Weekly BlogScan: Poetry from the Dark Side

The dark side is on everyone's mind this weekend. Lucas' Darth Vader joins other darkly seductive or seduced characters (Dracula, Frankenstein's monster) in the global gestalt. What is the lure of the dark?

Perhaps we should ask the author of Fungi from Yuggoth. This is a Lovecraftian novel rendered as 34 sonnets.

I. The Book
The place was dark and dusty and half-lost
In tangles of old alleys near the quays,
Reeking of strange things brought in from the seas,
And with queer curls of fog that west winds tossed.
Small lozenge panes, obscured by smoke and frost,
Just shewed the books, in piles like twisted trees,
Rotting from floor to roof - congeries
Of crumbling elder lore at little cost.

I entered, charmed, and from a cobwebbed heap
Took up the nearest tome and thumbed it through,
Trembling at curious words that seemed to keep
Some secret, monstrous if one only knew.
Then, looking for some seller old in craft,
I could find nothing but a voice that laughed.

If you prefer more classical fare, the Horror Masters blog has links to spare. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Poe rub shoulders here with Coleridge and Scott, and the darkest thoughts of lighter poets like Service and Emily Brontë.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
—"The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert W. Service

   Nosferatu figurine

Speaking of the original Dark Lord who captured the attention of generations, Yvonne Plum of on the chilly side of midnight writes of the Dark Man who

toasted my glass of champagne
with his pint of black guinness
—or was it foaming blood that he licked
from his sharp pointed teeth?

when he silently crept into my bed
I noticed how the mirrors refused him.

And Ice Goddess knows the Insatiable Lust that drives us to write.

...When I am long past nursing earthworms
Please let someone remember my name...

I took a quiz to see what poetic form I am, and the result was dark enough to include here, even though the questions have absolutely nothing to do with poetry.

If they told you I'm mad, then they lied.
I'm odd, but it isn't compulsive.
I'm the triolet, bursting with pride;
If they told you I'm mad, then they lied.
No, it isn't obsessive. Now hide
All the spoons or I might get convulsive.
If they told you I'm mad then they lied.
I'm odd, but it isn't compulsive.

And Lucy Fer always takes The Darkest Way Home with her poem, "The Minority."

Sky frowns down,
On the people that cry,
On the people that can't carry on.
Black clouds scowl,
On the people that can't lie,
On the people that break under the scrutiny.
The sun burns,
All the people that fall to their knees,
All the people that jump into the sea.
The world glares,
At you and me.

So as you go to see the Star Wars saga's finish, remember the immortal words of balladeer Al Yankovic, in The Saga Begins...:

Oh my, my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later—now he's just a small fry.
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' soon I'm gonna be a Jedi
Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi...

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