Steven Karl

Elegy at the Cinema for Deaths Real & Imagined

Horror I am 
falling for it 
like I always fall 
for it this time 
of year when pumpkins 
are carved fangs 
& bat sonar set 
to feast brisk 
breeze while 
sun slips air 
slowly turns color 
of smoke threading 
through last blue 
& it calls to me 
as it has called 
to you twisted 
desire to watch 
madmen running 
through wood
with revving chainsaw 
or it’s Friday so let’s 
let Jason play here’s 
a hockey mask 
& blunt wood seduce me 
with urban hymns written 
for final girl while 
pretty skulls makeup 
morning face button 
up expensive shirts pull 
up pressed trousers 
white knuckles pulling tight 
an argyle tie silent sounds 
obnoxious accumulations 
offshore privileges 
belabored crystal chandeliers 
stiff backs robotic legs move
in rhythm to dance 
track loose light while 
it filters through 
abandon house climb
a hill to greet 
haunting hereafter noose in
an antique amulet fading bronze
barn in a forgotten 
town hunt moves 
through too-tall corn 
“He Who Walks 
Behind the Rows” 
thrash guitars mugging 
sky cult kiddos 
with bloodied choppers 
flower crowns wilting
in hair slacker 
slashers file into streets
top-secret hackers reeking 
in airtight doom rooms 
80s malls forever 
our screens the screams 
of teens every parents’ 
fear & perverse dream 
ah there’s familiar Freddy 
newly manicured 
so settle in this is going 
to be classic 
male violence 
she sits with witching 
eyes warming 
waters & bears 
with nowhere to 
go radioactive ribs 
alien feelings under 
ominous moon cliché 
full shadows of 
fools ignore the 
feeling of fear 
tremble if you 
must banal waking 
hours horror almost 
invisible comes to 
play—

Elegy at the Cinema for Deaths Real & Imagined

I horror birth 
month of a dead
sister death month
of an uptight father
follow spray- 
painted patterns around 
manhole path beneath
overpass dreary dark 
portals into another
month of decomposing
pumpkins I run
from October’s
hauntings a boy 
following oversized rabbit 
head into alternative universe 
a pain pricks clear 
pure fantasy of self-delusion
shimmers on silver 
screen popcorn spills 
despite horror occasional 
laughs lust blooms bright 
in the shadow as lips 
smack & lock 
in seat to my left 
I love tiny 
terror the moment 
the entire theater 
goes completely black 
& then we’re back 
blinded in cinematic 
light scream on screen 
someone else 
eyes an escape 
there is too much 
time on clock 
& body count miniscule 
so satiate the perversity 
of a select subset 
& add another 
squeal to the murder 
mystery outside beyond 
the city in some nearby 
suburb they sleep while 
moonflowers claw blooms 
along fence sky 
a fixed eye 
carpeted in tinsel 
to exit in a crowd 
only to find 
myself alone 
in an emptied 
public garden for a second
a pervasive silence then 
city kicks back 
in hip hop 
bleeding through 
car windows burning 
rubber on asphalt each 
step I take a deeper 
sleet of sleep may 
my dreams be simple 
gray slate in the morning 
I will wake & sing 
song of ash & hereafter—

Double Feature

a cult of light/ little life’s rebellion/ in voice-over verge of personal politics/ I told you so many words/stand vast empires/ many words/ stand for vast emptiness/ & viewer in shared momentum/ believes monument/ grainy films slur/scratchy love of others/love for others/ although motif of flash/ that suddenness of light/ motif flash-back reveals/ its messed up inside weather/ a cut of light falls/ upon this human thing/ natural tendency to craze/ pinball pings such vigor/ then gutters/ but I’m here for the whole show/ 80s nostalgia perms/ palette of soft pastels/ puking skulls of glitter/ crushed souls/ cue weird synths/ an extra-large popcorn’s worth of menace/ soundtracked with sip of mystery/ an overstuffed actor made up for grand exit/ dying to live on in memory/ one verse follows another/ other characters/ fervently covered in dull cinematic head sacks/ that fail into a deeper black/ because song says entertain us/ because idiocy has become entertainment/ abandoned arena flooding in fake light/ an alabaster alley of imagination aglow/ with idiot dribble/ spectacle lane open/ simple drive to basket/ nobody back a three clings rim/ outside unlucky rabbit skitters/ into street colliding with oncoming car/splintered shadow/ shard gash into life cycle/ multiple narratives drone thru cineplex/ Friday night/ burn tree mouths/ unwhispher/ can’t resist obstinate sky/ calling alone/ alienated nude branch/ spending songs as last breaths/ waiting an odd hatchet falls/ forecasting we forgot/ how to live in it/ cricket with manic leg rub/call it narrative/ because it means more/ & final voice-over inhales breath/ crown of wilted daises/this staged/ staging of summer/ light exhales/

Learn more about these poems.

Steven Karl is the author of three poetry books,  I HRT the Cult Years: Empty Empire of Aftersong (VA Press, 2024),  Sister (Noemi Press, 2016) and Dork Swagger. He is the author of several chapbooks including If Your Lungs Are Skyed Make the Scar Song Echo Until All The Winged Things Bleed Your Poetry (Bloof Books, 2023). His creative nonfiction has been published in or is forthcoming from LIT, The Spectacle, Maiden Magazine, and the e-book, The First Time I heard My Bloody Valentine. Originally from Philadelphia, he divides his time between Boston and Tokyo.