by Jay Newman:
Where color doesn’t come,
imps scurry splintered
floorboards—
furry, felt-pawed,
webbed-footed, cloven-hooved—
hollow remnants—dead puppet
master—no strings attached
behind moth-ball curtains of dust-painted suits
and button-down cigarette burns.
Waiting—smiling, unblinking—beneath
grime-glossed mirrors—sinking—Morpheus night terrors
outside spider-cracked windows—above—
in the canopy around the back of the house—
on branches owls cackle rooks in the wake
of moonlight, creeping—silent ivy—gnarled roots
into the deep staircase missing steps—cob-
webbed cellar, echoing up
under stone-cobalt—skitterish climbing
walls into empty thunder
claps—black and white
rainbows refracting skyscrapers,
sand licking eyelids
that will never open.
About the Author: Jay Newman, winner of Youngstown State University’s 2010 Robert R. Hare award for poetry, is a graduate of YSU with a bachelor’s in English. His poetry has been printed in YSU’s literary magazine The Penguin Review and Worlds Within Worlds Beyond, a Florida-based literary magazine. Jay is currently working toward an MFA in poetry from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts creative writing program and spends his free time writing dark poetry and prose and composing music.
Want to submit a novel excerpt, piece of original short fiction, flash fiction and/or poem to DarkMedia.com for next month’s promotion? Please click here for our submission guidelines.
Comments are closed.