by E.A. Bowen
SCORCHED CORONA
E.A. Bowen
Copyright 2011 by E.A. Bowen
For Those In Need
Collected Poetry
Passion's Imp
In Darkness Lays the Dragon
Scorched Corona
What Evil Does to He: Cry of the Werewolf
Knight of the Crimson Night
Imprisoned
Mankind
My Scarlet Countess
Doll with No Face
Why the Widow Weeps
Hermit Sod House
View of the Vile
Lasher Of Tulips
Tearless Babe
Cactus Children
Unholy Nuptials
Grave Diseased Earth: When We the People Sit in Silence
What We Have Seen: Now Stronger
In Vain
Chu'a
Solitary American Eagle
Court of Corruption
Ironclad Rustics
Il banchetto di Bacchus
Bedlam of the Moguls: Kingdom of the Dead
Catacomb
Practice of Euboea's Lords
Penalty of the Human Life
Bloody Land: Creatures
Pretty Ballerina
Feel the Strange Heart Beating
Passion's Imp
Angelic faery
Of mortal lands
With shattered wings
Flickering slightly
Your chastity weeps
Of late disgrace
Waxed tenderly not and
Scarred burnt cheeks
O passion's imp
Beloved scorched
-Seared in blackness-
Wake your dark eyes
To ruby wings unbroken
Graciousness restored
With melted sorrow
Angelic faery breathe
In immortal lands
In Darkness Lays the Dragon
In darkness lays the dragon
Where I shall slay it by my hand,
With sword and crest in gallantry
Near England my ship to land.
And I with fever curse aloud
Deaf to sweating rage,
And to surface comes my fear
My body... ravaged by age.
Out with my bellows and cries
As I vision a greenery ahead,
I spot the cave where he sleeps
Darkness lumps inside- dread.
What if he were to wake before I could
Plummet his blood, silence abroad?
What if I were to break before
My cunning beast I dare maraud?
And now I lay my foot upon
His scales cobalt and red,
My hands grip into my sword
As I creep along his bed...
Fire from out his mouth
Burns light within the cave,
I see scores of dragons sleeping!
And I am weeping,
Weeping
Weeping to be brave.
From behind me now comes forth
A blaze of crimson fire!
My aging body
Ages no more
As I scorch in a fiery gyre
In darkness lays the dragons
Where I rest by death's hand,
With sword and crest in gallantry
Near hell my soul to land.
Scorched Corona
Screams of ageless furies; moans
To forgotten sin, faceless for
Burden's sake
Blades numb to angst enduring
Quiet
Thralls for majesties!
Blotting bloody mistakes
In hope of retribution
Through sacrificial loss and waste
Scorched corona, halo burnt-
Crisper, cloudy round the top
Bearing fateful whispers
Of treacheries cut shear.
One race, human folly,
Suffering to surety's foe,
Blinded, crusading ego
Spilling our soul's blood.
What Evil Does to He
Cry of the Werewolf
The air is thick of angry men
My clothes -wet- in blackened blood,
My world blurs into spiraling thoughts...
I hear my heart
missing
its thud.
What evil have I done?
I cried
My hands shiver, dripping red.
I have no memory of this.
I am not alone in my bed.
Men batter thick fists at my door
And shout to me their evil tongue,
My eyes bloodshot, now crusted shut,
I could not see her body hung.
I smell her.
I stumble 'cross my bedroom
Open windows into rain,
Wash away the shame that blinds
And turn to see what cruel death has lain.
My face presses 'gainst her hand
As I pull down her body warm,
And fall upon my knees
Knowing
That it was I that had killed she.
I howl.
Knight of the Crimson Night
With black steed prancing forward
Through pines in nightly rain,
Gallops forth a masked knight
Clutching the deadly wolfs-bane.
To poison veins of rivals
Is a quest he truly knows,
For secrecy lurks his spirit
With vengeance of his foes.
Midnight skies darken light
In the moon shade he rides,
Journeying unaided westward
Into shadows where he hides.
Crimson stained stars burst
As thick smoke blanket woods,
Silence comforts mindless fools,
All are dead before the knighthood.
