Verses from Matthew’s Red Journal

Witches Stew as the Ghost Brew

Matthew Johnson
    Sports Editor

Gambled across this harvest mosaic

Aflamed in the coolness of a dreamy-world phantomic,

All your curses and wicked summonings

Of all this evening allows you to tumble and speak

Aloud your covered selfhood in unpeeled hues.

Do you not hear the wind’s howl?

In a migration of those whistling and outstretched black birds,

They spring across the grey winds and seasonal woods.

Aloud in pairs of double and double, they are bonfires,

In the last rays of October, scorching the roast of youth.

And in their falling fill, they crash into all that’s real and voodoo

Leaving leftover fragments of deception and parables.

In the gathering round of that residue, ‘neath the autumnal petals,

The shine of the dim and spellbound moon is a walking shadow,

Recording the struts of All Hallows, and which deafens these tales no more,

Until the aflamed gold and red of next year returns.

Want to be featured in our weekly Poets’ Pick. Send your submissions to
ae.carolinian@gmail.com

Leave a comment