The Animals of Inkwhich Inn by Steven McClain

1.

A lodger in Tolland County’s Inkwhich Inn,

a storied boarding house in Inkwhich Wood,

I, that Halloween, in chair at parlor

chimney seated, was at supper joined

by Samuel Bludgeon, an innkeeper-aeronaut,

and Agnus Caper, the hotel’s detective.

I, by pair addressed as “Steven,” smiled.

   Without Bludgeon’s house’s doors, a woodland

windstorm was, from inn’s quarters’ shelter, barred.

The inn, an edifice-dirigible,

a tavern-submersible, a public

house and train, had to cusp of winter come.

 

2.

   At postwoman’s portly parlor entry gladdened,

Caper, cases’ correspondence clasping, clamored:

   “’Twixt bricks of chimney’s bore, through flue in forest floor

of Tolland’s woodland fair, a hairy shape,

in tents’ pit appearing, walls descended, loping,

leering, leaping did, on oxen hooves alighting,

dart ‘neath wires’ whale. There a gas lamp’s wick

in capstan’s cogs lit hackles’ horns of Inkwhich dog.”

   “The inn’s mutable hound!” Bludgeon bellowed.

Grinning exclamation ended, entered

Henry, pit’s inparadisial dog,

and Bludgeon’s house’s cunning monsters’ guard.

To refute a frowning farmer’s query,

about his bearded sentry, Bludgeon belched:

   “While flight of frost did forest blanch,

on floating bough-bridge rails of branch,

our inn o’er trees in winter lurched

on balloon tracks ’twixt boles of birch.

On halyard sheets of frozen light,

moon-kindled kites of falling snow,

like sails of soot, did tavern tow.

Soon Inkwhich hound appeared, then small,

to trot ’tween trunks in blizzard’s pall.

Approaching prow of Bludgeon’s barge,

night’s dwarfish dog grew eldritch, large,

bore bison’s bulk and height of horse,

wore hide of seal and hair of gorse.

Then slow from stern receding hound

again in frame of dog was bound.

While wolf, disguise uncastled, shrank,

our house through door to barrows sank.”

 

3.

Her hand on head of house’s hound, Caper,

to tent’s fairground tale returning, stated:

   “In lanterns’ leer of Inkwhich Forest well,

where clowns did dart ’neath brass of branches’ bells,

dell’s wind-clapped peals to winter trees affixed,

there ray of moon on rolling motes of snow

did tungsten tents ’top Tolland Circus throw,

fair’s photon-fibers’ incandescent cloth.

Then, as ambulating elm, a giant entered!

On legs of moose, in webbed claws of bat,

fair’s forest giant, clad in cloaks of stone,

did juggle barrel, cauldron-box, and vat,

his tumbling troughs where broths were brewed from bone.

In tanks’ putrescent smoke of clabbered blood,

extruded chimney stalks of mushroom buds

’tween captured bodies’ bearded seams of soup.

There peristaltic pulse of purple worms

in curd of giant’s coffins’ kettles squirmed.”

   Growing green at giant’s food, inn’s bakers,

about bodies juggler brewed, inquired.

Fore his sunset fire’s fender marching,

belly-bulksome Bludgeon, broadly breeching

bobbing beard, did to tavern’s bakers say:

   “The grinning horse of Tolland Wood

in turning trench of river stood

on legs of stork ’neath strike of rain

in coat of kelp and boarfish mane.

By lamp of moon, in fog of ford,

the horse to circus lodgers lured.

Mare’s tongue of eels ’tween teeth of loam

made binding songs of slime and foam.”

 

4.

   I, keening keel of wooden vessel, heard

a ship with winds o’er rooftop wrestle, wheel-

ing, flapping, flouncing: Whiz-BANG! Whiz-BANG! Whiz-BANG! Knock!

   “Flight of bakers’ oaken ornithopter!” exclaimed Agnes.

“They, ridding kitchens’ bobbing treadle-barge,

freights of flour, yeast, and butter carry,

to house’s bread in Bludgeon’s ovens bake—”

   “But well’s whale!” I badgered. Agnes rejoined:

   “In toadish hand, a taloned span in which could carthorse hide,

were pregnant mare in palm to stand when whale his fingers plied,

did What-in-Wood a cross-brace swing to trapeze-levers steer,

a handle-net of knotted strings on which ’neath whale appeared

a puppet built from tackle-spring and corpse of Irish Deer.

Parbuckle’s sling in circus ring did lurching carcass rear.

The puppet, five yards hoof to beard, then stood on hindlimbs ‘top a pier,

well’s trestle-wharfs’ depending tiers—”

   “Mine’s ladders-plank on which was circus set,” shouted Bludgeon,

twixt snow-girt groves of platforms’ starlit pines—”

   “Like to winter maple’s longest branches,” whispered Agnes,

“or its loam-leafed tubers’ delving taproots,

did antlers’ copse from skull of deer extrude,

bones on which a wake of vultures brooded

hissing, wearing wattles’ steaming stoles of sick—”

   “With stool of whale was deer embalmed,” burbled Bludgeon. “Whale’s dung

from frowning bung of puppet’s seams festooned,

a yellow paste on which antlers’ raptors,

climbing clotted clods of hair, dined like drones

dredging hive’s honeyed hexagonal combs.”

 

5.

Caper, clouting cakes ’gainst plate of palate,

did, o’er her bulging, battened belly, cluck:

   “His periwinkle pelt, a wrinkled rind,

harlequin pachyderm Wimple Stopknob

did, to the circus water organ wield,

wear protheses, tin to great-toed plinth-paws

tied, gloves of pegbox, string and hammer, hands

in cuff of keyboards’ pillory enclosed.

Stopknob, tricorn head in stocks ensnared, played

calliope in forest Underfair.

