And the Cattails sway

The prequel to Down By The River

She sat side saddle on the wooden stool
Calf length cowboy boots
Ragged denim cut offs
White T shirt
Outlining her curves
Elbow resting on the bar
Glass three quarters full
Five rings marked the wood around it
Circles much like life
The chair legs scraped beside her
Jeans brushed against her thigh

She blinked slowly
Her expression ambivalent
Taking in his beauty
He smiled, teeth white as snow
A conversation started
Her speech slurred
She giggled as the words fell out
His hand touched hers
She didn’t flinch
Throwing back the last drop of liquid

They walked out
Her foot slipped on its side
He grabbed her upper arm as support and
She leaned into his strength
No one knew her there
A bar the back of no where
No one knew her name
Her head spun as the air hit

She sat next to him
The leather hot under her legs
Fumbling for the radio
Once more their fingers touched
Reassuring, calm telling her to relax
“We can cool off in the river”
She smiled so innocently
Closing her eyes listening to the music
Till the drunken sleep overtook
Thinking only of his eyes
His eyes of deepest green

My 1,000th Post

   ,

Down by the river

He sat by the river bank
Black wavy hair
Brushing his shoulders
Eyes of deepest green
He was there
Sitting between the cat-tails
Arms wrapped around bended knees
Skin glistening in the afternoon sun

That’s where I last saw him
His stare skipping the rippled water
His smile the one I fell for
As I waved my arms and cried his name
He waited
There by the river
As my blood pooled against the bank

Photo Credit 123rtf.com

Come here my Pretty (Prose)

he melts into obscurity, holds
knife close to his chest
have you eyed the devil
moments rational or crapulous
he slices

hearts from breast
kidneys laid bare
alluding to be one of us
licking lips savouring
the next victim that he hunts

misty early mornings
blackened night
in alleyways
deleterious his intent
he haunts the weak, the frail

exposing wounds, but not himself
eyes wide open, disemboweled
calculating lust and slaughter
heart beat quickens with his blade

popping sinews a surgeons skill
wets his appetite
obsession for the frightened
beware the devil you can’t see
he could be anyone you know

… even me

©jmtacken Feb 2014

Shared with  Prompt 43 Supernatural Lust    I chose serial killers.

Some people experience an amplified lust for life (some times it’s drug or mania-induced sometimes it comes from a more internal/innocuous source)

Hypersexuality, Zeus and his sexual conquests, Bacchanalia, Vampires and blood lust, The sick twisted lust of serial killers

 

Taken (A sonnet Bouts-rimes)

silently, shaking, lips taped for the

~ drive

complete silence they drove, she by his

~ side

tense frightened eyes, pierced the cold and dark

~ night

all untruths spat from alcohol, he

~ lied

his treat, her fear gave him thrills, was his

~ wage

hands bound with leather, she prayed to be

~ saved

smirking beside her, the faces she

~ made

 insurmountable thrill, gained from her

~ face

young girl, starting out her life as a

~ nurse

breathing uncontrolled they drove past the

~ church

she knew if she fought her pain would be

~ worse

remnants of her life flung out from her

~ purse

dragged out, forced on knees told not to look

~ back

whiskey breath, he sliced, had pleasure in

~ that

©jmtacken Feb 2014

 

So tempted to put boowahaa on the end…

Tony at Dverse  http://dversepoets.com  has us writing on the following – I don’t know where my brain is sitting right now..oh and Happy Valentine’s Day… 

Bouts-rimés (boo reeMAY) is French for “rhymed ends”. It is the name given to a poetic game in which a list of words that rhyme with one another is given to one or more poets who then make their own poems, all of which use the same rhyming words in the order in which they were given at the end of their lines.

The words are:  drive, side, night, lied, wage, saved, made, face, nurse, church,worse, purse, back, that

As you can see, there are fourteen words, so a fourteen line poem is what we’re after. You might want to stretch yourself and try writing a fully formed sonnet in iambic pentameter (that’s 10 syllables in a line, with the stress on the even-numbered syllables), but you don’t have to … smiles.

I stretched myself had them all in the wrong order and re-did thanks to a nudge from Brian once again – so thank you.

If you go out in the woods? today… (Prose)

 

above me on the streets

the sound of feet, shuffling back and forth

on slippery concrete treading oblivious

to what lies underfoot

 

where drops splash

I wait, listening for the noise

hidden from those above

the evil unnoticed down below

 

those who are unknowing

the underground tunnels of my world

the hideous who lurk, like me

against the darkened walls

 

 sightless creatures dwell

devouring those who enter

a domain remote, mysterious

beneath the infrastructure

 

curiosity of bourbon

bottled manliness

descends from concrete lids

unsuspecting, into the abyss

 

where icicle like cobweb trails

hangs from moss infected walls

and rodents lay in wait, like me

eager to destroy

 

to anyone who enters my environment

and slips against their will

take heed of my demonic life

my thirst for bones is real

 

tread carefully as you descend

I salivate with thoughts of you

you will not be protected

I’ll seek and then I’ll kill

 

 

 

©jmtacken Dec 2013

Photo Credit:  http://www.pinterest.com

 

 

 

