Past Members – Pen of the Damned

Isolation
Dan Dillard

Bars on your windows, so old and ornate.
At your driveway’s end lies a chained and locked gate.
These both in attempt to circumvent fate.

Huddled … lonely inside your own tomb.
Your domicile morphs into some sort of womb.
You peek through the blinds hoping nothing might loom.

And the world spins around you, life goes on for most.
You should celebrate each day that comes with a toast.
But instead you hide praying you don’t give up the ghost.

The joke, Dear, is that there’s no hope for the dawn.
For wherever you are, Dear, death watches on.

Wrong Turn
Leslie Moon

Darknesses hollow whispers
death’s gripping fingers splayed
mind the path twisting, turns there
don’t divert well-lit ways
*
many drops of blood’s been spilt here
dagger’s sharpened, long caressed
sightless skulls aimed and leering
the spirit must of you assess
*
bodily theyr’e rendered lifeless
gather, on moonless eve
momentarily seek some solace
wander, they eternal grieve
*
seeking, mind if they see you
your retreat may never be
run swift rusting gates through
you again will not be free
*
darknesses claiming whisper
death’s fingers greedily splayed
mind the path, aims to trip dear
don’t divert from well-lit ways

Atomic Number 26
Joseph A. Pinto

And still you’ve no understanding of my stories lost before
you, words stripped of their most basic composition and
left to crumble in a fitting tribute of oxidation. You’ll always

view me that way, nothing more than your atomic number 26
while the greater part of me flakes bit by bit over time. I mourn the
days when my message rung true and beauty gleamed through my

imperfection. Now I go unnoticed, a broken tale; a gate
through which nothing can ever pass again. Such a wasted thing; left
here, your tainted breath corrupting every last line of my expression.

Insomnia
Thomas Brown

They say dreaming is dead, but I still dream. Clear skies. Cool breeze. A little sunlight on my face. I would like to walk somewhere with you, hand-in-hand, and not be alone. I choke to think of what could be: flesh and blood and bones that sing my name, my song, our song, rising into the wind. We should be so lucky.

They say dreaming is dead, but I still dream of a way out, an escape, a different life to that behind this iron gate; this tarnished prison, this nightmare in which we have trapped ourselves, furry with sharp-blood-rust.

The Other Side
Jon Olson

There it is. I cannot believe it is still standing. My body goes numb as I stare at the place that for many years I called home. The same black iron fence surrounds the property like it did when I lived there. Now the paint is peeling away exposing the rust underneath; reopening old wounds. How many times did I grip the fence wishing, praying that I could someday be on the other side? And now that I am on the outside I don’t feel free. I am still trapped within its grasp behind the padlocked gate, never to reopen.

Hush
Nina D’Arcangela

Been so many years, I don’t even remember the sun no more. I hear ‘em muttering, let ‘em talk. I’ll die in this box no doubt. I even heard they sealed it with the name. Trying to shame me I s’ppose. But I have my trophy; I pick my teeth with it every day. Wearin’ it down, but then it was so small to start with. Seems people dislike what I done, but that’s only ‘cause they don’t understan’ it. See, the sweet meat – it’s like veal, you gotta eat it when it’s supple, ‘fore it grows and loses the flavor.

What Lies Within
Blaze McRob

The rusted chain and lock cannot possibly hold this unholy gate in place much longer. Do I dare attempt to break the obstacles and venture within? I must; I have to know!

A well placed kick and the fragile metal breaks. I walk down the stone reinforced tunnel and get closer to the impenetrable darkness. The scent of sweet musk tickles my nostrils, and I smile.

“Lord Azazel, what you long for resides within.”

A torch is lit and I see my prize. Upon an altar she lies, and her glories call out to me.

She screams at my touch…

His to bring…
Zack Kullis

He looked at his charred body. The thugs had chained his security gate moments before they threw the Molotov cocktail through his window.

His fingers still gripped the old iron. The flesh was black like charcoal, and flaked away like the burned paint of the gate. Lips, hair, skin, and anything identifiable had been burned away, leaving a macabre grimace. Death had taken him hours ago.

Fury and lust for revenge damned his soul to this place like the chains had damned him to the fire. He was a wraith, and he welcomed the damnation. Hell was his to bring.

