Poetry By
Elizabeth Hurst
Published on: 10/7/2011
Little Dragon
Oh, the carnage! I took my pleasure, Spurted in armor to the sound of screams. Oh, blood on my sword! The pain, the treasure Seized. Captured Turks, their asses reamed In crucifixions of sodomy--my name Was sung with hatred, which was my glory. All I feared was certain Hell. Oh the shame Of being subject to God, the tired story; To rot and stink while a Jewish peasant Issues my orders. The future was clear. I chose Undeath, half-life in eternal present, Existence compounded of blood and fear. Yes, I believed what the churches preach-- I'd walk the night as a two-legged leech As God's orphan child. In darkness I drink Foul red milk from reluctant mothers. I'm in my coffin at dawn's pale brink; Vermin and corpses are now my brothers; Like a grave worm I burrow in stinking mud To sleep off debauches of blood, oh blood: Clots in my stomach, separate and thickening With a viral tinge, subtle, sickening Or wanly anemic, watered and shoddy. Drugs to muzzle the heart's nervous thrust Red vessels infested with antibodies Junkie blood flavored with the needle's rust Cholesterol, thick as old stew grease, Like livers from force-fed, slaughtered geese. Endocrine glands with alien juices, Subjecting me to hormones' uses: Sprouting pimples and tender breasts, Pink nipples traveling across my chest; And the diseases! Each dank contribution: Bubonic plague, its gothic pollution; Smallpox pustules, lilies from hell Blood sharply barbed with cancer cells. Attila's genes have turned to dust. I'm a hagfish fastened to flat black guts. I exist as sewer and abattoir In a world as dismal as old film noir. Perhaps the greatest indignity yet: I've been turned into a soap opera pet. In smutty prose I've achieved some glamour From that female writer (damn her, damn her!). I think of true death, clean as a cloud But the God to Whom I have always bowed Will shudder and send me straight to hell Although I honored cathedral bells Crossed myself whenever they rang When I was distracted from cruelty's tang. The brutal wine destruction yields, Distillation of battlefields, Transfusing a wound that never heals; I was never more than spilled blood's pawn And so I continue -- on and on.
Published on: 10/7/2011
The Ghoul
Other monsters are products of moonlight, Polluted blood, a circle of teeth-- They colonize sex, emissions of night, The tense scent of prey, a flowery wreath Shedding perfume in cool marble heaven, Perfectly suited for fantasy's use. My meat is puffy with carrion's leaven-- This foul face is slick with corruption's juice; Peasant of Hell, dull graveyard grubber-- The People's creature, repulsive to see Us squatting over cadaverous blubber. However, nature has a place for me And my kin--we are flightless vultures. We transform Death in our gruesome flesh, Create our proletarian culture Restoring warm life to this throbbing mesh. We feast on the dead to bring them to birth In the carbon dreams of the rolling earth.
|