The Pact

Do you remember thirteen years thus?
A bargain was made,
A pact you cannot break,
With a loan shark you can’t dupe,
An infernal contract,
Your soul for your hearts desire,
Seemingly an easy trade at the time,

The time has come to collect,
Your final sunset has passed,
The hounds come,
Obsidian pelt and garnet-eyed,
Slavering and tireless,
From the flames they come howling,
To tear from you a promised ember,

The hounds are here,
A flood of ghastly Baskervilles,
Do you hear them scraping at your door?
The scent of brimstone is palpable,
No amount of bargaining can lull them,
They are the devils own mongrels,
And they hunger for the flesh of a soul promised.

Veil Obscura

There are other worlds out there,
Alien and shadowy,
Full of miscreations,
Manticores and ghouls and chimeras,
Full of hunger,

Only a thin veil keeps them at bay,
A glass screen between the realms,
A blurry fortification,
A monochrome stained glass window we all push on,
Man doesn’t gently caress the wall,

Indeed man bashes against it incessantly,
Tempting fate and monsters,
As if galvanising our own slaughter,
Each crack in the veil is a dinner bell,
A welcoming call to the trough of this world.

The Bayou

Sweating in the southern humidity,
There is a dead soul walking,
Waist deep in stinking brackish water,
Inspirited by the morning bourbon,
Gummy peacemaker in hand,
On the search for the devil himself,
Wanted dead or alive,

Amongst numberless drowned reeds,
Even a dead man can feel agony,
This swamp is a mad undertakers dream,
There are worse critters than mosquitoes,
These waters have teeth,
Scaly cold-blooded demons and wandering corpses,
Both would drag our hunter to a fetid end,

The bounty hunter wades gutsily ahead,
But the devil has other ideas,
The swamp rebels at each step the hunter takes,
Filthy waves advance and a ghostly banjo yelps,
The clamour of a rattlesnake intensifies,
At the behest of Lucifer himself,
The bayou seeks to claim another between its jaws.

Madmans Chant

The angels lied,
The stars are falling,
A starscape and horizon afire,
A conflagrant deluge of feathers,
My fellow parasites have already fled to the chapels,
Tipsy on bread and wine,

But I stand here a heretic,
My only friend,
A goat with a thousand eyes,
Veiled in sulphurous musk,
He told me to escape to hell,
That salvation rested in cavernous limbo,

The devil would never lie,
So with blistered hands I dig,
A garden of mundane dirt,
No longer a lawn,
Mocked by a charred hanging tree,
Encircled by worm-riddled picket,

As you regard this pagan,
You think me mad,
My countenance screams so,
Mayhap I am,
I smolder endlessly now,
But I escaped your holy apocalypse.

Wicked Eyes

I am dragged from my sleeping nirvana,
To a bedroom suddenly unfamiliar,
An unseen force holds me in place,
Diabolic manacles upon each limb,
The bed becomes a gaol,
The infinite weight of sleep paralysis,
I feel ominous eyes upon me,

Two corpselights in the corner,
Limpid apertures flaunting hells own fires,
Fixated upon me like an eagle spying prey,
There’s a malice behind them,
A demonic spite,
Ice-cold dread burning as the eyes approach,
Twin lasers cutting into my very bones,

As the eyes draw close,
Enough to feel the abominable heat,
Swelter emanating from them as if breathing,
They simply stare in ghoulish hate,
Holding inches away with their malicious effusion,
Feasting upon my soul in its throes of terror,
Until the morning comes with banishing sun.

Cauldron-Born

A child of demonology,
They told me how I was made,
By that blasted coven,
Possessed of dark magic and darker intents,
I was spawned by no natural means,
Formed by ritual in lieu of conception,

Dragged from the abyss,
From that infernal bubbling womb,
Scratching at the cast iron feebly,
The cold skin of this cauldron,
Contrasting against my seared ruby skin,
A mere fell homunculus,

Into that vessel they allotted great labour and pain,
Poisonous herbs of all shades and temperaments,
Liquid spite in floods,
Pigs hearts and crows eyes,
Galvanising the broth to rouse sorcerous nascency,
Magic to beget my fiendish form,

Why sire such an abomination?
Why bring evil to life?
For its own sake they told me,
I have no inherent goal,
No good reason to exist,
For I am cauldron-born.

Warpbeast

I heard tell of a creature,
Of a freakish beast that defies description,
A being of abominable flux,
An insult to nature,
With a form only describable with foul anecdotes,
It’s body spurns logic or sanity,

Tentacles like rotten eels,
An oily rat king writhing against reason,
A tongue that prattles heresy,
Uttering sounds like glass shattering post-collision,
Skin of indeterminable shade and composition,
Teeth attached to fingers attached to hair,

I recoiled at the sight,
A visual stench I could not wash away,
A memory that reeks of nonsensical atrocity.

Fear The Dark

Man has forgotten what resides in the darkness,
The creatures and anomalies of the night,
Why our ancestors truly brought about light,
Why they huddled as shadows raved around them,
And shuddered at each dire shriek,

Young ones still shiver at night,
They say children are the most intuitive of souls,
Receptive to things adults no longer see,
Things in the closet and under the bed,
The stink of the supernatural,

In truth those things never left,
They still hunger for gore and skin,
Fangs and talons and maws agape,
Heed your progeny,
We would do well to remember the fear.

Witching Hour

Do you ever lay awake at night?
Beyond the turn of midnight,
Wondering why you weren’t enough,
Or how you could have performed differently,
Your mind painting new timelines,
Wishes upon tired stars,

The devils hour is thought sinister,
But bad karma only comes to those deserving,
It has become a stage for the crestfallen,
The night breeze is a fitting backtrack,
A subtle chill to the bone,
Numbing the body,

The demons of the hour recognise heartbreak,
For even they are angels to some,
They shall not bring more torment upon you,
They know your heart is the prime malignant harrier,
They spy the anguish on your cheeks,
The inconsolable tears upon your pillow,

This is no nightmare,
No black magic at work tonight,
No witchcraft or demonology,
This is simply a soul breaking down,
Heartbreak in the twilight,
A melancholy man or woman watched over by the moon,

This is real.

In The Walls

There are things within these walls,
Things that follow room to room,
Things that slither and writhe,
Things that peek through cracks,
Things that chew on rats,
Souls not at rest,
The cavities,
These veins of this old house,
They squirm like black blood,
They thrash at the games of these devilkin,

I hear them,
Clawing and giggling and scratching,
Tittering and scraping and taunting,
Curses in a menagerie of voices,
They’re trying to get out,
You’ll hear them tap at night,
Searching for a chink in the houses armour,
They call out to me in frothy tongues,
They just want to play,
They only want to break another toy,

They say their last one fell apart.