It is horror season

And I have come to stay a while

Through iron gates a walled courtyard

Where the Lodge wallows in its own sun

Its mask bears a simplicity that might hinge on a doll’s house

The stone so old it carries yesterday’s sky

And petrified vines weave their own stories

Rooms of things from other worlds

So this is where we play today

Last night’s mares echo

And fade to leave a craving

Bygone England with a tropical after-taste

In an unseen study where daylight is devoured

Botanic volumes marinade in lost elixirs

An empire condensed into a trove of violations

I lie awake in the fever of night

Where the seductive scent of depravity hangs

Darkness as delicious as desiccated fruit

Deep enough to conjure endless faces

It is the velvet shroud

The dusty cover that conceals the morbid pleasures

That hide inside

The reams of undeciphered words

The forbidden book on the highest shelf

The voodoo and the shrunken heads

Emerald blades seep sticky sickly sweet

It may just be the musings of a sleepwalking child

But I went through the gates

And I entered that place.