Caught, hooked

by Gregory E. Lucas

Caught, hooked, half-man half-trout, in dreams he flails

his arms as they change to fins and his cheeks grow gills.

He tries to wake, but on and on, he wails.

His human guts twist, turn to fish entrails

as the bedroom’s blinds bang and the night’s wind chills.

Caught, hooked, half-fish, what can he do but flail

his horrid body covered with slimy scales

while the air he breathes above a stream slowly kills

him? He tries to wake but can’t, and he wails

because there’s no escape.  All efforts fail

to break the line, to dislodge the barb, so still

he’s caught, hooked—part-man, part-trout— and he flails

his fetid monstrous limbs to no avail.

Dry leaves scuttle across the windowsill.

He tries to wake again; again, he wails.

Soon to be tossed into an icy pail,

he glimpses the waning sun above a hill.

Caught, hooked, half-man, half-trout, in dreams he flails

his tail. He cannot wake. All night long he wails.

I’m swimming and it’s late autumn

on Hilton Head Island, SC:

troughs between whitecaps gathering

silver flecks of mid-morning sun

while breakers whisper on all sides

of me, and a gull’s shadow glides

over my eczema-marred skin

that the cold current cannot cool.

Deeper into separateness,

further from others on the shore,

I fade into the ocean’s world,

covered by a green solitude

that soothes me, despite the salt’s stings.

Not even drives on deserted

dirt roads on cloudy starless nights

have offered me this much distance

from countless people’s wounding stares.

Near the limit of my endurance,

I go on, parallel to shore,

until only a few sleepers

lay on a lonesome stretch of sand,

but as I emerge, they stir:

they talk in low voices; their eyes

fix on me, on my inflamed sores.

I am a spectacle to them,

a wrecked building engulfed by flames

or a mere heap of dowsed ashes,

and as I pass, I dream of days

when someone will see more than skin.

Take a Look

 by Gregory E. Lucas

Take a look—a ruined rural house:

alone, at twilight, way up on a hill,

paint-chipped shutters askew.

Night after night, its doors swing open 

on rusted hinges and bang closed.

Cats prowl the weedy yard and

gnarled oaks host owls and crows.

Abandoned a century ago,

strange shadows crawl up its

crumbling walls, and witches

glide through broken windowpanes.   

Listen, and you’ll hear screams.

Horned imps and winged wolves

arrive and step inside, but a few

linger on the warped porch

while dead men rise by the side

of the house, their torn flesh

ghastly hues in the moonbeams.

Spiders and rats

crawl on the attic’s rafters,

while shouts of agony mix with echoes

of insane laughter.

From its cracked ceiling,

a cobwebbed chandelier creaks

as it swings above dozens of ghosts

that dance and shriek.

Bats circle a wrecked chimney

amid swirls of clattering leaves.

Never mind the towering skeleton

that aims a spear at the half-human

creature on the floor, buzzing, glowing.

Why not step closer?

Why not enter?

A red-eyed zombie beckons while it staggers. 

Gregory E. Lucas has had short stories and poems published in past issues of Yellow Mama. His short stories and poems have also appeared in magazines such as The Ekphrastic Review, The Horror Zine, and Dark Dossier.