By J.D. Scève He is at my door to collect a debt owed, My obol where patina trespassed over diseased metal. I’d polish it, but the glint from my eyes ceased yesterday, and succumbed to the pupillary void. Ragged birds poise on the weathervane, My feathered witnesses, Oh, how I wish thunder would dethrone them, And tear out that curiosity. He hunches under his smothering cloak, Stench wrings from the folds of the mottled cloth, As he steps over the threshold to my rooms. Flaye

By Caroline Anne Pollard The sky has stolen the sea—thief of its hue. The sea is bacterium blue. The sky turns bitter as sloes. A gaunt tree stands with Wyllie’s spire— its poverty of leaves grieves. Coarse gorse and the bilberry stain of heather. Weather: force-six gales. Black-headed gulls sing as sirens, their wings fluttering like lost sails. Contagious swarms of midges cloud like black pollen of spores. The island weeps a brown burn. This seizure of seawater cannot heal

By Gareth Coombes When I freeze my pre-cooked meals I often think of you Squeezed into a chest freezer And turning very blue. When I burn the garden waste I often think of you Sat upon a bonfire Until you're cooked right through. When I dunk my biscuits I often think of you And hold them underwater Until they're out of view! When I bury my autumn bulbs I often think of you Under the cold brown earth in a mound Totally covered too. When I hang my washing I often think

By Lizzie Alexander Who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name He is losing, involuntarily, his recollections now Falling sands pouring towards inversion Grains of ghoulish recollections downward draining Neurodegenerative erosion of remembrance She is finding, involuntarily, wholer recollections now Falling sands piling upwards reaching Grains of ghoulish recollections mercilessly mounting Therapeutic exhumation of remembrance Shared recollections shifting In estranged par

By Caroline Walling Unzip from center to crown; allow a slow un-bonding. With a shrug it slips the bones of my arms; rolls down the curve of hip, peels from the softness of thighs, the firm calves, the map of feet. I step out. For a moment it is a cashmere cat, a salmon skin, an oyster. I gather it up like a newborn, lay it on the table Hair spread from the scalp as a peacock's tail. Close the thinness of the eyelids; brush a thumb ove

By P.S. Lynch ‘The home of Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz will soon welcome visitors. The house in Oswiecim, southern Poland, was “a great place to raise children,” said Grazyna Jurczak, 62, a widow who raised two sons there.’ New York Times, January 2025 Monday, they opened the Höss House of Horrors. Eighty years since, and Footfalls thread each room in turn, Capturing silent snaps by iPhone. Forbidden miseries of hidden Hell. “Like on th

By Gergo Sastyin treetops soar as high as the clouds. mud and rocks weigh down the shoes. a butterfly crosses in front. the lake’s pellucid and invigorating— heavy drops of proleptic shadow disturb a reflection otherwise so pure, so perfect: now caught in a maelstrom of amniotic fluid, colostrum, and blood. distant birds flutter—it must be real, otherwise a numinous sigh would accompany this scenery: god’s approved or doesn’t care. twin-tears follow the first effusion. fl

By Glyn Matthews If you die before me, as hopefully, you will, (in fact I’ll make damned sure of it after what you did), I’ll extract your roving eyes and display them in the window as guidance for the curious. You’ll see. Well, actually you won’t, so, just so’s you know… I’ll sell tickets at the local T.I.C. and advertise on Facebook and auction your bits and pieces, (especially your bits) which I’ll arrange on the settee where you ‘entertained’ while I was away, looking a

By Aidan Casey The bonds fail that link you in to the world. Now you scale new heights, now you test new lows. Take stock. Older than you ever were, younger than you’ll ever be, summon up your net worth. Multiply by zero! Querulous, truculent, let your talent gather rust, set aside avoirdupois, size yourself up for the drop: the daredevil, nothing to it, nonchalant, i-dare-you-do-it, de la mort, a chanson, a swallow-dive swan song. Into the forge of saints! Now you see me

By W. E. Ticas They said the earth forgets. But it doesn’t. It keeps every scream beneath its roots. Daniel was twelve, walking barefoot through the hills of San Jorge, a sack on his shoulder, the sun burning the names from his memory. He only wanted fruit— a sweetness to trade for rice, a small proof that hunger could be fooled. Then the ground opened in sound, a blast swallowing the morning, and silence came dressed in dust. He saw the child on the ground, the blood mixing

