Ghost Train ~ Samantha Rose

One fateful night in 1954

A storm brought from the sky cold rain

Cracked tracks swollen below the downpour

The Hudson swallowed the runaway train!

 

And since that night our train disappeared

To the deep floor of the riverbed

Legend says it comes back ‘round every year

Collecting the souls of the dead

 

The train starts back up on the darkest of nights

To play reaper in spirit abductions

You’ll see in the black two shining lights –

And with that, let’s begin introductions!

 

One-eyed-Tom is no stranger to gore

Friendly guy – too much so, thought his wife!

She caught him in bed with the girl next-door

And wiped his smile clean off with a knife!

 

And Margaret here is such a dear!

But she was caught in a small mix up

She tried to poison her lover last year

And accidentally drank the wrong cup!

 

To you, it’s true, I still have much to show!

But you now know some of our horde

There are more souls to bring to the undertow

So to you I say, all aboard!

 

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

---

You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.

 

Edible Doll ~ Samantha Rose

They say that femininity is sweet to the taste

and too delicate to choke on.

It is a platter of cucumber finger sandwiches

and lukewarm tea served with sugar cubes

decoratively catered to the Male Gaze.

 

You, girl, are an edible doll.

Soft on the stomach, primed and proper to devour,

the only thing to satisfy a sweet tooth as well as a bored hand.

And you were always taught not to play with your food

but that didn’t stop him from making you desert.

 

You are the epitome of finger food,

your worth designed to be unraveled like licorice twists,

candy coated in curtseys, blush, low self-esteem,

and poisoned pastel femininity—

you delectable, delicate, porcelain machine.

 

You only let yourself bleed in pink.

As fingerprints are exchanged for your “purity”

you must melt on his tongue like chocolate

and always smile with your teeth—

nice girls don’t shatter on display for the world to see!

 

And you should always be sweet like frosting

and convenient like a dinner mint

and only cry tears of glitter and confetti.

Your suffering is a bittersweet delicacy,

Like sprinkles, add just enough but not too much!

 

You are too much, girl.

Mourn your body in silence and bow defeatedly to frailty.

Cry in such a way that they still love you

and fall apart softly like angel food cake.

Because if boys will be boys, then girls will be play things.

 

 

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

---

You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.

 

 

The Knight’s (Dragon’s) Pedestal ~ Samantha Rose

It is a long down from this dungeon fortress,

captive behind bars of fangs and smoldering dragon’s breath,

sliced open on the glimmering edges of his scales –

 

I placed her gently in an ivory tower, saved by chivalry’ sword

and shielded under my cloak and protected from the mighty

brutes and beasts lurking in the oceans and on the earth –

 

He stole my wings and stitched them onto his own back,

my flight stripped and swallowed by his gnashing jaw

and boiled in the fire of his belly, the heat allowing him to rise –

 

And she, the purest of the sexes, soft, porcelain, breakable –

exalted on her feminine pedestal, I bow to her, lifting her handkerchief

as if bestowing a crown upon her delicate forehead –

 

His dagger horns form a cutting crown, belying his total power,

he ruler of the earth, I, confined by his decree.

But he forgets that I, too, breathe fire from the matches in my throat.

 

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

---

You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.

1969 ~ Samantha Rose

The wheels on the wagon don’t work like they used to,

they’ve stopped turning around the axel.

Rust has collected between the hinges

of about the same shade his hair used to be

 

long ago

when the war began

and bombs fell from grey skies

as dust settled amongst the cries of the wounded.

 

Newspapers sang of the death toll

as she waited to see his name

buried among the obituaries

or for the day

 

she would stop receiving tattered letters

scrawled in cheap ink in his damaged handwriting.

They’re saying the war was unjustified,

she felt so too.

 

And she waited for him to come home,

and he did

one day, long ago

when all hope dissipated

 

from her azure eyes.

And she waits for him again now

at the side of the hospital bed

but the wheels on the wagon don’t work like they used to.

 

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

---

You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.

Chupacabra ~ Samantha Rose

Obsidian melts off my glinting fangs

as cosmic rivers gleam down rippling spines.

I lurch out toward the rolling emerald pastures,

brush struck naked under the cut of my tail.

 

Goats, unaware, feed off the land below.

Crickets silence and scatter as my claws crunch

the dry leaves, like brittle, crackling bones licked dry

by smelting flames.

