*”The Summons” may have been published by Luna Ventures in 1996 or 1997; however, after sending a query about its status without receiving any response, I withdrew the submission.
And the Dead Shall Inherit the Earth
A potion sipped by moistened tongue;
A mind whose thoughts are freely spun;
A hand that’s firm but gently held;
And whispered words of tortured spell;
The magic flows like well-made web;
The content sings of pain and dread;
The corpses flung from death betrayed
have stirred, are rising from their graves;
The silence gasps as movement creeps,
and once again are they who sleep
whose hands decayed and eyes of dust
upward through dirt are thrust;
The earth is bleeding tangled dead
with drops of blood that quickly spread
across the cemetery lawn
like frozen thoughts unbidden drawn;
A voice of driest crinkled leaf
has summoned them, said, “Come to me.”
And come they do with heavy stride
to stand as one, side by side,
an army dead for years untold,
their rusted swords held high and bold;
all gathered round their master and—
He cast his incantation wrong!
The dead whose voices seldom sing
Enclose him in a corporal ring;
His cries of anger, fear, and dread
appease the hunger of these dead.
When bony grips and toothy grin
have finished with their master’s skin,
they crunch on bone from leg and arm
and crush the faulty magic charm
whose flaws betrayed the wizard’s dream,
choking off his final scream.
The moral here? A simple one:
Leave a sleeping corpse alone!
Spell-Bound
A thaumaturgic circle made of chalk
derived from powdered bones of murdered men;
The symbols and the runes will never talk,
but will speak volumes to the demon-kin;
So simple are the lines and markings wrought,
and yet they will contain the deadly beast:
An inch inside, a world so danger fraught;
An inch outside, a world in seeming peace.
The demon-kin moves slowly in its cage
and surveys its integrity for holes,
and, finding one, it screams in gleeful rage
and steps with certainty and firm control.
He reaches for the wizard’s tiny neck
and stretches it until it starts to crack.…
All Hallows Eve
October rains have brought a sudden chill
that seeps into the marrow of my bone;
I stand like pine upon a broken hill
and find that I no longer stand alone;
Behind me in the mist, there is a form
escaping from the shadows of a cave;
Unleashed with vigor from the building storm,
it creeps in silence to a waiting grave;
I watch it folding back the sodden earth
to disappear inside a darkened stair
and feel my spirit gently giving birth
to horror that is well beyond compare—
until a claw comes reaching out for me,
and I am petrified and cannot flee.…
Blueblood’s Ghost
Blueblood’s ghost was an ornery sort,
haunting the alleys of Salem’s port,
chasing the men with a merry laugh,
and clacking the cobbles with his phantom staff.
For the women, he used a different ploy,
serenading them with a lover’s joy,
his voice was full and strong with sweet
for any poor lady he happened to meet.
The boats, it is said, could hear him bewail
for miles about in midwinter’s gale;
Shudders would spin down the sailors’ spines:
“Blueblood’s Ghost,” muttered time after time.
But the truth of the matter—if truth be told—
there were no ghosts left to behold,
For a figment was he from the distant past,
a fragment of legend with mythical cast.
But tell this not to the fearful men
who swear they hear him, time and again,
Nor to the ladies, blush though they do,
who whisper in secret of their lover’s coo,
For they will run you out of town
or find a stake and burn you down—
So nod your head and agree with them,
the odd little villagers from sleepy Salem.
A Moral Dilemma
If I can kill and slake my thirst for blood
and leave the siphoned bodies where they fall,
would that turn me into an undead stud
instead of just a creepy guy from hell?
Vampiric lusts have always come and gone
(it is the nature of my quaint disease),
but I have managed to forestall it some
by drinking blood from captive chimpanzees.
The nutrients I get aren’t quite enough
(there’s something missing that I need to have),
but I can compensate with human blood
while working on the mortuary staff.
This does negate my blood’s anemia:
I haven’t had to kill to get my blood.
Sage Advice on Monsters
[1]
A monster has a wicked attitude
because its hunger never seems to end;
Engrossed completely in its search for food,
he has no time at all for making friends;
I tell you this so you might comprehend
the plight of wicked monsters on the prowl,
and maybe if you try to understand,
you won’t be found inside their cooking bowl.
So, if you see a wicked monster’s eyes
looking hungrily into your own,
just say, “Hello,” and you might be surprised:
you could enjoy a dinner in his home.
But then, again, I could be quite in err;
It could just be a hungry monster there.
[2]
Now, dragons are another thing, indeed.
