Four Poets and Four New Poems

It is poetry all the way this week with new poems from four writers – Annie Neugebauer + John Reinhart + James Dorr + Miki Dare – writing about topics ranging from King Kong to unicorns. Enjoy...


I am running
by Annie Neugebauer

I am running
and she is skipping
but I am panicked,
her laughter chasing me
like a pack of bloodhounds,
only it sounds like
the tinkling of bells
on an ice-cream cart,
but I am terrified
as I flee through a tunnel
of blackness coated
in the thickest stench
like the underbelly of a beached whale,
and I am running
from what – or who – she might be.


* Annie Neugebauer is a short story author, novelist, and poet with work appearing in over forty venues, including Black Static, Fireside, DarkFuse, and Buzzy Mag. Her poetry manuscript received an honorable mention in the 2013 Stevens Competition by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. She's the webmaster for the Poetry Society of Texas, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a columnist for the Writer’s Digest award-wining website Writer Unboxed.


sipping time
by John Reinhart

she ladled a dollop
off the moon from the lower corner
of her window,
dropped it in her steaming tea
and drank, swirling nebulae
and tea leaves, reading future
and past together – 
she switched off
the moonlight so a future lover 
parting the curtains could allow 
a silvery path to extend
along the floor, across the bed,
up two long bare legs,
reflecting a round face,
asleep, dreaming of long shadows
in an old garden of somnolent morning
glory and wisteria posing like
jaguars in early National Geographics, 
observing the stellar 
pebbles directing the way
home, past the moors and dunes
to a salt shaped hovel yet to be built
on the edge of sea
where the world’s turtle plods onward
across the sparkling sand,
headed to heights reflected in depths
as the incoming tide promises tales
of a thousand moons thousands of miles
away where her lover’s boat drifts into the
horizon, into a ladleful of moon
absorbed by the dream of steaming tea
and a quiet face illuminated in moonlight


* An arsonist by trade, eccentric by avocation, John Reinhart lives in Colorado with his wife and children, and beasts aplenty, including a dog, cat, duck, goats, chickens, and probably mice. His poetry has recently been published in Interfictions, Star*Line, Liquid Imagination, Being Human, and Songs of Eretz.


On The Other Hand
by James Dorr

King Kong would have made 
a lousy husband. 
Sure, he'd be good for a romp in the hay -- 
and as "big" as all outdoors -- 
but even though Fay Wray was athletic too 
and game for adventure, 
she would have found life in the jungle no picnic.  
It's dirty and smelly, with spiders and snakes, 
not to mention occasional dinosaurs, 
monsters, 
mercurial natives, 
all easy enough for Kong to cope with 
but constantly in and out, 
tracking mud over freshly waxed floors, 
and that's not even mentioning tigers and lions. 
No, Fay was a city girl when it came down to it, 
wishing for nothing more than a nice apartment to go to 
when quests have ended, 
a restaurant and dancing, a slinky low-cut gown, 
and no excursions up sides of skyscrapers 
or battles with biplanes. 


* Indiana writer James Dorr’s The Tears of Isis was a 2014 Bram Stoker Award nominee for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. Other books include Strange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder & Romance, Darker Loves, and his all-poetry Vamps. For more, readers should visit his blog at http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com


Unicorn Girl
by Miki Dare

A rare golden beast 
Wandering a forest of ghostly white trees
Whinnies an ancient melody
Shakes a silver mane of falling stars

A man steps forward silently
Eyes fixed and narrowed
 Axe gripped tightly in hand
Greedy for a horn of gold

Moonlight arrows down from the sky
Strikes the magical creature aglow
A mist surrounds her changing form
Slowly reveals a woman of mythical design

Argent locks descend upon her curves
Her golden skin gleams
While silver tattoos spiral her body
And brown eyes stare with eerie intensity

He steps forward boldly
Eyes fixed and wide
Axe now fallen and forgotten
Desperate for a girl of gold

Bronze-red lips part
Her magic ever strong
She impales him
With a word


* Miki Dare is a Canadian writer whose work has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Inscription Magazine. You can find out what she's up to at www.mikidare.com and follow her @mikidare on Twitter.