With his tears streaking down,
He lays wolfsbane onto the ground,
Weeps the death of his family killed
By his enemy a short time crowned.
Death to the king! he vows,
And rides to a malevolent East,
Nameless knight eyes this land,
Prayer to those the king deceased.
Those who glance his way will see
A veil of black hiding his face,
Vanishing into the horrid mist,
Leaving with not a trace.
Now steed of black prancing forward
Through smoky woods in a crimson night,
A ghostly presence comes into sight and
Gallops forth a masked noble knight.
Imprisoned
Cutting deep like a vein
He keeps track of the time
His scalpel only tool
And slaughter only crime
Rank blanket only friend
Rain's melody his tune
He's wetting in buckets
And eating by teaspoon
Bars of iron refuge
Cleanse his tongue of sin
But a life in a cage
Is not worth being in
He stays inside at night
Lays hidden in the day
Thinks to slice his arm
To end his life his way
His feet begin to give
Body falls to the ground
His eyes shut out the light
His ears block out the sound
Now burning into light
His mind begins to see
No torture can redeem
What he has done to me
Cutting deep like a vein
He keeps track of the time
His scalpel only tool
And slaughter on
ly crime
Mankind
Under icy branches
Scarcely seen
Knightly shadows
Secrete in privation
Corpse of their master
Burns
Death's grip clutches
A dying nation
Darkened East Sea
Once called Red
Before the sky
Flamed by mankind
Now brittle living
Wish they slept
For the desire of the wise
Is to be blind
Crackling icy trees
From sun streaming
Through burnt clouds
Brings brief hope
As the King enshrouds
Remember, death holds the Sea,
Poisoning the blood of mankind,
Reflecting its color
Above in lost reason
For it was human reason
That killed the mind.
Now under melting branches
Knightly shadows die in damnation
For the dead people
Of their worlds burn,
Man's grip may crush
A world's dying nation.
My Scarlet Countess
Knitted sheer veil hides her
For no human can perceive
Why her skin is so frail
Why her music can deceive,
Tapping oaken planks amid
A ballroom's court of play
The Courtier bids farewell
Bids farewell to thee
Light silences her away,
And in shadows deep I kneel
To numb her throbbing mar,
She looks twice and turns afar,
Blindly I do follow
Three paces at the right,
Gaze at her feet prancing
Stepping into the light.
Velvet curtains tumble as
Yellow moon rays dance down,
Her veil is quickly torn
Whiteness breaks her gown,
Two bones now protrude
Curving out her lips,
My scarlet countess wakes
As blood pours through the rips.
I scurry into nightshade
Scamper into the rain
Prick the holes out my neck
And lick the blood in pain.
Doll with No Face
She heard the echoes
From the downstairs' pantry
Metal rings
Like a cold, unending knife
But she kept in silence
In the upstairs bedroom
In the white laced
Chipping baby cradle
Her eyes were but two blue marbles staring
White lights flickered, smoke clustered
In and out
Burnt black fog whispering
Children screaming, “Fire!”
Her unpainted lips
Would not whisper
Could not whisper
As she pulled the blue blanket
Over her head
A girl with no home
A doll with no face
Why the Widow Weeps
Bloody tears shed no desire
To casket - in wreaths
Silk blossoms cannot lighten
What sharp darkness clutched
Her gray veiled locks crisp
Under dry hemlock vines
Lowering head first her man
A bastard in disguise
She does not weep in sorrow
That God unjustly raged,
Fate severed the wrong thread-
O woe to the virgin wife
She does not weep in sorrow,
Death is but destiny, while
A martyr always dies
As the spouse finds anew
In sorrow she has not,
In joy she grows a plenty,
A new man's ring glistens
From him her belly's full
In darkness swelled from sorrow
An unborn babe created,
No longer weep, dear widow,
Your life inside incorruptible.
Hermit Sod House
Rocking back and forth, squealing to the wind,
His home one chair, plain and weak,
Guarding his prairie of golden cornfaces,
His home long forgotten.
Bleak voices whisper from the floors,
But his home no longer hears them,
Sleeting rain trembles by his feet,
But his home only knows of his tears.
Fluttering creatures engulf surviving life,
How could his home stand so still forever?
