The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Sheba
by Sheikha A.
to giving Venus a fire moon
.
Hollow eyes spark like fated embers;
she wears a white flower on her index
.
finger – trellis ivy arching the petals.
Tongues of moon-stone translucence
.
nip at the night emerging from her
crown – stalks of crowing auguries.
.
He sits afore her; a scarab, wingless
angel, and an old tooth line the inside
.
of a wide-lipped copper dish. Her hair
silks her shoulders; skin, cream of corn.
.
He was trapped the day of his first visit:
black mist invaded his senses – a moon
.
yelped – touch of fire. She pours sand
between their locked gaze; dish collects
.
every particle. He tells her what he sees:
a man facing eastwards, chest swollen
.
with liquid cysts. He holds an urn,
the weight of graves – foetal cries –
.
unbirthed skulls in broth of wombs.
Her eyes morph into colour of blood,
.
lips tint by juices of soft embryo heads.
The sand complies under her trenching
.
fingers; she gestures for him to read
forming ridges – hidden path of escape –
.
He warns of a woman with exposed rib
cage, chest cleaved like a snake’s trail.
.
Her eyes flash like ash of thunder.
His body quivers as the scarab moves
.
and old tooth hobbles like a dice.
A prediction is set; man in sand
.
drops the urn – whistles of heat peal
at his ears. The night grows thickly
.
around her crown; she won’t be denied
the offering he has been feeding her.
.
Copper dish rattles; the angel topples
to the ground. Ivy from her ring snaps
.
his neck. Moon spins like white fire.
His eyes, limp opals. Her eyes, red meat.
.
Fiction © Copyright Sheikha A.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.
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.
Spreading the Writer's Word 
A superb poem.
thank you, muchly!
Your lines leave me breathless as always, that last line strikes terror to the core! Sheer excellence!
If you’ve not read Cassandra Khaw’s The Salt Grows Heavy (novella) I think you’d enjoy it — as well, her short stories. She doesn’t write poems, but her fiction is unique and powerful, and as striking as your poetry in some ways.
Thank you! I always appreciate your feedback! I haven’t read Khaw’s ‘The Salt Grows Heavy’ but definitely will since you recommend it!
Such beautiful imagery – captivating
thank you so much!
Hauntingly beautiful.
thank you!