Halloween Haunts: A Halloween Poem by Maxwell I. Gold

Halloween Haunts: A Halloween Poem by Maxwell I Gold

The Castle Ephialtes

By: Maxwell I. Gold

A stronghold built at the peak of my contemptuous thoughts; haunted delusions fused together like steel rods composed that most ancient structure built when man’s waning primordia waxed soft under a dim moonlight. Always the keep loomed tall and great, swaying ever so gently in the black muted night, teasing me to approach its haughty gates. Walls climbed treacherously high, bristled tops of cracked stone and chipped marble stacked over one another like forgotten corpses trampled by the feet of armored figures whose yellow eyes pierced the fabric of my soul pulled me closer.

Clink, boom, smack – the chains of infinity rattled as the long wooden tongue extended from its stone mouth as if to swallow me down, deep, through dungeon-dark-tubes that flowed throughout its rusty, haunted innards. Smoke and gaseous fumes belched from seemingly living structure as towers, tile, and glass panes shook in darksome belly-aching jubilation wrapped in a cloud of putrid, sour doom. Clink, tick, boom, rattled the chains of night hungry for another body – hungry for me as I passed beyond the threshold; unable to resist the pressure and pangs of my worst nightmare. Bones bending into boulders while my blood boiled away to chalk and charred ash until nothing remained, but the awful colic of my dreams.

Maxwell I. Gold is a Jewish-American multiple award-nominated author who writes prose poetry and short stories in cosmic horror and weird fiction with half a decade of writing experience. Five-time Rhysling Award nominee, and two-time Pushcart Award nominee, find him at TheWellsoftheWeird.com.