davidkm | Entries tagged with horror

Unwelcome Guests is the newest full-length collection of dark speculative poetry from SFPA Grand Master and Rhysling winner David C. Kopaska-Merkel

There’s relatability and strangehood in the offerings, some miniature in haiku, a beautiful symmetry and ominous obscurity in the text, dread in the unspoken.
Where some poets hero the impact of the closing line, Kopaska-Merkel’s poems strike in the power between the lines. The reader can never predict what potency the text might disgorge
Unwelcome Guests is a spectral lover’s touch—tender, yet dooming. It’s a perfect marriage of poetry and prose, warm and chilling, starkly intelligent and reachable.
Ideal for anyone.

--Eugen Bacon, Aurealis

At turns disquieting and quirky, playful and poignant, the poems in Unwelcome Guests, like their titular subjects, will stay with you long after you've put the book down and gone to bed (perhaps leaving the light on). A welcome addition to any genre poetry lover's collection!

--Marsheila Rockwell, Rhysling Award-winning poet and author of the Scribe Award-nominated Shard Axe series

The first half of Unwelcome Guests slithers in and out of side-alleys in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, while the second strides avenues of science fiction. Gotta love “June Lockhart’s Recurring Nightmare”. And when “Medusa Buys a Car”. There’s so many environs of speculative poetry visited here, penned with a convincing voice and deft whispers of experimentation.

--Robert Frazier, author of Phantom Navigation

David Kopaska-Merkel’s poetry is like a twisted vein of black gold, with subtle tweaks of darkling humor. He brings to the fore other images that are like watching a glistening pool of oil, beneath which something moves. Whether disturbing sites near Carcosa, the unsuspecting traps of relationships, or unusual visitations, his poetry will inspire, entertain and make you think.

--Colleen Anderson, Rhysling Award winner

MERELY THE BUCKET LIST POEM (ON PAGE 79) IS WORTH THE ACTION ON MY MIND AND MY FUNNY BONES (MORE THAN ONE)

--Edward Mycue, Author of I Am A Fact Not A Fiction

To order a signed and numbered copy from the publisher:

https://weirdhousepress.com/products/unwelcome-guests-by-david-c-kopaska-merkel?_pos=1&_psq=kop&_ss=e&_v=1.0

You can get one directly from me, too ($18 postpaid). I also have PDFs for $3. PayPal to jopnquog [at] gmail [dot] com.

the screams of trees
saws open their bloody mouths
to build our homes

#scifaiku

https://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/02/books-for-charity.html

Here is the deal. You send me a receipt, dated today or some day after today, showing that you contributed any amount of money to a non-profit that helps disadvantaged groups. This could be your local food pantry, Planned Parenthood, the Brigid Alliance, or any one of countless others. If you are not sure that I will approve of your donation, email me and ask.

When I receive the copy of the receipt from you I will email you a PDF of my 2019 dark speculative poetry collection The Ambassador Takes One For the Team, and my Elgin-winning 2022 collection, Some Disassembly Required. I have that one available in a variety of ebook formats. I'm sorry that I don't have ebooks of my 2024 dark speculative poetry collection from Weird House, entitled Unwelcome Guests

through the fog
a monstrous vessel looms
twisted forms thump to our deck

https://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/01/dreams-and-nightmares-129.html

The latest issue of a magazine publishing speculative poetry since 1986. The makes it the second oldest such magazine afaik. Interested in submitting or purchasing? See below:

