Welcome to the 1998 entries for the Stephen King Poetry Competition. This page contains the entries from June to December in month order, along with each winner's poem highlited.
June
Untitled (June Winner)
Late one night (and the night before) I couldn't sleep
as a fear inside me, truly deep
began to surface and made me sick
and outside a mist was rising, huge and thick
I saw some creatures out there in the dark
and somewhere in the night I heard a dog bark
and I know it's that rabid dog from outer town
Cujo's it name, and it wants to bring me down
I try to ignore the terror I feel
so I take a piss just to do something real
and this damn finger again rises from the drain
every goddam day and night it's all the same
Why on earth are these things happening to me?
Is it fate, my providence, how can it be?
It all started when reading that spook-book
by some guy named Stephen King
who could write the most horrorfying thing
it was about a writer and some psycho nurse
or maybe it was that book about a gypsy curse
cannot remember which
ain't that a bitch?
This horror CARRIEs me away
a LOT of creepy stuff so I don't wish to stay
but this mist, that rabid dog and those dark figures
keeps me inside, holds me prisoner, wants to kill me, figures!
I am afraid of IT, even in my closet a voice whispers my name
"Gage", it says, "we all float in here!"
"Go away!", I cry, "you're not real. Get out of there!!!"
and it opens and there this dark fella stands, smiling at me
his eyes glaring red, the devil he must be
"Oh, sorry to disturb you, boy", he says, his grin getting grim
"Who are you?" I croak,
"Call me Flagg or call me Marten Broadcloak",
he answers, as if those names were the exact same
and he concludes "How's my pork tonight? Hope you guess my name!"
I can't STAND it!!!
(Maybe I'm goin' crazy
that could be the reason for my insomnia
maybe I'm just making it all up
like pictures in a book)
Maybe I should just read on
maybe then those thing won't Madder
ooops, I'm already started, I'm feeling better, safer
I believe my misery is at its end
now its up to this King to make me pretend
instead of really seing
all these spooks, all these hellish beings,
and as I hear some birds approaching, outside the dark
I sure do wish they don't take me for George Stark
Maybe Stephen King
is the Crimson King
just like Leland Gaunt
is here to haunt
and if Tak should ever come back
it would be below a dark tower,
where Flagg is getting his power
and I do believe that Roland will stand and be true
somewhere in the future, maybe in 2002.
Untitled
Ashes of a
Bad memory is like
Time no more almost
Trivial in the sense that
it has never ended
Stench of rotting souls causing
Gaps of nothing in
The still dead assistance of time no more
No more maybe
Pedestrians will eat their young as
Their malice grows cold
Mixed up in the dizziness
Of the life that couldn't be
No more
How can they go on
How can they go on as
A meaningless spec of
Matter about to
Spoil in the greasy vent of
Loathing inside of a dark sensation of death
July
Creeper
Out it crept
So dark and dangerous
It smelled the good
So fine and wonderful
Then off it crept
Fast and furious
To destroy the good
Pain and suffering
Or turn it evil
Wicked and nasty
Then came the white
Just pure and holy
Back it crept
Afraid and angry
But it shall creep again
Castle Rock
The Rock sits in Maine, a happy place,
But with dark secrets, too.
Big George Bannerman kept the peace,
And Alan Pangborne later, too.
Frank Dodd,
He was your average Sherriffs Deputy,
But when Johnny Smith found out his hobby,
Something gruesome came to be.
Cujo was a friendly dog,
He chased a rabbit down.
Turned rabid he trapped a woman and son
On the outskirts of the town.
Thad Beaumont was a man
With a twin that was not real,
But when George Stark came out to play,
The flames began to peal.
Ah, Leland Gaunt,
He came to town with a gift for every soul,
But when the town got too greedy he happily
Raked them 'cross the coals.
The Newall house,
It sits alone, like a phantom on the hill.
The house is famous, but the stories
Are always told with tones that are tainted ill.
Ah, Castle Rock, you will always be
The town that haunts my dreams.
(And Norris, if you want to catch fish,
Give up lakes and try the streams!)
House of Cards (July Winner)
This house of cards was built
On the ground of blood and water
The lord smiles on the farmer's son
Who raped the witches daughter
She cries to me with velvet teardrops
Falling from the barren sky
Wrapped in waxen silver thread
The spider spins his web of lies
For the tree of life rejuvinates
In the pools of golden harmony
The cosmic train has been derailed
Below this terran fantasy
The pain I feel beneath my skin
Lies silently over the ocean
My soul cries out before the flesh
A slave to her emotion
All my lonliness I have felt today
I drink it like a cup of blood
The iron hammer broke down the wall
Like Noah's friends we shall perish
In the flood
Our mother pleads in tarnished anguish
But they go unseen unheard ignored
We choose to live like there's no tomorrow
And believe in a heaven as our final reward?
...What awaits,
When you discorporate
Is equal to the sum total
Of all your fear and hate
Wrapped in a blanket of love
And drifting on a sea called fate
August
Lycanthrope (August Winner)
Autumn moonlight embraces
Eternal breeze as
Darkened cloud beckons
Shivering amber leaves
Into obscurity's safety
An unseen enigma pulls her
Into the roiling mist and
Drapes her aura with
Ambiguous yearnings and
Tangible lusts
She watches lovers bask in art
From behind a sculpted bust and
Dreams of pungent earth and
Living clay
Guillotine drops on dream
Palpitations of adreneline
Punctuated by the condensation of
Her breath on the cold marble
In the horrible realization that trails
The curious clicking of her footfalls
Liberating exhilarating fury
Langoliers
they scare you as a kid
they know what you did
they eat those who are lazy
or they'll drive you crazy
they live back in time
it suits them just fine
Untitled
Stephen King paints a picture
Blood for paint, skin for canvas
That's known as fear alone
September
Untitled (September Winner)
So, let me sit and think,
I write of what I've read.
