Conrad Aiken

I still need to feature Conrad Aiken [1889-1973]. His work is very interesting, a spare, simple tableau that often tends toward the eldritch and macabre. His piece "Twilights, V" here is a good example, and you can imagine someone who likes Lovecraft or Chambers's The King in Yellow, E.A. Poe and True Detective. 

It's a vibe I wanted to see on True Blood that never came to fruition, a serpentine, sinuous background level air of heavy menace. Here's an excerpt from his poem "The Vampire" here, and in it you can see his ability to have a narrative without being too childlike and puerile, like so many people end up doing:

She rose among us where we lay. 
She wept, we put our work away. 
She chilled our laughter, stilled our play; 
And spread a silence there. 
And darkness shot across the sky, 
And once, and twice, we heard her cry; 
And saw her lift white hands on high 
And toss her troubled hair. 

What shape was this who came to us, 
With basilisk eyes so ominous, 
With mouth so sweet, so poisonous, 
And tortured hands so pale? [...]


And then there's his great "Discordants [Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket]" here, here's a excerpt:

IV Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket,
 Wrapped and spiced by the cunningest of hands.
 Around her neck they have put a golden necklace,
 Her tatbebs, it is said, are worn with sands. [..]