Yet Another Four Gothic Poems
Rhys Hughes
My writing of Gothic Poems has slowed down, as I knew it must. It is harder to be Gothic in summer than in any other season, but that’s not the reason. When writing so many poems constrained by theme, style and presentation, one must take extra care not to rely too much on repetition. The same imagery endlessly swirls in the consciousness. Two or three poems about ruined castles are surely acceptable, but not a dozen. A limit of some sort must be imposed on vampires, werewolves, ghosts and lost cities. And yet the familiar spectral backdrops are precisely what gives power to the Gothic, a sense of déjà vu as well as danger. I have done my best to strike a balance and will continue to do so.
The Gargoyle
High over the town
it frowns down
and heedless the people pass.
But one day
they will say: why didn’t we
look up before?
The sculpture is scored
with chisel scars
made by
a drunken artisan
who clearly
abhorred
the task he was given
by some
impetuous lord.
The gargoyle is evil
beyond a doubt:
there is something awful
in the tusked snout
balanced over the world.
Yet none below seem aware
of the threatening stares
it offers to the
grounded crowds: believers
and scoffers,
gullible mockers,
no one appears to care.
But the crack in the tower
nears the hour
when the gargoyle
will break free: and then we
all must see
a closer familiarity
with the weight of its hate.
I am that monster
looming above,
waiting for fate to turn me
from dragon
to dove:
dragon of heaven,
dove of hell,
seismic shift
and all’s unwell.
Yes, I am
the gargoyle.
Your bones will be crushed
into powerless powder
by my mineral glower:
your blood will run swiftly
along the channels
in my stones.
I will fall
and you will die, alone.
The Hollow Tree
I missed the turning
in the fading light
and went the wrong way
without discerning
my mistake. Already late
for my engagement,
forsaking caution,
I pressed onwards,
churning frightful thoughts.
I ought to have been
more aware: to care
deeply about where
exactly I might be going
but I was engrossed
in smaller worries, hurrying
oblivious through a twilight
festooned with ghosts,
ghouls studded with warts.
And then I passed the hollow tree
and that was the end
of my journey!
The correct direction
in such a forest is key
to the preservation of
our sanity. Now I am a man
in a new home, devoid
of affection, all alone,
woebegone, stuck for eternity
behind the dark bark
of an ancient oak: cruel joke!
The arms that seized me
as I went by were strong
but softer than any sigh:
my resistance was less
than feeble, voice a croak,
as evil dragged me inside,
and this is where I reside,
an abscess in reality’s side:
swallowed by hollowness.
Walk not past the hollow tree
if you wish to finish
your journey!
The Attic
I built the house myself.
It wasn’t old.
There was nothing cold
about the place.
No ancient disgrace had
tainted the land:
the atmosphere was calm.
And when it was finished
after one year
it was just an empty shell,
nothing to tell
me to stay away by subtle
signs of some
grotesque violated secrecy.
But one peculiar afternoon
I climbed up
to the highest room, an attic
not yet used,
and found a space crammed
with bones,
thousands of the damn things.
The timbers of my home
are groaning
and still I have no notion
of how, why,
where or what: skeletons
from nothing,
the twisted kind of miracle.
We believe that every effect
has its cause,
that every horror is a lesson,
but confession
sometimes yields no insight:
it is not right
to assign an arbitrary blame.
I have no skeletons at all
in any closet.
They are in my existence
instead, alive
rather than dead: clattering
a desecration
inside my desiccated head.
The Sunken City
The sunken city
is calling me: forlorn,
timeworn, a legendary summons.
Swamped by time, it is not mine
but I am compelled to
listen: otherwise?
The shore I walk
is far from home: the mutterings
of ghosts drowned
off the coast, waterborne
but undiluted, reach me quaintly,
faintly vagabond,
yet I am unsuited
to heed them: my fluttering heart
still betrays me.
How can I respond?
The sun is sinking,
colours fade, the tide is turning
and my yearning
laps the reefs of a burning mind.
The tales of mermen all are lies:
be wise enough
to know just this: they will insist
you drink deep
of the brine that promotes sleep:
solving riddles,
weeping wine,
will not dissolve your sufferings.
They say
the bells of ancient towers
turned to rust
still swirl and chime:
iron flakes, petals of evil flowers
settling inside the heads of those
who tempt tides
of unkempt fate
their entire lives
instead of dropping to rest on the
aching seabed,
making the dreaded dead gyrate.
But the bells of other metals
that do not oxidise
groan in contemptuous tones,
moan in the voices
of demons trapped alone with
crystallised vices.
The choices we make
determine the hate of the spirits
in the sunken city,
decide how they might indicate
our responsibility
and the necessity
that we offer ourselves
to the fuss of the waves of death.
The
sunken
city is calling
me: forlorn, timeworn,
a legendary summons to the courts
of abyssal chaos.
