Vicious Romantic (2 page)

There was an eyeball floating in my beer.

Gruesome—nothing remotely “poetic” about it. However, consider:

There

Was

An

Eyeball

Floating

In

My

Beer.

It’s still not a “poem.” Broken lines do not change its nature as a sentence. Besides there being a one word per line, there’s no logic to its organization. And, there’s an unseen force at work here, one making this fail as a poem.

That force is called “poetic white space.” It’s a concept that is highly important to the book you’re holding. First, allow me to explain it, before I explain how it relates to
Vicious Romantic.

Prose runs from margin to margin, filling out the page. Lineated poetry doesn’t. Depending on how it’s formatted, there’s a lot more open page. It acts like a weight. That extra white space exerts pressure on the line and language of a poem from all sides, and it draws out the effect of the language, and depending on how open page space is used, it can enhance or detract.

Here’s how that touches Wrath’s work. Wrath and I worked out an agreement where page breaks would go after many of his poem’s stanzas. So,
The Wind on the Water
may be string of haiku, but each individual part has been given its own page. This is a deliberate use of poetic white space. Wrath and I agreed it would be an effective tool to give more emphasis to the imagery and emotion of the individual parts of the poems. Plus, it lets each stanza stand by itself in its own right, while building off what came before. It deliberately slows the reader down, whereas if a reader was presented with two to three poems per page, the reader would rush through it quicker.

Rich Ristow

Editor - Needfire Poetry

* * * *

A Note From the Publisher

To fully enjoy this awe-inspiring collection of poetry, one really needs to see it in the format it was meant to be in, that of the printed page. In converting these words to digital medium, we have had to lose one of the very means by which the poet has chosen to show us his art - we have had to remove a great deal of the white space that was intended to heighten the impact of the poetry.

Jodi Lee, Publisher

Needfire Poetry - Belfire Press

* * * *

Necropolis

A garbage-strewn street

Littered with glass and cigarettes

Where curses resound

Promises die unfulfilled

The dreams of youth are martyred

In this corrupt place

Reeking of semen and blood

The real monsters live

Demons of all description

In a comfortable new hell

* * * *

House of Murderers

The echo of screams

In this place where children died

Live in these cracked walls

Their voices weaken

Waning with the light of day

Whispers in twilight

In costumes of skin

Demons with candy sweet smiles

Hunt the darkened halls

Phantoms cry warning

As an innocent enters

This house of murder

The foundation quakes

With the voices of the damned

As more blood is spilled

A flash of violence

Adds another victim’s cries

To the dark chorus of screams

* * * *

Sijo (1)

Festering sick and feverish,

Putrefying eternally lamenting

His lost humanity, pounds of flesh

Sloughing away

He lies amid carrion,

Witnessing civilization’s end

* * * *

Not His Mother

He knows right away

This marionette of meat

Is not his mother

It smiles with unfeeling eyes

As it lunges for his throat

He sheds a lone tear

Loads his shotgun with a shell

Full of penny nails

He hesitates a moment

Fingernails claw his windpipe

Looking in her eyes

He sees her as she once was

She who gave him birth

And in that fatal instance

Decides to join her in hell

* * * *

The Wind Over The Water

Tiny waves ripple

On the algae green water

A man-made lake for tourists

Joggers pass swiftly

Walkers stroll leisurely by

Children splash in the water

Young couples embrace

And whisper to each other

Making promises of love

Rain clouds choke the sun

The last light struggles for life

As night overcomes the day

Alone in shadows

Untouched by love or beauty

A monster’s eyes hunt the lake

Slowly the joggers

The walkers and the lovers

Leave the lake for the city

A boy sits alone

Abandoned in the twilight

Tears cascading from his eyes

A Goodbye letter

Torn apart and burnt to ash

Blows from his trembling fingers

Across the listless waters

The sun drops lower

Shadows turn the water black

The sky a Stygian tomb

A strong wind stirs the waters

The boy lifts his tear soaked face

Up to the darkening sky

His wet cheeks sparkle

Like diamonds in the moonlight

By the lake, a monster waits

The promise of prey

Fantasies of blood and pain

Dissolve all hesitation

Strong, dry, calloused hands

Crush tight around the boy’s throat

A knife cuts into his back

Heavy panting breaths

Quicken in the young man’s ear

As his life falls prey to lust

Down between his thighs

The monster strokes his turgid flesh

Hands lubricated with blood

One last little death

Spurts out red into the lake

As he feels the boy’s pulse fade

Darkness devours

The shell of blood, meat and bone

That had once shed silent tears

Over unrequited love.