Breath (Prose)

whilst we waste our
b
r
e
a
t
h
the meal ordered took too long
someone takes their
l
a
s
t
cut down ~ bloodied holes that pierced
the skin or sliced with steel paper thin
he refused to carry weapons
his crime? wrong place ~ wrong time

on a cold and stony road she
lies gasping for her final breath
hit by one who drank ~ who swore he
didn’t see her car, she wore no safety belt

alone in an empty lane ~ forgotten old
feeble, slouched on cold brick walls
his organs failing from abuse
his begging plea no longer heard

he’s old he hears them whisper
~ had a good innings, he hears them say
as he lies on starch white sheets
his maker to carry him away

and someone is breathing their
f
i
r
s
t
on crackly sheets, fluorescent lights
mother breathing ~ child’s head crowned
silent moments, body held, gasp of air
cries of joy, as her baby enters the world

the trip to hospital so far away
traffic bad, anxious, panting, blowing air
can’t wait, it’s now, it’s coming now
the car not quite a manger but ~ matters how?

toiling hard under summer sun
no doctors on this round
she squats and helps deliver
her new son upon the ground

by an empty lane alone she grabs
her tummy, pain is real, she’s scared
she’s young, as water pools around her feet
crouches screaming till her baby breathes

so with every breath you take
try not to use it too complain
for breath AS LIFE ~ A PRECIOUS thing
a commodity we shouldn’t waste

©jmtacken October 3 2013

Smoke Screen

We tie his arms and legs to da cars and rip him apart, he ran off wid our doh, he’s nuttin but a gutter rat, nobody gets away wid dat, nobody. Bluey you and da boys, you find him, he caint of got far.

We’ll get him boss, he’ll wish he never crossed us…I mean you, you was the brainz behind it.

You caint trust no one Bluey, ya find him, he tells us where he hid the loot, we split him like a chicken.

I’ll find him boss, count on da boys and me.

Bluey got up from his chair, leaving the darkened room and the smoke that made his eyes sting and hard to focus.

The rat inhaled deeply once again, smirked and exited from the back door, being careful not to trip over the bloodied head lying on the floor beneath his desk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angela has done it again, another week with a brilliant photo.

No poetry this week, I haven’t read any of the other entries, but my intuition tells me that they will be along the same theme. I’m off to have a look – why don’t you? 🙂

VisDare 28: Obscured

http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com.au

142 words

photo credits: observatory.designobserver.com

shall I tell you a story….

“Come away with me”.

Tatiana whispered the words out loud,  printed in capitals on the very first page.

Her sister had packed the book into her suitcase before she and Robert had left for the christening, insisting that she should not read it, till she was alone.

Robert was in such a great mood all afternoon and during the ‘after celebration party’ never let Tatiana’s glass run dry, even insisting on making her a cocktail on their return back to the cabin. Light headed, she had stumbled giggling, to the suitcase to retrieve the book and headed to the pier, not bothering to change clothes, the effects of the alcohol fuelled her curiosity about what her sister had given her to read.

She popped on her sunglasses and held the book high to escape the suns glare that now and then filtered through the clouds of the fresh autumn afternoon.

The comforting red woollen coat lay beneath her. The wooden pier warming and crackling as it breathed in the suns heat.

Her arm dangled and at times her fingertips disturbed the stillness of the lake, causing ripples on the surface.

Turning the page she continued to read, though her eyelids were growing heavy.

Even if she only got to the bottom of this page, she thought, she could close her eyes, enjoying the peacefulness and silence of the lake.

“The love that I have for you, like no other, soon, soon we will be together for ever and always”.

As her twin, the water below mirrored her reflection.

Tatiana struggled to keep her eyes open, her body felt heavy, something strange was happening.

A pain slashed across the inside of her chest as she recognised her sister’s hand writing.

“Have you enjoyed the read my dear Tatiana?”,  were the last words to pass her eyes before her last breath was inhaled.

 

 

Critique welcome.         This is my contribution for Picture it & write

As the moon is my witness

My contribution on the photo below. * Mature Content.

Scant rays filtered off the moon puncturing the charcoaled night.
Her body lay frigid, unyielding.
Crawling insects that penetrated the cold and darkened soil emerged to invade her lifeless form.
Who would search these desolate woods to find her?
Who could have saved her from the torment, the painful and terrifying hours she spent fighting off her assailant – her killer?
What’s more who would care?
She begged for her life.
Ropes tightly bound her feet, congealed blood stained her ankles and heels.
Her body exposed bar the remnants of her shredded cotton dress knotted tightly around her throat.
Both arms and legs bruised, black and swollen from the brutal blows inflicted upon her porcelain skin.
Blackened eyes, her pupils dilated now stared lifelessly into the night.
Her face scored with lacerations, the backdrop to the red rivers that made pathways from her hairline to her neck. Her mouth wide open, filled with dirt, as her last screams for help echoed through the woods, only to be finally silenced.
Who would know?
She was a loner.
What’s more who would care?

 

 

For: http://ermiliablog.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/__picture-it-write-blind-sight-edition-4/#comments

I apologise if this is too graphic, I started with two young lovers and I edited and wasn’t happy with what I wrote. I cannot say I am ‘happy’ as one cannot write of death in this manner and be ‘smiling’, but my dark side emerged tonight and this was the result.

Critique of any kind welcome.

Object and Action

Knife struck my chest
eyes stared
to you
stared at the knife
imbedded

blood flowered
on my dress
held the steel
touched your face

mouth opened
words would not flow
from dry lips
I simply murmured

blood engulfed
the blade
hands wet

 
stained fingers sticking
falling to the ground
only to whisper
why