My Pet Vampire
Tight as a tick to a scalp,
I keep my vampire nailed down
to the floor in my bedroom.
His arms are stretched pale and flabby
as the hairy little bat I know
he wishes he could turn into
when I see him squinching his lupine brow
and grunting like he's constipated.
But the nails won't set him free
from the clock-handed impalement of his limbs.
Maybe he could transform into a flying rodent
but he's stretched so tight, the tension
between those silver spikes would only split
him right in two. I keep him fed
with stray pet blood and sometimes
he acts like he loves me for it --
cooing like he's the one stray I kept,
the one pet I cared enough about to take in,
the lucky survivor I won't kill.
At other times -- usually at night
when I peek over the bed before sleep --
his eyes quiver ablaze and he stares
right at me like some starving feral animal
caught in a barbed wire fence.
Asleep, I dream of torture --
of drizzling holy water left-right
across pasty dead flesh, drawing
cross-shaped wounds in the gray canvas
of skin. I dream of taking needle nose
pliers to teeth before teasing him
with my bare wrist and strained neck.
But in the morning, the sunlight blares
into the windowpane, fizzling his face
and he screams like a drowning hyena.
It's annoying. And as I close the curtains
I deeply wish I could just finish him off,
but this supernatural sundial
is the best alarm clock I ever had.
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Dead Meat: A Haiku
at the meat counter
cellophaned brains trick zombies --
the butcher runs out
***
The above haiku is one of many neat new 'zombie zen' pieces by various authors scattered throughout Kyra Schon's website. Kyra is one of the coolest stars from the original Night of the Living Dead. Visit her site and you'll recognize her instantly! And if you like zombie haiku, well, then you'd love this book.
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
The Fall Down the Stairs of the House of Usher
When I push her down the stairs
she swims in the air for a moment
like we're dancing
and I play a little song in my head
to accompany it
before the erratic thud of her skull
against the steps
breaks my waltzing daydream
with its own offbeat tempo
and I hear another voice sing
as I stumble forward
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
curse of the hempire
hippie vampires look the worst
because they refuse to Lugosi
their hair back with pomade;
they sit cross-legged beside their
broken coffins and tie-dye
their funeral garb into spirographic florals
of mold and mud, tripping on homegrown
shockwhite graveyard mushrooms,
believing they're good vegetarians
until the thirst for human blood
animates their groovy shambling
and like stoned-out stone-cold soldiers
they hunt hungry for a feast of friends;
"make blood, not war," some cry and
they bite men in the spirit of free love --
their undead heads slurping in shadows
that no longer see summer or sunshine
forever young
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
People Repellent: A Flash Fiction
He found the bottle of People Repellent at a health food store. The package was right next to the all-natural bug sprays and fly papers and anti-mosquito incense. It cost $24, emblazoned with a stick figure logo that raised a scrawny arm in a "talk to the hand" gesture. He thought it would make a funny gift for his girlfriend, who always complained about the people in her office, so he blew what was left in his wallet for the novelty spray, along with his usual assortment of herbal extract supplements and offbeat teas.
At home, he started wrapping the gift. He chuckled at the logo on the bottle again, but then found himself questioning his choice. Maybe she would read between the lines and accuse him of calling her anti-social. Or maybe she'd assume that all the gifts in their relationship from that point forward would be juvenile pranks. She might conjure an image of fake doggie doo in her Christmas stocking or a squirt ring surprise during their marriage ceremony, and then quickly remove him from her speed dial.
He didn't want to "repel" his own girlfriend, after all. So he grabbed the bottle and opened the lid of the trashcan. Something liquid sloshed inside. He shook it. Wondered what it really was. Took a whiff of the sprayer.
It smelled fantastic. Like flowers fountaining inside of other flowers. But it was still musky enough to be called cologne. He decided to try it out. He sprayed People Repellent on his neck, then his arms, then his chest, and then inside the waistband of his jeans...spritzing copiously until he was sure he could keep inhaling it like a floral cloud descended from heaven, floating around his body.
