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.
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