POETRY BY CHRISTOPHER HIVNER

Christopher Hivner writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books (a little bit of everything) and the echoes of music (mostly hard rock/heavy metal and blues). His horror/dark fantasy poetry collection Dark Oceans of Divinity is available from Cyberwit.net.

Facebook: Christopher Hivner - Author, Twitter: @Your_screams

THE DENOUEMENT BLUES

With trembling anticipation
I opened the email
from the editor of
Boiled Bile Magazine.
“Dear Mack Hammer,” (my pen name),
“Your story
Samson vs. The Crater Lake Spiders from the Asteroid belt
is fantastic. We would love to publish it,
with a few small edits.
The ending,
where Samson enlists the help of Major Nelson
from I Dream of Jeannie
to lure the spiders
into an active volcano
by having Steely Dan
play a live concert on the rim
so they can encase the spiders in molten lava,
load them on board
an Apollo era Saturn V rocket
and shoot them toward
the Oort cloud,
is a little cliché.
We’ve had three stories this cycle
with similar endings.
If you could re-write
a more creative finale
and send it back,
we’ll get it in our next issue.
Signed, The Bilemaster.”

DEVIL MUSIC

I dropped the needle
onto the spinning vinyl.
After a few
pops and cracks,
the music started,
an eerie organ
seeped from the walls,
swathing my head
in gloom.
A bass guitar followed
from a deep well
of darkness.
The music embedded itself
under my skin,
the notes shook my organs,
rumbled through my bowels,
bounced inside my skull
until my brain
was lost in a miasma
of moaning souls.
It was then
that the guitar,
tuned low,
and played with violence,
sheered my sanity
like a chainsaw.
I was writhing
on another plane
of existence,
releasing all my frustrations
and anger
with the world
until I was ragged
with exhaustion.
The music slowly
faded out,
my mind was free,
my body spent,
the darkness lifted.

INTO THE NIGHT

The floodwaters receded,
that’s when we found her
caught between rocks
and a felled tree,
exhausted and trapped
so she couldn’t escape
the deluge
that overran the town
when the dam broke.
I was there when they
moved her body.
I was the first to see
her eyes open
and the gurgle of water
leave her mouth.

The sheriff locked her
in the jail.
Half the town
thought she was a miracle,
the others shouted with hatred
that she must be a witch.
I didn’t know the truth,
but I knew she haunted me.

I left my bed that night
to break her out.
If you asked me why,
my answer would have been babble.
The jailhouse door was open,
all the lights on.
I found the sheriff
hanging in mid-air,
no rope, no wire, nothing,
just dangling over his desk,
neck broken,
a line of blood running
from each eye.
She emerged from
a dark corner,
skin still pale as porcelain,
long golden hair flat against
her cheeks.
She took my hand,
the color of her eyes
swirled like a storm cloud.
She smiled showing no teeth,
then led me
into the night.

It’s been almost thirty years
and I still don’t know
what she is
and I don’t ask,
because when I look into
the maelstrom of her eyes
I hear a thousand screams.