Immediately a number of houseflies stirred inside his trashcan and zoomed up from the refuse to glom onto his flesh. More flying gnits zipped across his house and landed on his skin, fizzling in the still-wet sheen of People Repellent on the back of his neck and on his arms. Mosquitoes followed, whining around his ears before dipping their beaks into their newfound nirvana.
They itched, and he was surprised by just how many flying insects were living in his house, but he also understood what was happening with perfect clarity. He went outside and walked slowly down the sidewalk, heading towards his girlfriend's house just a few blocks away. A thousand thousand more insects joined their brethren on his flesh. His body became a living block party for the local gnats. Moths landed on his eyelids. Honeybees buzzed and nuzzled into his belt line. And people quickly got out of his way.
He was a living coat of writhing wrigglers when he rang her doorbell, waiting to see what kind of person she'd turn out to be. Beneath a mitten of mites, he still clutched the spray bottle in a free hand, which he held behind his back like a lover's bouquet.
***
If you like stories like this, you'd like my collection, 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
blood, bath and beyond
The claw foot tub clenches
the floor whenever I twist
the handle hot, scouring the bone
tiles and filthy basin belly.
Droplets spray and pepper the flesh
-- and that's just the curtain of skin
dancing on its meat hooks, absorbing
the stream, but perpetually unclean.
I don't understand why the blood
doesn't wash out; why it molds so much.
Maybe something ill spills
from the green gums of that open-mouthed
shower head, spraying its sickness.
Or perhaps it's just my plumbing.
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Air Sac O'Lantern
the illumination of the lung
will bloom in blotches of bronchial
rot curdling a purple and black
kaleidoscope of cancer
that might even pop and wheeze
and make a funny face with its holes
as the candle flame voraciously
decays, eating through,
eating air
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Figure With Meat
"one has to remember as a painter
that there is great beauty in the color of meat." -- Francis Bacon
these heavy wings
of hand carved carcass
flutter with the ghost throes
of rusty meathook panic
pulling me out of my chair
with all the audacity
of a drunken butcher
lifting me high
as a crucifixion post
and my dinner fork
clatters on the table
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Feature Creatures
alone, the mortician plays
a facial reconstruction game
and calls it "Mr. Potato Dead"
the corpses skin like spuds
and he makes the freaks his friends
but when the Picasso-faced
cut-ups haunt his daydreams
and threaten to pull him apart
all he can say in his defense
is that he turned the other cheek,
over and over again
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Hellicatessen
the demonic butcher
asked me how I liked
it sliced as he hefted
the dripping live squealer
out from the rotisserie
with his carbuncular carving
hooves and I noticed it was
pregnant when I answered
paper-thin, please, paper-thin
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Cobbler
hammer stuck
in your skull
like a fork resting
inside the crust
of a half-eaten pie
the claw catches light,
as polished chrome clean
as your smile
and I regret both
the choice of my grip
and the bite not taken
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Artist of The Living Dead
the zombie painter flamboyantly
shambles back to the gallery
to slaughter all the critics with his new show --
it's a mixed media piece, in pieces,
splattering walls with their brains and licking
yellow clumps off the red speckled canvas
with the flattened horror of his green tongue
which smears with all the flair of a brush.
If they all weren't so creatively rendered
they might have called him something
of a post-postmodern Pollock --
but no matter,
he's no longer a starving artist
and he hasn't a care for their taste
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Election Day Alarm: A Parable
The brassy horn blows, stirring him from slumber. Not a horn, he realizes as he opens his eyes -- an electronic drone, the tone on his "gentle wake" alarm clock that rises a notch up in volume every ten seconds until the sleeper turns it off. He lifts his heavy eyelids and confronts the clock face. 6:56 am. Too early. He hates this whining clock. Its siren creeps on him. Its soft tone deceives him.
