The Poisoner's Garden and Others: Selected Poems
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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
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.
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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