New Poetry: vampires, gnomes, things that go bump in the night - and a hazy shade of shade of sea-serpent

We've a fascinating mix of poetry for you now – from John Grey, Jenny Blackford, and Deborah L. Davitt ​– covering everything from vampires and gnomes to new shades of paint we'd all like to see. Yes, we'll paint the bathroom ceiling in Squashed Lizard mart emulsion...


Dawn Curse
by John Grey

Cursed with the glare
of all this outside brightness,
I risk losing everything
from my flesh, my bone,
to the fear I've invoked in others
for the past four hundred years.

The sun is up,
air is warm,
birds are singing,
colorful flower petals open.
Can it get any worse?


* John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, South Carolina Review, Gargoyle and Silkworm with work upcoming in Big Muddy Review, Cape Rock and Spoon River Poetry Review.   
 

One small advantage
by Jenny Blackford

One small advantage
of owning a cat
is a live-in excuse
for steps along the corridor
at night

until you move your feet 
and find the cat curled on the bed
still fast asleep.


Mostly nameless colours
by Jenny Blackford

Mostly nameless colours, Colours you'd like to see
...Robert Graves, Welsh Incident

Colours I'd like to see in next year's car catalogue:
Cinnamon latte, baked pumpkin, varnished copper 
Violet crumble, tomato soup, smurf 
Azaleas in the snow 

Mashed banana, mango ice cream, squashed lizard
Daddylonglegs, huntsman, redback shiny black
The monster under the bed 

Big blue beetle, green bug, tree frog 
Crescent moon glinting from an ancient katana beside a crater lake 
Pond scum

Grey nurse, great white, hammerhead 
Seaweed, seawrack, seaserpent 
Mermaid belly

Dragon bone, dragon tooth, dragon scale 
Black hole
Supernova
Singularity


* Based in New South Wales (Australia) Jenny Blackford's poetry has appeared in august literary journals including Australian Poetry Journal and The Pedestal Magazine as well as Strange Horizons and Star*Line. Jenny also won the inaugural Connemara Mussel Festival poetry competition. She adds "Not spec-fic, but Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer references, so a bit scienc-ey." http://www.jennyblackford.com + https://www.twitter.com/dutiesofacat


The Door
by Deborah L. Davitt

I gave her the door as a joke, one foot
in height, sized to admit a gnome or sprite,
and nothing more.

She laughed, charmed, and set it against the wall,
but the next time I saw it? Some hand had
opened and left it ajar.

Little bloodstained footprints ran from kitchen
to the door, and when I looked inside it,
I found her on the floor.

They’d looked after her house, fetched her glasses,
mended her shoes, chased more mice than her cat,
all without her knowing.

But she’d failed to set out milk and wheat cakes,
and the ancestral wights behind our pixies
had taken it amiss.

They took payment in her blood, the oldest
Price. I bound her wounds, heard her words, and then
tossed the door in the gas fireplace.


* Houston-based Deborah L. Davitt says: I've been fortunate enough to have multiple poems accepted and published by Star*Line, and have had others published by The Tanka Review and Three-Line Poetry. I have a short story pending publication with IGMS, and three novels published to Kindle, the Saga of Edda-Earth.