The winds moan among the fallen trees and the black-faced knobs all collapse beneath the Eastern night sky while Bluegrass banshees wail like wan women in endless grief.
Twenty-odd men have been buried
underneath the weight of other men’s greed
whose hankering for wealth’s harvest harried
them into a cult’s incautious creed.
Crawling on hands out of their dark lair,
the gawping ghouls of graveyards are thus gaunt
with want of food and water and sweet air—
they rise, they rise from their ashen haunt.
Those not smothered in their darksome holes
die topside with every labored breath,
the coal never leaving their sooty souls
even after they have escaped Death.
Burning away their fear and sorrow
with rotgut whiskey each night before bed,
they do not want to think of tomorrow—
once more descending, the living-dead.
Therapy over telephone lines
fails widows whose thoughts are ever so veiled
with the shadows of the catacomb mines
wherein their loved ones are thus withheld.
A wendigo howls among scalped hills, the countryside a galled, ghastly giant whose quarry are those its livelihood kills and feeds, each the other reliant.
Stephen Marshall. Writer, illustrator, layabout. Find him on Amazon, maybe. He has paperback and kindle books listed there. He also writes Supernatural Romance under the name S.C. Foster (because his fiancee pushed him to do so). He seems to have a knack for the Romance genre, much to his chagrin. Having pursued Children's literature he is particularly proud of his Children's novel series "Lost And Found", which begins with "Chloe Among The Clover", continues recently with "Stormy Within The Strawberry Patch" and may, in some future potentiality, culminate with "Candice Through The Picket Fence". These are novels for children (including his insistent nephew), but they are also written for adults who are children at heart. His short story collection, "The Eldritch Diaries", centers primarily upon Cosmic Horror and Body Horror, combining Lovecraft's mythos with the motifs of Sigmund Freud. His largest poetry collection, "Broken Crown Kings", contains over two hundred poems and two short novellas concerning the fleeting nature of the world and Man's place within it. Recently he has published a smaller book of poetry concerning Kentucky, Moonshine, and Ghosts called "Moonshine And Spirit Chasers". A much larger collection, entitled '"Nevermore" 99 Rhymes For $0.99' is also available. For those seeking supernatural and folklore, his collection "Weeping Cherry" is available also.
https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Marshall/e/B07536QKD9?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_fkmrnull_1&qid=1554215427&sr=8-1-fkmrnull
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