New Poetry - New Weird by Ken Poyner & John Grey

Poetry today by a couple of the Angel's regular contributors Ken Poyner with Curtain, and John Grey with Poem for Wendy – and we are definitely heading into the realms of the Weird with these tales of demonic schoolgirls and trollish ballerinas!


​Curtain
by Ken Poyner

This dance is entertaining
Only because it is done
By trolls.  Elves, fairies,
Ordinary ballet company staff,
Would make nothing of it,
And we would be crying
That the orchestration is too lean,
The choreography a crime,
And the intermission’s pacing
Too optimistic by far.
But as the trolls go about
Their pitiful leaps and their leather-backed,
Stiffening swoons – each greedily feathering away
From incapable partners, each flailing
A moment on pointe like a
Brick house on fire - we warm
To the message being played to us,
The character of the embedded art:
You are not these, these are not you.
Be glad.


* Ken Poyner’s latest collection of short, wiry fiction Constant Animals, and his latest collections of poetry - Victims of a Failed Civics and The Book of Robot - can be obtained from Barking Moose Press www.barkingmoosepress.com. His poetry of late has been sunning in Analog, Asimov’s, Poet Lore, The Kentucky Review; and his fiction has yowled in Spank the Carp, Red Truck, Café Irreal, Bellows American Review.  www.kpoyner.com.


​
Poem for Wendy
by John Grey

She cast a shadow on Junior High,
black blouse, black skirt, black shoes,
black lipstick, the blackest of blacks
circling the eyes like adders.
She seldom spoke.
Classmates and other students shunned her.
Teachers gave her wide and fearful berth.

Horrific stories were written in whispers.
Tales began with a child of gypsies.
and worked their way more evil from there.
Her old man was certainly Beelzebub,
her mother, the Witch of Endor.
She called up demons late at night in the graveyard,
feasted on the blood of virgins.
All this, plus Iron Maiden groupie.
And yes she kept her little brother's skull in a drawer.

But, in her Junior year, came reformation.
Black hues gave way to colors.
Silence begat conversation.
Peers took to her.
Teachers installed her as pet.

No more twisted inventions.
Now, the narrative differed sharply.
Her parents fairly reeked of normal.
She was an avid churchgoer.
And Iron Maiden? Please.
Maroon 5 most likely.
As for her little brother...
why, they went everywhere together.
Why else was her pocket book so heavy?


* John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Schuylkill Valley Journal, Cape Rock and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Poem and Spoon River Poetry Review.