[x]

Under a Witches SkyAnd lo there he said: "I am darkness rising"
— ‘an apparition bleeding into a dreaming sky
Distilled in the timbre of windswept voices,
black feathers enchant earth in fevered-song
Magick ebbs & shimmers thru earthen veins,
seething like a migration of hungry wolves
Silvery eyes peer, drinking the ether of souls;
watching the spirit world fold into the mists
And where Shadows and Witches conjure,
— myriad talons beshrew Winter’s prayer

For eons I hath wandered in forgotten lore
— a sleep walker thru ash & fire, hunting ..
Beneath Moon solemn and drifting,
I covet thy ghostly figure velvet, undressing
Pools of

The Man and the MoonHer mouth corners hung themselves
and I began to wonder if that was the death of them.
A simple, quiet death;
without broken fingernails lining the walls
with the stripes of a despairing end.
I began to ache with the questioning in my heart
with the echoes reverberating in my capillaries
of her face scorching sunshine in her smile
right before it crumpled
and nothing was left but a frowning moon
set firm in its resignation to an upcoming eclipse.

Dandelion QueenI dream of the ocean;
that paper-thin line where
the current swallows the stars
and the water churns violet

(you tell me to be
quiet,

dandelion queen, we've
heard all these words before)

tonight
I will sleep heavy
and wake a few hours before dawn,
only to forget my name

my wave-weathered heart will cry,
I will cry (my biggest fear
is drowning in too many
of my own weighted words

you tell me to be
quiet
so I can hear the world breathe)

I want to go home

the scars on your shouldersthe scars on your shoulders
are braille to me, so that i
can read your skin, so that i
can know you better.

i like to listen to your heartbeat
and how it resounds differently
from mine, just so beautifully
like two songs played in tandem
to harmonise in rounds;

i like to hold your hands
and rub your back
so that maybe my love
can find its way through your pores
and seep into your blood
(never can i find the right words
to tell you just the way you feel to me)

and to think that and how i nearly missed you
makes me miss you more
every minute and mile we spend
elsewhere.
i can't sleep with another body
in my bed,
but sleeping without you
leav

Overgrown ColorsRed like blood on a rose.
White like bone and stars.
Black like reclusiveness.
Green like dead air.
Orange like the savage instinct.
Purity like a god's heart.
Red like thawing hatred.
White like a frozen, severe cry.
Black like the night's deprived shadows.
Green like the wind in the grass.
Orange like the light in the shadows.
Purity like the sun rising.
So discharging through the moon in a wheeze is like luminous white, dispersed red.

PocketLeftover religion in the pocket
Of my trenchcoat
A key that unlocks nothing
A penny, a scrap of paper
With half of your name
Written in black ink

A song that is usually in my head
In the shriveled carcass
Of a long-dead dream
In the pocket
Of my trenchcoat
With the lint

Dry Spell I am immobilized by time.
by the idea that it is somehow slipping,
fleeting,
evaporating
through the cracks of
my fingers and high

above my head.
I am terrified by the incessant notion
that no combination of thoughts,
words,
silences,
or actions
could possibly satiate it.

I realize only now that it can never be filled:
all which is tossed into it is swallowed in haste
or stretched
so far
that it dissolves into non-being.
I find that I am caught within its furrows
much like the words it devo

He doesn't write poetry anymore.He doesn’t write poetry anymore,
even if he still collects it, reads it, saves it, treasures
faded verses from his wife the way connoisseurs
savor vinyl over metallic rainbows on disc.
I don’t mind not knowing, but I can’t stand not asking.

The record needle hits the groove wrong;
he stumbles over words that aren’t there,
rummaging for an answer he doesn’t really have.
He doesn’t write poetry anymore
and his confusion is strangely endearing.

But there’s a lyricism to his words that I love,
poetic lines inserted between the daily grind
of character names and who said what;
voiceless boys in white a

WindowsHere am I, repeated,
and beyond waits everything
but everything is more
than I can bear.

I am not built for altitude
nor looking far afield;
groves and granite-sided mountains
stop my gaze

like rest for every tired wing;
a cover in the coldest time
snugged up beneath my chin.

Windows nothing more,
but safe lies there behind them
as the chambered hours pass;

safe sleeps there behind them
on the soft side of the glass.

with thanks to frosttwo roads diverged in a soulless dawn
and you pull over,
idling on the shoulder of route 50.
it's a polaroid morning and
the world is as grainy
and sleep-heavy
as your eyes,
and one million miles
is not far enough.
it plays back, filmstrip,
blurred along the length of
optic nerves,
and here you are:
facing a choice between
on
and
out.
and this?
this loosejointed, hollowbodied
weightless ache--
this is what
gone
feels like.

Pull Her Hair/Stare At The StarsThe ghosts have crashed their ship
on the other side of town,
you can see it from the second floor
all the way over here.
You can see the white clouds
rising from the wreck
and a nova of heat, a big bright
nova of warmth pulling the moths and wolves
out from the woods (with their noses up and searching).
You can smell the yearning like bees
leaving the hive, like the grizzly brown bears
on the jagged white mountains (concrete and imposing).
They call it fear,
but I see these ghosts
scrambling up into the sky
and I like to think it's
something different entirely.

Condemnedbeneath the beaten earth they lay,
their dreams condemned to ashes,
and our restless bodies stretch,
for forgiveness, for direction –

survivors of the abyss,
amidst wide-eye, silent soldiers –
so many dead, so many maimed,

how many graves are we standing on, today?

