Ramirez

What turns a man into a demon?
What is it that breeds evil?
Is it a grim childhood?
The fists of the father,
Is it the occult?
A macabre interest too young,
Is it the narcotics?
That fun white powder,
An amalgamation of all these facets?

Whatsoever the cause,
This foul creature was unleashed,
A stalker in the night,
Dreaming of Disneyland,
Mutilating and violating all the way,
Thirteen souls claimed in red and screams,
By a devil wearing a human costume,
This horned beast was finally caught,
Brought low by his own arrogance.

The Zealot

Have you seen that man?
Stood plentifully bestrewn in crimson petals,
Within a garden of fresh corpses,
A crusader amongst broken innocents,
He’s a killer like any other,
But sanctioned by those lofty spires,
A good holy soldier,

In place of prayer,
He commits to flagellation,
Pain weaving betwixt discipline,
He hears voices in the dark,
They come from dusty books,
A tome that claims divinity,
A higher morality touted in its pages,

What began as a good and humble life,
Was dismantled piecemeal by fear and hate,
Xenophobia and bigotry written as commandments,
Seeing jihads in all directions,
Knives at the windows,
The sermons were twisted to command,
And so he strikes.

Vigilante

There’s a fine line between justice and crime,
And some walk that line haphazardly,
They choose not to defer to authority,
And take matters into their own hands,
Vengeance rarely looks like a courtroom,
And it is never a portrait,
More often it is spent cartridges in an alley,
Bullet and hammer and blade,
These are the tools of the vigilante,
These are the judge and jury,
And the will behind them is the executioner.

Genius

Knowledge is a weapon they say,
A weapon to fight for the greater good,
But there is a another face to this coin,
In some hands it is abhorrent,
A tool turned on the good,
Genius can be malicious,

When a cranium takes a wrong turn,
And finds itself in a glade full of malcontent,
Like opening a new wing of a haunted manor,
It is the reptilian side of a mans brain,
Cold and unconcerned with feelings,
The greater the mind the greater the danger,

An anti-hero to oneself,
A villain to all others,
Conscience strung up in an evil lair,
All lasers and shark pits,
This is when an IQ level,
Becomes a terror level.

Surgical Smile

Not so happy?
We have a fix for that,
Allow me to put on my apron,
Forgive the blood,
This is a messy procedure,

Your face shall become artwork,
A scalpel sculpture,
An ideal incision,
Ear to ear,
A grin born of cruor,

You’ll be the talk of the town,
No more sorrow,
No more tears,
Extracting that bad mood,
The agony just means it’s working,

Why are you screaming?
You look so happy now,
You won’t be laughing,
But you’ll be smiling until the end of days,
Even within your grave,

Now that grin shall never dissipate.

Wendigo

Among the great northern forests,
A being of folklore prowls,
All claws and antlers,
An emaciated spirit of famine,
Leathery skin strewn taut over elongated bones,
The very image of a corpse animated,
The pines whisper its name,
Wendigo,

Once a man,
During a cruel winter,
Driven mad by hunger,
Contorted into an abomination,
His mate and cubs became fodder,
But even such a massacre was not enough,
More meat,
Find more meat,

So many have fallen prey to its appetite,
And you may be next,
Sniff the air,
If you smell rot and decay,
You ought to flee posthaste,
The fallen leaves herald its coming,
More meat,
Never enough meat.

Davey Oldbones

Ever heard of Davey Oldbones?
An emaciated killer for hire,
A bounty hunter without peer,
His true name lost to the winds,
He stalks the fringes of society,
Of numberless dimensions,

A revenant,
A harbinger of the end,
He knows no mercy,
His heart and flesh rotted decades ago,
Humanity purged from his bones,
Simply an instrument of Lady Death,

Doom comes in style,
Clad in obsidian trenchcoat,
With blood-red trimmings,
Haggard face hidden behind a gasmask,
Emotions shielded from view,
And adorned with a regal top hat,

So feel free to flee,
When you hear the rasping breath,
And his skeletal hand upon your shoulder,
You will know fear,
And soon thereafter,
You will know the dark.

The Laughing Man

My candles breathed their last,
I decided to take a walk with the full moon,
A dark shape crossed my path,
An unnerving smirk upon its countenance,
Disconcerting yet darkly welcoming,
Fangs glistening like daggers in the moonlight.

A mad grin,
An infectious grin,
Piercing eyes,
Unblinking eyes,
An obfuscated form,
Even more obscure intentions.

He greeted me warmly,
Every sentence punctuated with a giggle,
He explained his way of life,
To laugh was to live,
All else was misery he said,
Life and death were simply gags.

His laughter spoke to me,
Like friendly advice I could not ignore,
Each cackle was a poem,
Every chuckle a sonnet,
Each chortle was a well-formed argument,
It told me of things wonderful and unseen.

His laughter seduced me,
It revitalized me like a shot of adrenaline,
Like a lifestyle I’d shamefully missed
His guffawing opened a gateway,
An expression of joy in three syllables,
Ha. Ha. Ha.

I almost joined him in his nocturnal comedy,
But then I saw the corpse crumpled behind him,
A bloody beam carved across her face.

His grin vanished…