Well, it is Halloween (part 2)

Disrespectful Horrorshow

Pinhead,
you’re just a skinhead,
who’s been used as a dress-maker’s
tabletop accessory.

Freddie,
you’ve got finger-knives,
but frankly you’re already dead,
and though I like your jumper,
menaced Dennis all in red and black,
I don’t live on Elm Street,

and ghost-face guy,
there’s worse than you,
unmasked each week on Scooby Doo,
I’m more likely to laugh-in-your-mask than scream,
not to mention blue Grudge-boy,
and his croaking lank-haired sister –
J-horror’s fashionable ploy,
soon a Tokyo Z-lister,
Leatherface and Voorhees too,
I’ve seen things scarier than you too –
Anne Robinson’s botox-stung lips,
leftover bits from tucks and nips,
Stringfellow’s leopard-print man-thong
(in every way so very wrong)
the ‘Hoff all biker-trousered, putting out
another German pop-chart song,
but if ever something meant I might
need cushions to hide underneath
the unexpected late-night fright
of an ad for Meryl-as-Maggie –
that was real horror…

Well, it is Halloween

Things that are 'meant' to be scary aren't...

Unexpected creeps

Not fox-screams,
horror films,
graveyards or fog,
not even when accompanied by theremins,

but:

lime-tree branches stridulate
against bus-shelter perspex,
pigeons echo-howl through chimney cowls,
taxi brakes cry out in the night,
anguished X-Factor faces captured as stills,
Atlas of Parasitology,
CGI babies-in-adverts gyrate,
landlady half hidden by an architrave,
light-bulb reflection (bathroom mirror),
space behind,
next door’s stone garden menagerie –
they stare so benignly,
some fish at certain angles
(Lovecraft knew about angles),
collections of old dolls
tiny porcelain teeth,
pretty much all dolls,
including Resusci Anne;
empty corridors,
abandoned doors,
trash-to-treasure TV presenters,
hydrangea petals so like peeled skin,
monochrome wind-sway of tall grasses,
dark cumulus in summer –
press ‘pause’ to shudder.

The Promise

Today, feeling just a little Poe-faced...

The Promise

Giggling, she led him up,
Ever up the winding stair,
Skirts a-swishing, tresses fair,
To a quiet landing where,
With a lewdly knowing wink,
She drew him to a closed oak door,
With promises of much and more,
Their way lit by her candlestick,
Turned the brassy handle – ‘click’,
And pulled him through, where lay a room,
All walled in, no sun, no moon,
Behind them swung the door, locked fast,
He bore down on her, eyes dark-cast,
“What have you done? We’re trapped inside”
She met his gaze, “Just you, not I”
And disappeared with spectral sigh.

NaPoWriMo day 14

NaPoWriMo day 14. A 'persona-poem'; the prompt gave the example of using the voice of my inner superhero, but I decided to tweak this a little and go for one of the personae I tend to employ when fancy-dress is in the offing…

Fancy Me

Nosferatu in an old priest-coat,
The Jesuit once clad within,
Long-since interred, consumed by worms,
His ex-vestment dust-tinged and capoc-aged,
Haggled for in vintage-land,
Among the garish polyester shirts,
And trappings of a kitscher form of Halloween,
Now resewn, rebuttoned, TLC’d
Bought with boots for piracy,
And monocled chicanery,
Worn tight-torsoed, billowing below,
And to surmount, a black stovepipe,
Or red top hat (that one’s real millinery you see),
While watch-parts tick on brassily,
Porthole to horology,
Marking moments past this style’s true time,
While the polished dark-wood cane,
(Suggesting I’m bartitsu-trained)
Porcelain-capped, steel-tipped,
And cog-studded,
Tip-taps its gentlemanly way.