By Gabrielle Munslow Crows are women who embraced the dark and never came back— iron-winged, flame-eyed, their breasts like banners of defiance. They clatter across rooftops, spilling laughter like gin from a broken bottle. Their feathers reek of funeral lilies, their tongues stitched with moth wings. When they open their mouths, the night bends sideways. Men drop their cutlery in terror, prophecy staining the tablecloth. Open wings like iron overcoats, armour against the wra

By Elliot Chester Terror. This is me waking to the sight of an incubus masturbating at the base of my bed. The nodding Jesus on the windowsill shakes its head left and right as my sheet with smiling angels and cherubs convened in heaven is yanked down. It matters not that I’m male. Visiting women is just a myth. Paralysis takes hold as moths, now attracted to blackness, emerge from his mouth; heavy headed, light winged, clinging to screams that retreat like slug’s tentacles.

By Shannon Éilis The view from my childhood estate remains the same as I’m looking out for a black Audi at 3am. Waiting to cry in that familiar back seat. Trying to ignore the screams of a neighbour who drowned his daughter in the bathtub. The sirens in the background as you drunkenly said that this place is a failed suicide net, and I reminisce on how us girls just wanted to be abused in the ways advertised. When we’re barely legal, on the back of mopeds circling r

By S. A. Bender I drew your bath at dusk and filled it with oatmeal and iodine. Laid the linens soft on marble. Arranged the silver in sequence— from whisper to wound. You came to me as one comes to prayer: barefoot, unsure, still carrying your name in the fragile bones of your throat. I asked you to lie down, and you did, without question. Love like that is already a kind of death. I anointed your chest with warm water and thyme. Let my fingers memorize your pulse before

By Darren Ryding Today i wandered the streets of soho under the weight of nonexistent eyes like infinite young ghosts before me on a gay sex shop quest to obtain a thin black harness and matching jockstrap. Dawn approaches and soon we will draw swords but nothing is stopping me from leaving only inexplicable compulsion has guided me this far, we cannot hide from ourselves who we are. The steps lead down into the underworld pay the fee, receive a towel and a key i strip of

By Weston Campbell The birthing tube is tearing in the mud, underground with the worms. The fertilized ova are spilling into furrows of virginal dirt. Down where the scavengers wander, in the haunt of the carrion-fed, in silence, the queen is disgorging her million glistening eggs. The birds become aware of the smell and the sound of the prey. In a furious frenzy of feathers, they descend on the writhing remains. When the feast and the orgy have ended they return to their cav

By Vincent De Souza uncloak diametric terrors bite with gentrified nitric poisoning drones of vulcanised black bolt lightning my closed wound gravedug open sores inseminated woken, undead enlivened Lamia , Siamese gargoyle creationist reward my selfish love darkened arts cadavers raid our rancid sepulchre hearts we alone claw-rip jubilee’s blended blood suckle coital lust, devil angel unionists Note: Lamia in Greek legend is a child-devouring human ghoul. In Latin, it can

By Bob W Christian They told you Halloween was candy and costumes Cartoon witches, plastic masks, porch lights. They lied. This is Samhain, the true night. Not a thin veil, but one that splits. Cracks like an old bone under a boot. Oozing time; bleeding memories; Spilling souls into your frosty breath. The dead don’t whisper tonight, They scream. They crawl through smoke, Rise from the ash of your grinning pumpkins Jack O’ Lanterns like corpses, Smiling with secrets. You left

By Ping Yee My feed fires up some bar-brawl clip or other: waistcoated middle-aged gent holding his palm over a lit candle, teaching some lout a lesson about pain, strength, or something; David Carradine watching on sagely. A flame’s blue heart whispers some thousand degrees C, cooler than the wellspring overhead, six thousand to fifteen million degrees; shafts of starlight marking me by my shadow on concrete. Stewing in umbra, my embers judged wanting while others’ ignite, s

By Lauryn Taylor Morals scorned. Shattered mirrors mourn disillusionment, presides as shadows darken. Tears drop, staining clipped wings in stride. Strength once, reigned. This rigid body suc- cumb. The bloodied taste, of righteousness. Defeat. #DarkPoetsClub