The April Editor's Pick Poet is Michele Ford

PARANOIA

Darting eyes
Shadows around,
Muffled steps
Fears propound;
Encroaching spaces,
Crescendo voices
From animated faces,
Goose pimpling ripples;
Cold sweat flushes.
Shivering sensations,
Pounding headrushes,
The paranoid mentality of the
Crippled and diseased;
By perpetual terror,
Hounded and seized.

IN EXTREMIS

Eerie winds whistling
Through the barren winter trees,
Gnarled veiny branches
Fan black velvet skies.
Cruel tormenting howls at love's window pane,
Aching, longing, mourning time,
Stretch to unparalleled dimensions,
Released at a whim,
Love strong as death is crueller than the grave.

WHITE PLANET

She walked out of a dream,
Her silken footprints fading
Into the mists of forgetfulness;
Falling deeper incognito
Just like never before,
Into the arms of enchantment
Where love lies bleeding
From the cut that never heals,
Carpe Amorem.

LOOMING

As sunset fades into nightfall,
The tie-dyed clouds
Slowly melt away,
The flower heads nod;
Their tendrils curl
Inside their scented bonnets,
Leaves clasped
Like praying hands,
Evening faints,
Darkness descends,
The soothing lull
Of distant vehicles
Unfolds a backdrop
To the now conspicuous
Domestic clatter
Snapped shut
Behind locking windows,
As muffled voices
Grind to a halt,
The urban chaos subsides,
The peaceful moon
Glows majestically
As the forest yawns
Its awakening
Rumblings and rustling,
Foraging zigzags,
Animated furrowing,
Shuffles and snuffles,
While flittering wings;
Lunar dance shadowplay
To wisdom's eerie hoots
Revel in
Harmonious subsistence,
Carpe Noctem.

Michele Ford grew up in a highly artistic family in northern England, daughter of a Scottish sci-fi author/sculptor and Swiss-Italian painter. Her extensive travels and intriguing life experiences upon a remote island in the Baltic sea are intricately woven into this exquisite gothic verse. Her publications deliciously describe the depths and heights of emotions and perceptions of life.