POETRY BY FRANK COFFMAN

Frank Coffman is a retired professor of English, Creative Writing and Journalism. He has published speculative poetry and fiction in a variety of journals, magazines, anthologies, and collections.

His major collections of verse are: The Coven’s Hornbook & Other Poems (2019),  Black Flames & Gleaming Shadows (2020),  and Eclipse of the Moon (2021).  His collection of occult detective stories, Three Against the Dark: Collected Dr. Venn Occult Detective Mysteries was released in 2022.

He is a member of the Horror Writers Association and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. He created and moderates the Weird Poets Society Facebook Group.

THE CORPSE BIRD
(a sonnet in the Welsh meter of Cyhydedd Naw Ban)

There is a dreaded bird of legends
Whose dire call impending death portends.
When the Aderyn y Corph is heard,
And dewch—“Come hither!” is the word,
You must prepare for end to breathing
For all about foul Death is wreathing
His ring to fling you into his fold;                             
Then you’re old as you’ll ever be old.

This dread Thing has not feathers nor wings,
And some say, after its Death-Call sings,
To Earth’s End it goes—and then wends past!         
To a different plane of existence, vast,
Unknowable to our mortal minds—
Where Reason dies, Sanity unwinds!

THE KORRIGANS
(Breton Sonnet)

Not of mischievous gnome I write;
No dwarf or fairy this fey sprite,
But those who in our waters dwell,
In springs and rivers that will lure
Song-enthralled men to death most sure—
To be drowned by these sirens fell.

These fiends, white-robed, with flowing hair
By dusk or night seem beauties rare.
But by day, eyes of red, hair white,
Wrinkled crones from light they will hide,
Cloaking until the day has died,
Waiting to deal death in the night.

At Full Moon, these pagan sprites dance round fount or rill.
On Samhain underneath dolmens they lurk, waiting to kill.

WARMING
(Three Haiku and a Tanka)

long droughts and mudslides,
flooding and vast forest fires,
hurricanes, “twisters,”

glaciers receding,
many crops drowning or baked,
polar bears dying
stranded on “ice boats,”
pestilence and stark famine
plaguing humankind.

many say it’s too late—
already too late to save
our world. Sci-Fi books
speak of finding other Earths.
why not work to save this one?

WE GHOULS
(a sonnet in the Welsh form of the Rhupunt)

We are the Ghouls, and grisly pools form when we drool each time we dine.
Those reft of breath who’ve met their death, gone underneath—their taste is fine!
When corpses fall into Our Hall, we gather all that we can find.
From times of old our story’s told: we, when you’re cold, feed on your kind.
We rob the grave so we can savor putrid flavor in fanged maw.
Sweet to us—War provides great gore as we explore each field of fray;
We, with great guile, your dead defile through black night while your folk you slay.
Hunger increased, on Death we feast—the Primal Beast is but our Law.
We prefer graveyards, but no slaves to that behavior or such zone.
If—chance you pace through forlorn place—you’ll find our trace. You’re not alone!
We can shift shape! Our mouths agape, there’s no escape—we’ll drink your blood.
And a young child, so tender, mild. Don’t be beguiled…we love such food.
You hold Life dear. But let’s be clear. When we are near, we just may kill!
We prefer rot! But—if you’re caught, though “New Death’s” hot—the heart is still.