 

Closer now.

A bubbling odor creeps off my scaly flesh,

filling the desolate earth from the ground

as murmurs stretch louder,

 

echoes gurgling up in the gut of the valley.

Until

silence.

Tomorrow they will find

 

punctures buried in the fur caskets

of blood-drained bodies,

my hunger satisfied

for one more night.

 

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

---

You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.

Purple Senses ~ Samantha Rose

[Ode to Albert Camus]

 

Purple smells like

The passing of ages,

The time-singed edges of a secret journal

full of bleeding ink from tear stains and coffee spatters,

Crinkled old newspapers with melancholy stories,

Bonfires on the beach in the thunder and pouring rain,

Dewy lavender swaying in the wind,

And fear in the unknown and confidence that it’s all we have.

 

Purple sounds like

The echoes of nostalgia,

The creaking wheels on an abandoned childhood wagon,

The bone-like crunching of fallen maple leaves underfoot,

A sad song playing on an old piano for no one in particular

accompanied by the steady drum of heartbeats

pattering like rain to the sound of their own revolt.

 

Purple looks like

The depths of absurdity,

The amethyst rainy hay-daze

outside the cracked and dusty window of an abandoned farmhouse,

Pumpkin patches with tattered straw scarecrows shrouded in twilight,

The dog-eared pages of ancient philosophies,

And “the certainty of a crushing fate,

without the resignation that ought to accompany it.”*

 

Purple feels like

Velvet loneliness and mystery,

Soft heather fields pressed by the bottom of muddy boots,

A warm mug encompassed by two frosted hands in October,

Accumulating energy in a rising storm and eerie stillness thereafter,

Tragic twist endings hooked in sentimental vicariousness,

And the weight of time and space.

 

Purple tastes like

Bittersweet memories and existentialism,

Clear water from cracked, neglected fountain heads,

Dark chocolate and black coffee,

A single snowflake melting on the tongue as cars pass by,

Cold, violet lips kissed when daydreams are better than reality,

And true self-awareness coated in the confections of inner chaos.

 

* Albert Camus, The Stranger

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

---

You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.

 

High Desert ~ Samantha Rose

Salmon sunset cracks open

the celestial skull of the desert like an egg,

pouring light in the empty space

that kisses the mountain ridges.

 

Sagebrush grabs pools of glittering sand

between its greedy roots.

Droplets of sunlight leap from the ground

as if violently repelled by earth’s core,

 

filling up the atmosphere

like a golden goblet, as the bolting,

ethereal silhouette of a jackrabbit

drinks up the drops of light like fine wine.

 

Here, emptiness has more gravity than matter,

vacuities ablaze,

vacancies illuminated,

voids dazzling brilliance.

 

Light exists solely in cracks and crevices,

spaces unpossessed by mass,

uncontaminated by substance,

let alone by presence.

 

So we drain ourselves of sorrow like a sinkhole

and abandon baggage on the dusty trails.

And with nothing blotting out the path before us,

we race the sun on the long drive home.

 

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

---

You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.

Astoria ~ Samantha Rose

Something lurks in the obsidian atmosphere

above the quaint town

as fog creeps in tandem with the night tides.

 

Whistling winds

sway the chimes and the bobs at the wavering docs,

draining still silence from empty streets.

 

The theater smells of a handsome fellow

cloaked in a white tux and smoldering jaw,

who dances in mirrors

 

and paints with shadows in the corner of your eye.

The doorknobs turn themselves,

the empty hallways shriek the loudest.

 

The lighthouse, a columbarium

leaks ectoplasm from its barnacle covered bricks.

Protecting its honorary lighthouse keepers

 

as ships miss its lights

and perform vanishing acts upon the deep waters,

leaving phantoms in the night

 

to be dashed against the rocks

and to creep upon the skeleton of the wreckage.

The moon drags Cthulhu’s silhouette across the ocean floor

 

as cosmic chaos implodes

in the sleepy town

that never sleeps.

 

© Copyright Samantha Rose 2018

---

[Astoria is a coastal town in the state of Oregon, rumored along with many of its surrounding areas to be haunted by various creatures and spirits. To read more about the haunting history and ghost stories of Astoria, click HERE.]

You can catch more of Samantha existing at her blog, Existential Poetry.