The January Featured Poet is Frank Schildiner
Please feel free to email Frank at: pulpwriter1@gmail.com
LA DAME BLANCHE
My lover appears as the mists part and I feel the sand beneath my bare feet,
White waves crash like thunderclaps as I slowly stride his direction,
My white shrouded arms rise, and I whisper his name, calling him once again,
Begging for his tender embrace, lost to me for an ocean of eternal time,
He turns towards me, his face a pallid frozen mask of dread, his dark eyes wild,
A shriek bubbles from his taut lips, and he backs away, stumbling, tumbling,
Greedy watery hands grasp him and tow my dear lover beneath dark depths,
His bubbling, choking voice cries for help, but he is gone forever,
Plutonian curtains surround me once again and I close my eyes and slumber,
My search for my lost love shall resume, when next the cold fog lifts,
And a lone sad man stands upon my beach, risking his mortal thread.
GUARDIAN OF THE DUST
I awaken in stygian silent darkness,
The sounds of shovels and picks echoing like bells,
The voices of men seeking the riches,
That lay below the red sands of my forgotten land,
My bandaged hands slow raise and lift,
Raising the lid of my spell etched stone bed,
I stand and stagger on bandaged feet,
Awaiting the tomb robbers who seek ancient relics,
Desecrators and violators no matter their motives,
I shall protect my princess, my eternal beloved,
Until my bandaged body crumbles into the dust of ages.
THE SONG OF RAGE
Discordant notes echo through catacombs deep,
As I play my organ and scribble my score,
Silence falls as the music drifts away,
The scent of mildew and rot my only companions,
As I work on the final adagio that will complete,
My decade long toil beneath darkest depths,
As Parisian nobles above me laugh, weep, and cry,
To music of the angels whose names will never die,
Soon they shall know me, my genius, my rage,
The Opera Ghost shall rise from Plutonian depths,
And the beautiful faces of Paris shall pay homage,
To my masked visage or they shall quake with fear,
As I slay any who do not obey the demands of Erik,
The twisted faced master, the Phantom of the Opera.
A THANK YOU NOTE FROM BELOW
I live in a hole like a mole and fear the terrible light,
My clan falls silent as humans walk above us,
Their wails and weeping like music to our ears,
The box is lowered into our lands and buried from sight,
We fall upon the entombed dead with greedy pale hands,
We thank you dear humans from the depth below,
For your gifts of graveyards and moldering dead.
Frank Schildiner is a martial arts instructor at Amorosi’s Mixed Martial Arts in New Jersey. He has writen seven novels, some of which includes The Quest of Frankenstein, The Triumph of Frankenstein and Irma Vep and the Great Brain of Mars.
Frank is a regular contributor to the fictional series Tales of the Shadowman and has been published in From Bayou to Abyss: Examining John Constantine, Hellblazer, The Joy of Joe, The New Adventures of Thunder Jim Wade, Secret Agent X, and many others.
He resides in New Jersey with his wife Gail (who is his top supporter) and two cats that are indifferent on the subject.