By The Mystical Bard of Eire Three score and ten! They say that is about what we get. I wonder about that sometimes. Who will follow in my footsteps? Everyone I have known seems to have gone away. Faded into the silence. It seems the silence is the only one who has stayed with me. But the silence is a great listener. Always there with me, hanging on each word I say. Never judgemental, just perhaps a little cold at times. And never seems to have any opinions. Sometimes I screa

By Alessandro Merendino I shiver by the South Quay Footbridge as if sucked into the dark river. Small ripples lap my shins. Jump! It says I could step into the gelid Thames a little boat with a weak lantern patrols the Wharf; its beam searches for me. I wink. I shiver by the river. The pounding in my lungs keeps time with gulls and sirens; ventilation fans roar. It makes me sick. Jump! It says Can I touch the oil-slick water? just for a moment i smell the sheer drop just for

By Matt Mellor The sheer stone is far from silent. Broad waves – like words – wash definitions into me, meeting my meat. Telling sinews and fibers not to bother. Taunting joints and bones about outlasting them. The profound emptiness of trying, widened by the futility of resistance. My tears aren’t mine alone, they fall from countless others. Echoes of a pain that raged here. Lashed out and burst over the rocks. A red wave. A crimson squall. My face outlasted or came after th

By Ber I shed my skin and slip away A secret through loose lips Never to be caged again Let the mourners grieve Each reminisce the ghost loved and hated My laugh echoes in the hallway It rushes out the back door Caterwauling through the meadows The siren song of freedom calling My spirit pounds its feet on the ground Snaking around the trunks of trees Sighing into the mulch Watched by mother moon Howling with kindred kind Never to be seen by cursed human eyes again #DarkPoets

By Juno Guadalupe Leaping ahead— a fleeting thing, Through dead limbs Brittle brush and jagged thorn. Beneath black roots it slid— The savage inside pressed me on through rot and deep When my leg was torn, but blood pressed me on Scent—decay of flesh, bone— Stung the nose— I pinched it, Squinted forward so eyes could see An aching cave. “Show yerself!” into a hole I never thought could be. Only a knife— The blade belonged to me The lad tried to stick, but I stuck instead Stab

By Brendan Craig I understand that space-time reaches out in all directions like black silk. But that says nothing about the feeling that I am here and now where you cannot be. And I remember thirty years from here we met by chance on a Noumea beach tide because our travels crossed paths on white sand. But that says nothing about an 11-year-old boy wide-eyed at the curving mystery of porcelain-skinned young women. I have seen the way grey cancer eats the red organs t

By Joe Dolce We call on you, word mortician, to use all your skills. Let us remember it beautifully. Do not show us bruises and the settling of blood. Do not describe the sunken and shrunken birdlike bones or tissue skin wrapping dry vein. Do not tell us of fingernail becoming claw or dissolving lung or of pain hammered by drugs. Open your bag, word mortician, open your jars and bottles, cover the bruises with powder, pencil youth on the lips, brush perfume and wind for hair,

By Clare Marsh the Waddington quins died on delivery ~ their shared placenta burned by local custom their miniature bodies sent to Dr Hunter as medical specimens pallid flaccid ghostly water-babies hang in a tank suspended in solution their skin ridged like hands left too long in bath water liquor-steeped foetuses sightless eyes mere hooded slits ribs protruding wraith limbs dangle a chorus of stringless marionettes wailing mouths gape in soundless distr

By Ian Harvey i Tried. Guilty as charged. For shame that sweet toothed justice Swallowed the honeyed lies Of corrupt, capricious men With too much to lose. Lies. A sham. They cursed his name – a pirate Raped by falsehood in the dock. “I will not trouble this court Any more, for it is Folly.” And so the perjurers, triumphant, Slipped the noose Around the turned neck Of Captain Kidd “The innocentest of them all.” ii He died at sunset in Wapping On special gallows erected

By Geoffrey Beevers Must I compare thee to a summer’s day? You’re not as lovely, nor as temperate. There’s no competing with the buds of May And summer always has one perfect date, Sunshine is softer; when your temper shines The heat’s so fierce, the light of reason’s dimmed: And still the fairness of your face declines With deeper grooves and straggly hair untrimmed. It can’t be changed; your outward looks must fade, Crushed by possession of Life’s debt you owe, No lines of

