Scary Poems

I open my eyes and I see him there
with his gun, and it’s pointed right at me.
He’s going to shoot me
and only because I’m in the wrong place
at the wrong time.

Random violence,
random hate,
unpremeditated murder,
death coming my way,
and just because.

Only it doesn’t happen
because someone else screams,
and he turns
and they get shot instead
—in relief, I faint,
and I wake up when it’s over,
all around blood and gore and death.

People I know,
people I care about,
just snuffed out like that
and without reason,
and I can’t understand,
and I can’t bring them back.

After her parents had made her break up with me
she’d still call me on the phone,
only she wouldn’t say a word, she’d just listen,
but I knew that it was her—
I could hear her soft movements—
and I would tell her how I felt all over again,
and when I was done,
she would gently hang up the phone.
She would call the next evening,
and we would do it all again.

I don’t know how many times it happened,
but her parents finally moved away,
and the calls immediately stopped coming.
She was gone.

I longed for her. She was my true love.
I never doubted it.
And I knew that she felt the same,
but there was nothing for either of us to do.

It must have been about a year later,
my parents were on a week-end trip
and I was home alone,
the phone began to ring,
and I glanced at my clock.
It was 12:13 in the morning.
God, I thought, who would call me
at 12:13 in the morning!

I picked up the receiver
and I said, hello.
There was no response.
Nothing at all.
Just small breaths.
But I knew it was her.
I could hear her soft movements—
I asked her if she was back in town,
but I only got silence.

I told her all of it
just one more time
how I felt about her,
how deeply I loved her—
and how I wanted us to be together again.
I told her that I would wait forever
if that was what I had to do.

I thought I heard a soft whisper,
but I couldn’t be sure—
It could have been anything or anyone,
but I was sure it said, “come to me.”

The phone clicked,
and the call was done;
I wanted to cry,
my stomach was a twisted knot.

It was not until a few weeks later
that I heard from a friend of a friend
that she had died.

She’d walked in front of an oncoming car.
It had been that very same night as the call.
She had been rushed to the hospital,
and her heart had stopped beating
at precisely 12:13 in the morning,
the exact time of the call.

It’s as black as night,
And it’ll give you a fright,
But you’ll never see it,
‘Cause it’s tinier than a bit.

It is here; and it is there;
it is as naked as the air;
It stretches and it moves,
A stubby finger with grooves.

Oh, so slowly it goes;
Oh, so slowly it grows;
It’ll find you in your bed,
And it’ll leave you dead.

Oh, so slowly it grows;
Oh, so slowly it goes;
It’ll find its way into a stray sock,
And it won’t give a single knock.

Your friends will be left to wonder
What’s robbed you of your thunder—
Small black opals dripping into your toes,
And there’s not a single soul that knows.

Gentle voices waft
in the cool air;
I hear cries and moans,
late at night in the morgue.

Deep in the basement
in a corner no one goes,
a shadow sits and waits;
it has long spindly arms,
and someday it will grab you.

Crime scene photos bleed
a reality hard to grasp,
where murder is omnipresent;
anger only breeds regret—
a world you’ll fall into
less you look deep into your soul
and see the dark face
that peers back at you—
mouthing the words,
don’t fall in.

Earth is Hell,
in case you didn’t know it,
and the angels all fell long ago;
their wings were clipped,
and they hocked their halos
for mere scraps of meat
and a single night of pleasure.

Blood that boils under the floor boards;
Flies that gather in hordes over the windows;
Men with axes turned into monsters,
hunting down small children
who knows what for?

They say it’s the house,
that underneath it lays
a whole host of lies—
and that for each and every lie
the evil grows
pent up and down deep
until it just boils over
a seeping wet scarlet ooze.

It was red anger,
a seething hot reckless violence—
and it’s always the youngest
and it’s always the most innocent
that suffer the sins
of those gone before.

My footsteps echo in the dark;
Scurrying stray dogs howl then bark;
Whispering winds behind me chatter;
Drops, warm and viscous, soon splatter.

Scurrying stray dogs howl then bark;
Out of the blackness I see a small spark;
Drops, warm and viscous, soon splatter;
What you want from me is a very black matter.

Out of the blackness I see a small spark;
In a gleam it rises and falls, the fin of a shark;
What you want from me is a very black matter;
My feet finally freeze, and then they shatter.

In a gleam it rises and falls, the fin of a shark;
It comes up high and makes a wide arc;
My feet finally freeze, and then they shatter;
As I fall, oh, these feet make such a clatter.