SisterSister

A sister is like a soul mate;
Someone who is always there
to guide me through fate.

A sister is,
a part of childhood that I cannot erase;
A sister like you,
is one that I would never replace
because you always know how to
put a smile on my face.

I know I can depend on you
to always be there for me;
This is one hundred percent guaranteed!

I've had great memories with you
in the past;
and I hope there are many more
to come,
in the future.

Life, Death And A Pork Chop SandwichAll tangled up, hard to breathe
This steel cloud day that swirls
With heat and pounding hammers
I shake in my boots and cough up
Blood, rust and damaged flesh
Waiting for the second coming
Maybe next time around there'll be
Some chance for more than this

A twisted barbed wire halo
Wrapped tight around my skull
Blinding white light aura
Swarming with flies I'm flying
To pieces, thousands of shards
Cannot be brought back together
But I will remember the summer
Of my first Chevrolet in each bit

Gleaming bits of glass in the desert
Each reflecting a different moment
Still, now, enduring until the waves
Of a new ocean sweep them away
No pain

A Night By the FireNo light,
The light sired by the night
All above whilst the day's delights
Now disappears from mortal sight.

Faded away is the sun's power,
Taking the stage now is night's sallow flower;
Now mortals may behold the stars and falling shower.

Set in a pit Nature's skyscraper ablaze
And revel in the emanating heat as you gaze,
Looking down on occasion when you hear a crack from the fire
And witness "fireflies" flying away from mother's blaze;
Dying shortly after but not lacking burning beauty do they desire!

I look out towards the teasing shore
And meditate as we sit upon her door,
Thinking on what my future has in store;
Who I am now and even

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The Willowhayne DefensiveThe Willowhayne Defensive
by Zoe Stead

When I awoke, it was to the sound of blistering rain, the wind outside throwing it hard against the window in an almost savage manner. The sky was a dark, oppressive grey and black clouds swirled turbulently across the horizon, painting what looked like smudged brush strokes across a vast, pockmarked canvas.
From where I lay in bed, I could just make out the voluminous craggy tops of distant volcanoes, where fire and magma constantly spewed out from their infernal depths, creating thick lava gorges and chasms that scarred the very face of the earth.

"What a beautiful morning."
I glanced over at

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Ha'penny Street

by ~ZoeStead, Jan 2, 2009, 12:53:02 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Ha'penny Street
by Zoe Stead

Take a stroll down Ha’penny Street,
The cobbles all bulging;
The fresh smell of meat,
From Slaughterhouse Lane
Just sluiced with blood
The gravy of poor men:
Offal and mud.

But beware of your purse
And a criminal's smile,
Unperturbed by the gibbet,
Full of gusto and guile.
With a tip of his hat,
He bids you good day,
And salutes with the bottle
That led him astray.

A child brushes past,
A cry fills the air,
The Old Trader’s Garden
Now full off despair.
Ten to a house,
In the ruins of halls
Once selling jumble, curiosities
Jewels!

The shine of the clockwork
Can no longer be seen,
The Crescent of Chronus
Dull in its sheen,
The copper roofed mansion
The Professor’s one dream:
Ransacked, destroyed.
Moulded and green.

But listen, my friend,
Heed and take care,
For there dwells the sirens
Lovely and fair
Of Flesh Market Close
Full of powder and lace,
Shadows and secrets,
An aged woman’s face.

The gentlemen look,
Yet never do stare
The allure of a fan,
And a leg: soft and bare.

The flower girl runs
Along Ha’penny Street,
The gaze of the hungry
Watching her feet.
Your look says it all,
You now wish to leave,
Surrounded by villains, brigands
And thieves.
But come and look closer,
See life as it is
And despair in the cold, wet touch of my kiss.

“Yes, become one of us,
Good gentleman, sir,”
Our voices all murmur, and whisper and purr,
“Put down your morals, and come rest your feet,
There’s room for one more,
Here on Ha’penny Street.”

Ha'penny Streetby ~ZoeStead

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

A poem I wrote as I was feeling creative and Matt was looking at steampunk stuff on the computer

Hope you all enjoy!
Zoe xx

~PaulEberhardt May 22, 2011 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

I love your writing! The poem draws you right into it and won't let you go too soon.

~ZoeStead May 22, 2011 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Thank you, if you like my poetry I do have a small collection you can buy or download online from Lulu: [link] - that's the link. Ha'penny Street is one of my favourites, along with A Thousand City Skies. Thanks for dropping by and reading my work x

~the-secret-monkey Feb 11, 2010

I felt warm and fuzzy inside when I read this . . . I don't know why.

~ZoeStead Feb 11, 2010 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Because warm and fuzzy is what Zoes' do best probably LOL!!

~the-secret-monkey Feb 11, 2010

Tehe!

~Starsister12 Jan 3, 2009 Hobbyist General Artist

*shivers* I love the imagery and feel of this poem. I'ts very gritty and threatening, with allure and despair. Love the descrptions and word choice!

~ZoeStead Jan 3, 2009 Hobbyist Digital Artist

Thanks loads, coming from a poet as good as you that is a great compliment

~Starsister12 Jan 3, 2009 Hobbyist General Artist

*blushes* Thanks! Don't forget that you are also a good poet, even if your deviations focus more on art and prose. (I liked your New Years poem in your journal as well.)

~CyanilurusJubatus Jan 3, 2009

Zoe of multiple talents!

I love this too.

~Elisia-the-Dreamer Jan 2, 2009

This was great ^^ i really enjoyed reading this, and felt like i could really see Ha-penny street

it was really imaginitive.

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