The July Selected Poet is Ed Blundell

Please feel free to email Ed at: edblundell@talktalk.net

SIRENS

A voice as sweet as angels,
As a lark high in the sky,
Trilling and lilting and luring,
A sound for which you could die.

A voice that sings at the sunset
Calling you into the night,
Singing and summoning sailors,
Towards a flashing light.

Sweet as the nightingale’s music,
Heavenly song of the dance,
Listen its notes and surrender,
Sink in ethereal trance.

Surf sounds, the wind is a whisper,
Nothing now looks like before,
Eyeless and void of their reason,
They crash on rocks of the shore.

The ship a wreck and the sailors
Drowning in bleak agony,
And still the song of the siren,
Echoes out over the sea.

A SUDDEN DEATH

Secret and insidious thoughts,
Enter my head.
You inherit all his wealth,
When the old man’s dead.

Frail, old man with rheumy eyes,
His heart is not too strong.
Wheezy chest and nasty cough,
Not for this world too long.

Devious and insidious lies,
I begin to spread.
Sad, so sad but it can’t be long,
I fear, before he’s dead.

Frail, old man with haunted eyes,
That follow me everywhere.
It won’t be long before those eyes,
Fix in a dead man’s stare.

Terrible pains in my chest,
My heart feels it will burst.
Crafty, knowing old man’s grin;
He poured the poison first.

DJINN

In an ancient, crazed ceramic vase,
Held close with an eldritch spell,
Locked fast by Solomon's sacred seal,
A Djinn was forced to dwell.

One of an old primeval race,
A thing from Time’s very dawn,
Only the mark of God’s chosen,
Contained the Devil’s spawn.

A shapeless, formless, fetid thing,
Black product of darkness and night.
Atavistic power of evil
Held in by the star of light.

When the full moon rode high in the sky,
Its white light mystically strong,
The vase emitted a keening sound,
A curious, primitive song.

Some said the Djinn was weeping,
Others scoffed that went too far,
But never a man amongst them
Had the courage to open the jar.

In an ancient, crazed ceramic vase,
The sacred star holds in,
An elemental, evil force,
The dark, demonic Djinn.

Ed Blundell worked as a teacher of English, a school inspector and as Director of Education for the town of Stockport.

Ed has had short stories and poetry published in over thirty magazines, including Popshot, Orbis, Psychopoetica, Carillon and Purple Patch. As well as having work featured several times in The Horror Zine, he has published horror poetry in Abandoned Towers, Death Head Grin, Hello Horror, Death Throes and several other UK and USA zines.

He is currently contemplating publishing an anthology of his work.

He gave up searching for the meaning of life after discovering there wasn’t one.