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THE MASK OF SATAN: A LIST TO REMEMBER YOU BY
1. loop the sound of spiking the coffin lid
2. your black dress and european strings
3. an old tavern where you secrete time
4. priests pursue you under soft light
5. a doorway to the cavern of hate
6. sink asa in milan and i opened to:
7. godflesh stills of you at the stake
8. selfless eyes, barbara in black gown
9. run barefoot to the chamber, boil it
10. you’ll nail faces with mallet and hood
11. i hide your shell in the basement, but
12. red marks on your breasts are not stains
13. you don’t stain, it’s a smear of light
14. here is how i immortalize your visage
15. they’ve come here to burn you alive
16. like night of satan, or how the dead stalk
17. these caverns are not made of wood
18. heart caverns are made of skin—of you
19. like telepathy as transmission
20. you will reach the end and live on, dead
21. this is how i view lack of love, pretty star -
High ResolutionThe Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh
enter the factory duct. here time constricts and
you shudder, cut rungs to nail shut the dome,
drain the swimming pool: limbs, glass hearts,
cement, bits of silk for the sequel. tip toe the
corridor for black gloves or a vapor that (always)
follows your sweat steps. quiet. finger a drain
pipe, trace oil smears to paint holes. walls sing blood,
hollow the valves: strips of lard, crust, honey piles.
but how can you turn when the door is a figure,
mask of blank eyes, void king of the ocean, your
anti-muse slasher in this night-tremble: bone sounds
like the fizz pop of a record. you’ll be the needle click.
he has words, too. they’re spilled maps, each one
is a continent where you’ll feed trash, spread on the
tiles, spread wide for the strobe lights of a new birth. -
THE END OF THE BODY: A DISPOSABLE MICRO-ESSAY
the body or the tree around which it wraps or is enraptured as the way the body is entangled to the world. sink. or the pull. how your face as a point of non-entry, the point where i stop believing you could ever help me up out of the muck. i have fallen asleep in the yard again. i have had to breathe autumn in the yard again. and to think of the object of the body as a disappearance, something melded to earth like smoke, to dirt, to space and to notice the lack of you not being here, but a frozen you will never melt. you are all face, the only white in the overgrowth. here is the way to die. there are thorns, branches in the decay of the agony you express. keep it hidden. only in the backyard is there peace for this silence to bloom. is it sunday? is it not thursday, for in japanese, thursday is day of the tree, but you are not a tree, you are a human turned plant or vine or growth, something puzzling in the way eyes shut, but there are no eyes here to stare into, only black rims, blackened lips, the dark beyond and this is not shinto, this is not buddha, this is a movement. to ever grasp space in the light of the void is the perpetual downward thrust of the legs kicking. be object in the void like being born to a weed or a trap. not to be trapped is to become space or water and in this black frame, your body is only a shell, not a vine to be cut or a tree to grow over the house. there are no houses inside your body, only shells of who you thought you were, but slip wrong and get caught in the dirt: walk slow, step small, step invisible. space dirt is white, flecks of white float you down in a loop and it is the pattern of how you refuse to turn and face the light while ohno is the world itself, a way for the cosmos to enter from a straight position via the body. there are two bodies, but each body is a looping body until yes, yes, we fall cold in the heap of these frozen solitudes perceptive enough to understand the magnitude of what it means to bask in the oddity of the body-form. keep twisting you wandering shell, but you have given ears to the grass, have decided to wait for the worms to bring message of your monochromatic twirl. it is all ice here in the black and white void where there is only hair and caked-on make-up gazes for men who are women and women who are women. the void manifests in ways of which we have no way to combat, except to enter the gaze, enter the heart of the gaze as gaze eternal and cast this body up and out of itself to the trees, to the deep, to the black or the sunken loop that will spin forever. forever.
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Isabelle Adjani during the filming of Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession in West Germany. By Dominique Issermann, 1981.
we meet octopi
horrordreams
or the sacrifice
beds made of stains
flesh-tentacles and tears
(Source: mabellonghetti, via morethandefunct)
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DARK MATTER by AASE BERG /// A REVIEW + THE "OVERJOY" OF BERG AT MONTEVIDAYO
In trying to “review” DARK MATTER by Aase Berg, I fell into a zone described by Johannes Gorannson as “Overjoy.” Of the review itself, he says:
If you are looking for a collection that is gorgeous, haunting, disturbing, and provocative, then Berg’s DARK MATTER should fit nicely up your sleeve. I had a beautiful time writing this review and hope you will appreciate it.
UPDATE: This piece is mentioned in the HTMLgiant post, “How to be a Critic (pt.5).”
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Three Poems (via Brown God)
Three poems up at Brown God. Luke has done a great job crafting issue one with quality poems, fiction, and visual art. Read the other contributors. You won’t be left stranded. My three poems seem to work together: beasts, claws, bones, tubs, and fingers. Something for everyone. Thank you for reading.
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The Horizon Regained
i have a short piece in issue #20 of Mud Luscious Online Quarterly. I am happy to be a part of such an influential publishing house and recommend you spend time with their publications. This particular issue also features work by Zack Wentz, Russ Woods, Eric Millar, David Greenspan, Travis Brown, Danilo Thomas, Jack Martin, and Ben Spivey. I hope you enjoy “The Horizon Regained.”
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From a Palm Desert Motel (AKA Merl Jaeger)
I wrote this short poem under the pseudonym “Merl Jaeger” for the very interesting, but not safe for work cult mag, Horror Sleaze Trash.
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Cutlery. Ecstasy. Vinegar. Broken China
I have a lyric essay in the new issue of Rufous City Review (Issue Seven). This essay is about the Vienna “aktionist” Rudolf Eb.er and the short time I spent with him in Osaka, Japan and the collaborative project that ensued.
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Threaten Me, Gash///A Simmering///Paw
Three poems for your hot summer nights courtesy of DEAD SNAKES. My process was as follows: the poems started off in different forms than the published form that you will read. They were longer. I worked to trim away unnecessary words while still retaining the core of what I wanted to express with each piece.Thank you again to Stephen at Dead Snakes. This is my third time to be up there.
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Gone, Risen, Stay Gone
My second poem for the poetry journal, Dead Snakes. There is a hint of joyousness in this piece and yet, a hopeful longing. The images and flow of the poem are personal, based on happenings in my own life, the ebb and flow of circumstance and Fortune, family and choices. That said, this one is from the heart. As always, thank you for reading my work.
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Yearly Gifts of Early Death
Thank you, Dead Snakes. A poem for you, for the Chinese New Year with all of its incessant firecrackers, the sky like waves of pink, a fog of noise. We eat dumplings and wait for the spring to wash these welts from our skin.
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Untitled (fire scars from mucus haze...)
A post-apocalyptic piece about a city in flames, a city of scars. It is difficult to sustain a relationship in a city of wrecked dreams and burnt fantasies. Thanks to Kendley at DM for his continued support.
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Birds Rest in Your Hair, Sing in Your Trunk
Romance and betrayal, transcendence and misery: all wrapped up in one neat little package. This was originally hosted by Wonderfort, which I loved, but at the time of editing this (8 months after publication), Wonderfort seems to have disappeared. That said, Danse Macabre also took this piece, a blunder on my part, but in a serendipitous way, things seems to have worked themselves out.
Shredded Maps ///
Jamie Grefe: fiction, poetry, essays
