by Allan Pexa

Saturday night was exactly as others

Alone with Lovecraft’s pet model and at ease in the rotted wood of the abode

Simply put I reside on a hill enclosed by projectiles aligned as a fence

The steeple of the place as high as Poe’s opium stained brow

Beautiful yet a bit on the rustic side, filled with books and Patsy Cline singing

“Sweet Dreams” as the neighbor’s cat drops off the top of the roof again

You ever see the picture of the old haunted house on the hill in the moonlight

Mine lives inside of that then shits it out after you’ve stopped looking

At the terrible cliché of a fly-ridden portrait

On this night I can still smell the aroma and am pleased

Even if I have to put up with you looking in again

The first thing you’ll notice is Pickman’s pet in the window

Only to greet you understand, not there to devour

That comes later because, after all, everyone gets hungry

Another swig for me and Edgar and you if the thought

Of a headache and vomit intrigue, and certainly it must

After all, you are still reading this without enough revulsion to turn away

And so I must continue my studies of poor Edgar and the neighbor’s teenage daughter

A damn sight better looking than the wretch stuck in the wall

No, she’s in the kitchen right now waiting for dinner

Waiting since 1848 but who counts except perhaps Edgar

Who forms the words anyway, forms as meticulously as the part in his hair

That winds a bit without aid of mirror all the way along the fence

That encloses this house still filled with the song that can’t end

Because houses don’t end, they only follow a picture you watch

For so long that it becomes what you always knew

A place deep inside that calls out for you

Along the already full row of impaled eyes

That realized too late their indiscretions of unchange 

And ended the burning in the brain by staring too long at themselves

Then and only then they found, as you will, it isn’t so bad

You get used to the smell and the eyes that stare

Without intent