Michael Pendragon
The October Editor's Pick Poet is
Michael Pendragon
Please feel free to email Michael at:
michaelmaleficapendragon@gmail.com
PREPARATIONS
I pick the clumps of my hair
out of the drain each time I shower
and put them in a little, wooden box
inside the bottom of the large, black trunk
that I keep in my bedroom closet
along with the majority of my teeth
my adenoids, my tonsils, and appendix
—carefully preserved in Mason jars of formaldehyde—
two or three feet of my large intestine
—similarly preserved—
and my partially mummified left foot.
In another month or so, my kidneys
are scheduled to be joining my collection.
Some people think I’m getting a bit morbid
in my old age
but the way I see it
there may not be a heckuva lot of me left
but when they finally get around to burying me
I’ll be, more or less, complete.
GHOSTS
An unseen footstep on the stair
The misty glow of moonless nights
The shadow cast when no one's there
A rustling drape, strange bluish lights
The groaning of a swaying door
That you’d locked fast an hour before
The feeling that you're not alone
An icy touch, a sudden chill
A mournful, otherworldly moan
Borne on the breeze when trees are still
The flicker of a candle flame
The hollow voice that speaks your name
The sadness in your mother’s smile
The amber hue of faded bliss
A child’s laughter free from guile
The memory of Love's first kiss
Of friends and family gone before
Of all who shall return no more
DEATH WAITS…
In lovely packages
In all things which the senses take delight—
In summer skies and blowing fields of grain
In ocean breezes, conch shells, swaying palms
In myriad stars that light the midnight sky
Moonbeams reflected off my lover’s hair
The smell of puppies’ breath, of April rain
Of apple-scented blossoms, rosebuds, dew
In minuets and waltz’s three-quarter time
In laughter, infant smiles and mother’s arms
The morning songs of birds, night’s cricket bards
A gentle touch, a blush, a ling’ring kiss
In snowflakes, hearthfires, chestnuts, Christmas pie
In kittens’ purrs, in lovers’ plaintive sighs
In sunsets, forests, mountains, vales and streams
In ice cream, coffee, nuts, grapes, dates and cheese
In love songs, dance tunes, poetry and prose
In books, in knowledge, ignorance and bliss
In dreams of heaven and eternal love
In all things great and small, each in its season
Death waits
A hungry spider in His gossamer web
SHADOW RIDER
I ride the shadows of the night
Cast by the moonlit sky
A darkling phantom cloaked from sight
A stealthy promise of delight
The danse macabre of candlelight
The hunger in your eye
I linger in the alluring shade
I lurk in each moonbeam
I haunt the hidden woodland glade
I glimmer on the opened blade
And when the webs of sleep cascade
I penetrate your dream
I am the blood that sates your thirst
I burst from out your vein
I fill your Soul with pangs accursed
Your being within my form immersed
All thoughts outside of me dispersed
Until unable to save, I remain
Michael Pendragon (born October 23, 1963) is an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher currently residing in upstate New York. From 1996-2006 he published a pair of literary magazines: Penny Dreadful and Songs of Innocence & Experience. His published works include:
Much of Madness: a novel about a small-scale apocalypse that took place shortly before the first millennium; Into the Night: collected poetic works (1980-2010); Night Magick: a tragi-comic play written in both blank and rhymed verse; and five short story collections: Nightscapes, Nocturne, Night Things, The Dead, and Beyond the Veil.
His writings have appeared in The Romantics Quarterly, The Dream Zone, Masque Noir, Event Horizon, Morbid Curiosity, Ocular, Scarlet Literary Magazine and Enigmatic Tales.
