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    The Poisoner's Garden and Others: Selected Poems
    The Poisoner's Garden and Others: Selected Poems
    The Poisoner's Garden and Others: Selected Poems
    Ebook80 pages27 minutes

    The Poisoner's Garden and Others: Selected Poems

    By Douglas Clegg

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    About this ebook

    A Poisonous Flower, an Evil Doll, a Well of Memory and Dream
    Award-winning author of supernatural and gothic fiction, Douglas Clegg gathers 22 of his poems for the first time ever into The Poisoner’s Garden & Others, ranging from those with a dark gothic edge to rhymes of whimsy with strange twists. Plus a Foreword and Afterword by the author.

    Included in this Volume:

    The Poisoner’s Garden
    Why My Doll is Evil
    The Salt of Undone Collars
    Swimming in Underwear
    Medea in Transit
    My Younger Self
    Toast to the Damned
    Cenote of Dreams
    October Wind
    On All Hallow’s Eve
    Song of Lupercalia
    For St. Valentine’s Day
    On the Ides of March
    Birthday
    Winter Solstice
    The Christmas Smite
    Elegy on a Dead Frog Found in Swimming Pool
    At the Station in the Rain
    Still Life
    That Hardscrabble Life You’re In
    Assam Tea
    The Crime

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDouglas Clegg
    Release dateMay 7, 2019
    ISBN9781944668327
    The Poisoner's Garden and Others: Selected Poems
    Author

    Douglas Clegg

    Douglas Clegg is a screenwriter, poet, and the author of dozens of novels, novellas, and short story collections. His fiction has won the Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award. He is married to Raul Silva and lives near the New England coast, where he is currently writing his next work of fiction.

    Read more from Douglas Clegg

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      Book preview

      The Poisoner's Garden and Others - Douglas Clegg

      Part I

      Thorny Grasp of Roses

      From the Cenote of Dreams

      The Poisoner’s Garden

      Among the thorny grasp of roses

      Near aconite and pale foxglove

      Far past the red anemone

      ‘Neath fruiting manzanilla tree

      At temple of Persephone,

      Where lies my heart?

      Where lies my love?

      Below the ridge of mossy stone

      My love met satyr in a mask

      Who led him down a perfumed aisle

      Among the lilies of the Nile

      Off crooked path of chamomile,

      While sipping ale from leaden cask.

      As respite from a searing sun

      To arbor, they, through colonnade,

      On marble plinth the two entwine;

      Wisteria snaking down the vine;

      The shrouded faun

      Failed to divine

      One who spied from deepest shade.

      I’d warned my love: Do not be fooled

      By sweetened glance or siren’s call,

      Though honey drips below the hive

      Its guardian stings

      With poisoned knives

      And stories of such ruined lives

      Keep secrets at that garden wall.

      I knew this satyr in disguise,

      I’d heard such whispers in the town

      Of lovers lost and rumored dead

      At bleeding heart

      And nightshade bed;

      This creature steps upon the head

      Of Venus, in her bath,

      To drown.

      But my innocent, my heart, my soul,

      Sun-kissed eyes of bright larkspur

      Returned at dusk from his meander

      In burnished mood

      With trifling candor

      While in his hair, white oleander,

      Betrayed a faithless saboteur.

      Will you take me there, my love?

      To yonder manzanilla tree

      That weeps with sap of brutal venom

      Among the sumac,

      Mint, and lemon,

      To ragged grove

      That’s meant to hem in

      The temple of Persephone?

      That marble dome to stolen bride,

      Nearby a well of hemlock water,

      On caryatids’ shoulders press

      A yoke imposed

      By their mistress,

      Whose shadow lets no light possess

      The shrine of fair Demeter’s daughter.

      She, who strayed midsummer’s noon

      Unchaperoned at ancient well,

      Torn from a pleasure garden’s bloom,

      Abducted by the ruthless groom,

      Her deity: eternal gloom

      Anointed at the throne of Hell.

      This temple to the goddess

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