I print primarily poetry, but also publish a small amount of short short fiction. The genres of fantasy and SF are preferred. I am interested in experimental formats and content, and prefer fantastic horror a la Lovecraft or Blackwood to the blood and gore type. Any SF or fantasy is appropriate if it isn't sappy or trite. If your poem rhymes, be sure that the rhymes are not forced, and that the meter is consistent.
The magazine consists of 24 digest-sized pages with card-stock cover. Publication (dead trees and PDF) is thrice yearly, issues are numbered sequentially. Issue #1 was published in January of 1986. Print run 120 (plus about 25 PDF). Most-recent issue is #129. DN is distributed free to interested libraries. Maximum length for poetry or fiction is 2 single-spaced typed pages, but I prefer less than one page. I prefer e-submissions in the body of the message. Buying 1st N.Am. serial rights unless stated otherwise. Payment is $15 on acceptance + a contributor's copy. (You can request 3 extra copies instead of cash.) I prefer to pay using PayPal. DN is a tough market because of the high volume of poetry submissions I receive. Fewer than 5% of submissions are accepted. Response time ~ 2-4 weeks. Sample copy for $5 (print) or $1 (pdf). Print subscriptions are $25 for 6 issues inside North America and $30 U.S. outside North America. Lifetime sub., with available back issues, for $90. Pdf copies $1 each. A lifetime pdf subscription, with all back issues, is $39. Checks should be payable to me. Subscribe with PayPal to jopnquog@gmail.com.
Artwork should be line drawings; no half-tones (although any color will be visible on digital copies). Good photocopies OK, but I prefer to receive JPEG's as e-mail attachments. Art will be printed no larger than 4 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches, but I can reduce it. Payment $15+1 copy, but $30+1 copy for (color) covers. I always need covers, and small filler illustrations. Filler illos that are the right size and shape to fill up the bottom of a page are particularly useful.

https://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/01/011525b.html

A few updates on writing and publishing. Latest Dreams & Nightmares is out!

Rathbone, Wendy, 2013, Unearthly: the collected poetry of Wendy Rathbone, Eye Scry Publications, 170 p., contact wrathbone@juno.com for information. E-book: $2.99 for the kindle from Amazon.com; $2.99 pdf from http://www.fanzinesplus.com/html/unearthly.htm.

Unearthly is an e-book, a reprint of seven out-of-print chapbooks published between 1994 and 2005. Only one poem in this collection is truly new, but unless you have been a dedicated collector of Wendy Rathbone's poetry, you can't have read all of these:

Moon Canoes, published by Dark Regions Press, 1994
(Im)mortal, published by Shadowfire Press, 1996
Scrying The River Styx, published by Anamnesis Press, 1999
Autumn Phantoms, published by Flesh and Blood Press, 2000
Dreams of Decadence Presents, published by DNA Publications 2002
Dancing in the Haunted Woodlands, published by Yellow Bat Review, 2003
Vampyria, published by Eye Scry Publications, 2005

Reading these poems is a sensory experience. They evoke a myriad colors, scents, even pure emotions. Rathbone's work is so rich you have to read a poem again and again to understand what it's about. When you do, you often find the poems are images, or series of images, pictures in words of eerie settings and situations. If these poems were abstract paintings I would hang them in my house. Rathbone's poetry carries the reader through dreamworlds that are intimate, beautiful, ghostly, and sharp-edged. Here there be monsters, though some are the kind to whom one is wont to surrender (whether this is wise is debatable).

From "Vampire Poet"

Fling me the snowflakes
from your eyes
I’ll save them in some
winter land
You’ll never know this is happening
how I watch your naked chest move

Some of Rathbone's monsters are more like old friends, and draw explicitly on tales we've long known.. From "Child’s Letter Found In An Old Toy Box (Written in silver crayon)"

I avoid Neverland’s mirrors, now,
too ancient to look upon, really,
just a ghastly old, old boy.
But don’t be sad, Wendy.

There are themes, common threads running through many of these poems. Seasons and months, especially autumn and winter. Immortality, vampires, creation and destruction. Especially vampires!

I never think of Rathbone as a science fiction writer. Her work is moody; it broods over impossible landscapes like the ghosts of Lovecraft's Elder Things, hovering over their cyclopean Antarctic city. Nevertheless, sfnal themes and settings can be found in her work.

From "Dreaming a Star-Farer to Life"

I watch for his breath
upon the frozen tongue of sky
that arcs my tiny seam of sight.
Within the tundra of galactic
continents, among the sparks
of constellations flickering

These poems take place in unreal worlds: outer space, undefined regions beyond reality, dreams. Sometimes one awakens from the dream. Some of these poems employ tropes from Celtic tales of the fae.

From "The Vampyre Cathedral"

One boy dreamed
of a goblin
who owns time.
He woke aged
and weeping.

There is simply no way to encapsulate Rathbone's oeuvre. And at less than $3 for the whole delightful collection, it's a crime to leave it on the table. So to speak.