* * * *

Forgiveness

Among the tall weeds

Out of the mouth of a skull

A rose grows and blooms

She plants a new one each day

To say she’s sorry

Her apology withers

In the blood soaked earth

And the unforgiving sun

Where love gasped its dying breath

* * * *

Sijo (2)

Her belly ruptures full of parasites,

Her eyes sink back in her skull

Her butchered wrists, dangle

From the edge of the bathtub

Her children cuddle against her

Desperate for love she cannot give

* * * *

Trinkets

A gold wedding band

Sparkling in a nearby field

Reflects the harsh summer sun

A gold crucifix

Dented and spattered in blood

Dangles from a cracked ribcage

Bleaching in the sun

Blessed symbols of his faith

In love and savior

Covered in swarms of vermin

Picking his bones clean

Maggots, ants, rats, coyotes

Return him to dust

Talismans of love and faith

Now consigned to the desert

* * * *

The Cycle of Victims

It sinks its teeth deep

Its corruption penetrates

I can’t stop smiling

I watch stoically

As it tears her flesh apart

Waiting for my turn

Raindrops smear the blood

As it washes down my face

Into my cupped palms

I drink deep of it

Suck out its bitter marrow

Continuing the cycle

* * * *

A Teen Mother’s Sorrow

She wore her sorrow

Like a Halloween fright mask

Grimacing in pain

Frizzy brittle hair

Ebon tears blacken her cheeks

Lipstick smears her mouth

Ulcerating sores

Weep pus and blood down her arms

Her secret disease

A cancerous guilt

Metastasized within her

She stumbles forward

Drooling saliva

Mumbling, cursing, and scratching

“
Where is my baby?”

A ghost haunts her eyes

Suppressed memories of guilt

“
Where is my baby?”

The night wind whispers

Blowing trash down dark alleys

Chasing poltergeists

An unwanted soul

A baby in a trashbag

Discarded refuse

Smiling up at her

Through unmoving moldy eyes

Covered in garbage

Smiling up at her

Wet with amniotic blood

Rigid with rigor

Smiling up at her

From the bottom of the bin

Where she left his infant corpse

* * * *

Consumption

Like warm sashimi

Paper-thin slices of you

Cut so lovingly

Melt like butter on my tongue

It is the taste of beauty

* * * *

Wendigo

Winter currents blow

A ballet of ice crystals

Pirouette to earth

In the frigid night

A howl of desperate hunger

Chills the blood with bitter fear

A rustling of leaves

Something charges through the brush

Across a snow covered yard

Clawed feet rake the snow

Saliva drips like acid

From fangs stained with meat

A vicious nightmare

Walking upright like a man

Approaches the house

Outside the window

Its hot breath steaming the pane

The nightmare watches

The window shatters

As it comes for him

And savagely unmakes him

Muscle ripped from bone

Limbs torn from his torso

Screams fracture the night

Snowflakes drift softly

Blow through the shattered window

Alight gently on his corpse

And dissolve in pools of blood

* * * *

This Old House of Pain and Woe

This old house of pain and woe, tortured beams,

splintered wood, cry out in rage

Floorboards bleed, windows weep, poltergeists

shriek

Threats at the living

She covers her ears against the madness,

then adds her screams to the din

* * * *

The Rapturous Scent of Meat

Buried with the snakes

Skin covered in black widows

A pile of corpses

The unlucky ones

The tricks, gamblers and whores 

The lonely tourists

Claw up through the hard dry earth