POETRY BY TIMOTHY K. READY
Timothy K. Ready is a writer living in Portland, Maine. He loves reading, jazz, cats, and all things horror.
A FOLK TERROR
Cross fields dead where nought will grow
There swarms a dust when west wind blows;
Crepuscular sky that threatens yet not delivers—
Parched-dry heathens subsumed and a-quiver
If there is a Terror that all simple folk know
It’s one that is a sky, beneficent, now turned parsimonious;
A sun once affirming, now fire, unharmonious;
Rivers more dead than the ghosts of a sepulchre;
No drink for the herd dying, hides pustulant, dead ochre
They pray to their gods, these peasants of soil
Not to beseech their good fortune but bring them a calm
From the torment of drought, the ceaseless embrace
Of a vicious land unforgiving; immune to the rake—
These are Dead Times
And thus we turn to the Old Ways…
And speak with anachronisms and rhymes…
Great unction holds sway.
The gods are so terrible, mighty in their ways—but it’s not just those fables that call men astray
It’s the real Prince of Terror
Bane of the Moon
A cutting scythe horror that descends like a broom—
To sweep away man in his folly.
The real horror is famine
And thus we fall supplicant...inane to myriad god’s jollity…
IF, BY A MOON’S NIGHT YOU CHANCE…
If, by a Moon’s night you chance…
On a field that is glowing with fire and dance—
Best to pass them by, friend
They’re stirring up the Old Things, we’re back to the end—
Of reason and virtue and all modern things
For the comfort the Earth brings is like marvelous strings
Of an unknowable orchestra scoring the refuge
Of man from his knowledge, which did seem to suffuse…
Bad tidings a-score by the knife to the hilt;
Freeze and frost rampant adorned by no quilt;
The young they have forgotten the wisdom of ages
They scoff at the confidences vouchsafed by the sages;
Yet tonight…
Yet tonight, when the Festival is remembered—
at long last, I should say, this last week of September
In these fields the young have gained certain—the call of the Old, the lifting of a Curtain;
Between dead and alive and the forces unknowable who cannot be assuaged…
By mere certitudes from a book.
The young girls have stripped—aren’t they tempting to see?
Be careful friend of the Moon, it’s pure misery
Should you, an outsider, be caught glimpsing—
Fresh nubile flesh and mounds ripe with blush, evincing—
The lust of the men folk, so at full-measure and need no convincing…
If the Old Ways are appeased, and it’s by no means for certain
They’ll bring forth their powers from behind that Formidable Curtain;
Strange tongue and prolix verse spoken like a black hearse—
the one that culls and hauls away Reason when that beast is...averse…
Remember your Old Ways, and remember your lineage—
it is those who came here and built up this village
Remember your guns and be suspicious of strangers
And remember to hold forth sacrifice, when that weird west wind changes…
And for you strolling by, on this fiery red night: so spectacular the revelry!
If by a Moon’s Night you Chance and glimpse all forbidden
Good friend, favor fate—
and keep what you know...hidden...
AN ICY HEART
“You’re nothing but an ice cave inside,” she was saying and I thought it was peculiar;
Was it sanguine what one sought when being with familiars?
My heart held blood, it was red and rife and viscous;
But to say that I was dead-faced...I found that quite ridiculous
“You’re distant, cod-faced, adrift, abreast and tired…”
Go on, I thought, you’re sounding quite inspired
Preach the hate you’ve held inside, but seldom had trace shown;
A cordial bit it would have been, you’d not face the shape I’m in…
Nor would I be creasing the axe in my mind
I suppose if she had known, more dreading she’d have shown
To this glacier she’d sought out
And now dressed down and brought—
Thoughts out that I had sought
To render harmless thru the years, by chilling out my tears…
What spectacular concordance, then
A twist of spine, a poison pen;
If I was so damned cold inside—
Why hadn’t I once implied
That one more unfettered word
Would surely spring the frozen sparrow
What sang not lovely, but sucked the marrow…
Hold that thought, I’ve made my pledges
But did you know?
Some say knives...have edges...
My eyes, two cold orbs then, oh they were;
Why in hell would I stay here and burn…
This frozen heart I’d been accused of having—
Meanwhile, leaving table and then grabbing
Something sharp.
Feasting on her medicines—I dare not say without reluctance
My blood boiled up, and I cleaved her from my soul astray
Not just that but all of time
A cicatricle I did unbind…
For a brief horrid second you shall know fear.
Heating from that ice-bound cave...that chamber awakened after so long staved;
A slave
No more
A Heart Alive
While hers went silent.