# October Challenge: "Dark Places"



## Chesters Daughter (Oct 1, 2018)

*AS PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED, IF YOU ENTER THE CHALLENGE, YOU MUST CAST AT LEAST ONE VOTE IN THE POLL. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN YOUR ENTRY BEING DISQUALIFIED.

*The prompt for this month's challenge, as chosen by Firemajic is: *Dark Places

*You are free to interpret the prompt in any way you wish, though of course, site rules apply. If you are unsure of the challenge rules please read the 'stickies' at the top of the board. *Please note that all entries* *are eligible to receive critique in the voting thread.* 

*The inclusion of explanatory text or links of any kind within an entrant's challenge entry is prohibited and will be immediately removed upon discovery. As always, only one entry per member is permitted.

*As previously announced, anonymous entries have been abolished, therefore, entrants must post their own entries in this thread, or if you desire to protect first rights, please post your entry in the [URL="https://www.writingforums.com/threads/180136-October-Challenge-quot-Dark-Places-quot"]*secure*[/URL][URL="https://www.writingforums.com/threads/180136-October-Challenge-quot-Dark-Places-quot"]* thread*[/URL], and then post a link to it here in the public thread. *Failure to do so runs the risk of your entry being disqualifie**d*, so if you require assistance with the task, please PM *me*, and I will gladly help you.

If your entry contains strong language or mature content, *please include a disclaimer in your title.

*Kindly make sure your entry is properly formatted and error free before you submit. You have a *TEN MINUTE GRACE PERIOD* to edit your piece, but anything edited after that will likely see your entry excluded from the challenge. 
*
Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussion related to the challenge can take place in the Bards' Bistro. 

Everyone may now use the "Like" function whenever they so choose.



This challenge will close on the 15th of October at 7pm EST.*


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## Chesters Daughter (Oct 2, 2018)

*I Confess (Language)*

[FONT=&Verdana][FONT=&Verdana]I reside in the bleakest recesses
[/FONT][FONT=&Verdana]of someone else’s insanity
[/FONT]where nonsense is the norm[/FONT]
and manifests in infinite forms.
My Judas flesh
is bested by hostile terrain
that offers only stress 
disguised as rain
and rust it does -
both body and brain.
My protests, once wails
[FONT=&Verdana][FONT=&Verdana]but now mere whispers,
[/FONT]echo impossibly in a land [/FONT]
[FONT=&Verdana][FONT=&Verdana]with no walls
[/FONT]where darkness never falls[/FONT]
because it never leaves.
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]I crawl out to come here,
[FONT=&Verdana][FONT=&Verdana]slap some saccharine 
[/FONT]on reluctant fingertips[/FONT]
and steer clear 
of shooting 
from the hip
to hide who I’ve become,
or rather,
how much of me is gone.
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]I read my text before I click
keen eyes seeking 
any possible lick
that there’s cracks in veneer
that’s way worn down 
and all too sheer 
but my words are dutiful soldiers
obedient letters belying 
the haggard landscape
from which they spawn.
How much longer 
[FONT=&Verdana][FONT=&Verdana]will they remain 
[/FONT]pliant little pawns -[/FONT]
alphabetic Russian roulette, anyone?
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]Ebony primordial ooze,
thick and sticky as molasses
sadly denied the benefit 
of ever becoming booze,
is my womb of gloom and doom
and never fully shed
during the infant creep from bed
back into the light.
It may stain the keyboard,
but my strokes still come out right.
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]It gives me hope
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]that although I’m held hostage 
in a cesspool of “not”
gratis of those 
who will never stop
dubious behaviors 
that proclaim me 
their personal cop
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]part of me still exists
despite being submerged
in other folks’
heinous shit
and being cursed 
by bloody eyes 
that baptize
all I’ve writ.
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]So out I’ll crawl
just to get here
and pretend I’m me
but have no fear
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT][FONT=.SFUIText]eventually[/FONT]
[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]I will be.


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## Gumby (Oct 3, 2018)

Life at the Vicarage


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## toddm (Oct 4, 2018)

*A Journey by Night*

Darkness looms like gothic spires
lit by silver candle-fires;
the wind sings low like ghostly choirs
in the cathedral of the night.