He's not sure if he wants to get out of bed yet. He watches the digits on the clock -- the boxy numbers burning like three blurry gold bars into his eyes. He hesitates to turn the alarm off. Doesn't want to acknowledge the coming day. But he doesn't want to snooze, either. Politics is a tough game, and he's not done with it yet. Even if he wins today's election, he'll have to make a lot of changes. Not sure he wants to. Not sure the time is right. Not sure of anything. It's all in the hands of those who cast the votes, anyway.
6:56. The horn blares.
The waiting, he thinks, is unbearable. Always is. His wife finally groans beside him, tossing covers. He wonders if he's just awakened the new first lady or the wife of yet another has-been.
The clock finally turns the next minute with an audible click. He presses the button. Silence. He gets up and puts on his fancy suit.
The numbers on the clock read 6:66.
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Teacheruption
The geologist takes his old rock
chiseler to the flunky student's skull
and then impresses upon him
the concept of earth tectonics
the hard way, mashing the plates
of his gored gaia until the crust
breaks open and a tsunami
of blood and brain splurts
out of the volcano he's made --
lava of the learned, burning
hot red and gray all the way down
the cold canyons of his corduroy sleeves
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
incantation of pain #27
may your tongue twist
more than twenty times
while you scream
until your throat sloughs out
in a voice box afterbirth
as loose as your lying lips
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
flagellum
i saw a worm squirming in place
one side squashed into the pavement
pink, flattened and stuck like tack
the other snaking wildly
as if in pain or panic
a familiar flagellum:
getting nowhere
before my other foot came down
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
The Thing About Tentacles
it isn't their ocean slime
shimmering green in the sun,
nor the long ropiness of their floppy
tendrils that terrifies me. it isn't
the way they're lined with suckers
or cilia or scales. it's not their alien
feelers, autonomously whipping wild.
no. it's just the way they seem so
limber, so strong, yet they have no
bones for leverage
except maybe my own
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Decoction of Man
bent awkward inside the cargo net
our hot sweat slickens our bony
frenzy of knuckles and nails
as the cold giant immerses us
steeping our screams in his tea
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Tina's Piercing Fetish
His tribal tattoos really smolder, as colorful
as his cobalt and charcoal eyes, but
it's really Robert's piercings she likes best.
The rod popped through the septum
of his puck nose, the cute pin in his chin,
the long needle in his tasty tongue.
It's the latter that's her favorite,
because it keeps him quiet.
Sure, he spits more than he used to,
but he's still quite a hottie, and that's
all to be expected when she seasons
the chunks of him on her shish-ka-bob.
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Two Brainy Haikruel
Eerie Gyri
guilt jitters around
the maze of her lobes, a rat
scrambling for exit
+++
Sulky Sulci
sausages of brain
plunge through the hole in her head --
straightening out her thoughts
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Special Holiday Edition!
Happy Holidays! I wanted to surprise everyone by packing extra horrors into this special issue of The Goreletter, so I invited friends from several writing communities to send in "holiday gorelets" for publication here, with a prize going to what I judged to be the best submission. Not an easy task! Most are about Santa and Xmas. I did not reject any of the entries -- to my way of thinking, the more the merrier. I'll post the award winning poem at the very end, along with a little explanation why I chose it. Enjoy. And do yourself a favor and visit some of these writer's websites and buy their books with that gift certificate you got for the holidays. Really: try someone new!
+++++
First Christmas at Grandma Lucia's House
With loving dark arms she reaches to embrace
the children, the kids' candy apple eyes wide
in terror as the huge hands descend gray
and powerful, fleshly, the thick unnatural lipstick mouth
alive with ancient smiles, behind her the meats
hanging from racks and wires, sausages, lungs,
necks, these are delicacies where she's from, starving
peasants would scream in the fields for this,
staring into snow-stuffed skies for the face
of Mother Mary, and my kids are shrieking.
