Breakfast of Champions

For our first Saturday Morning Cartoons feature, we had to have some cereal…

Horror Poem by Julie Allyn Johnson
AI Art by Kiki Ren

Breakfast of Champions

Marva devours a bowl of Vampire Oats

before the ocher light of dawn,

smothering them with a chilled flask 

of O negative freshly procured.

She beds down this day, pinkie nail

on her left hand ragged and torn

from the struggle—who knew a drifter

would put up such a fight?

It requires some TLC come dusk 

but for now, she tends to her slumber, 

to her dead vessel’s need for somnolence 

in order to repair, refresh, rejuvenate.

Merely a wisp and darkness again begins

its descent.  Marva lifts the worn walnut lid,

stretches her emaciated limbs, thankful

the sickle no longer catches at her throat.

Perhaps it became loosened, dislodged

when her eternal bindings were

lowered to the ground.  The elders’

attempts to still her in the grave

bore no resolve whatsoever.

Her reign of torments, unimpeded.

Marva trolls the boulevards and waterfronts

for the flowing, red-cell sustenance

she thirsts for to satisfy each day’s 

unliving requirements, those crumbs of 

diet boldly enumerated on the side-panel

of her preferred brand of the morning meal.


About the Author

Julie Allyn Johnson is a sawyer’s daughter from the American Midwest whose current obsession is tackling the rough and tumble sport of quilting and the accumulation of fabric. Her poetry can be found in Star*Line, The Briar Cliff Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Haven Speculative, Penumbric Speculative Fiction, Coffin Bell, The Lake, Chestnut Review and other journals.


About the Artist

Kiki is best described as 45% Elvira, 45% Dolly Parton, and 10% Danny Devito. Though she’s always been a lover of all forms of art, technology has always been her forte. She studied computer science for four years before dropping out and coasting through life in various retail management positions. That’s until she found her true calling: being an embarrassment to her family online. When she’s not whipping up websites or blessing the world with memes and generative art she’s hunting for oddities at thrift stores or reading the most disturbing pieces of experimental fiction she can find.



2 responses to “Breakfast of Champions”

  1. […] published this morning on Cream Scene Carnival, some dark poetry from yours truly…. […]

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