he October Featured Poet is Linda M. Crate

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

WARNING NOT HEEDED

she didn’t heed their warnings,
thought she knew better
and they were crazy for believing there
were monsters hiding in the dark;
she had wandered the wood in the night
before and nothing had happened—
they begged and implored her to wait
until morning,
but she stubbornly refused;
the sooner she got this task over with the better
she could then leave this place and move on
with her life—
but she didn’t realize that she wouldn’t be
leaving this place, at all,
she was being watched as she was warned would
happen;
but she didn’t see nor hear the vampire
until he stood before her
by then it was too late to run—
though,
she tried, when his hand broke her pearl necklace
he didn’t count the beads as myths said he might;
the lips curled into a sneer as that thought crossed
her mind,
“that’s only in stories; love, and life is no fairy tale.”
her screams fell silent soon after, her body discarded in the
leaves like refuse.

THE WEREWOLF’S REVENGE

she couldn’t change
who or what she was
thought love
would be enough to save
them,
but when he discovered she
was a werewolf
he left her behind and bereft;
didn’t want her anymore
told her she was a disgusting beast—
he was angry that she lied
to him,
but how was she supposed to tell
him before she was ready?
she felt vulnerable telling him,
as was,
but that night as she wandered lonely
in the wood he found her with another;
unluckily for them it was a full moon
it didn’t end well for them.

NO ONE WAS SORRY

he couldn’t remember his
life as a human

he had put his past
firmly behind him,
and though there were
small details that danced
in and out of his memory
he didn’t care to recall
who he once was;

that person was gone
and he stood here now—

terrifying beast
haunting the nights
with a beautiful face,
but a dark desire;
this blood lust was never sated

no matter how hard he tried to
quell the thirst it was never
fully quenched—

the vampire didn’t feel guilt
for what he had to do
anymore
because no one was sorry
for his death of humanity.

Linda M. Crate’s works have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the latest of which is: More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019). She’s also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018). Recently she has published two full-length poetry collections Vampire Daughter (Dark Gatekeeper Gaming, February 2020) and The Sweetest Blood (Cyberwit, February 2020).