Three Poems by Linda M. Crate

dead men don't speak

you were a fool
fancied yourself a king
get your feet
away from my throne
for i am the king
of my own universe,
and i don't need your hands
sullying my dreams;
you always sought to control me
tame me and throw me away
in some gilded cage
but that is no way to treat someone
you would say is your equal--
truth is i was just a price you could
not afford,
and you always wanted me to take you off the
pedestal so i'll just knock you off it now
leave you for dead and the world
can make of you all they want when they see
your bloodied face and all thousand of your masks
fractured around you
like some alchemy or summoning gone wrong
broken by the same lies you forced down my throat;
i will issue no apology--
built you up but you let me down,
and so now i will take my thrown back and my crown
the same ones you would have shattered
in the crevices of your wolf grin;
dead men don't speak and so you are dead to me.



rotten apple

you'll face an army of me
for all the nasty
things you said and did
don't worry your pretty little head
over that
worry about cleansing that soul
of yours of all its blackness,
and isn't it embarrassing
that you cannot manage without want
because I would be ashamed
to be such a succubus?
you may be pretty on the outside
but inside you are the apple
with the most rot,
and the pomegranate bleeding the most
bitter of blood;
always insisting that you're strong
when you are the weakest
of worms
feeding off the dreams and souls of all those
whom you possess you seek to make
yourself strong through the weakness others succumb
to please you--
but i refuse to be your willing victim
i will let you fall prey to your own needs and hang
yourself on your own noose,
and drink my champagne when i see that your dreams
drowned beneath the flood of your own rage.



hanging yourself

i held my hand out to help you
only so you could
crucify it,
and so now when you need my help
i will let my scarred hands
remain at my side;
it kills me to be the villain,
but i remind myself of how many times you
let me drown
and somehow it doesn't seem so unreasonable
to be this angry--
you were a heavy heart to carry,
and so i had to drop
your bones in the river;
let them wash away and i cleansed myself
of all your need and your wrath
because you were always just a noose waiting for
the right moment to hang yourself.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville.  Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print.  Recently her two chapbooks, A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press--June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon--January 2014) were published.  Her fantasy novel, Blood & Magic, was published in March 2015.  The second novel of this series, Dragons & Magic, was published in October 2015.  Her poetry collection, Sing Your Own Song, is forthcoming through Barometric Pressures Author Series.