Virtes, S. C., 2008, Improbable Jane: 3 odd odysseys: perfect bound, cover by Scott Virtes, www.samsdotpublishing.com, $8, 70 pages.

This book contains three long poems entitled "Jane Doe discovered," "The improbable notebook of Jason V--," and "Cougar village."

"Jane Doe discovered" is a story of secret hospital prisons, chemical torture, you know the drill. It is very well written and engaging. However, I wondered why. Why was Jane Doe stuck in her predicament? Maybe the explanation was in there, but I didn't see it.

"The improbable notebook..." is about a crazy inventor. Or maybe he's not so crazy. If you make a world-shattering discovery, should you tell people?

The last of this trio of poems is written in the style of a Native American folk tale.

Tentchoff, Marcie Lynn, 2007, Sometimes While Dreaming: Cedar Rapids, IA, Sam's Dot Publishing, 83 p.

Sometimes While Dreaming is a chapbook of poetry written by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff. Thirty-seven of the 48 poems in this collection are new. Eight ethereal illustrations by Marge B. Simon accompany them. At her best, Tentchoff is able to put the reader in touch with the souls of some pretty strange people and other beings. There is plenty of her best in this chapbook.

One of my favorites is "Fallen," in which a case of mistaken identity has more than casual significance.

Some other girl found him there,
And drew him down to her,
Gently freeing each limb from the thorns.
It wasn't me.

What I like best about this poem is that I was led to empathize with the protagonist (someone I could be, aside from the gender difference), but put in a situation I could never be in, and, while reading the poem, I felt that I was there.

I also enjoyed "Crow counting," with its mounting sense of impending doom for the naïve narrator.

The road grew long, I asked his name,
but he would only smile at me,
and stroke my cheek with feathers gleaned
from one of our last seven birds.

This poem has roots in the old ballads of betrayal and death that were so popular with folksingers of the 1960s and earlier.

From "Displaced":

Sometimes she remembers
coming from some other place
where song and dance
were food and drink

This poem is a short poignant view into the heart of someone lost who is forgetting that she is lost. Subtle stories, sketched in allusion, hints, and sly clues, these are Tentchoff''s hallmarks. One is sometimes left knowing the feel of what has happened, or why, when the specifics are uncertain.

"Other hungers" is another take on the Persephone myth, supposing, as others have done, that she's content or happy underground.

Do you miss the dim,
bone-filled freedoms
of the underworld

And what if she does? Would anything change? Tentchoff asks a lot of questions here and she hints at the answers, we are not sure perhaps if we interpret those hints correctly.

In other poems we explore the lives of werewolves, Cinderella, dryads, and others. In "Rootbound" (Clever title, by the way) a dryad shows us what her life is really like:

Away from this, the prison of my bark,
My anguish flows and rages through my sap,
And burns the brightest sun to bitter dark,
That they stride free while I rot in this trap.

Tentchoff reminds us that we are all prisoners, and I don't think she says this anywhere in Sometimes while dreaming, but it's implicit. Some prisons we cannot escape, but for many of us the bars are inside our heads.

When Tentchoff is dreaming, strange and wonderful things result. Myths are retold in enchanting and unexpected ways and new myths are created with their own history stretching out from them into the imagined past. Sometimes while dreaming contains many more poems I am tempted to excerpt for you, but come on. Just buy the book. I'm very sure you won't regret it.

Schweitzer, Darrell, 2008, Ghosts of past and future: selected poetry, The Borgo Press, an imprint of Wildside Press, www.wildsidepress.com, perfect bound. Cover by Thierry Vivies. 125 p, ISBN 978-1-4344-8204-4.

Poems in this book were first published between the years 1992 and 2008. A quick glance through the five pages of acknowledgments indicates that at least two of these poems are first published here. The original appearances of the remainder cover a lot of territory, ranging from Weird Tales to Asimov's, and many lesser-known venues. The book ends with explanatory notes about some of the poems. In the interests of full disclosure I should mention that I first published a few of these in Dreams and Nightmares.