-- Tom Piccirilli http://www.tompiccirilli.com/
+++++
A Sled Parked atop the Roof
A sled parked atop the roof.
Deer grazing on the front lawn.
A man in red breaks into the house
Passes through the front door
Without opening it -- amazing!
His hands are empty going in
But his arms are loaded when he leaves
Can you see bloodstains on crimson material?
A shell in each chamber should suffice.
This magic elf won't rob us twice.
-- Bev Vincent http://www.bevvincent.com
+++++
Santa's Got a Brand-New Bag
Cookies and milk shoved into a gaping maw
Guts rumble beneath the big red suit
Pine tree wilts as the mouth opens wide
A gloved finger slides down the throat
Vomit and bile, gifts and gobs rain down
Floor now slick with acid and toys
The fat elf retreats, his job well done
Another holiday worth remembering
-- John R. Platt http://jplatt.homestead.com/
+++++
Santa is a Cannibal
Santa is a cannibal...what, you hadn't heard?
Well, his habit isn't flaunted;
He's wickedly canny to get what he's wanted
For dinner, elves are preferred.
Little elfin Leonard brought
Santa cookies and custard,
But ol' Kringle's carnivory
got the lad flustered.
"He tried to flee,"
Santa ho-ho-hoed with great glee
"But he was terrific with mustard!"
-- Lucy Snyder http://www.sff.net/people/lucy-snyder/
+++++
Empty Stockings
Chimney
smoke Christmas Eve,
crematorium ash
on the hearth the year the fat man
vanished.
-- Deborah P Kolodji http://www.amaze-cinquain.com
+++++
Unwrapping The Phantom
The angry Santa weeps lakes of tinsel
packages them in the womb of crystallized sky
then adorns his presents with ribbon-ed clouds
And He sends them to adults in anger
For in this world of antediluvian Gods
he is now a jolly, lobster-red joke
But we know not what we had
when we were ten, and, believed in him
And, what magic was uncreated when
we were given that final gift; the truth…
-- J.M. Heluk http://www.jmheluk.com/
+++++
'Twas the Night After Christmas
Welcome to Dark Santa’s manse
It’s time for the midnight dance
Come into his workroom
And seal your doom
Try not to be afraid
Though it’s a very dark tomb
Stuffed with all sorts of toys
To fulfill his twisted joys.
-- Ron Breznay rbreznay@epix.net
+++++
Reindeer Games
It was Blitzen, I think, who, sick of his damned
lashing, twisted to bite the ropes that bound us
setting Santa into freefall toward no chimney
below but all twelve of us flew down anyway
and tore him to pieces, champing through fat
onto bone and flying our twelve separate
ways and all twelve of us had red shiny noses
the Christmas that freedom was our first gift
to each other
-- Michael A. Arnzen http://www.gorelets.com
+++++
Christmas Presence
Early morning, and the first awake.
Mom and dad and sister, still sleeping.
The packages look different, are lumpy,
clumsily re-wrapped.
Ornaments glisten. They seem almost moist,
nestled in there among the blinking red lights.
The tinsel looks silky and blond
The cookies are gone from the mantle, and,
The stockings are full. But they're small.
Little girl stockings.
-- Chris Garrett cgarrett@swca.com
+++++
Please Come to my Solstice Sacrifice
and Tree Decorating Party!
Drink blood ‘til you’re sated,
eat flesh ‘til you’re gorged,
then we’ll light the fire,
sacrifice the supplicants.
There’ll be chanting and dancing,
while decorating the tree:
First entrails, then eyeballs,
carved kneebones, cartilage,
perforated kidneys, and a
four-chambered heart.
-- Terrie Leigh Relf http://www.writersmonthly.us/
+++++
stocking stuffers
red ribbony bonus
surprise tucked deep
beneath candy
caned fingers
pruned mistletoes
the egg noggin drip
a dead giveaway
-- Kurt Newton http://www.kurtnewton.com/
+++++
The Necrotide Spirit
There was a Christmas Tree
in the mausoleum this year.
