Thursday, May 25, 2006

Poetry Break: "Prodigal Fears"

Ghostly Female Ascending a Staircase
(Borrowed from Wikipedia)

Wonderdog, of that Southern California blog What's the Rumpus, has recently referred to me as "kinda the James Brown of the literary world."

I think that he means that I'm a toothless wonder who splits infinitives.

For your 'kinda' words, Wonderhounddog, thank you. Thank you very much.

In appreciation for Wonderdog's high praise, I offer a literary effort from my extremely short series of vampire poems:

Prodigal Fears

And thus, my little sister, you are here
like Lazarus, come back from the abyss,
revealed in shadows, hidden in the air,
a mystery of some faith we don't profess.
Shall you turn back, descend again that stair?

For what within such darkness do you yearn?

What visions had you in your charnel home?
What hieroglyphic secrets on the walls?
Who measured time that crawled across your bones
like Golem seeping deep down hollowed halls?
. . . such foulness withered in the heart of stone.

Is that where you, my sister, now belong?
I wrote that circa 1985, but no, I don't have a little sister. Or a big sister. Or a twin sister. Only brothers. According to my son En-Uk, girls are 14 times more difficult to conceive than boys, so I blame my parents for screwing the process utterly, malfunctionally up.

That's why I had to dream up my own sister ... a nonexistent, deceased little sister who returns as a vampire?

I need professional help...

4 Comments:

At 7:39 AM, Blogger StickOnTheBeach said...

Enjoyed your lovely poem. It was a nice break from work. Kind of fits my mood today.

 
At 8:08 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Thanks, Stick On The Beach. Wonderdog might like it less since the words don't precisely rhyme.

Jeffery Hodges

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At 2:04 PM, Blogger Wonderdog said...

Thank you for that one, oh "Professor of Seoul". You may be the James Brown of the literary world but you're also the Milton of Vampire Poems.

You're right, though. The imprecise rhyming does have me a bit vexed --"here" with "air" and "stair"? "home" with "bones" and "stone"?

tisk tisk.

I just may have to feature this little gothic number of yours in my next "Rhymes that don't rhyme" series.

This poem of yours reminds me of a sort of werewolf poem I wrote during the 80s as well, though toward the end of that decade. If I can manage to find it, I just might subject you to it. (I don't believe it rhymes at all)

PS
you were one sick puppy, dude.

 
At 2:24 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Well ... just pretend that the decadent rhyme reflects the decadent theme in this creepy, decrepit, lurid lyric.

Jeffery Hodges

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