Hallows’ Eve Holds No Fears

Hallows’ Eve holds no fears.

That the dead

Are clamouring at the gaunt midnight cloth

That separates from is and was;

Bleak, imagined graves ripe with corpse worms,

Autolysis

And unrequited life,

Hold no terrors.

 

Their thin music of nails on glass,

Sadness leaking, like a tap.

Their skull rolling forward like

A coal in the grate

Extinguishing the flame so the room is cupped

In thick, mauve darkness.

These,

Hold no fright.

 

 

It is the haunted, dragged footstep of living,

Every day;

To be a spectre in your own macabre skin,

That seizes your

Fibrillating grume of heart

In a grip as chill as a bone white slab

fat with frozen veins of dank blood,

that

Stuffs your mouth

Until- you-cannot-breathe.

 

Hallows Eves holds no fears.

 

To daily live,

But not, to breathe.

This is where

The fear gets in;

To feel haunted in your own skin.

 

 

 

Dan Belton 31/10/2019 Hallowe’en

 

I am the Road Crow (an Omen)

Black sky rip

Bin bag in your sight

Can’t believe your eyes at

My jag mask;

Dreck taking flight.

 

Limping fright wig

Horripilation.

Weather clap winged –

 

Black rubber-a-tumble

Bowl and roll straggle

The punctured gasoline blue tyre;

A ragged oscillation.

 

Crooning invert.

Puddle breathed.

Tarmac is my sky.

 

Street corner inspector;

Dog shit lifter,

Swag bag

Hefter.

Licker.

Snicker.

The dark twin

Of a laugh;

The bonfire

Crack

in the storm.

 

Beer skittle hopped.

Perched,

Wind wobbled on

Doorsteps;

Darkling milk.

Devil’s bottle.

Kazoo necked.

Corpse-gas bellied.

Shaped for ruin –

Formed in the shadow of

The end of days becoming

Nothing.

 

I am this.

That.

I am other.

 

Flitch

And thatch.

 

Egg pith pitted.

Cafard yolked.

 

No trees for me.

I beat wings of antipathy

Beat the bounds:

Kerb/Shoulder/grade/vomit/drain/crossing/camber/kerb.

 

 

I squat like roof slate –

Cloud of Grim.

Garret voiced.

Acid battered umbra,

Purple shade

Mustard eye

Custard eyed

Cowered

Coward

 

What have we done

What have you done

What have you not have done?

 

Dan Belton                                                                          3/10/2019