Saw it when I was placing roses
by old Aunt Matilda's crypt.
Gifts by the dozen sat beneath the tree,
all gaily wrapped yet dirty.
I felt suddenly festive
and couldn't help but sing along
with the clogged and raspy voices.
-- Kevin Donihe http://users.chartertn.net/mbs/kldwriter/
+++++
Super Ate Family Films
licking at
the window bloody
red holiday
smile slit spreading
ornamental anger
thankful for this bounty
-- John Edward Lawson http://www.johnlawson.org/
+++++
Santa Goes Postal
Mrs. Claus no longer speaks, save to complain
of cold and isolation. I find solace
in cable horror movies, watch shooting sprees
on CNN performed by postal workers
with less cause for grief (fewer packages, better
work conditions than my icy North Pole prison).
I scheme to pull children from their beds,
drag them trembling over frosty white
powdered lawns, where (I'm guessing) blood
will make a lovely cherry snow cone spill.
-- Norman Prentiss nprentiss@yahoo.com
+++++
*** WINNER ***
Nosferatu Celebrates the Season
Not down
some chimney but through
her window
he is everything good girls
die for
tall dark & red-suited --
eventually -- bearing
the gift that keeps on
giving: endless
Christmas Eves.
-- Ann K. Schwader http://www.geocities.com/hpl4ever/
+++++
All of these poems were so good, it was impossible to pick one winner in this so-called "contest." I almost chose Kurt Newton's "stocking stuffer" because it reads so much like an Arnzen "Gorelet" that it's uncanny. It's a damned good horror poem, so I'm sending Kurt a signed printout of my e-book, Sportuary, for taking third place. Tom Piccirilli's "Grandma Lucia" is the most literary and probably well-written of the batch -- truly a dark and familiar poem -- but perhaps not as gleefully gory as the others. Tom takes second and wins a free review copy I have of the Monks/Fisher Sex Crimes anthology (see the MSI coupon in this issue). Although it's a vampire poem, Ann Schwader's piece stood out as the most original to me, in not only the Nosferatu concept, but also the way it weaves double-meanings into amost every line, therefore standing up to multiple re-readings. Ann wins a copy of Bruce Boston's fantastic new collection, Pitchblende, signed by Boston, Simon, and Arnzen (I wrote the intro and edited the book). Ann's poem wins because it's written so tightly that it's truly a gorelet. But they all are and I thank every writer who contributed for their grotesque gift to us all. Happy Horrordays!
Please leave a comment on the above below, if you like!
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Power Rat Trap
eyes charred as burnt raisins
steaming tongue dangles pink
as the shocked straight rattail
poking out of the puffed grey muff
still statically charged
with murder
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Pop-o-matic Trouble
we palm punch soft spot
and when the eyes roll back
they point at the bony place
to move our sick little pieces
scored with death black divots
and still we count out loud
each move around this spiral-bent
spinal cord runway till we get
bored with playing games
and put away such childish toys
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
Fun with Ganglion
Tie to stick and tease
or tickle the imaginary cat.
Dry on rack, break off branches
and serve as garnish with lung.
Suspend from thin wire in aquarium;
fool the fish with your human seaweed.
Ball up and bind; use to sponge-paint
pink patterns on living room wall.
Chew like gum; violently cough
when clowning with the kiddies
and slip gently free from jaws before
tugging maniacally as a magician
on the rainbow of wet tourniquets
spooling from the mouth.
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.
More Gorelets
If you're hungry for more unpleasant poems, you might be able to dig up some moldies but goodies when browsing the Weblog Exclusives or the first year of The Goreletter archives.
You can also buy the original Gorelets series (a Bram Stoker Award finalist!) in a collectable book from Fairwood Press or in an e-book edition (with 21 bonus poems) from Double Dragon Publishing. Visit shocklines.com for ordering all Arnzen books at good prices.
Please update your bookmarks or rss feeds.