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Maria DePaul

The May Selected Poet is Maria DePaul

Please feel free to email Maria at: marial.depaul@gmail.com

mmaria

HOMEWARD, THE KRAKEN CRY 
~ A Linked Haiku Poem ~

Far from eldritch shores
Kraken aliens screaming
No Earthly rescue

Neither Poe’s demons
Nor Lovecraft’s wide pantheon
Beckons creatures home

Cut off from ether
Crying telepathically
They languish surfside

Til Chthulhu turns
Ending R’yleh banishment
To crimson sunsets

EAST OF TARNATION

In the dead of winter
An outstretched hand
Dug up from the dirt
No heartbeat
Just a dim throbbing
In the back of the head
Where a crimson lined
Hole led from the skin
Up the throat to the jaw
Pulling the torso 
Then the legs
Not a man, nor a ghost
He walked from the field
Down the lane 
Past the markers
He admired the statue
Gazed at the blood moon
Headed in the direction
Of home to greet
His widow and usurper
Whose gun could do
No harm this time

POISONED SPACES

Emerging from mud,
A viscous fluid 
Consumed all in its path:
Moss, vines, trees...
Until an entire forest
Was bereft of life.

The only thing that
Could stop its spread
Was the end of the
Celestial event that
Had heralded its
Arrival onto the landscape.

A red giant had been
Pulled too close to
Its orbiting partner,
A cooler star reduced
To a brown dwarf
In a supernova.

The stars’ eclipse 
Held just the right
Combination for 
The residue to 
Expand, overtaking
Every continent.

Only the crimson
Light revealed 
As the stars diverged
Could force the substance
To shrink back to
Crevices underground.

Yet one terrible day
A newly formed
Civilization may fall
As the next eclipse
Allows the liquid
To engulf the planet

Maria DePaul is a Washington, DC-based writer whose work has been featured in many publications, including: 50 Haikus; Akashic Books’ Terrible Twosdays; Aphelion; Better than Starbucks; The Future Fire; Haiku Journal; Illumen; Inwood, Indiana; Nature Writing; Plum Tree Tavern; Poetry Quarterly; Scifaikuest; Speculative 66; Three Line Poetry; The Review Review; Violet Windows; and Wax Poetry and Art.