Tears streamed from Charlotte's blue eyes. Her protective Doberman 'Sid' had died. Even her job as a vet did not help. The cancer had spread.
Two weeks after Sid's sad demise Charlotte tied her brown locks into a bun and returned to saving other pets' lives. She accepted only token payments to cover her lonely expenses.
One moonlit evening whilst withdrawing takeaway cash a scuffle ensued. Police arrested a crook from the off license nearby. As he was dragged away the thief shouted back,
'Lady, you're lucky you had a big dog watching you, I was gonna rob you first!'
Slain
Bedridden, worn, struggling with pain, Often catatonic, comatose, a sad sight, Consultants attended, labor in vain, The last Doctor left for the night,
A stranger entered, he had been slain, Eras ago, His deathly pallor caused fright.
From her sleep she awoke with a fright, Unable to move due to terrible Pain, Open drapes allowed in the moonlit night, Her pale lips parted to scream, in vain, On closer scrutiny he was a virile sight,
Reborn to the underworld after he was slain.
By a comely nocturnal creature he was slain, Lust drove him into her arms without fright,
In a moment his throat seized with intense Pain, Awakened as a shape shifter of the night, Crushingly dashing, stylish and cruelly vain, He forced the ill-fated monster from his sight.
But the sweet one returned to his forbidden sight, Ire filled his dreadful soul and she was slain, Immortal being destroyed in a stupefied fright, The stake was driven callously in causing Pain,
Blood poured, body burnt, ashes vanished into night, Her love for him unrequited all was done in vain.
Standing now before his true love, a being so vain, courteously planning to use his hypnotic sight, And immortal gift to relieve her forever of pain, His beckoning eyes offered solace removing fright,
Knowing by morning she too would be bitten and slain, Arising to be his consort interminable this night.
His fangs protrude, grim creature of the night, The household is drugged, she screams in vain, As he bares down on her throat she loses sight, Swooning as he sucks, knowing she too is slain, Her struggling stops, to her he is no fright,
The angelic creature that took away her pain.
No more pain, her day is now night,
Reborn a glorious sight, no medication in vain,
Pleased to be slain, but to Day-Walkers she is the night fright
Relief
For Twenty years he sat shadowed by bars, confined and alone, He questions why and how.
Accused in the wrong,
Found guilty for a murder he did not commit, Circumstantial evidence.
Victim's devastated family, Photos of the wounds, Reports of her suffering, Local allegations.
A witch hunt, Desperate for release, Hope for a reprieve,
Legalities and evidence ignored, Horrific images, bloody, slashed, naked, That's what jurors see.
Tearful kin and friends, That's what jurors see, Not proof or lack of it, His lawyer arrives, Priest in tow.
Last steak eaten, Prayers,
Faith diminishing,
Condemned men marched to their death.
Laid on a bed,
Veins surrender to needles,
Somewhere behind the glass another is smiling, No longer threatened by the truth.
Yasmin
No one remembers Yasmin, she only exists as dust on the wind, When she was born her parents mourned, her gender was wrong, Imprisoned with her black clad mother in the darkness of purdah, She watched through sad eyes as her brothers played and learnt.
Her birthdays were not celebrated, she cleaned, prepared meals, But was fed little on the floor set apart from father and her brothers,
Her eyes filled with tears when she heard the cattle's awful shrieking, Bled coldly in the fields, suffering as much as any man in anguish.
In the solace of her room she prayed knowing God was compassionate, Sensing his sadness at the misery of war and callous degradation, Begging to be released from her lonely, dungeon and father's scorn, Saddened when banned from worship due to her filthy monthly blood.
As her early womanhood developed she was enshrouded by the veil, Shielded from nature's glorious life giving sun by her bedraggled crypt, In the company of her family she was permitted to remove the sack, Wearing dazzling colors she noticed her eldest sibling's evil glare.
The sandstorm's lifted with eerie howling on a particularly grim night, Her restless sleep disturbed by the silence of her father's marked absence,
Creeping, sinful drunken pacing echoed and the rusty door handle creaked, There in the shadows her kin person entered both the room and the girl.
Aching and bleeding she sobbed, betrayed by her brother's ungodly lust, Her cries summoned her mother and there in the gloom she confided, Such confession, realized her parents, would bring shame on their family, God could forgive the son, but not the daughter's shameless adultery.
Her fornication would not be discussed, but washed into the swampy gutter, The news forgotten as he went away, pride and joy in their hearts, to college, But not for her as her belly swelled with the wickedness of her immorality, And local mouths moved against her upright, upstanding, respectable clan.
Moved by night to a filth laden wing the disgraceful prodigy ripped her apart, Returned by morning, bleeding like the cattle, she was shunned and slighted, The deafening silence forewarned community displeasure at her reappearance, Scandal, they said, should be buried like her paperless, unwelcome birth.
The father, known as a man predisposed to faithful, flawless, faultless action, Tore her from her convalescence with insensitive, wrathful hands by her soft hair, She was dragged, screaming into the dusty yard filled with the stench of manure,
And there dowsed with a spirit that masked the scent and an excruciating flame lit.
Treated with less compassion than the herd she melted to her origin; Earth and ash, No record of her sad existence exists, no one investigated her disappearance,
Her name is not Yasmin, never was, her life was an atom flicking briefly,
One of many Yasmins plagued in life, afflicted in death, open your blind eyes and never forget!
Dreams after Film Night
Eerie empty streets, sheltered by darkness, The Parish village a cluster of Auld Shebeens, The clinking voices echo, unnaturally,
My feet drag, eyes blind to the lights, Into the rural wilderness, no moon,
My feet drag into the farmer's wilderness.
Old Tom's house is cobwebbed like his chin, Haunting, darkened windows, eyes to the soul, I force the derelict cottage door, expecting light,
The jolly furnishings evolved into dreary remnants. No sign of Tom! Dust, webs and a hint of blood,
His bed now an altar, his wrapped body rises undead.
The hammering of marching corpses fill my ears, Trapped like an arachnid's prey I run or fly,
I am in another world, a world of melancholy, Pushing through the bodies I struggle to escape. There on the woodland lane shining lights descend, Azure demons emerge from the tree's shadows.
Some folk from the Parish await their demi-gods, Capturing others for cruel sacrificial trauma,
I am held, forced to watch the visceral mutilations, Only as greying daylight approaches can I escape. Visions of flayed men tied to Monastic ruins cling,
The deceased now over run by platoons of fearsome apes.