Reciting Shakespeare with the Dead

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.