Someone has to start it off...

At the risk of looking self-important, I'm going to post a few of my works in hopes that people will take interest and start submitting and get the word out. Remember, send any and all submissions to theneovictorian@hotmail.com. Thanks, and enjoy.


IN BLESSINGS AND BANISHMENT

There's something in the curve of your collarbone,
its elegance in majestic defiance, radiant architecture -
and in the serpentine whispering of your hair,
spiraling down like oak wine to intoxicate me.

There's something in the beat of your heart,
a quartet of cellos patiently pining, decrescendo -
and in the hushed depths of your irises,
wisdom hidden among the mahogany boughs.

There's something in the negative space,
the damning silence between words, dissonant -
and in the prolonged stares into nothing
where I find you most often, unaware of me.




SPIKE THE FEVER

Froth and foam, churning eddy,
and pour from the bay of his mouth.

The fever sticks to you like burning pitch,
singing your skin like blazing parchment,
slowly fraying at your ends.
Noxious toxins pulse through thready veins
like a promise, a man with strong hands
and broad shoulders, dependable.
Your hide is a husk, leather-cracked
and aged, time redefined in its celerity,
the mortal coil unraveling before you.
Jaundice sets in as sure as the sunset,
twilight encroaching upon golden shores,
a sickly turning at day's decay.
Now the pupils fade from obsidian to slate,
granite to opal, a metamorphosis that ends
in smoky milk-white, a glass fog.
Words collapse under labored gasps, weaker now,
air frail as wisps on the breeze, fragile strands
to bolster your final onslaught.

And then it's done, as quick as it began,
a transient terror creeping along your bowels
in search for the light of day.

- Calder Dougherty