Category Archives: poetry

poetry

Gaunt Town March

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By Kat Delarus

creeping darkness
swaddles our souls
we hide without light
to keep us from dying

Longer and longer
the time stretches out
we’ve seen what grows
beyond the horizon

beat does the heart
does the heart of madness
that way lies nothing
familiar or sacred

pitchforks and torches
and flasks of oil
wooden planks and nails
and chunks of stone

there is no way
to stop it from coming
the townsfolk marching
aren’t coming back

beat does the heart
does the heart of madness
that way lies flesh
an abyss that kills

back to the town
we hurry and we scamper
packing our bags
we flee what’s inevitable

quick, take a knife
it’s already here
are we too late?
there’s no time to think

beat does the heart
does the heart of madness
ever growing, ever reaching
Do nothing but flee

beat does the heart
does the heart of madness
in your blood and in your head
it’s far too late

(Art by Tom Brown shows the Bridge of Bottles, which crosses the Gaunt River into Gaunt Town, the oldest part of the main settlement on the island.)

Hopeless inhabitants, poetry

Crustacean improvisation

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leaving the scene of the crime.

The hermit crabs have not been told

Of how one end a reed should hold

They do not know to cut and dry

And knowing nothing, do not try.

The flute is narrow, it is so

And down it one large crab might blow

While keenly others play their roles

And scuttle forth to block the holes.

They long for music on the beach

A washed up band lies in their reach

Pray do not tell them as they roam

About the shipwrecked whole trombone.

Hopeless inhabitants, poetry

James Weaselgrease and the bear

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The above image comes from The Gathering. The young man on the right is a very young James Weaselgrease (to use my son’s steampunk performance name). He is the child in this story who Salamandra rescues and to whom she gives her bear.

 

James Weaselgrease and the bear

 

She gave me this small toy bear

Torn, battered, restored with care

Softness in my open arms

Best of magic, best of charms.

 

Old toy bear to ward off fear

Wonky face and sewn up ear

Damaged but not yet destroyed

Comforting, my spirits buoyed

 

Courage with a messy face

Saved, repaired and full of grace

Saw who I could choose to be

Found the hope to uplift me.

 

Nights are long and dark and grim

Demons tear us limb from limb

Days are cold and grim and grey

Much to steal your life away.

 

Even in the darkness, light

Find the means to live and fight

Fill this time with something good

Do the best, the most we could.

 

In each tiny action seek

Kindest ways, protect the weak

Every chance there is for joy

All your wits and strength deploy

 

She gave me this bear to hold

Ease my fear and make me bold

Do for others what I can

And this is how my work began.

 

Image at the top by Tom Brown, poem by Nimue, bear by Dr Abbey.

Hopeless inhabitants, poetry

Reverend Davies

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Reverend Davies is the father of Owen Davies. He runs the Pallid Rock orphanage, and has a church. Although quite who the church is dedicated to, it may be better not to ask. It features an organ powered by live fish, and there may be a small Elder God living in the rafters.

This piece is set  around Sinners, at which point Reverend Davies has, through a mix of bad luck and his own actions, lost the people who mattered most to him…

The worst feature of grief

Is how things you used to loathe

Begin to haunt you

How your wife fussed over you

Moved things so that you

Could not put your hands on them

The precise way she had

Of closing a door too sharply.

Her only show of anger.

 

The way your son fiddled

Relentlessly, with everything

His insolence, his answering back

His total inability to leave

His dirty socks in a laundry basket

The things of his you sat on.

 

The indecent way she had

Of looking at you, sometimes.

How her mischief enraged you

When it tugged the corner of her mouth.

 

They are gone now

The things you used to loathe

Torture you most, I find.

The boyish, tuneless whistle

I would sell my soul to hear again.

Never to have my collar adjusted

By gentle, affectionate fingers

Never again to be laughed at

By the woman I most wronged.

 

What richness I had

When I thought myself ill-treated.

Hopeless, poetry

Spoonwalker by Dr Abbey Masahiro

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It sounds to me so botanically beastful

His walking is looking like dancing

And making noise, zee boo, zee boo.

Eye colour changes by temperature.

When rainbows appear, he sings

Songs of the ancient moon.

Rider of storm, rider of wave.

Cutlery thief exposed.

 

 

(Dr Abbey is part of the Hopeless Maine film crew, and slowly being lured into other things, which is what the island tends to do to people – more here  https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/casting-durosimi/  )

poetry

Jellyfish Woman

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Not everyone believes in jellyfish woman.

So thin and pale her skin that

You do not see her until she

Is upon you. Too late then.

Her soft body, her tendrils touching

Skin and mind and because

She is poison you will believe

That she is beauty.

Because she is poison

You will believe her a friend.

All the while, jellyfish woman

Cuts you with a hundred barbs

And takes blood from a hundred cuts.

Leaves you floating and confused.

Later, you will recall the beauty,

And how kind she seemed.

So lovely, jellyfish woman, that you

Go back freely to her cove.

Into her waters.

Telling yourself the barbs do not cut

That poison is kindness

That you do not mind the drops

Of blood she needs to survive.

She is so beautiful, after all.

And the water in her cove is deep enough

To hide all the bones from you.

And all of your bones

From everyone else.

Hopeless Tales, poetry

Tentacoils

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‘Twas chillblist, and the tentacoils
  Did writhe and wrangle ‘midst the waves:
Beleaguered was my little boat
Far off the coast of Maine.

Above the storm, a voice sang fell

 A knell, if not a note in tune,

But th’ wind did snatch the words away

 And left my soul in swoon.

 

“Beware the mermaids, child!” it cried
  “The howlers wild, with nails that slash!
The noisome gnii, the beasts of sea
and those your spoon wouldst snatch!”

 

 

“Beware the tentacoils!” it sang

“Beware the stinging succubus

The eyes that glow, the shades that grow,

And demons of the dust!”

 

But firm I took my oar in hand:
  Long time in dark for hope I sought —
‘till in Hopeless State I came to rest,
And lay awash in thought.

 

And, as in lone despair I lay,
  Demonic Shades, with eyes of flame,
came salivating for my soul
And sang, o sang, my name

 

And so a while I’ll linger on

To wander Hopeless in a daze

And bathe my soul in demon song

For all remaining days…

 

‘Twas chillblist, and the tentacoiled
  Did writhe and wrangle ‘midst the waves:
Beleaguered was my little boat
Far off the coast of Maine…

 

Words by Lou Pulford.

Art by Tom Brown