My footsteps hasten away from Thwaite;
my errand there has made me late.
The day has met its nightly fate
and perished out of sight.

On this road, this misty strand
piercing through this forest-land
of twisted trees, I understand
the terrors of the night.

Such gnarled arms and demon-faces
emerge from deep and dire places
to chase away all holy graces
and impede me if they might.

The shapes press inward, I rush along;
my frame is weary, the wind is strong.
I try to sing a hopeful song
in the cathedral of the night.

The song soon dies; I fight despair.
But what is that light glinting there
beyond the trees? A radiance fair -
my home is at last in sight!

The door is opened, I hear my name,
the hearth brims with a golden flame
and merry faces all exclaim:
_Come in now from the night!_


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## jenthepen (Oct 9, 2018)

*Skeletons in Dusty Cupboards*

She carried her secret
 in plain sight.
 Although she never spoke of it,
 the family did.

 Remember when  
 you dropped the baby?  
 On her head?
 On the scullery floor?
 they said, and laughed,
 chaffed her for her carelessness.
 Reckless child!  
 They said.

 My head. My pain.
 What if I was never the same?
 I said,  
 and they laughed
 fit to choke.  
 A joke.
 Or maybe knocked some sense in
 instead? 
 They said.

 I didn’t hold it against her,  
 always loved her,  
 my elder sister.
 Even tried to be closer
 but she was remote.
 I don’t like girls,  
 she said,
 I will have two boys instead.
 And she did.

 I heard about the puppies
 after she died...
 I was afraid of her,
 my other sister sighed.
 She killed three puppies
 when she was six.
 Dropped them on their heads.
 On the scullery floor.

 What for?  
 My voice was dry.
 How do you know?

 She made me to watch.
 I was afraid to say
 anything about that day.
 Now she’s gone  
 and it’s been sixty years.
 I still have fears,  
 she said,
 that she might hear.

 Mind reeling.  
 Coldness creeping.
 But why?  
 I whispered,
 afraid to know.  
 Why would she?
 How could she?

 The answer came with a frown...
 Told me  
 she didn’t like brown pups,
 that she wanted instead
 to keep the two black ones,  
 she said.
 And we did.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Oct 10, 2018)

*Darkness Calling*

winter
||||||||night
sky, black
with clouds, silence
cries,
||||||||compels
me down the lightless road, 
a moon half-
hidden.
calling.
calling me.

frozen
||||||||sun
sleeping, fast
beneath this side of the city
breath
||||||||freezing
branches
||||||||reaching
and I
breathless, surrounded
by ghosts,

the moon
||||||||flashes
flickers like a strobe,
no
||||||||return.
death
has called me
I have walked into its 
shadow
||||||||and I am afraid
of the dark. 

the dark. 

should the sun wake up
merely for me?
a jester
||||||||arrayed in a fool’s hope
burning like purgation’s fire
on my skin—
||||||||but a human, at least
is not an angel
not a devil. a human 
can die.
can die well.

there are songs,
always
||||||||songs
songs that teach you how to die
songs that paint the snow 
with blood, 
||||||||and so
turn it to gold

songs that bear
light
||||||||words
(not my own)
shaped on my lips, creating
light, separating
it from the darkness
in
the
||||||||beginning

there is a story, carved 
in darkness
that can only be carved 
in darkness
and let us carve it 
in the darkness
me
||||||||and You

(and let death call me again someday
that we may carve it again.)


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## ned (Oct 12, 2018)

*Brain Damage*

.
Half a click beyond the silver dome,
a place we call our home.

Half an hour beyond the straw sundown
where Earthrise never comes around,

with an aluminium spade, I toil
refilling a pit with the greyish soil

under a stellarific night
illuminated by helmet-light,

my lover at peace, the eye of my storm
as I steadily cover her pale-white form

while humming a rather haunting tune
from Darkside of the Moon.


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## TL Murphy (Oct 15, 2018)

Dark Angel 
https://www.writingforums.com/threa...-Places-quot?p=2187231&viewfull=1#post2187231


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## andrewclunn (Oct 15, 2018)

Lull-A-Boy


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## Chesters Daughter (Oct 16, 2018)

This challenge is now closed.


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