Wimple’s hippopotine tusks, gums’ gudgeon

axles anchored wheels on whose circumference

winding, did wet webs of iron wires

turn. Incisors’ gear-in-gob, spun by bob

of Stopknob’s bite, incited bellows’ blast.

Elephantine ears, twine, waxen batter,

forming Wimple’s pleated bellows’ bladder,

were, through eardrums’ pursing valves, with ivory

clouds of snow engorged. Sack’s disconsolate

contractions squeeze then through nose’s nozzles

sneezed burning steam to bore of organ fill.

On yawning peaks of Stopknob’s organ pipes,

pit’s fluted pikes of parchment, plank and paste,

were gaping beaks of feathered whales affixed.

Cetaceans’ severed muzzles’ singing reeds,

organ’s pedal-pulleys’ baleen whistles

did, draft through rings of humpbacks’ larynx drawn,

a barcarole’s befogging dance perform,

recital during which, I with Bludgeon

was, beneath stand of snow-clad pines concealed.”

Picture of Steven McClain

Steven McClain

Steven McClain is the author of the speculative poetry collection The Monsters of Inkwhich Well: An Octosyllabic Science Fiction (2022).

One More Drink by Meta Paige Taylor

One more drink.

Two more cigarettes.

My hands are sticky,

at that place we went.

Some regrets.

 

A few angry gods,

devious wretch.

I’m still floating in the same shit-swamp I was born in.

Depression; cancer of the soul—

Begging and drowning and dying in it.

 

This good poison,

a music I can’t deny.

Damaged…

Love shy…

Love struck.

Fucked.

 

Secure in my emptiness,

into the garage I go,

and talk with my imaginary friends.

We’re all addicted to demons;

dipped in reality.

Walls come tumbling down.

 

Kinship denied.

The pieces that fill the hole

that you’re drowning in

for the rest of your life.

Stumbling around in the dark, drowning.

 

And this cigarette tasted like…

And this drink smelled like…

the room was spinning.

But with a carton half full of cigarettes,

I can do anything.

 

Glitter,

shiny nails;

they look so pretty.

Waiting for this rain to start,

wondering what will be cleansed.

Picture of Meta Paige Taylor

Meta Paige Taylor

Meta Paige Taylor grew up on the East Coast but has lived in the Midwest for many years. She is a published author, and an English teacher, by occupation.

In Sections: A Contrapuntal by Dee Allen

Based on the short story A Lady’s Hands Are Cold, written and illustrated by Emily Carroll

 

“It began with a Spring wedding.”

            From the first night at her new groom’s mansion,

“By Summer, locked away in the hall.”

            A heart-breaking moan made itself known

“By Autumn, willfully murdered.”

            More like a hymn, desperate warning in song

“By Winter, dead to all.”

            Robbed her of minutes, hours of sleep

“Never to cross the pearly gates—”

            Each bedtime, more of the same, driven her insane

“Slow decay to the bone.”

            One night, aggravation came to a head

“Never to be a ghost that floats—”

            And the bride took action

“Left to rot forsaken and alone.”

            With a hatchet, hacked hole into corridor wall

“Those dainty hands,”

            Where the dreadful song spewed from

“Smooth skin, pretty face.”

            Found a pair of hands, dead and cold by touch

“Along comes competition”

            Throughout the manor, a night of excavations

“Looking to take my place!”

            A leg in the floor, two arms underneath a picture,

“Treasures once had: The necklace, the bed,”

            Dismembered feet, one in a closet, one in drawers,

“The manor that was home, but”

            Torso wrapped in a silver dress below the stairs

“The biggest gift given was my love—”

            Another leg between columns and finally,

“And both hands were cut!”

            A detached head, shock of grey hair, blank eyes,

“That man will never love you!”

            Thin lips cold—which miraculously

“Not him or any high-born man!”

            Spoke, threatened a violent revenge—Dead lady in sections

“Piece by piece, you’ll be ripped! Deceased!”

            Re-assembled with red ribbons—Re-emerged on both feet

“Now that I rise again!”

            Aching to strangle the breath from her rival!

“Once upon a time, a triangle did unfold:”

            Out of the mansion,

“A young woman, a rich man and”

            Past her monster [well, husband],

“A lady whose hands were cold.”

            Towards the woods she ran [she’s much safer there, among the trees].

 

*Note: Contrapuntal: A poem in which two different viewpoints are expressed on the page either as two columns of words or one line of poem A followed by one corresponding line from poem B from start to finish. It can be read as two poems on one page or as a dialogue between poems.

Picture of Dee Allen

Dee Allen

Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active in creative writing & spoken word since the early 1990s. Author of 10 books—Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black, Elohi Unitsi, Rusty Gallows, Plans, Crimson Stain, Discovery and his newest, The Mansion—and 78 anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far.

Dear Raven by Nick Romeo

Maybe you’re an angel who hit a low branch or ignored the direction back to your realm, causing your wings to fall off. Since that time, you have been painting over your white robes with black matte, taking on the mantle of a bird of prey. You pick at my decaying brain, sipping the infection out through my ears, all while whispering for me to remain strong and resist the gloom. You have helped me to remove that vile carrion from my psyche, scratching and digging with sharpened talons deep into my marrow. I have come to understand your true objectives, not as a portent of the apocalypse, but as a guardian. I can see that enlivening glow from your core shining through your eyes—that area you could not cover.

Picture of Nick Romeo

Nick Romeo

When Nick Romeo is not at his nine-to-five occupation which is strongly situated in the STEM fields, he passes the time with his wife, cats, and his art creations. His main forms of expression are 3D digital renderings, electronic music, writing, sewing, and photography. Nick's latest chapbook, titled Empyrean Fog Machines, was released by Back Room Poetry.