POETRY BY LINDAANN LOSCHIAVO

Native New Yorker and Elgin Award winner, LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a member of the British Fantasy Society, HWA, SFPA and the Dramatists Guild—and is a spooky Scorpio who loves Hallowe’en.

Current books: Messengers of the Macabre, Vampire Ventures, Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems (Wild Ink, 2024) and Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide (Ukiyoto Publishing, 2024).

NONET LUNAR BEAST

Moonrise evoked the ferocity
Of hunger, eyes focused as if
The world was a carousel
Circling like a buffet,
Ready for his fangs.
Afterwards he
Shrugged off fur.
Wildness
Slept.

WOLF GIRL RELISHES THE WOLF MOONRISE

In January, howling starts before
The Wolf Moon fattens, rouses appetites.

Lupa unzipped her human flesh, which masked
Her wolfishness, peeved that outsiders forced
Shape-shifters to conform when traditions
Created bonds, togetherness, and pride
In sharp teeth—carcass-shredding bold canines.

As dusk neared, she approached the meeting place.
The pack has punched through fog like ten knuckles,
Loud wolf-song paving twilight with unrest,
Aware their wilding will start come moonrise.

Lupa recalled another hunt. A beast
Resisted as she clawed its breasts, no give
In that tough hide—but sweet pink meat throughout.

Her tipsy parents, partying with friends,
Believed she’s home in bed, not cleaning up
Intestines with her tongue, obsessed, moonstruck.

As words replaced gruff growls, she glanced around
To fold the scene like laundry, pack away
Red souvenirs, simplicities—unlike
Reprieves from hunger. Sly triumph will be
The windowsill she’ll rest her elbows on.

Note: January’s full moon is often called the Wolf Moon, a name which may date back to when wolves would howl outside villages.

WOLFSBANE AND MIDNIGHT

“… can become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”
The Wolf Man (1941)

By autumn, the stalks will have surrendered, so he studies this profusion of pretty poison now, summer’s seductive beauty, hooded like an executioner who also understands the theory of death.  No sense digging at the black roots of his rage, which plant themselves wherever he goes. Aconitum napellus, lethal to both man and beast, non-fragrant, brandish bluish-purple helmeted blooms. But les fleurs du mal, toxic to the touch, are not the real enemy.

night slides
its matchbox open
sparks well-worn worries

If he hadn’t left home . . . if he hadn’t traveled abroad . . . if the horse hadn’t stumbled . . . if that gypsy caravan had not been so near. The magic, the curse. Unfair—all those theatrics for which a man pays with his body. Yet the man he’d been thirty years ago would not have hesitated. Now he was far away from being himself. Nothing is under his control and the awareness of it are the burned bones of his doom. Only death is the black fist of pain unclenched.
held still

wolfsbane bewitches
owl’s warning hoot

Clocktower chimes. Against his mortal will, a sealed entity unseals itself. Another mouth opens, revealing forty-two canine teeth. The brute’s rage clothed itself, calculated its shape, then gathered its strength and clawed itself out.
moonlit thrills

pursuing the shifty shape
a shadow transformed