The July Editor's Pick Poet is Morgan Griffith

Please feel free to email Morgan at: arkanthis@yahoo.com

THE TREE BY THE HOUSE

The tree by the house has serrate hands
That scratch at window pane
And moans with knotted mouths that drool
White larvae when it rains.

Odd things wash to the surface
Snagged between its crippled knees—
A tattered dress; a shock of hair;
A bloodstained set of keys.

The tree by the house turns red and gold
When summer yields to fall.
Swirled earthward by a breeze its hands
Flex ribboned veins…and crawl.                     

MORENA

In dreams I’ve seen her sleeping
In a coffin filled with blood
Fair as when we sealed her in the tomb.
I’ve sensed her breathless presence
When candlelight expired
And wakened to a trace of her perfume.

So chill, her wild caresses—
Like ice they freeze the soul.
So fierce, the burning promise in her eyes.
I shun the holy necklace,
Lay bare the priceless vein
And shudder with the truth her promise buys.

A DEMON’S SOLILOQUY

I have seen a famulus crafted from a necromancer’s pyre
Where blood-filled vials lay gleaming like rubies in the fire.
I have read the tome unholy with its sacrificial scars
To summon cursed Elder Ones who wait beyond the stars.
I have heard the screams from galleons
Maelstromed down in krakens wake
I have ridden upon white sea worms to isles that men forsake.
I have witnessed Jupiter rising from an adamantine spire
I have watched the dance of witches and played a dead queen’s lyre.
I have tasted immortality from the pool at sorrows end     
I have committed sins innumerable, that time cannot amend.

THE GOBLIN POOL

When a bloated moon rises in a cloudless sky
Glaring down like a lidless, Cyclopean eye,
An eerie procession of moldering ghouls
Embark toward the goblin pool.
Deep in caverns of stalactite and lichen it lies
Rimmed with a vein of undisturbed lazuli.
Bones of crusaders and crypt-purloined jewels
Encircle the goblin pool.
With beakers and vials the black lake they defy,
Whispering sonnets of ghoulish lullaby
To soothe a foul lord of carnivorous rule
Asleep in the goblin pool.
Necromancers and queens for this potion shall vie
Whose dregs set aflame summon mad incubi.
Elixir and philter and oracle’s tool
All spring from the goblin pool.
Losing his foothold a panicked ghoul cries
Stirring from the depths an infernal reply.
Escaping companions sacrifice the fool
For flasks of the goblin pool.
Capering to market they feign saddened sighs
For with fresh ingredients the price multiplies.
Wizard and alchemist and witch shall drool
To sample the goblin pool.

Morgan Griffith was born in California and currently lives in central Florida. After small success as a dark fantasy poet and artist in the 1980s, with work appearing in Eldritch Tales; The Arkham Sampler; The Horror Show; Etchings and Odysseys and Leilah Wendell’s Necromance, her focus turned to fiction. Recent publications of her work include The Literary Hatchet; In Creeps the Night; Cellar Door; and the upcoming anthology A Mythos Grimmly. By day she does glass etching and sandblasting while listening to rock and goth tunes. She often writes by candlelight. Her trusted companion is a rat named D’Vito.