The March Selected Poet is Tony Daly

Please feel free to email Tony at: Aldlay13@gmail.com

DOWNWARD SPIRAL

My world is brilliant, all light kaleidoscopic, 
but on a thin ice ledge, fragile, fracturable.
One spot of darkness can ruin my life. 
It links to all negative, historical resonance, 
snaking through my mind, throughout my time, 
dragging the memories of yesterday’s slights, 
greying the kaleidoscope, hiding my light.
Then anger, hate, sadness, self-loathing, 
swallow my personality in gloomy twilight.
Tears rage like a furnace of rain,  
burning in uncontrollable floods, 
washing me to pitch black, 
where I can’t think, don’t exist.

THUNDERING GIANT

A raised hand
A cacophonous voice bellowing forth
With such furry
The wind from his lungs ruffles my fur
Almost as much as the drunken swing
That barely misses my snout
I yelp
And scurry into my cave
Allowing myself to be corralled
For fear alone
For I have no love of my captor
No Stockholm syndrome
A little urine trickles down my leg
As I cower from the thundering giant

COTTAGE IN THE WOODS
(Inspired by Rober Frost)

We chanced upon it passing through the wood one autumn afternoon,
hidden among the ancient oak and knotted pine.
It possessed an eerie silhouette against the haunted sky.
With no path of which to speak,
we picked our way through brambles and vines.
The door was locked and boarded tight,
so we found our way to a broken pain,
glass shattered by the swing of knotted pine.
In we looked at the clean-swept floor,
the red-brick hearth with the roaring green fire,
the cat with a pointed hat and mouse skull on a pike.
We knew we trespassed where, perhaps, we should not.
Turning we noted our path home had been blocked.
I am now surprised we were surprised at that turn of event,
knowing how unholy the sights we saw were in retrospect,
and ashamed of the last moments we spent together on earth.
For it was you who stayed and shrunk and scurried about,
until you were caught and mounted on a stick of knotted pine,
and me who fled screaming into the night.

CRIMSON-BUTTERFLY DAY
(inspired by Robert Frost)

It is Crimson-Butterly Day in autumn.
The sky bleeds in perpetual torrent.
Monochrome reds from top to bottom.
The queasy find it quite abhorrent.

But these are flowers that fly,
at least to the well-trained eye.
For those who feed on others’ currents,
this day abstains from common deterrents.

The holy hide in their stone enclosure,
protected by cloth of the divine skirt.
But the unblessed lose their composure
when crimson flows from beneath their shirt.

As I and my siblings swoop about,
cutting life strings before they shout,
reaping the wealth of our harvest moon,
feeding fast for it ends too soon.

Tony Daly is a poet and short story writer of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and military fiction. His work was recently published in Illumen, Silver Blade, and The Stray Branch. He is also proud to serve as an Associate Editor with Military Experience and the Arts.

Born and raised in Western New York, he currently lives in the Washington DC Metro Area.

For a list of his published work, please visit https://aldaly13.wixsite.com/website or follow him on Twitter @aldaly18.