

Seek flavour from my scarlet kiss again.

 

My wine on your discerning palate graced:

Drink deep, savour my scarlet kiss again.

 

 

Written on behalf of a patron. Thanks for the crate of wine!