Terrifying winter night
Plum fog drowns
the winter sky
and frost makes furniture
on the ground for insects
I stagger through the forest,
having just buried 12 possessed puppets
and 17 bloody jabots
by Ashlie Allen
Bees and ghosts
Blue hues of winter
flicker against your pale skin
I remember when you were a child
screaming in the garden
because there were too many bees
and too many ghosts
Now the garden is dead
and the ghosts and bees
reside inside your eyes
by Ashlie Allen
Cactus balloons
Her ghost whimpers
in the flower pot
as I pop balloons
against the cactus she held
the day she sighed, “Sayōnara.”
by Ashlie Allen
“Gothic colors”
The shadow of bats
through mauve fog,
the rattle of violent violin music
through skeletons and wood
I weep beneath
a dead woman’s window
as I pretend the world
is a funeral and I am a ghost
trapped in gothic colors
by Ashlie Allen
Ashlie Allen writes fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in The Birds We Piled Loosely, Blink Ink, The Assonance Literary Magazine, Literary Orphans and others. She plans to become a photographer in the future. Her greatest influence is Anne Rice.
