The August Featured Poet is Linda M. Crate

Please feel free to email Linda at: veritaserumvial@hotmail.com

SONG OF THE BLACKBIRD

she felt
confusion
beneath a silver moon
that beckoned her,
but she felt
intrigue;
to what was the moon
beckoning her
or to whom?
she didn't realize she should've
forgotten the silver lyric
that poured through her bedroom window
because her being curious
wasn't a sin,
but it would be enough to erase
the stamp of her life;
as she wandered into the empty clearing
she found the one that had used the moon
to beckon her
all too late
realizing the danger and threat
the werewolf posed
she ran as fast as her legs would carry her
it was not enough—
his fangs sang her life away
until death became the flower of her corpse
painting a colorful bird into a the black bird
where life could never find her
again.

A SONG OF DEATH

she was out late
in the middle
of the forest

foolishly trusting
that she were safe
as she heard nothing

blinking only
when a white fog
smoothed her skirts,

as she settled
into the wood beneath
an audience of stars;

everything became a cloak
of shadows and fragmentations
the hooting owl could be

a dragon
every little sound made
her jump—

until she reminded herself to breathe
she knew her way around these woods,
and she would be home soon;

but beneath a blue moon
his eyes scorched with red found her
and his fangs quivered with anticipation

he caught her in his arms
& her screams were lost to his ears
as he took her life's blood from her

surrendering her into
a song of death
she could never recover from.

THROUGH GREEN BRANCHES

beneath a silver moon
she walked
in the silence of the night
all too late
sensing the presence
of another
lost in thoughts that could not
help to save her life now
that the pale vampire woman had
found her beneath
the pines and oaks that she had known
as her youth,
the knowledge of the maples and the creeks
would be of no use
either;
no matter how hard she ran
the woman kept up with a simple striding walk
as if this were no challenge to her
yet she was unable to give up
she would not surrender to death it would have to come
and snatch her away—
suddenly the woman who was behind her had
vanished into the darkness
but she was not lulled into a false sense
of security because she knew it was a trick,
but where did the woman go?
“you should never look behind you,
the past rarely helps you.”
before she could reply, the vampire woman
had fallen over her with strength that she fought until
she could fight no more;
her dead body staring forever upward
through the green branches of her favorite pine.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has five published chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press, September 2017), and Splintered with Terror (Scars Publications, January 2018).