The November Editor's Pick Poet is Anna Taborska

Please feel free to email Anna at: annataborska@hotmail.com

LADY OF THE FLIES

In the silent forest lies
A small figure with sad eyes.
In her dirty, matted hair
Ants and beetles make their lair.
Through the tear-stains on her face
Spiders crawl at leisurely pace.
Nobody knows when and why
She came there, prepared to die.
Crows perch nearby and wait
For gentle death to seal her fate.
The flies won't leave their new-found bed
And circle slowly round her head.
In her buzzing halo lies
Martyred lady of the flies.

SCAVENGER 

i collect your refuse
i feed on your waste
i find what you lose
and remember
what you want to forget

i dig up your corpses
and pick through your bones

you shun me
outcast and cold

i watch you bleed
and listen to you vomit
i feel your heartbeat
and hold you as you choke

the more you die
the more i live

DRACULA

in green pastures i find no rest
the running waters do not quench
the thirst that grows with every daylight hour
the nights are worse though
for in the day i wander in a sleeplike trance
but with the night come dreams so alive
like when you touched my face
caressed my hair my neck
come back even if it is to maim and tear
and open wounds that never heal
for it is the lonely silence i hate most
in the silence i can feel your soul
reaching out to me
across the continents
down the centuries
through the empty hours

METAMORPHOSIS 

i left the safety of my solitude and followed you
giving up all i knew for love

(you said that you loved me)

you left me groveling in the dirt
my tears seeping downwards into the worlds beneath -
no pain greater than love given only to be taken away

the dark gods pitied me and took my earthly life
giving me fangs and claws and perpetual hunger
replacing the useless human soul that bled for you
with eyes that see through your fortress walls
and ears that hear the beat of your inconstant heart

(you said that you loved me)

i stalk you wolf-like
your corridors of power scant haven from my revenge
your ivory towers cannot hide you
nor your indifference protect you
for i will come in your nightmares
in the shadow that falls across your window when you are alone

the comfortable fabric of your world will crumble
your self-assurance break like ice in the face of a new-born sun
your cold sleep unravel and burn in my tormented fire

(you said that you loved me)

my pain has become my strength
your betrayal has become my strength
your leaving has become my gateway to a new kind of hell

like a creeping sickness i will steal across your world
beware my footfall beside your bed
beware my breath upon your face
beware the brush of my hair against your skin
for i am love reviled and i have nothing left to lose

Anna Taborska was born in London, England. She was first caught reading horror at age ten, when a teacher, impressed that Anna was sitting at her desk during lunch break and reading rather than playing with other children in the school playground, found that Anna’s science book was actually hiding Guy N. Smith’s Night of the Crabs.

Brainwashing at a posh girls’ school didn’t succeed in suppressing Anna’s horror obsession, and, alongside William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, Anna avidly studied such classic authors as James Herbert and Stephen King.

Following a misguided attempt to wean herself off horror by studying Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, Anna went on to gainful employment in public relations, journalism, advertising and the BBC, before throwing everything over to become a filmmaker and horror writer.

Anna's films include: The Rain Has Stopped (winner of 2 awards at the British Film Festival Los Angeles 2009), The Sin, Ela, My Uprising and A Fragment of Being.
Feature length screenplays include: Chainsaw, The Camp and Pizzaman.

Short screenplays include: Little Pig (finalist in the Shriekfest Film Festival Screenplay Competition 2009), Curious Melvin and Arthur’s Cellar.

Short stories include: Halloween Lights (published in And Now the Nightmare Begins: The Horror Zine, 2010), Schrödinger’s Human (published in The Fifth Black Book of Horror, 2009), Bagpuss (published in The Sixth Black Book of Horror, 2010), Picture This (pending publication in 52 Stitches, 2010), The Wind and the Rain (pending publication in Daily Flash 2011: 365 Days of Flash Fiction, 2010), Teatime, A Song for Barnaby Jones, The Gatehouse, Underbelly, Buy a Goat for Christmas and The Bloody Tower.

Poems include Kantor (published in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Fall 1995), After Fuseli (pending publication in Spectral Sensations, 2010), Mrs. Smythe regrets going to the day spa (published in Christmas, Peace on All The Earths, 2010), Song for Maud (pubished in No Fresh Cut Flowers: An Afterlife Anthology, 2010), Shark.

Anna's short story "Bagpuss" was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award and is now published in Best New Writing 2011. See it HERE.

You can visit Anna at: http://52stitches.blogspot.com/2010/01/picture-this.html