A dark and stormy night, this night, Yet ‘tween the clouds the full moon bright Looks down upon me as I write These dark and stormy lines. But hark ! A distant howling queer I fancy I mayhap may hear From out the corner of my ear And through my very spine – And though my heart may drown it out, I cannot labour long in doubt, For surely do I know that sound without, As it knows me. The gusting wind brings to my door A growling low from off the moor That chills my very being o’er To tremulous degree. These pluvious and savage spawn Shall stalk the psyche ere the dawn, Shall stalk my rain-lashed psyche ere the dawn.
The Hounds of Dogg’rel bay this night To seek the forced and base and trite, And dog the heels of all who write, Lest we should lapse their way. We ever fear to be their sport, Their pity, ruth and mercy nought To purple, blue or overwrought: They hack their hackneyed prey. So some poor pensmith faces doom, His garret shall become his tomb As bursting forth, those savage Hounds consume Each leaden verse – Their author thus shall meet the fangs That shred the hand whose metre clangs, And fore’er mute his blunt harangues That brought him to these curs, I pray all gods, I beg, I yearn, This ill-dread night is not my turn, This dark and stormy night is not my turn.
Nowhere in the Northern world Could let the dead roam in the Spring, When new life bursts and blooms unfurl, And nights are shortening. No, the Fall’s where they belong, In piles of leaves and frosty air, With creeping dark and waning song, And the world in need of a scare.
Cathy’s Ghost at Heathcliff’s Window by Laurie Bron
Spooky Action
The laws of physics make it clear That there can be no spirits here, Without a source to power them – Perhaps it is the sunken sun That fires them up and makes them run ?, And entropy must surely still devour them.
The peer review remains unmoved – They’re theorised but never proved The evidence just will not fit. So if the afterlife should dwell On ev’ry side, in parallel, Then rest assured we cannot interact with it.
They cannot pass through solid matter Less their waves and atoms clatter With the particles they pass. And if they do, they must be part Of this same universe at heart, With spectral spectra showing up their ghostly mass.
So wraiths and shades that shake our poise Are phantom readings in the noise And not some higher powers. And if, with heightened fear and nerve, We misreport what we observe – The failing is not physics’ fault, but ours.
It may exist – it may at that – though we will never know, Unless it can exert itself – but then we must ask when and how – For if we ever see it come, or ever feel it go, Then that – whatever that is – is as much a part of here and now – For surely, supernature cannot ever be at war with nature, Never interact with any thing with which it shares its space – For even restless spirits must obey the laws of nature, And even ghost neutrinos sometimes leave the faintest trace.
Now that the herd is in the barn, And now that the flock is in the fold, Then huddle close and I’ll spin you a yarn, The one my father told. And he was taught by his in turn, And he by his, the self-same airs That someday your own kids will learn When you tell them, and they tell theirs.
Sometimes, late at night, Out on the plains, or on the road, When the bats are in full flight To the singing of the toad, There can be heard the gallop Of a lonely charger wild, Through the ups of York and Salop And the downs of Kent and Fylde
There’s those who claim they’ve seen him, And they claim he rides a grey, A snow-white grey so gleaming That the very stars give way. A king, they say, with bow and crown, And horseshoes of cold steel – And ev’rywhere those hooves stomp down, The people come to heel.
Though some say he’s not invading Through our castles, towns and huts, But rather the land he’s raiding Is our throats, and veins, and guts – Riding, riding, ever onwards, There is no defence – Though some may call him Conquest, And others Pestilence.
But many will say No!, he rides a chestnut When he roams abroad, And he wears a shining breastplate, And he holds a tempered sword – And he is War, yet not invasion, But one folk upon another, Year-on-year, at any provocation, Brother killing brother.
But fighting is fighting, and always near To the likes of us who are called-on to bleed, And arrow or sword, it’s the same old fear When facing-down the next stampede. Or maybe a few who see this horseman Get to then escape to tell – Yet whether Mongol, Moor, or Norseman, All those roads lead straight to Hell.
Still, I have also heard it told by folks That the horse is jettest black, And gaunt enough that each rib pokes, With scarcely strength for saddle or pack – But its passenger can’t weigh much, at least, He’s spindly as his balancing scales – Clearly the lord of the Famine, not feast As he measures-out losses from frosts and gales.
Then others say his is the best-fed mount In any town it passes, Glossy as the fur-coat of a count, ‘Gainst their threadbare nags and asses. And the dirt where its hoofprints have trodden is barren now, The only thing growing is the drought – The fields are always so shy of the plough When Famine goes riding out.
Yet the final vision of our phantom knight Is the strangest of all they claim have seen, When robed in black, or robed in white, On a pale steed – dun, or maybe green. Some say a skeleton, lacking flesh, And what does he carry ? An hourglass of time ? A downturned torch, or a flail to thresh ? Or a sickle to scythe the stalks in their prime ?
And they give him a name, they call him Death. But surely all these versions are that – So death by what ? From a poisoned breath ?, Or the slurry from the mines, or rancid fat ? Maybe our souls aren’t chaff to the miller, But the smoke in the lung and the acid on the stone – Pollution, that’s the next big killer – And surely worth a horse of its own.
