**** I can’t decide. You are all freakin’ awesome. Drop me an email at axelhow@gmail.com and allayouse poetic maniacs win a copy of NIGHT SHADE for your Kindles.****
Alright. Let’s do this.
A couple days late, a few dollars short, and a whole big bag of kickass #CoffinHop posts bouncing around the internets, haunting your dreams and shaking your trees…
Today is the day. Dia De Los Muerte Poetic Jelly
Here’s how it works. This be a Death Poetry Jam… I’m gonna just slam out some poetic vibes on you right here. You leave me your own amazing poetry in the comments section (haiku, tanka, onomatopiea operatic, jailhouse knife taunt, electric boogaloo, hardcore rap throwdown, rural vista, iambic pentameter, Homeric Epic… whatever the funk moves you!)
I will pick (3) winners to receive Kindle copies of the incredible NIGHT SHADE volume 1, put together by the equally incredible Katie John (and also featuring work from our beloved Red Tash)
This lovely dark and terrible tome features two of my own dark poems, “Ghosts” and “Cold Sunrise”. Speaking of which, go visit Katie John on Dark Heart & Night Shade for a little blurb on yours truly! All part of the #CoffinHop fun.
And, as always, be sure to hit the list on WWW.COFFINHOP.COM to visit all 80-some members of the #CoffinHop Coven and get your spookarilla on!
Now here’s my 2013 #CoffinHop
“Death Sits Pretty On His Lips”
He sits forlorn
In painted rooms
That reek of rotting vermin
Sickly sweet
And tangy rose
Ballooning from within them
Lovers leave
And fathers bleed
Mothers cry forgotten sons
One last complaint
One kiss forgot
Dead eyes of Devil’s fortune
– © Axel Howerton
So come up with something (take, say, 5 minutes) and post it in the comments and you could win NIGHT SHADE Vol. 1
Got How? 
From lips tainted with venom
his deeds unforgivable fall.
Quickly I kneel to lap them
poisoning me, one and all.
A devoted slave I dare not call myself
that arrogance not mine, only shame.
A worthy thing of use for his wants
this I hope his hands do claim.
A puppet to his desire, a pawn to his keep
he, I will forever unquestioningly heed.
Command me to kneel, heel by your side
forever do I surrender to your every need.
(okay – I suck at poetry) 😉
Not hardly, Madame. I think it’s dark and lovely.
Too kind, sir, far to kind. *curtsies politely* (then gobbles up compliment and runs into corner to name it ‘me precious’ – in a mentally healthy sort of way) ;}
“Death Walks Tonight”
by Joanna Parypinski
An empty grave lies waiting,
washed in moonlight, on All Hallows Eve,
its tombstone cracked and weathered,
lost in drifts of fallen leaves.
Old bones once moldered in the dirt
but now have risen, now have gone,
forsaken this old churchyard
where they’d lain for so long.
It walks among the living,
it walks among the trees,
it walks, that undead creature,
through the drifts of fallen leaves.
On this night, it stalks among us;
where it goes, no one can say.
The bed of dirt lies empty
where so long that body lay.
Death creeps into our windows
where it watches, dark, unseen.
Death finds us where we’re sleeping
on this night of Halloween.
FEEDING LOVE
Only in the midnight
Only in your room
I lathe you wet in darkness
I bait your sighs with doom
You may think you love me
You may find me sweet
But sugar hides the poison
that stills the foolish meat
Trust is for the simple
Trust is for the blind
My love for you is hunger
My consummation kind.
Beg not more for mercy
Beg not more for lust
With chains I hold you close
With chains that drip with rust
All the night I’ll love you
All the night I’ll kiss
The morning’s for regret
The morning’s when I’ll miss
The heat of your lost passion
The meat of your soft thighs
The shock of recognition
The tears of blinded cries.
Dust Devils dance a macabre dervish
Tumbleweed twists in torment
Ghosts of the Disappeared stalk the streets of Death
Screams of silence fill the graveyard of the Abandoned
Gates creak open with unearthly screams
Come down to the Graveyard
Coffins spill their bone chilling secrets
Not all those who are lost wander
Come in lost spirits
~ The Abandoned and the Disappeared ~
– Kim K 🙂
Ps* Been hanging from the beams for your death poetry jam Axel! 😉
Happy Hopping!!
“It walks among the living/It walks among the trees”
DIG IT!
I do enjoy a meaty thigh, Mister Everson.
My belfry is your belfry, Kim Koning!
😉
Finality and Twilight
In the last rays of swirling light
when the earth kisses the dusk,
will you dance among the graves
and sing a gentle song for Death?
When the earth kisses the dusk
where will your tired footsteps lead?
To a tombstone not yet etched?
Will you dance among the graves,
a ghostly apparition in your arms,
that bitter, closing waltz, macabre?
And sing a gentle song for Death,
laugh bravely as you pass his shadow.
He awaits only the sweet music’s end.
Very nice!
Pretty sure I shouldn’t even attempt poetry. I’ll leave it to all you badasses. *bows and shows herself out*
No Where To Go But Down
it’s cold here, so far from the sun
following my heart, I never realized how far I’d strayed
but I can’t go back the way I came
no petty choice marked my path
some simple yes or no, some left or right
some silly fork in the road
but a series of agonies that rocked me to and fro
and melted my gravitational core, leaving me
to float non-directionally through a frigid space
and where are the stars? their tiny points of fire
might simulate heat and direction and company
but my soul is starless, my spirit a void
for even spirits would fear to tread this path with me
those who have naught to fear, having faced the conquering worm
my intentions could incur Death’s damning blade
I would challenge him for thee. Death is but a doorway
and doorways are meant for the passing
your passing unfair, I seek due recourse
and will sever thee from his brittle grasp.
I no longer fear what God will do when–when!–I succeed
with you once more by my side, I will smash down fear itself
if only I had a bit of heat to warm my palms
this shovel is steely and cold, the ground hard,
the cemetery still as death. I’ve still so far to go.
Awww, come on, Murph. Not even a stanza? One stanza?
Excellent stuff, Ash Krafton 😉
The only horrible thing about my poetry is the quality thereof. 😛
**** I can’t decide. You are all freakin’ awesome. Drop me an email at axelhow@gmail.com and allayouse poetic maniacs win a copy of NIGHT SHADE for your Kindles.****
Ash, I love that poem. So cool.