Armies of wheels march
In a line crooked west,
Could his home wheeze the dust another winter?
A sharp whistled trigger ready to attack,
Protecting his home of a hermit effigy,
Puffing blackness
Last of all warmth gone,
Protecting his home from starvation and death.
The man's hand scrapes a stone gently,
Outside of his home
Where babes of his soul sleep soundly,
Weeping over a life plucked
From the vines unripe, forbidden
Outside his home in mists of forlornness.
That day has come when the mud slides,
Caving in his home
Red wounds collapsing,
Burying hope of returning,
Caving in his home
Caving in his heart
Burying his young.
View of the Vile
If ever a time for bloodshed,
Let it be over criminal justice
Rather than societies' whines
Children cannot unearth a meal
In their nickel canisters,
Nor can they find warmth
In frosted rawhide flesh,
With pruned feet numbing off,
With minds swelled in viral knowledge,
With ears pierced in heckling coughs,
With a world dying around them,
They have only time to play.
Three pigeons, attired with auburn silk,
Fester at Dublin's Corner Club,
Netted tights crease skin
Wedging into strapped silhouettes,
Thick smoke from mint cigarettes
Flickers ash into gray dead hair.
A child, infested, drags itself
From an ominous alley,
The hag spews stained saliva,
Twitches her fogged eye,
Grabs primeval newspapers
Burned by unlit cigarettes and
Rolls them for a beating,
Without a spoken word,
The child dashes into darkness,
Waits for his emerald supper,
Of musty cabbage and bread.
She curses the middle finger
Bounded by twine and hate,
Spits again and dies before
Another whore takes her place.
Lasher Of Tulips
Shedding petals
Iced white,
Crackling down
By silver wind,
Ash hoarfrost
Swallows June,
Numbing greens
Blanketing all,
Lasher of tulips,
Beater of roses,
Death's tempest,
Fair El Niño.
Tearless Babe
Unspoken lips
Mask rank tongues,
Impure thoughts,
Its lashes crisp.
Brittle, encrusted,
Forever shut,
Dreamless owl,
Tearless babe,
Mummified girl.
Cactus Children
Prancing in cracked sand dunes,
Digging parched dung and hay,
Drinking mud water'
s bliss,
We, the children, laugh and play
Ribs protruding sheets of skin,
Lungs pressing life away,
Bloodiest kin now tangos,
Lifeless baby cannot play
Its legs too short and stumpy,
Head tipped off in a sway,
We, the children, sing tonight,
To celebrate our deadened play
Pricking flesh off the teeth,
Sucking wild howls in gray,
Nothing lives,
As we cactus children play.
Unholy Nuptials
Pastel gown frosted white
Crisp upon a feather bed,
Abysmal serpent slithers
Another before they wed,
Floating into vagueness
By rogue husband's hand
She breaks chains of virtue,
Throws down her wedding band,
Golden abandon halo tumbles
Popping this bloody dream,
Farewell unfaithful other half
Drowning tears in the stream.
Grave Diseased Earth
When We the People Sit in Silence
In the year twenty one fourteen
Air is thick of gasoline
Water filtered by pumps unclean
Soils rich with dirty lumps
Ivory bones litter green fields
By mankind's wild atomic wields
Earth becomes but a disease of graves
Picked clean by her venomous ways
Vultures just the remaining few
They who were the ones that knew
Alert, ingenious, oh- they hid
Under aluminum hearts- they hid
Soiled Earth, dead of healing
From humankind, wars are wheeling
Now blackness turns to water
Cleansing our grounds of slaughter
One day we will revisit our home
Rebuild the cities great, rebuild our Rome,
Watch safely like birds from outer space
Planting seeds of a much nobler race
Until our day has come to pass
We sit in silence
Through tainted glass
Soiled Earth, dead of healing
Cleanse the ground of our beating
And like vultures, we will stay,
And reclaim our sadness in victory
What We Have Seen: Now Stronger
Spaniards blew their horns
Drew out rapiers, stormed
A golden city drained
Metal slices into mud
Clashing of the souls
Below now swelling grounds
Hell has not awoken us
As we sleep within
Our underground bunker
We hid when all was wrong
