Explore Poems: Horror

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Calling the dead
By Jennifer Wong
On certain nights they come back,
ghost story fragments lodged in my head
from midnight taxi rides. Almost always
a woman in a red dress, hollow laughter
and a ball bouncing in a playground,
lost souls crossing the misty river where Meng
offers them soup to...
We and the Dead Ride Quick at Night
By L. M. Rivera
When the home is no more

When the mother's negative light goes also

When solitude rips the door from frame

When the transitory moves into the familial

Then: I often think of the drink, the notes, the contented, and badly drawn cartographies

On my bare...
From “Aftering Delmore’s ‘Season in Hell’ [Rimbaud] 3”
By John Kinsella
I have gorged on a glorious dose of poison.—Triple blessings
on the advice that was proffered!—My guts on fire. Future shock
distorts and contorts and hurls me into the dirt. Choking and parched
I can’t call out. This hell, this eternal torment. Watch...
Untitled Poem [“Why feel guilty because the death of a lover causes lust?”]
By Alan Dugan
Why feel guilty because the death of a lover causes lust?
It is only an animal urge to perpetuate the species,
but if I do not inhibit my imagination and dreams
I can see your skull smiling up at me from underground
and your...
Pinocchia takes on the role of the magician’s assistant
By Lo Kwa Mei-En
When the mirror swings open, it calls me obscenely
shapely. A ruby wing slaps the glass. Soft smear. Since,
like the drowning trick in reverse, I learned to float

outside myself from a certain, mostly bearable height,
I watch terror push its anthem into...
Pineola
By Sy Hoahwah
Severed finger of a convicted murderer uncurls like a waking pet.
Demonic compass points toward the most dangerous direction to get home.

Its long yellow fingernail can pick any lock.

On the fishhook, the finger resembles a long, fat mealworm.
Most times, it’s lodged...
Body of Rags, International Bridge Between the US & Mexico
By Ray González
Yes, I am a body of rags lying
here on the bridge waiting for

a hot rain to wash me open,
dissolve me off the bridge

because this border is closed.
I rot on the boundary line

and can’t enter Juarez,
pennies thrown at me

when a drunk...
The Haunted
By John Masefield
Here, in this darkened room of this old house,
     I sit beside the fire.    I hear again,
Within, the scutter where the mice carouse,
     Without, the gutter dropping with the rain.
Opposite, are black shelves of wormy books,
     To left, glazed cases,...
Allegiances
By Emily Berry
In the nighttime house I don’t know where you are
My allegiances could change
How can I stop my allegiances from changing?
Morning is a gown put on at midnight, but no one’s coming
I don’t know what your secrets are
You say you have...
Life Form
By Aase Berg
Translated By Johannes Göransson
Will haul this gelatinous body, will lash forward this non-form, will push this organism of gas through the gray regions.

A sour wind tears through the thin white hair. A wind of vinegar and henbane tears in the rustling, discarded bird-shells...
Domestic Violence
By Roger Reeves
A Lowcountry marsh trembles with the blood of an African
Who refused to climb out of the salt and mud of the bay
And quite literally lost his head. A hunter named Hunter
Waits for the man’s wounds to close and for him...
Thrashing Seems Crazy
By Juliana Spahr
this is true
a man in an alley grabbed my arm
this is true
someone called me and left the phone dangling at the post office
this is true
a man stalked me

someone tells a story

someone tells a story to another person
another person says I...
The Right Foot of Juan De Oñate
By Martín Espada
On the road to Taos, in the town of Alcalde, the bronze statue
of Juan de Oñate, the conquistador, kept vigil from his horse.
Late one night a chainsaw sliced off his right foot, stuttering
through the ball of his ankle, as Oñate's...
Kingdom of Debt
By Erika L. Sánchez
They call it the corner of heaven:
a laboratory, a foot at the throat
of an empire. Before the holy
dirt, the woman with the feline gait
waits with tangled hair, mouth
agape — the letter X marked
on what’s left of her breasts
and face. Nuestra Belleza
Mexicana. A...
Annabel Lee
By Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
   In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
   By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
   Than to...
The Raven
By Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis...
Nellie Clark
By Edgar Lee Masters
I was only eight years old;
And before I grew up and knew what it meant
I had no words for it, except
That I was frightened and told my
Mother; And that my Father got a pistol
And would have killed Charlie, who was...
Anniversary
By Marie Ponsot
The big doll being broken and the sawdust fall
all scattered by my shoes, not crying
I sit in my dark to discover o failure annulled
opens out in my hands a purse of golden
salvaged sovereigns, from floors of seas culled.

The dancing doll...
Louse Hunting
By Isaac Rosenberg
Nudes—stark and glistening,
Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
And raging limbs
Whirl over the floor one fire.
For a shirt verminously busy
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.
And...
Dragging the Lake
By Thomas James
They are skimming the lake with wooden hooks.
Where the oak throws its handful of shadows
Children are gathering fireflies.
I wait in the deep olive flux
As their cries ricochet out of the dark.
Lights spear the water. I hear the oak speak.

It foists...

p1From “Aftering Delmore’s ‘Season in Hell’ [Rimbaud] 3”

p1Pinocchia takes on the role of the magician’s assistant

p1Pineola

p1Body of Rags, International Bridge Between the US & Mexico

p1Allegiances

p1Domestic Violence

p1Kingdom of Debt

p1Anniversary

From “Aftering Delmore’s ‘Season in Hell’ [Rimbaud] 3”

Pinocchia takes on the role of the magician’s assistant

Pineola

Body of Rags, International Bridge Between the US & Mexico

Allegiances

Domestic Violence

Kingdom of Debt

Anniversary