1

Now I know the mysteries of the sea,
Tranquil emerald hues, emerald blues, enrapture me,
Forever embraced with the mermaid queen,
Now I know why the mariner nervously glances,
Why no one on Grand Isle will ever say he died.

For I too, will never die.

They say he never died!
In the night his spirit glides,
Through the cold the sea roars,
Pierre lives on forevermore.

Tranquil emerald hues, emerald blues, enrapture me,

Forever embraced with the mermaid queen,

Now I know why the mariner nervously glances,

Why no one on Grand Isle will ever say he died.

For I too, will never die.

They say he never died!

In the night his spirit glides,

Through the cold the sea roars,

Pierre lives on forevermore.

—HE NEVER DIED

1

“The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man’s place in the universe.”
― Jack London (To Build a Fire)

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal! –Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)

1

Silent and deathly chilled was the night,
I found the golden-haired child who gave me a fright,
Her smile, Oh! Her ghostly innocent smile,
Haunted me ghostly in the twilight snow pile.
Haunted me forever in the twilight snow pile.
–Jeffrey LeBlanc
(Child in the Christmas Snow)

1

To feel alive with your terrified pulse pounding, to feel the warm embrace of love, to have your teeth chatter with fear, the stomach quivering nausea of dread, or the blinding throes of rage, is what I offer with this collection. These horror poems I share with you have blazed the flames brightly to inspire me to create the most ghastly of horror tales and the most powerful of rock songs to date. You’re going to know my soul crushing angst in ‘Blood in the Pouring Rain’ as I saved my father’s life. You’ll look over your shoulder a glance or two maybe with a tear hearing the haunting ‘Sarah the Eternal’. And maybe you will laugh and howl along with ‘Ghost on Christmas Mountain’ to lift your spirits.

1

1

1

1

1

He felt the cool air of the open sky on his cheeks,
and when he looked down, as they cleared the summit
of the dark-lying hills, he saw that Issidy had melted
away into himself and they had become one being.
And he knew then that his heart would never pain
him again on earth, or cause him to fear for any of his
beloved dreams. –Algernon Blackwood (The Dance of Death)

1

And waving in a dusky dragon light

Great moths whose wings unholy tapers char.

Red memory on memory, tier on tier, Builds up a tower, time and space to span;

Through world on world I rise, and sphere on sphere,

To star-shot gulfs of lunacy and fear— Black screaming ages never dreamed by man.’

–Robert E. Howard (Babel)

1

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she gaz’d and sighed deep,

And there I shut her wild sad eyes So kiss’d to sleep.

And there we slumber’d on the moss,

And there I dream’d, ah woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dream’d On the cold hill side.’ –John Keats (La Belle Dame Sans Merci)