Claiming the Condemned
Tyr Kieran

The end came faster than anyone anticipated and all the prophecies were wrong. It wasn’t failed science gone viral or a cleansing trial to better mankind; it was Hell claiming the condemned—every last one of us. It began with a tortuous plague the turned the sick into blood crazed cadavers. They were the lucky ones. They didn’t suffer the tenuous and futile existence that was always moments away from being torn into a million bite-sized morsels by rancid insatiable teeth. I was the last, eaten alive behind safe gates as I clung expectantly to my wife’s once still corpse.

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and may not be reproduced without prior consent.
Image © Copyright Dark Angel Photography. All Rights Reserved.

His Release
Zack Kullis

The plume of his breath in the January air lied to him, but he knew the truth.

His heart pushed the searing heat through his body. He was burning from the inside. “Release the heat,” his fever screamed.

He could see the fiery blue of the offending veins. They were the traitorous vehicles for the blood which burned him.

Steel, blessedly cold, cut easily. He peeled away the skin on his arm with a pleasurable frenzy.

Vein-like branches quickly gave up their sanguine heat. Blue soon gave way to grey.

Frozen veins, branching across his opened flesh, burned him nevermore.

Hunted
Dan Dillard

It hunted me.

And for the better part of the chase, I was enthralled. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, keeping them hot. My muscles seared as I darted this way and that, ducking, leaping and rolling into the next place where I would wait. Wait for a breath, the crack of twigs underfoot, the flutter of a flock of birds frightened by my suitor, or a scent detected from upwind. They gave it away.

For a time it was quiet and no direction looked safe. I hesitated.

I felt its moist, warm breath on my neck and my veins froze.

Genocide
Nina D’Arcangela

Icy tendrils; you’d think they’d chill me, but no – they warm my very soul. The children of my children’s children, the progeny that will carry forth my breath cocooned in an impenetrable translucent sleeve. When this world thaws, my branches will spring free. They will bloom, spreading their lethal spore among others of my kind, killing their offspring, weakening each host. As they fail to mend, the frost will come again, and I will wait for the next thaw. When that day comes, I will stand alone, proud, the only of my kind – as it was always meant to be.

What the Frost Brings
Tyr Kieran

I am the cold—not the winter’s chill, but the dark, seeping cold that settles within the bones of the living. As they shiver and doubt and fear, I grow stronger, burning their patience away to ash. When hardship gets harder, the flames go out and their food stores diminish, I take over, filling the void where hope once bloomed. I force their despair into violence until nothing stirs but my sweet mistress: Death. Oh, how divine her touch! I’ve laid waste to entire civilizations just to feel her embrace. So, heed the frost’s warning—Death is not far behind.

Silent Planet
Thomas Brown

I travelled the world in search of you. They said that you were gone but I knew there were still places where we might talk; where for a few minutes at midnight I might look into your eyes, and smile.

Austria, Germany, the vast trackless forests of Norway. Five times I found you, hiding in the dark, bound to the old locales dotted around the world: cosmic pockets where the dead still dance.

It was a dream come true to watch you waltz under the stars. Then dawn broke, the dream ended and I died inside to be so alone.

Cold
Joseph A. Pinto

I have no magic left to revive you; you have gone cold at my feet. A time existed when I held you aloft, serenaded by the sun. We both know that day is no more. So into your wonderland, I follow one last time; your brittle boughs snap between my callous fingers. I find your pain an absent, infinite thing. Can you hear the ice crack; yes, I can hear your heart crack. Come spring, when the ground softens, I’ll dig you free again. For now, whisper to me your lost, blue-lipped solace. You have gone cold at my feet.

Deck The Lawn
Blaze McRob

They’re going to put the fucking lights and other shit on me again. I won’t allow it to happen. This ice is even too much weight for my branches to support.

It is dark when they come. Good for me, not for them. Before they have a chance to assault me, my icy branches take them down and apply a frosty guillotine to their necks. Their red blood gives the lawn a festive look, and the shock, still in their eyes, is better than any dangling orbs hanging on a tree.

Old fat Santa couldn’t have done a better job.

Cold Hearts
L. Moon

“Hard hearts in the making”
soft wintry voices say
innocence is for the taking
fiendish finger play
*
small bodies fearful, shiver
carrion blocks the light
black wings swoop and quiver
will spend life this night
*
“quickly now and hide your young ones”
dark howls fill night’s space
crystal snow a place to burrow
by dawn there’s little trace
*
scheming branches interlocking
cries both far and wide
the rumors say “death is walking”
beckoning from the other side
*
“Hard hearts foul in the making”
ice cold voices say
innocence is for the taking
while fiendish fingers play