Outside,
winter casts her hoary shadow:
an early frost swathes
the ill-prepared earth,
and the dogwood berries are all too plentiful
on the slopes this year
The Oak Moon shivers,
her frozen tears
form icicles on balsam boughs
bowing beneath the howling gales,
already she has grown weary,
and the nights keep getting longer
BIO: Lee Clark Zumpe has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy and speculative fiction since the late 1990s. His short stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of publications such as Weird Tales, Space and Time and Dark Wisdom; and in anthologies such as Horrors Beyond, Corpse Blossoms, Abominations, Withersin’s Unkindness and Cthulhu Unbound, Vol. 1. His work has earned several honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collections.
An entertainment columnist with Tampa Bay Newspapers, Lee has penned hundreds of film, theater and book reviews and has interviewed novelists as well as music industry icons such as Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains and Alan Parsons. His work for TBN has been recognized repeatedly by the Florida Press Association, including a first place award for criticism in the 2007 Better Weekly Newspaper Contest.
Lee lives on the west coast of Florida with his wife and daughter. Visit http://muted-mutterings-of-a-