By Frances Green You said I’d get nothing After twenty years, nothing! Enabling you to dress in suits, command respect, be seen, be heard While I stayed behind, washed your clothes, bought your food, scrubbed your house, was berated Weighed down by your mouldy seed, a growing weed, in my depleted soil once rich now crumbled dry The keys you took of my gilded cage You took my tresses long and thick, shiny blondness now grey and fallen; I lop them off You took my body once stro

By S.D Gould Thank you for renewing your account. By continuing to exist, you acknowledge the following: I. Joy may occur briefly, without warning. Duration and availability cannot be guaranteed. II. Loss is included and will arrive without warning. Instances of loss may occur in triplicate. III. Meaning is not included in the base package and must be assembled from everyday items. IV. Support may be limited. Instructions are unavailable. Refunds are not possible. V. Loved on

By S.D Gould I choose a seat near the back. Good lighting. Terrible turnout. They’ve gone with lilies. Predictable. Kind of cheap really. No one consulted me. The officiant says I was “quietly brave.” I make a note to haunt him. My mother cries at the appropriate volume, I’m proud of her. Two of my cousins’ whisper about parking. Someone checks their phone mid-eulogy— probably to confirm I’m actually dead. They call me kind. Resilient. A private person. No one mentions how ex

By Yucheng Tao The midsummer fire still hangs on / descending with the dusk / Squirrels rush / from hollow trunks shooting me a quick glance / When I am trying to pluck out / my drowsy eyes to peel reality / from my sockets to return / to a forest dewed with rain to hide / from the suffocating heat licking at my bedroom / the damp walls with their paint peeling / falling in silence // A T-shirt clings to my face — it blinds me / My eyes still roll

By Murray Eiland Slowly, slowly, the race is won—no shot is fired, A war unfolds in silence, waged by hands unseen. New technology, like whispers on a moonlit tide, Shapes a future once beyond our reach. History’s brush, now patient, paints in softer strokes, Each generation a shifting canvas, While photographs whisper secrets— Faces once familiar, now subtly changed. Children who once mirrored their grandmothers’ eyes Dissolve into time, their features rearranged. What hidde

By J. Marahuyo how ironic I’ve cut thumb on “borrowed” blade, lifted from your desk the day you fled. the silver crescent scar on the base of your thumb is all I recall tatay insisting, hindi. okay lang. hindi kailangan nang stitches.* You did. I do.

By Leanna Webbe Receding light falling from a pallid mass of celestial bone. Shapeless in a void of gaping sky. In the fullest phase of her sojourn, loss had risen to the surface like seeping puss, opening new wounds. Yearning to exercise the art of floating away. From the ache of remembering what was always dreamt but never lived. Yet nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go. Now, a satellite of blunted fettle. Still looming, but shrinking. Emitting rays of mourning, co

By Joeii Monday I should be swept clean of you; You, this grit in my eye. sand beneath my nail. rotting flesh between my teeth. The catching murmur trapped and rushing within heartbeats I wish were simply proper yawning silence. You. poison thorn in my side Crowning me with creeping and pained solitude making me believe I could never find another You. When the bar is so thoughtlessly low. Somehow, you are the one who succeeded. in leaving a scalding fingerprint on my so

By Karla Neblett and the dream left her laid bare on her back, shoulder blades pressed against iced ground, hands and feet, spread out, nailed down, a crow’s feet on her open chest - skin split - - ribs cracked – its beak pecking at the betraying, mistaken, and slaughtered four chambers. #DarkPoetsClub

By Roseeroe I'm your favoured roadkill Resting my head on white painted lines Doppler effect of light upon moon white skin My legs lost in a ditch Five miles back Unseeing eyes upon the end The gulping of air Glugging and gasping My heart misplaced in the middle of the road I threw it up as I wandered out I ignored the blinding headlights… It's thumping as cars continue To pass over it What pretty roadkill Shame It's missing the important parts If the wolves eat m