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Ron Larson

The April Selected Poet is Ron Larson

Please feel free to email Ron at:

patronlarson@gmail.com

larson

(Poetry inspired by H.P. Lovecraft)

THE NEW LAND

When the bleak days were hard upon him,
He would experience in his dreams
A life of openness and freedom—
An existence with beautiful scenes.

Gone were constant sameness and grayness,
Replaced with fragrant flowers and trees.
He now had vitality and wellness.
Yet, there was a door without a key.

Each night, he sought to enter this beyond.
At last, he had the key to access the door.
But before it could be used, it was dawn,
So he decided he would stint no more.

He increased his opium dosage.
Soon the wall’s door was opened by him.
A white landscape greeted his visage.
He had entered the land of oblivion.

PICKMAN

He painted beings that were not human,
Did macabre artist, Laurence Pickman.
One dreadful monster had glaring red eyes,
And it was eating a child that it had fried.

Its claws were scaly and it had drooling lips,
Gruesomely pleased with a meal that was crisp.
It had a wolf-like face with pointed ears,
As it sneered at the child’s mother’s tears.

He titled this painting, “The Ghoul’s Feast,”
But it was deemed obscene, so his income ceased.
But I was a friend who didn’t desert him.
I thought he was much more than talented.

He captured the very essence of dread death
In all of its ugliness with height and breadth.
His deft brush strokes were done with great care,
So that each painting was a living nightmare.

Where Laurence Pickman is now, no one knows.
Maybe it’s due to some of his photos.
In his studio, I saw them one night.
They were the source of his horrible insight.

AFTERMATH

In the valley of Simi the waning moon
Tears a path for its light with feeble horns.
In the depths of the valley light has swooned.
The rank herbage crawls in its ugly forms.

It heaves up pavements laid by unknown hands,
And the trees that still grow are gigantic.
Were these strange growths in a deity’s plans?
And was there a struggle truly titanic?

Mighty was the massive city that fell.
Now over its rubble swarm vile reptiles.
A river nearby has an unholy smell,
All of this horror due to guided missiles.

THE TEMPLE

Here are the amazing contents of a letter
Found in the bottle of the coast of Yucatan:
“After a depth charge, our U-boat took on water,
And thus we were unable to surface again.

Before long, I became the only survivor,
As I had found refuge in the water-tight hold.
I know that death is in my very near future,
So I feel an important story must be told.

For about a day, our boat drifted under the sea,
And then I beheld a truly amazing sight.
It was Atlantis, the ancient, long-lost city.
It’s quite a vast site, and I have to act tonight.

If not, the boat will soon move away from it.
What’s more, I’m doomed, so why not die this way?
And there’s a temple that draws me like a magnet.
Oh, what a splendid way to spend my last day!

With proper gear, I will last for three hours or so
To explore the temple and see what I can find.
And here are the coordinates that you should know:”
But here the bottle’s finder smudged this last line.

Ron Larson is a retired community college history professor (Ph.D.), and one of his hobbies is writing poetry in the manner of Gerald Manley Hopkins. Larson has had horror poems published in Hellfire Crossroads 6, The Stray Branch, Big Pulp, Inner Sins, Blood Moon Rising, Bloodbond, Aphelion, and, of course, The Horror Zine.