I met one, once, when I was very young.
You don’t go near their shiny claws or teeth
unless you want to be a dinner bun.
Their arrogance is legendary stuff;
Their ego is the only thing there is
that can surpass their appetite for blood.
It is a blessing that so few exist.
They do not yearn for friendly company
(their only wish is for a tasty meal),
and so, the wisest course for us must be
to flee from dragons flying in to kill.
Unless, of course, your courage is extreme,
surpassing every bit of reasoning.
[3]
I knew a man of courage named B’Rul,
who wished to slay a dragon for his love;
If you ask me, I think he was a fool:
There is no living woman worth that much.
He spoke to many sages in the land
in hopes that they might tell him where to go,
until he came across a willing man
who knew of where a dragon made its home.
The gold was given freely in advance;
B’Rul was bound to go and not return,
which made it quite unwise to take a chance
of not receiving payment that was earned.
It was a sound decision that I made:
I never saw B’Rul alive again.
B’Rul
I smell the scorc
hing scent of dragon’s breath
and hear the grinding of its gnashing teeth;
The salty spray of blood means certain death
for all within its grasp—including me!
The thunder of its roar is like a God’s;
The shaking of the ground is frightening;
A warrior has a chance, so sing the bards,
and so the legends claim, eternally.
But here I stand, a foolish idiot
with tiny sword of rusted, dulling steel,
a revelation churning in my gut:
I know I do not stand a chance in hell!
I close my eyes and swing with all my might
and pray that I might make it through the night.…
Flying High
The dragon flew on winds adrift
to smell the carnage down below
that smoke and chaos chose to lift
above the trampled, bloody snow;
She felt her hunger grow and grow
and closed her eyes in utter bliss
and followed where the currents go
into the Mountains of the Mist.
Her senses craved to gently sift
the textures of her fallen foe
who seemed, to her, a trifle miffed
beneath the burnished, searing glow
that she had chosen to bestow;
In truth, she found she could resist
the craving that she brought in tow
into the Mountains of the Mist.
And so she flew above the rift
and passed the village Broken Bow
that read the portent as a gift
(a dragon’s rare, as we all know)
when she went by and didn’t throw
a single, warm, emblazoned kiss
and then they watched the warm wind blow
into the Mountains of the Mist.
Still held enraptured by the show,
forgetting where the mountain was,
the dragon crashed with force untold
into the Mountains of the Mist.
The Serpent’s Tongue
They came with vengeance late one dreamy night
and brought afflictions to the village folk;
The giant serpents with their poisoned bite
were singing riddles and sadistic jokes.
Their poisoned fangs were frightful things to see
attached to human heads with snake-like tails;
More frightful still, their songs of mockery
and haunted laughter like a banshee wail.
They slithered through the streets and struck with ease;
They brought with them a slow and painful death;
And not unlike a fetid, wet disease,
they infiltrated deeper with each breath.
They never once attacked us with their teeth:
They killed us with their twisted gaiety!
To the Gods, I Sing
Winter blows her blustery wind,
and the cold hard snow comes blown’ in,
but I’m warm, cozy and warm,
huddled by a fire, amid the storm.
My mind fills with thoughts of flame;
My soul is strong and free of shame;
My heart is cloaked in a web of fire;
My fingers caress the mystical lyre—
A tune I play, to warm the blood!
The song erupts in torrid flood!
The words and sounds of a long-lost tune,
soft ballads and lyrics so long unsung.
An epic of burning desires that be
in glorious Celtic history,
with bards and druids and wizards afoot,
gold and silver and other such loot—
A treasure trove of words I sing;
For the ears of one and all, I sing!
O’ glorious past that beckons me
from the frozen wastes of my misery;
Come, O Lords! Come! Come!
Take a weary soul to home!
And leave an earthen shell behind:
A feast for the hungry wolves of time.
To the Gods, I sing!
Magic Wood
When I went strolling by a hidden glen,
I paused to watch a lively little show
that’s seldom witnessed by us modern men:
An elf was dancing lightly on the snow.
The dance was one of intricate design
with weaving patterns shifting to and fro;
I felt a rhythmic answer in my mind
to fill a question that I hadn’t known.
The urge to dance came overwhelmingly;
My heart was beating with its lively song;
I could not stop the twitching of my feet
because the elfin magic was too strong—
And then the elf was gone, and there I stood,
perplexed and all alone amid the wood.
About the Author
Robert P. Hansen teaches philosophy at a community college and writes fiction and poetry in his spare time. His work has appeared in various small press publications since 1994.