Scott Urban is our September 2009 Featured Poet.

You can email Scott at surban1874@charter.net

Your Maggot

no bigger
than a grain of rice
i crawl through you,
the largest playground i've ever known

you won't even feel me --
an ambulatory mite --
burrow between breastbone and teat
caressing you from within

i slip through taut intracostals
sail down the coursing vena cava
winter in the humid alveoli
there isn't any tissue i haven't tasted
nor any cavity i haven't probed
more deeply than any other lover

i'm not picky
you don't have to be dead
for me to get under your skin

A Room in the Father's House

listen
just be quiet for a moment
we'll get it taken care of
you weren't meant to be here
it was an angelic oversight
even heaven makes mistakes sometimes

no, you're not in hell
you made it to paradise --
just not the one for which you were destined
you see, all god's creations attain
the eternal reward most suited them
your heaven wouldn't do much for a starfish

why shouldn't a fly
who does its job well
achieve salvation just like you?
and if you were a fly
wouldn't it be your dream
to crawl across live flesh
already rotting and shit-smeared
without fear of being swatted?

i said i'd have you out in a moment
now quit screaming

Cloak

don't you dare
open the door
and let in the light

leave me here
wrapped in the embrace
of your closet's shadows

whisper-smooth
feather-soft
cobweb-close

blackness more beautiful
than your face turned
on me in anger

a touch more gentle
than your hands
ever caressed my flesh

i can make it
night forever and
forget i once loved you

L'une Bonne Nuitt Passee

i kiss mother's cheek
her flesh salty to my lips
she tugs at my sleeve
i'm only going to sleep, i tell her

father has his back to me
a stubborn wall of muscle
when i touch his shoulder
he shrugs my hand away

i climb into bed
it is low and soft and red
i'm not sure i can get comfortable
because of the damp

i pull the tongue over me
a thick pink pulsating blanket
snuggled under my chin
heavy on my breasts

i reach up and grasp the incisor
i pull the mouth shut
the light dwindles to a glowing line
enclosing me in this steamy cave

something is chuckling
like a boulder crushing smaller stones
i wish it would stop
it's keeping me awake

Scott H. Urban

Scott H. Urban is a freelance writer and poet living, appropriately enough, in North Carolina's Cape Fear region.  His dark verse appeared in the collections Night's Voice and Skull-Job (Horror's Head Press); his most recent chapbook, Alight, from Shakin' Outta My Heart Press, appeared this summer.  In collaboration with Bruce Whealton, Scott's vampire poems appear in the e-book Puncture Wounds (Word Salad Productions).  His fiction has appeared in print magazines, horror anthologies, and online zines, including, most recently, Lost Worlds of Space and Time Volume 2, and The Witching Hour.  With Martin H. Greenberg, he co-edited the DAW anthology The Conspiracy Files.  As editor, he recently compiled Jean Jones' poetry collection The Complete Angel of Death (Skull Job Productions) and memoirist Ryan Miller's Circle of the Heart, Voices of Comfort Dreams (Elephant Showcase Press).