So light all the candles and ring all the bells, To ward off the Silent Divider, And warn them in Wigan and Walsall and Wells Of the grizzled new face of the Rider. From Wetherby weavers to Tintagel tin, From the tar-pits of Derby to Sunderland soot, So each time we breathe we invite the rogue in And his fingers leave shadows wherever they’re put.
Then listen, my children, listen for his hoofbeat, Listen as he slowly yet surely destroys By dogging the trudging of your own two feet In the choke and the grime and the constant noise. His other visions are horrors of our past, But it’s in our future that we all must die – And the fourth of the horsemen will take us at the last, As he kicks up the dust as he’s riding-by.
I suppose Pollution should cover the mass-deaths by human-caused tragedies, while Pestilence cover those from other living things while Famine has the natural disasters gig. This would mean that a plague of locusts is definitely one for Pestilence, while Famine would deal with meteor impacts. But don’t even get me started on green horses...
Unfortunately, I have been unable to discover who the artist is
No Month for an Atheist
October is the month when all the dead Are brought to life again – In our imaginations spectres tread, And sceptics howl in vain. So why must we be common-sensers, Jaded cynics, sober sisters ?, When the world wants will-suspensors, Playful panics, logic-twisters.
What the Hell ! And if it’s Hell you want, Then take it – take it all ! Mine’s a holy water from the font With a twist of lime, served tall. At least it’s safe, when Satan is A dentist wearing plastic horns. It’s ketchup blood and dry-ice fizz, And no-one’s killing newly-borns.
October is the month when all the dead Are brought to life again – In our imaginations, streets run red With ev’ry guilty stain. We’ve all got demons locked within – Let’s keep them in until they’re slayed. For that is worth believing in – The luxury to be afraid.
What the Hell ! Take all the Hell you need – I mean, at least it’s warm. Mine’s a chilly wisdom, I concede, In the face of an eerie storm. So have the month, enjoy your frights, And call me killjoy all you like, It’s fine – we’ll all sleep sound at night, As once again the dead don’t strike.
This ! This is the time I’ve been waiting for, When the cars leave the street and the planes leave the sky And only the zombies are joining my morning, While sensible people are waiting to die.
And I – I am a rare survivor, Finally special – finally alone – Scrabbling the rubble of civilisation Shaking off every habit I’ve known.
I never said my fantasies were pleasant, Wiping out humanity with barely a shrug – But there they lurk, just itching for apocalypse – Not some ugly famine, but a quick and silent bug.
Do I feel bad, now something is happening, Finally happening !, to strangers I never knew ? I’ve wished far worse in my many listless hours, But wishing them does nothing to make them come true.
I can tell myself that this is all coincidence – Out of my hands to cause it, or repair – So I might as well relish the sudden upheaval If this is our doom, then I’ll guess I’ll see you there.
But of course, thanks to the efforts of nicer folk, We’ll probably survive this, and probably forget. And I will be just one more drudge on the treadmill, Still dreaming disaster to spin the roulette.
I wonder what the First of November is like In the depths of Hell ? A day, perhaps, when demons all go on strike And stay in their shell – A lazy morning, then walking the three-headed dogs And feeding the trolls, Or taking the chance to restock the brimstone logs And polish the skulls. Packing the trident away along with the horns For the rest of the year, And binging on soaps with the grandkid-demonspawns And an ice-cold beer. And somewhere, in some office, some poor devil Stares at a screen, And starts to draw up plans at the management level For next Halloween.
The Destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah by John Martin
A Walk Through the End of Days
I never thought Catastrophe Would be as beautiful as this, That Ragnarok at sunset Is a moment of such bliss. So peaceful is Apocalypse, So languid is the End of Time – The Armageddons come and go, But were they ever this sublime ?
So come, my dear, Come and let us stroll awhile, To seek the lesser-spotted troll That builds its nest beneath the stile, As angels circle with the hawks, And demons gad on Sunday walks, And banshees squawk and phantoms play And the Ending of the World’s a world away.
We’re told and told we’re living through The cataclysmic Final Days: Where wrath is wrought on wretched waifs Who sup with Jews and gays. Yet brimstone seems in short supply, And so too human sacrifice – Just people getting on with lives Amid the unseen Antichrist.
So come, my dear, Come and let us wend a path That takes us further round the bend To promised bloody aftermath. Let’s walk with blacks and greens and reds Before the sky falls on our heads, And, hand-in-hand, let’s thread our way Through the law-abiding wastes of Judgement Day.
Innocent spiders close down schools When ignorant humans panic. Why the hell are we so prepared To see them as Satanic ? We wonder why our schools are broke, And all our nerves are fried – Yet choose which phobias we’ll stoke, And wear our hates with pride – It only takes the merest sight To send us shrieking with delight. Our fears are learned, and screeching Just ain’t what our schools should teach in.
Far, far better we learn to love The harmless ones, at least – Let our babies play with monies, Let our kids embrace the beast. Rearing spinners out of eggs, And never let the wolves repulse – Daddy, bring a daddy-longlegs, Mama, bring a widow-false – Or better yet, we should be shown To watch awhile, then leave alone. And maybe then, here’s hoping, Then the schools can all stay open.
Rhyming Couplets 