By: David van den Berg
lovecraft was a city boy
green eyed dreams of broken things / black crow croak / i heard rats in the walls by the grapefruit trees until the day our liver-and-white bitch snarled through the kitchen and ground small bones to pulp and licked my face ‘cause she loved me so
words don’t mean much when wasps crawl out of coke cans / half chewed / goddamn does coke dissolve shit fast / daddy says check your boot yourself / but you only kill the things you find / they only let you find ‘em ‘cause they ready to die / i know / ‘cause jesus told me so outta the mud what dried where red bull gored two coyote / i hear their momma howl come back to me my sons my sons come back
moon don’t care / that’s all i got to say about that
sneak out the trailer when midnight comes / follow the ants / they know the way / pick ‘em up by the scruff of their neck / shake loose their tiny tongues / i did it once and they told me son we’re off to see the king in yellow / i knew enough about things to leave ‘em be after that
see wingless white-eyed flies / come crawlin’ to you cryin’ daddy daddy check my boots / i got good news / when them growed-up maggots crawl through tattered sheets / they aint’ real until you smoosh em / sweet dreams i love you
Ballad of Bull Creek
i.
my brother knew everything
and he told me about the monster who lived
beyond the barbed wire fence
ii.
not yet midnight
by the firing range
cattle call
coyote answers
don’t go out that gate
iii.
rundown shed smells of gasoline and whiskey
inside
legless plastic turkeys
peppered with 12 gauge shot and
unlucky feathers
draw flies and flies
draw widows and widows
make love good enough to lose your head
iv.
if i were an animal i’d be a male black widow and i’d thank god for the opportunity
v.
monster lay beneath a palmetto bush
ribs gaunt glass eyes hot breath
gasping blueblack swamp air too weak
to shake the maggots free
we sat a while before
i brought myself to slit his throat
but i didn’t know how thick it was
i sat with him ‘til it was done
and cried the whole time
David van den Berg grew up hunting and fishing in the Florida swamps. He studied anthropology and religion before moving to LA, where he works as an actor and writer. He is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Prometheus Dreaming (@prometheusdreamingmag), an online culture magazine. He was recently published in From Whispers to Roars and in The Blue Mountain Review. His short film '5th Dimension' recently won 'Best Short Film' at the 2018 FrightFest.
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