From the pages of celebrated literary magazine Danse Macabre comes RECITING SHAKESPEARE WITH THE DEAD a collection of haunting prose and poetry from Bram Stoker Award nominated writer Benjamin Blake. RECITING SHAKESPEARE is a phantasmagoric carnival that shape-shifts across the darkest recesses of the mind and heart. Blake’s shadow-strewn collection will whisper sweet and sanguinary nothings in a voice like fall leaves rustling through half-forgotten cemeteries at midnight.
The Sorrows of Life
This city's thirst for
blood is insatiable
I can feel it seeping
from the cracks in the pavement
Flowing from the sewer
grates in clouds of crimson mist
It works its way into
our troubled hearts
And draws us to the
alter
The early evening
light
Bleeds through stained
glass saints
And falls upon
upturned wrists
A knife, handle
fashioned from female bone
Feels right in your
left hand
Southpaw – do your
worst
To keep the devil
happy
In that churchyard
Tombs stretch out for
miles
You’re intimate with
every cadaver
Can trace their
history to the dark ages
When this place was
nothing but a clearing in the forest
A stone circle in the
fire’s orange glare
Our curse was born in
this primeval time
Making sure the
sorrows of life never end
From Reciting Shakespeare with the Dead, published by Hammer & Anvil Books, and available from Amazon.
The Midnight Liner
Ice
frozen time
Thawed
as the clock strikes 0
A
new dawn reoccurring in the dark
Inevitable
A
meteor shower
Raining
on a barren landscape
(the
moon keeps this heart afloat)
(as
it commands the endless tide)
And
each day I drown
Beneath
murky waves
While
trying to find Atlantis
From Reciting Shakespeare with the Dead, published by Hammer & Anvil Books, and available from Amazon.
Claw-Foot Tub
Run the
faucet
Light several
vanilla scented candles - bath salts and bubbles are all ready to go
Rose
pattern paper peeling from years of steam and heat
Her
slip falls to the tiled floor
Before
she steps in
Lost
all track of time
A
slight movement causes the water to lap at porcelain cliffs like minute waves
Was
that a sound from the other side of the door?
Upon
the wall the roses seem to be dying
The
candles flicker and spit
Suddenly
she realizes
The
water is much deeper than it should be
And the
color’s all wrong
From Reciting Shakespeare with the Dead, published by Hammer & Anvil Books, and available from Amazon.
From Reciting Shakespeare with the Dead, published by Hammer & Anvil Books, and available from Amazon.
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