Published by Forward Press 2009

Gothic and Horror Landscape Poetry

A Gothic Take On the Landscape

A haunting of mist

Descends as daylight ends

Underneath a cloud of steam

Disappears the running stream

Levitating, floating, hovering above it

Following it as it snakes away

The landscape is a cauldron

Of smoke, steam and mist escaping

Of low-lying water-clouds mingled

With the haze from bonfires blazing

And the exhalations from chimney pots

Puffing away, phantoms awaking

With the night on its way

 Monstrous trees cage

The last remnants of daylight

Their ragged jagged claws

Scraping, stabbing and jabbing

The sky in a rage

 The willow tree has the hair

Of a witch, lime-green and straggly

Tangling and dangling

Into the waters’ edge where

The bats come to feast

 And at the mouth of the lock

Water is frothing and foaming

As if white from fright

Running, rushing, gushing away

While the dark shadows

Of skeletal trees hover and sway

 Colour is drained away

At this end

Of this winter’s day

With only a palette

Of white and black

Remaining

 Until the sun-setting,

Blood shedding sky

Gorily splashes and pours

Down from on high

With gaping scratches

And slashes

In lunatic strokes

And savage lashes

 While the sliver of a 

Silvery new moon

Gouges

And chisels

Iits place in the sky

Blade-like and sharp

Glimmering, glinting    

In the dark