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Lori R. Lopez

The September Featured Poet is Lori R. Lopez

Please feel free to email Lori at: lorilopez13@gmail.com

Lori Lopez

THEY STALK THE NIGHT

Couldn’t tell you how I knew
Those fiends were there, a step behind.
It seemed they followed me an eternity,
Always hovering when the hour was late,
Their treads as stealthy as a mouse, discreet—
Matching mine, but bare of heel and sole,
With light subliminal taps up my spine,
Provoking the heaviest shudders.

Maybe it was a single trailing scuff,
A clandestine echo bouncing down a lane
In a black-and-white recurrent nightmare
With a shadow looming large before them.
Call it intuition; a flutter of primal instinct
From a reservoir of innate survival skills.
I thought their subtle paces were demons
Of the mind, feeble stirrings of panic.

I felt exposed and pondered my vulnerability:
Was I insignificant to them, one of a billion?
Expendable in a colony of drones, a stray ant?
Was I so easily dismissed from their perspective?
I contemplated such things as daylight waned
And another Midnight would be washed down
With a numbing sequence of poisons and pills,
My single escape—a temporary refuge.

Staring out at a world of haunted compulsives:
“Drink it!” urged the voice that didn’t speak
But was implied, deciphered from the attitude
Of my surroundings, this dark shiny place
That inhabited so many macabre fantasies.
I was there again for another round, another
Spin of Fortune’s wheel to see how far
I could get before they got me…again.

“Drink to the final drop at the bottom
Of the glass,” cajoled my spirit guide,
My demented mentor. “Have a nightcap.”
I giggled at the joke and knew the thirst
Would be there the next hour, unquenched,
Fierce and cunning, a voracious beast.
For it was them, all them, not my choice.
How long had I been playing their game?

Advancing, rolling, moving…back to Start.
Everything that I was fleeing, dreading,
Would not diminish. The beasts would keep
Returning for me, striving to drag me under,
Into their domain, their fetid ungodly realm.
But maybe the faces would be clearer
By the light of morning, if I could stay
Sober long enough—just long enough.

And resist the pains of their scratches,
Their clawmarks on my composure, my calm.
I kept hoping I could make it this time…
Reach a state of grace beyond their clutches,
Safe from what I was trying to forget…
The knowledge, that awful enlightenment,
Only to be reminded the hope was futile,
For I was their pawn, a mere plaything.

Not one solitary thing would have changed;
Always I returned to the same dreaded wait
That I was running away from each night—
A vicious circle, an endless illusion of escape,
Unless I grabbed the bull or goat by the horns
And made it see I would not be conquered
Without a struggle; they were like an addiction,
A pack of wolfish six-limbed monsters.

They refused to release me once their talons
Sank into my flesh, latching on to my back.
Even if this time I took them with me…
Dragged them tooth and claw into the light.
Wouldn’t that be something? If the world
Could really see what they were, what they did.
How ugly and vile; how revolting and sinister.
“Come on,” I coaxed, my arms spread wide.

You know the way it feels alone in an alley
Dripping with a stark contrast, a grim undertone
And assumption of malice; a hint of terror
In every indent along the route, as if it were
A gauntlet to be run. Only you can’t see who
Stands at either side, lining the fringes of
Your fear. So paranoid that the slightest noise
Trips a mechanism of flight or fright.

Suspicion is your best defense; cling to it
Against the vagaries, the uncertain fate
As they stalk the night. I wondered who lurked
On the other side and went in search of answers.
I found them and wished I hadn’t. But regrets
Are as vain and useless as a broken flashlight
In the dark; all we have is the moment.
You must not let them invade yours. Ever.

SHRUNKEN HEADS

Do you wonder who they were
Those mugs upon a shelf
Adorning a witchdoctor’s curio cabinet
Like an object devoid of self?
Crumpled and haggard, disembodied
Expressions quite wrinkled
It causes me to ponder
How they wound up small and crinkled
Severed and shrunken to the shape
And size of a baked apple…
Who does this for a living
Curing heads to such witherent dapple?
Was it a curse or a hex
A vindictive threat or sly hoodoo?
An odd grudge; a strict or peculiar judge
That may have led to this voodoo?
If I ask them a question
Would the heads care to explain—
Or did the witchdoctor remove all thought
From each shriveled brain?

TOO LATE

The story of my life is missing a few pages
A chapter here and there may have gotten lost
I always thought a schedule was made to be broken
Like rules and clocks, stage legs and coconuts
Apparently not since I keep arriving tardily
Everyone else is going fast like Keystone Cops
Wound up too tight in a silent film
And I’m talking but no words come out
Because I always think of what to say belatedly
I’m even too late to catch The Late Show
Or The Last Train to Clarksville
The Midnight Train to Georgia
Everyone is moving the opposite direction
As if I’m stuck in reverse, caught in a detour
Down a one-way street against the grain
Bucking the current, disrupting the flow
When will I get where I should be
On whatever track they always mean—
In that mythical mystical Right Place
At The Right Time world?
With my incredible luck, I will finally
Be on time when there’s no time left
To change or do things better
When they lay me in a casket
For the final resting place, my grave…
Will anyone be there to acknowledge
Who I was, that I existed once upon a time?
Or will my mourners honor me by missing
The funeral service—whether unintentionally
Or apathetic, just deciding to stay home?
Will I even be on time for my own time of death?
I wonder most days, until those rare bursts
Of clarity…the flickers of cognizance
When I am one with the universe—
I am so on top of things and the pieces
Settle into place without a single hitch
As if my existence were charmed, and I can nearly
Believe in miracles, almost be convinced
I am not on the exterior, the fringes, looking in
Unaware of the masterplan. Counting cuckoos
Instead of blessings. The odd woman out…
Why should I expect anything different?
Anything not more of the same?
That something will happen so phenomenal
It will change everything else
And they won’t be able to take it away—
Those little men in the white coats
With the butterfly nets
Oh yes, they are still after me, out to get me
Like everyone else, everyone who’s anyone
Plotting against me, orchestrating my downfalls
There are so many that I’ve lost the tally
But I digress. What was this poem about?
Too late. It’s over now. I’m always too late.

Lori R. Lopez wears many hats. She is an artist who designs her book covers and illustrates some of her tomes. As an author she writes poems, short stories, novels, children’s books and songs, as well as a humorous-slash-serious column called “Poetic Reflections” at Fairy Fly Entertainment. She is a musician, actress, filmmaker, tree-hugger, and animal-lover.

Lori has received various honors for her writing. Books include The Fairy Fly, An Ill Wind Blows, Odds And Ends: A Dark Collection, Chocolate-Covered Eyes, The Macabre Mind Of Lori R. Lopez, Out-Of-Mind Experiences, Dance Of The Chupacabras, Poetic Reflections I and II: Keep The Heart Of A Child and The Queen Of Hats.

Stories and verse have appeared on Hellnotes and Halloween Forevermore, in The Sirens Call E-zine and about 20 anthologies:  Journals Of Horror: Found Fiction, Dead Harvest, Terror Train, Cellar Door III: Animals (Editor’s Choice Award winner), Undead Legacy, Bones II, and Ghosts: Revenge among others.  Fifteen of Lori’s poems were published for an anthology titled In Darkness We Play.

You can find her books, videos and more at www.fairyflyentertainment.com, where she and her talented sons combine their interests.