Summer 2007, Volume 3
Poetry by Dolorez Roupe
The Ghost & H.P. Lovecraft
Your fingers look white and cold
My brain’s on fire
Have you eaten?
I ate . . . .
You don’t remember!
No time. I must finish this.
What’s the title?
The Outsider
Autobiography?
No, I have no aptitude for reality.
Hmmm! It’s first person.
Yes, POV of someone like you.
But look—your character reads books in a large library—like you did in your uncle’s.
I was raised a gentleman. Of course I read.
Your character is breaking out of his house.
Didn’t you ever try to break out of yours?
Why? My mother and aunt prepared meals. It was my aunt’s house.
Your character’s climbed out through the roof. Now what?
You’ll see.
He seems to be enjoying his freedom.
Let’s see what he does when he comes to a river.
Oh, I see! He’s swimming.
But how can that be—he’s always lived in an underground house.
I’m not writing for realism. It’s the weird that interests me.
Ah—now he’s peeking through a window at a house party.
Oh—he’s climbing through, everyone sees him. They’re screaming.
Now he’s looking in a mirror and sees…
Yes, he sees a skeleton. And now you know. The underground house was his coffin.
And you say that’s not autobiographical!
BIO: When I read The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft in a collection of horror stories, it reverberated for me as one of the most discomfiting and still does. It was when I read a biography of Lovecraft by L. Sprague De Camp that I realized the parallels between the story and Lovecraft himself. It inspired me to write the poem. However, unless one has read the story and biography, the poem will escape the general public and therefore narrow its interest.
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