there is beauty in the morning;
she rises like a tentative mist
glowing from an eastern sun:
soft, fullsome, backlit and bright
becoming one within this new light
a freshly awake, compelling image
warmed by promised dawn’s first flight
leaving behind a colder, darker night
for the challenge of some new height
upon which she falls within my sight
and i am carried by it through this day
full of colour,
absent of the ever-present gray
now banished by a more determined thought –
that hope is found, when hope is sought.

This tree

Is bright white

Beneath a darker sky

It speaks of some

Inner light

A metaphor to try

To fill myself

With the scent of apple blossoms

And a sweeter promise of fruit

There is a switch in my attic

That shuts down my furnace

When the house gets too warm

To stand

It’s so easy to flip

Just look at it too long

And the weight of my gaze

Will turn it all off

And things become cool

Then things become cold

And I am comfy as a corpse

In the frozen ground

But it is never a good thing,

There is no ice for the living

And I must to the attic return

Senseless, numb and staggered

With the effort to switch it back on

That the heat return

Warning my frost bitten hands

And I know it’s working

When the pain floods in

Because life is sure to follow

It took me forever

To realize to my shock

That I was the monster

Hiding under my bed;

That I was the shade

Peering from my closet

A haunted figure

That I cannot vanquish

So I must make friends

And invite me in

That I might learn

To live with myself

In the dark

I leave my heart on

That the soft glow

That flickers pale

As a fast of star

Will guide me

To a safer sleep

And I will not fall

Into shadow

The quiet is so loud

That the night buzzes with it

A silence that screams

Down the halls

And off the walls

So that even your heartbeat

Is as drums in the dark

It’s a time laden with

The burden of dreaming

That just won’t come

And the hollow left

Echoes with emptiness

Until the sun rises

To fill it with light

It’s a death of a salesman
kind of day
as the rain pours down
from the great and the grey
filling up the gutters
filling up my eyes
i wonder if this is what
arthur miller had in mind
when he set his mind to type
or if he was just trying to
exercise his demons
and shed the weight
while marilyn waited in the wings
a dream to come

there is a dragonfly
hovering before my face
all iridescence and resplendant
smug in its obvious beauty
as if to say:

“i fly like a jewel before the world
to the places you cannot see;
i whisper into your imagination
pictures of what you cannot be”

but it is enough
to watch this small garden god
take wing and spin to the skies
on wings of lovely lace
a small gift, in this one place

i tried to untangle
two vines
that had grown together
in the sun
over time
but they held tight
to one-another
each life a part
of a new whole;
only fire
only knives
and cutting shears
would do the trick
so that in the end
i had my barren space
i had this empty place
and only destruction
was needed in the end

Blood Hen: Noun. A creature of low magical significance created when a demon seeks to possess a human but accidentally possesses an adjacent chicken (the latter being mostly empty on the inside).

Despite the name, Blood Hens also include roosters. The Blood Hen (sometimes called Viking Chickens or Demon Cocks) is generally of foul (and fowl) disposition owing to the fact of its occupant’s unintended living quarters. It will chase and antogonize whomever gets remotely close employing a pecking and clawing attack strategy.

Blood Hens have no astounding powers other than the female of the species ability to lay flaming eggs that hatch into new Blood Hens and an overall cast of red with a persistant angry expression and two horns on their head. A Blood Hen nest is an excellent alternative or emergency heat source on colder winter nights. Nests tend to be composed of gathered rocks, and/or bits of scrap metal or a small untended cauldron. Straw and other inflammable material should be avoided at ALL COSTS. Blood Hens have been known to employ the devious strategy of intentionally laying eggs in barns and homes as a way of creating chaos and devestation. Tactics should be employed to avoid such evil.

It should be noted that Blood Hen eggs have become highly desired by some of the world’s most renowned chefs for the exotic and spicy omlettes that can be created with them…however few diners are brave enough to face the consequent acid reflux that inevitably follows consumption. The flesh shares similar attributes and can be found in Cajun cuisine.

The feathers of the Blood Hen have been used to create heated pillows, blankets and mattresses etc. however the heat effect gradually reduces to zero within two to three years of being plucked.

There are also Half-Blood Hens (this is where the term “half cocked” comes from) which are the product of Blood Hen and regular hen coupling. The Half-Blood Hen is the “mule” of the species having none of the reproductive abilities but all of the anger.

Postscript: The above mentioned attribute of “mostly empty on the inside” means the average chicken acts like a sort of intellect gravity well drawing in the nearest untethered intelligence, hence, keeping a chicken nearby is excellent defense against demonic possession (assuming of course that the one being defended has a higher intellect than the chicken and is willing to take on the consequences of creating and owning a demonicaly possessed bird).

The above entry is excerpted from The Annotated Encyclopaedia of Possessed, Supernatural and Otherwise Haunted Fowl by Harpy O’Doole, 1758 updated in 2024 by Peter Cantelon to whom all text and image copyright belong.