RPW is back with another poet who has been inspired by the Romantics and/or Romantic themes–this week, as we move into autumn/winter months, we have a writer deeply moved by, in her own words, ‘themes of terror and desire.’ I’ll let Colin continue below:
‘Part of what has always drawn me to British and Irish Romanticism is the complex way in which the poets and authors of this movement engage with themes of terror and desire. I have always been drawn to the texts that explore death in unusual ways, such as the imaginative necromancy of William Godwin’s “Essay on Sepulchres” and the desirous ghost in John Keats’s “This living hand” (my favorite of all of Keats’s poems). With my poem “The Lover’s Ghost,” I wanted to explore the idea of a not-merely-metaphysical ghost, one whose physical desires are still very much intact. What if death isn’t the end of desire but only the beginning of some new, unimaginable desire? “Bluebeard’s Ghost” plays with the themes of curiosity and transgression that make that particular legend so fascinating – I enjoyed pairing the language of Eden with my take on the character of Bluebeard, giving an insight into the twisted logic of my poem’s protagonist as he patiently and politely explains himself to his intended victim.’
Colin Harker lives in Maryland, writing tales of dread and desire that meld body horror with supernatural terror. Her novel The Feast of the Innocents (2022) is set in the politically turbulent climate of 17th-century Scotland, focusing on a Priory haunted by ritualistic murders and a French assassin with a taste for theatrical torture. Her short stories “The Hand of Glory” and “Let Nothing You Dismay” have appeared in the award-winning horror podcast The NoSleep Podcast.
Both these featured poems will be appearing in her forthcoming collection Thorns: A Book of Poems.
Lover’s Ghost
Here lies one whose flesh once burned
And strained as sweating dust and dew;
Whose frame all earth’s desires learned
Yet here a different lust pursues.
He shall remember, he shall know
All the lusts he felt before;
His thirst shall only gall and grow,
What once desired, desires more.
Who can tell the hungry earth
To stop its mouth and panting lung?
Who can bid the rotting soil
Bite the wanting of its tongue?
Shed no tear upon his grave
Lest it fall and find his dust;
They do not sleep but only wait:
His dust, his soul, and all their lusts.
Bluebeard
For, he says, the world is wicked
And you, my dear, are made of glass
And for all that I must possess you,
I shall never let you pass.
Our bower is a kinder Eden,
For if you break my single law
You shall never be an outcast,
But still remain within my walls.
Do you see them there, my darling?
The pretty sinners gone before?
Each one in her mother’s jewels
Each one in the veil she wore?
If, my dear, your God is jealous,
With what word am I adorned?
I, the serpent’s fruit you suckled,
I, divine law that you scorned?
Tell me, sweetheart, at this hour
With all your courage and your fear,
You tasted boldly of my secrets,
But were they worth these bitter tears?
Tune in next time when we will feature the Byronic closet dramas of Jedediah Pumblechook!
Adam Neikirk