Love Poem: Crimson Fog (Part 1)
Mark Matthews Avatar
Written by: Mark Matthews

Crimson Fog (Part 1)

Mist swirls through 
my legs as I hunt.
The moon,
little more than half full
casts creature like shadows
through the woods
as if the trees were alive..
That soft scent,
so deep in my nostrils,
I can smell nothing else,
seems to grab my neck
and pull me after it.
The aroma is so thick
         I can almost feel it,
                  and it is digging
         into the bestial side
      of my brain.

I feel coarse hair pushing
through my skin and
       I am wrenched onto hands and knees,
                 Oh now the sweet pain begins,
hands and fingers shrink
        to claws and paws,
then as if my head
        was being reshaped
                 by a blacksmith's hammer,
nose and mouth elongate
       into snout,
fangs ripping 
     through my gums.
The world becomes alive
as my sight changes,
   shadows becoming
          shimmering gauze,
revealing the true
        earth,
the one only the beast
        can touch.

In my new form
I easily pick up the trail
and my faithful soul pack
     falls in behind me
          as I track
                 her.
I stalk as if I've walked
this path a hundred times
under the leering trees.
Not an animal
                     (besides us) stirs,
we can feel their quivering
on the wind.

When I spot my quarry
she is in a monnlit glen.
The trees are draped
in mossy vines
    like curtains
 enclosing it from
the rest of the world.
A black glass like pond
is off to the right
enshrouded by a cliff
shaped like an outstretched
   clawed hand,
            from which
between two fingers
a slender water fall
   drops into the backside
       of the pond.

........And puff it's gone,
I taste rot oozing
       off my teeth,
that's what you get
for leaping before you look.