POETRY BY CHRIS McAULEY

A writer who specializes in the horror, science fiction, fantasy and crime genre, Chris McAuley is a lead writer in novels, comics, audio dramas and games. He is the co-creator of the popular StokerVerse, along with Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker. He has also created a science fiction and fantasy franchise with Babylon 5’s Claudia Christian. Chris has worked with some of the top names in Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who.

MARKED

The mark of the beast is on those who hear the cunning of the wolf.
Rich tones which invite the chosen to partake in considered destruction.
The pillars of the created order are toppled.
Entropy emerges as the ancient creatures’ jaws devour suns.
In the universes destruction wondering eyes gaze up as a myriad of colored hues and tones touch the texture of their hardening souls.
The darkness lasts only but a fraction of a second.
Words of fear uttered from the priests of the old orders quickly forgotten
As a new creation emerges and embraces the children of the long promised generation.

UNVEILING

This was the time when all men were bathed in yellow.
Madness and conflict consumed all souls that walked the earth.
Minds tortured with humans rights and wrongs.
Voices silenced and others raised.
Reasonable dialogue discounted.
As the currency of hatred is freely exchanged.
Above and within all of this sits Hastur.
The bearer of the final word
The waker and the destroyer of worlds.
Smiling as he goads once innocence teeth to rend into flesh.
His fingers slowly loose the chains of Fenric.
This is the time of the wolf:
The final age of mankind.

LOVECRAFT’S NIGHTMARE

Bound by a stinking silken web.
I awaken in a cold, desolate place.
A metallic taste coats my mouth.
Its bitter tang causing me to heave.
My eyes grow accustomed to the monochrome gray.

However, it is the sound which penetrated my ears which gave some texture to this place.
Low moans and agonized howls.
Which swept across me like an unwelcome chill wind.
A few meters ahead lay an object which I took for a willow tree.
Bent and twisted and swaying gently.

Willing my gaze to penetrate the distance,
I saw that it was made of no wood.
It was the amalgamation of twisted and decaying human bodies.
From their stretched and static lips came the howl.

The noise which I took for pain.
Was instead a warning.
As the creature whose twisted artistry had crafted awful living botanic majesty.
Enclosed its blistered claws
Around my screaming throat.

Nyarlathotep: Temptation by any other name
Come walk with me,
Just for a while.
Let me show you the undercurrents of your world.
Signs, symbols and portents.
Manufactured from my mind.
All these things both mystical and mathematical
Merely seem like order.
They project a sense of stability.
A handhold for your soul to clutch.

In truth they are as much an agent of chaos as I am.
You see I've walked this plane in many guises.
Some like an iterant preacher, others like a showman.
Or, like this, a business man.
In each case I bring unwelcome revelation.
A precursor to personal revolution.

In many of the old tales I come to steal your soul.
These are untrue.
I have come to return it to you.
Now as I leave you at your destination.
You wonder about my name.
It may as well be Rumpelstiltskin for all it would mean to you.
A naive but clever young man with a ponderous name.
Once discovered it and summoned me.

Lovecraft captured me in a dream.
As he slept I directed his hand to scribe.
You too have been chosen.
To become poet, prophet, priest or king.
For within the beat of your drum.
Shall manifest the hellish madness to come.