This is a thread for my fairytale-inspired poems.
They don't rhyme, usually, but they are in verses.
Most are sad, some are exotic
Some might be cruel but all are magical.

Enjoy!




1. The Winterking
~The Boy who loved a King~

Illustration

There was a village in the mountains
where all the houses had pointy tall roofs
and icicles under their eaves.

Snow never stopped there,
Ice never melted there,
Everything was so cold and windy and silent-
Even the villagers' hearts were frozen.

There in the village in the mountains
where a boy lived, whose cheeks were red as blood
and hair yellow like wheat
and heart cold like February lake.

He was lost in the mountains
like a poor little bird
not knowing the sun sets early
so deep inside the woods.

And as the boy walked, he wondered
would he ever find his way back home?

Green pine trees stood tall above him,
blankets of snow on their limbs.
The wind screamed, the ground rattled
and the boy was so pitifully scared.

And then before him, deep inside the silent mountain,
The Winterking appeared before him
His hair blue like icebergs
and his skin pale like January sun.

And the boy, for the first time,
felt his heart thaw and melt
felt the heat rise to his cheeks
Desire burning deep inside his chest.

Oh, the boy loved him, the Winterking
But that love could not be returned

For he was the Winterking
The Spirit of icy mountains
and the things he loved were the
deafening roar of an avalanche
frightened hoot of a snowy owl
and the midnight call of wolves on moonlit night.

And the boy's eyes welled up with tears
which stayed wet on his heated cheeks
and the Winterking reached out to the boy
to wipe off the tear from his eyes.

But the moment his icy fingers touched the boy's cheeks
The boy was frozen, cold like death
pale like the moon
and heart silent like a December field.

He fell into the Winterking's arms
but he was cold, cold as the night
Never to be warm again.

And the Winterking cried
though he could shed no tears
he gathered up the boy
in his snow white sleeves
and took him to his castle
to let him sleep like November wind.

And from that day on
no snow ever touched
the pointy roofs of the village.

Though it was still cold,
and windy and icy,
no snow ever covered
the tall tops of the pine trees.

And that's because the Winterking
to make a blanket for the poor, frozen boy
gathers up all the snow and fills up his bed
Caressing the boy in feathery white
to make sure he doesn't feel cold.

2. The Crime

Illustration

" I was the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter, and the future queen of my kingdom.

For this I was adored, and polished like a valuable jewel.

I was beautiful. Too beautiful; this was a crime.



Every day, they milked the golden yolk from the daisies and oiled my hair from scalp to the tips,

to make it gleam like strands of pure spun gold.

They rubbed emeralds into my eyes so they glittered like the dust of grasshopper wings.

I was bathed in apricot milk and perfume distilled from cotton.

I drank from the goblets of beetle wings and dined from plates of ruby slivers.



I was too beautiful; this was a crime.



A winged prince came to me, cloaked in the velvet of the night.

He uttered words into my ears soft as spun sugar.

He kissed my golden brows, my carnelian-stained lips, my bejeweled lobes;

He loved me, and embraced me with the span of his great white wings.

Before long, my womb became swollen to make room his child growing within.



A maiden was with a child; this was a crime.



They shunned me to a tower, so tall that it reached the skies.

Its mortar was crushed hydrangeas, and the brick was crushed plums and purple clam shells.

They plaited my hair so that it may reach the ground.

If any prince was merciful enough to take for his wife a girl impregnated by demons,

then they may climb the golden rope to take me.

But no princes came, and although my hair reached out to the earth, I reached out to the heavens.

I waited for my winged prince to swoop down and claim me.



I waited.



Moths with golden-green wings flew up to the tower in great swarms,

thinking that the tower made with mortars of hydrangeas contained the sweet nectars to quench their thirst.

I caught them with my bare hands and drank their golden juice.

And the lives inside me grew with each moon-

for I knew that the wretched parasites in my womb were not one child, but two;

and I wept for not one wretched life but two wretched, miserable lives.



I hated my children; was this a crime?"

Spooky Summer Stories


1.

When you are sitting alone at night
and there are no one around in sight
You hear behind you someone's footsteps making a muffled sound
Or the rustles of clothes as they brush the ground
And you are certain a cold breath touched the back of your neck
and feel as if a clammy hand will come to grab your back.
When you look behind you, all you see is empty black space
and the blue flicker of the moniter on your face.

It's okay to look back, there's no one there
No bleeding ghosts, no death lurks there


But don't look up.






-----------





2.

Once upon a time there lived a young girl
who had a terrible disease
her skin cracked in finest lines
like the dry earth on summer days
and each crack on her skin bled
so the girl looked as if to shatter
at the slightest touch.

The girl's mother sought a way
to cure her of this horrible affliction
She bought medicines, herbs, tinctures of bugs
Spoke to a Mudang, performed the Gut
all with no avail

Until one day, a wise man in her town
told the mother of a remedy
to cure her of this disease
"Boil black sesame seeds in water,"
said the old wise man
"and let the girl soak herself in it"

So the mother prepared
a bathtub of black sesame seed-water
and the girl went in the tub
to soak herself in it
But after an hour passed
and two, ans three,
the mother was worried
and snuck a peek

There the girl was, sitting in her tub
picking out the sesame seeds stuck in her skin
scratching them from each bleeding crack
with a toothpick.