I think the man named king may be the one to ask what is there in the dark.
He is the dreamer,
The poet of terror,
The speaker of the house of shadows.
His mind is a myriad of nightmares,
A dreamscape of all we wish to behold.
And yet I see myself wanting to release all that I hold in me.
My thoughts and fears all become written word,
My anger takes over and I release it with pen,
I think of the pain and write again.
He has sone this and it sounds like a rhyme with a reason.
I know that I can never hide from myself,
My inner self,
The one who wants to scream,
To shout,
To kick and hit,
He is there in me.
And I let him loose into my world of nightmares,
He looks through the eyes of the dragon,
And feels the shining as I loose myself in his grip.
He is here now,
He wants to fight with someone,
He wants to kill again,
To taste the blood that he craves so much.
And I tink I will let him,
I feel the strawberry summer,
My dark half is taking my soul now.
Here he comes,
He is near,
I am the one who needs,
Feels,
Thinks,
Bleeds,
And speaks of the pain.
I am,
I am all and nothing.
Free me and you will know true terror.
October
NIGHTTIME CONSPIRACIES
Necromancers tie one on tonight
beneath an opaque moon blood-stained
and chilled like autumn wine.
Safe behind Venetian slits of light
necrophobics tremble, their hearts
thumping pain in three-quarter time.
And we who watch it all--do we
imagine this is what King said
October is about? In our nighttime
conversations we censor out
the terminal. There's no room for
cluttering up our nights of love
with even whispered talk of dying.
You say, "We will endure forever."
I say, "True love can never die."
But outside in the courtyard the air
is heavy with conspiracies
that plot against the living and the loved.
We know the seasons die: have we not
counted off these days since summer?
And when we sat that August day
on Berwind Lake didn't we marvel
at the greenness of the trees,
the concentric ripples paddling
ducks made on the blueness of the lake?
Next in winter all things die or lie
in wait for spring to resurrect them.
"Nothing ends" is the hymn that all
creation sings despite what
necromancers want us to believe.
We will not dwell on their black arts!
Outside they burn incense to a dark sky.
The moon they say will bear witness.
Crickets are muted by their litanies.
But we in our beds, in each other's arms,
will not be swayed by their hopelessness.
No matter what, you and I, secure
in the infinity of our love,
will fill our sleeptime heads
with dreams of spring's promises.
When Darkness Falls (October Winner)
When the wind outside
grows strong and cold
I return my mind
to the days of old
when my favorite stories
were read to me
by a man so near
yet far away from me.
Far upon his Castle Rock
he sits, on his lofty
reading softly of creatures of the night,
of a girl who's fire burns bright,
of a lady trapped and left to die
these are the words that fill the head of I
who sits and listens to the words
yet sees that these words are his heart
his soul, his very essense whole.
Spread out on this simple page
are words of love of death
and rage
all are arranged on a fantastic stage
each with their own lines
speaking loud
and proud
of the mind of the man
that brought them life
and ended their strife.
And as I hear and see the words,
I begin to realize
that this distant man
is before my eyes.
His face his eyes
his very frame
is there
somewhere in the room
and yet he says nothing.
But no words are needed
because he can see
how much this man
inspires me to write,
to smile,
to breathe,
to live,
and to thank the Almighty
that he did give
this man life
to give us joy
in simple words that are his own.
Untitled
Why do we do it?
Why turn the page?
The King can sit
and take us to this stage.
We know down deep
that we will scream.
Do we love that sound?
So it does seem.....
I have his books a hundred times
and still late at night
I jump in my skin when the chime
on the clock does proclaim midnight
And now I am writing
my own story of What IF..
I can't seem to stop
and my fingers stay stiff
I wonder if it is
the same with him
Does he too shiver at His stories?
The chances are slim that he does..
But I Do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November
My Understanding of Truth
My first thought was;
he tells the truth in every word
Has there ever been
such a man?
Many times divided
with nothing left to subtract
He walks on his own
Having new company
does not end his solitude
Has there ever been
such a man?
So long it has been,
that even the harshest pains
somehow are buried
Fresh wounds are opened
but still he persists
Could anyone else go on?
through the years, the centuries,
the thoughts;
He is a bulldozer of a man
constantly pushing on,
never to be swayed off his course
Through all the death,
through all the hate,
through all the deceit,
there has never been such truth;
there is only one truth,
and it covers all
Has there ever been
such a man?
December
King's Land (December Winner)
The moon an eye over the land,
no, more, a Gaunt face.
Now is the time to make your Stand
while the trees reach up
like broken hands.
The woman in the Rose Madder gown
point to a place of blood.
But Randall Flagg is hunting you down
with his Bag of Bones
and his sunburnt frown.
The trees are old and thin
around the burial ground.
Cage appears with his evil grin
his scalpel a scythe
making your head spin.
They're closing in and they will bring
your mind to Pennywise.
This is one of those very strange things
in the land of the mind
of Stephen King.
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