Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Sheikha A. @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Mantis
by Sheikha A.

to giving Venus a Sun

They say she was hit – this is how

they warn their village – by fireball

that skulled out of night’s crevice,

forming first like an incision – stitch

less beauty of supple surfaces – new

like peach on a sprig in daylight – old

as wisdom tucked under a hypnotic gaze

as deep as Zuhal penetrating her nemesis.

The village knew what she was after:

heads of men of valour who would fall

onto the silk she weaved – bed of air,

dense and bottomless. She appeared

as butterfly: dragon-belly: malefic breeze

in their house of cards; conquests of war

over centuries of dipping their hands

into vortices, pulling out limp limbs:

comets she called her future – progeny –

that would cast her into a pool of fire

and her cape of regal immortality

shadowing Star. Her ambition blind

like ice crystallising surface of Pacific,

wild and magnetic – Zuhra riding black

horse – she is dignified and unfallen

in the house of her lord, seething fury

on men that had dared birth her future.

Her hair is a forest of tangles and knots

but her scent is aphrodisiac; mating

time is near. They come from Mirykh

on steeds of fiery hooves to leash her,

unknowing they won’t survive the night.

More from author Sheikha A.:

Nyctophiliac Confessions:
Poems by Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee

“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).

Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.

Available Here!

3 Responses to Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Sheikha A. @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

afstewart says:

July 28, 2022 at 11:02 am

A terrific poem.

alexgrehyauthor says:

July 28, 2022 at 11:12 am

Wow! Such rich imagery – as captivating as the subject herself

Marge Simon says:

July 28, 2022 at 10:13 pm

For me, I am always sitting at Sheika’s feet, listening in wonderment as she spins her tales. Her voice is low, her mind is unbound.