[RCL]

Every night’s unhallowed eve!


Shadow Bears

They crowd into my yard some nights,
cavort beneath the moon. But play
soon shifts to snarling, bloody fights.
When reconciled, they claw a way
inside the house and find my room.
It’s locked. Enraged, they bellow, score
the threshold of my lair—and loom
as pounding paws collapse the door.
Fighting to keep the beasts at bay,
I shrink from growling jaws that reek
of feral feasts, and softly pray,
fearing what these monsters seek.
At dawn, I struggle to all fours,
my burning eyes too weak to see—
but know there are no lockable doors
between the shadow bears and me.

[David Anthony]

Cracking and subtly weird poems on this neglected thread. I shall add one of mine.

[David Anthony]

A cry cut through the winter’s wind. “Who died?”
the student asked, his focus far away
from college friends who’d just arrived to stay.
“Poor Hywel Jones”, his grandmother replied.

The guests had read of spirits that abide
in Celtic lands - those keening wraiths who stray
when souls are crossing - and they felt the fey
forebodings carried where the cold wind cried.

Across the road a carpenter once more
bent to his task. The same old man who made
cots for the babies, built a thing to hold
no hope, no future. As his power saw
began to turn again, its cutting blade
bewailed an ending and the wind blew cold.