Something About Her by Stewart Stafford
Her cemetery chill touch,
Felt in porcelain hands,
Vacant heartbeat stolen,
Desert of smooth sand.
Her eyes were portals,
To a feral, scary land,
With no outlet or relief,
Automaton at her command.
Yes, break the spell now,
An eye blink from losing all,
Just a heave and it is broken,
New dawn beyond her thrall.
© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved
The Apparition by Stewart Stafford
The Indian burial ground,
Lay beyond the tree steeples,
Wind murmured in the branches,
Of lost lands and wounded ancestors.
A new tenant’s first night at home,
A Wendigo came in a pandemic fugue,
The head, neck and shoulders visible,
Jittery, contorted shapes on blinds.
Wild dawn packing, screeching tyres,
Home sweet home, still beyond reach,
Out of the driveway at top speed then,
Flight from an entity that won’t leave you.
© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.
Picture: ”The Wendigo” © Diana Franco Campos
Owl Hollow Road by Stewart Stafford
On a bracing night walk,
On leafy Owl Hollow Road,
A raspy voice whispered to me,
Like a deep-croaking old toad.
I moved rapidly on my path,
And then heard phantom feet,
Looked around, empty space,
Only silence replaced the beat.
At my most pressing pace now,
A shadow pointed past my shoulder,
An SUV slammed into my side,
And I broke my back on a boulder.
© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.
The Forbidden Place by Stewart Stafford
Bypass the chateau on the hill,
For, as dusk falls, horrors creep,
Griffins and gargoyles fly and flay,
And grotesque statues come alive.
Badinage becomes shrieks and roars,
Shrill warnings for the straying and foolish,
Cats as big as panthers stalk and slay,
As their homicidal master flogs their fur.
Wandering werewolves fetch human bones,
A savage rampage beneath a Hunter’s Moon,
As the dawn routine reasserts its dominance,
Denizens of night bathe in darkness’s arms.
© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.
Pomona’s Feast by Stewart Stafford
Home from aggressive begging on November Eve,
A horror movie that won’t be finished in the background,
The pirate’s booty or robber’s swag is examined.
Face in the bag, a cornucopia of scents in the nostrils:
Oranges, nuts, burnt popcorn, chocolate,
Toffee apples, crisps, Liquorice Allsorts, and Rice Krispie cakes.
A smörgåsbord Pomona’s feast begins,
As a maternal voice advises frugality,
To no avail.
Noses in the trough,
Nothing eaten bears any relation to the thing eaten before or after,
Aching gums, jaws, and bellies swiftly ensue.
To bed to sleep it off,
The next morning, it’s déjà vu,
The maternal voice again advises eating breakfast first, to no avail.
© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.
Too late, my thirst has come,
Sends bloodlust down my spine,
My body knows it’s feeding time.
Goodbye, everybody, I’ve got to go,
Gotta leave you all behind and drink from Ruth.
Mama, ooh (any way the cock crows),
I can never lie,
I sometimes wish we weren’t undead at all.
I see a little silhouetto of a vamp,
Scaring me, Scaring me, will you do the Fang-dango?
Drinking blood and fighting,
Very, very frightening me.
(Garlic Pizza) Garlic Pizza.
(Garlic Pizza) Garlic Pizza,
Garlic pizza from Holy Joe’s
A big no-no-o-o-o.
I’m just a poor boy, no vampire wants me.
He’s just a poor boy from a vampire family,
Spare him his life and we’ll sharpen his teeth.
Vampires come, vampires go, will you let me go?
Bram Stoker! No, he will not let you go. (Let him go!)
Van Helsing! We will not let you go. (Let him go!)
Bela Lugosi! We will not let you go. (Let me go!)
Will not let you go. (Let me go!)
Never let you go (Never, never, never, never let me go)
Oh oh oh oh
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
Oh, Vlad the Impaler, Vlad the Impaler (Vlad the Impaler, let me go.)
Count Dracula has a coffin put aside for me, for me, for Hallowe-een.
So you think you can shove me out into sunlight?
So you think you can stake me and leave me to die?
Oh, baby, can’t try burying me, baby,
Just gotta crawl out, just gotta creep right outta this crypt.
(Ooooh, ooh yeah, ooh yeah)
Stakes they go with hammers,
Everyone can see,
Stakes they go with hammers,
Stakes they go with hammers into me.
Any way the cock crows.
Okay, folks, the audiobook of my short story “Nightfall” has just dropped. Have a listen and see what you think.
(Check out my epic fantasy vampire novel “The Vorbing.” All donations gratefully accepted here.)
Halloween Henry sitting on top of a pumpkin he made
Eyes are ablaze
Morbid Melissa breastfeeding strychnine to all of the babes
Her smile never fades
Don’t you see that darkness creeping?
It’s a nightmare without sleeping
Trick-or-Treat Trevor knocking on doors with no head to display
It’s his headless way
Emmet The Clownface
Haunting the grounds of an old children’s school
He’s nobody’s ghoul
On a carpet of Autumn leaves
They’re around every All Hallow’s Eve
Sam O’Terry counting the bones of his earthly remains
None of them lame
Simon-Whose-Head-Hurts taking his 920th overdose
Chemically verbose
They will always do their worst
On October the 31st
©Stewart Stafford, 2016. All rights reserved.
If you’re a generous person who believes this writer should be paid for his hard work, you may donate here.
To read more of this author’s work, check out his short story Nightfall and novel The Vorbing.
Ladies and gentlemen, at long, long last (19 years), my book The Vorbing is finally available for pre-order on Amazon.
Exciting times ahead in the near future. Join me.
stewartstaffordblog 