I love the way the book is organized into thematic sections. By far the longest is called "Intimations beyond mortality." This is followed by "The matter of Britain," "Post-Homerica," and "Yesterday's tomorrows." All of these sound intriguing, don't they? They do if you are at all familiar with Darrell's work.

These are powerful poems. In each we find the personal immediacy of the best mainstream poetry, but in the context of our boundary-pushing literature. And who doesn't prefer a gripping and thought-provoking poem about death, and what comes after, to a similar poem about cracks in the sidewalk or spring flowers?

"We outnumber the living, you know.
For all you desperately try to outbreed us,
the fruits of your loins inevitably
switch sides in the end."

That is the beginning of "We dead outnumber the living, you know." Nothing we haven't heard before, but the poem takes off from there like a fighter jet from an aircraft carrier. By the time you get to the end, the aircraft carrier is at the bottom of the sea, if you will allow such a ridiculous metaphor.

From "Song of a forgotten god"

"With Moon-pale hair and beard grown dark,
I rage and run with the beasts,
the perilous father of all that I meet,
dancing, dancing against the Sun."

Many of these poems are imbued with the qualities of legend, even those that are not explicitly about the stuff of legend, as this one is.

From "Is their survivor's guilt in heaven?":

"a parent, with just one bad habit,
a little careless at the end,
now screaming in flames forever
while we, the lucky ones,
are supposed to sit back, strum our harps,
and enjoy ourselves?"

Do you suppose the entrance requirements are really as strict as we have been told?

I want to particularly mention the section about Britain, which is really about King Arthur. Schweitzer has been worrying at the question of Arthur like a dog with a very large bone. He has attacked the question of just what is the Arthurian legend all about from several different directions, and for all I know he's not done with it yet. Arthur has inspired a lot of writers and there is plenty to share. Still, there is insight here, worth reading even if you have read tons of what has been written before.

Moving past Arthur, perhaps our most famous legendary hero, Schweitzer is hard on heroes in general. This includes space opera heroes as well as legendary ones. It even includes those who make heroes. From "Near the end of the epic":

"the villainous bards,
who turned this enterprise into an epic,
left that part out, not deigning to mention
the thousands of lives washed away like ashes"

Schweitzer is good at seeing beyond the surfaces of the old stories. He turns them over and shows us the underbellies, moldy and raddled by bugs, that we should have known were there. But we didn't know, because we didn't think about it. Now it will be hard to forget.

You know, I really can't do justice to this book by quoting a few lines from this poem and a few lines from that poem. And it doesn't help to make the review longer. They are all so good I want to give them all to you. But that wouldn't be fair to the poet or the publisher. So, for the moment you have to make do with a few snippets. I suggest you visit Wildside on the web and limber up your PayPal account. You won't regret it.

Why hasn't Schweitzer ever won a Rhysling award? I could answer this question, but most likely all of my answers would be wrong, or at best half-truths. But he must get a winner someday. Quick! Buy this book and read it, so you can say you knew his work way back when.

Clark, G. O., 2011, Shroud of Night, Dark Regions Press, 60 p., www.darkregions.com, perfectbound pb, ISBN 978-1-937128-02-9, $7.95.

G. O. Clark has been a fixture in the fantastic poetry community since before I joined it. His work has been published in many places, including Asimov's Science Fiction and Strange Horizons. This is his 10th book. We have never met, but I have read and enjoyed his work for decades. Shroud of Night, his latest collection, comprises a diverse assemblage of his darkest poetry. Most of these 39 poems are very short, driving their nails in with just a few lines. Few are longer than a page, but they don't need to be. Original images are hard to come by in horror poetry, but Clark delivers, again and again.

From "Cemetery Angel"

She's just trying to
get the kinks out, a little
break time stretching, stiff from
having to hold a solemn pose
all night and day.

Some of these poems can be reminiscent of the old Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil." Others have a sharper edge. Still other poems are serious and silly at the same time.

From "A Few Words About The Angels"

They can adapt to every atmosphere,
be it air, water, or the vacuous lack thereof,
the speed of light a minor inconvenience.

From "Curses and Salutations"

May your gravestone be made of cardboard,
your casket balsa wood, and your obituary
written by a dyslexic drunk.

It's not easy to encompass in a brief review the breadth of style and tone displayed in this book. I hope these three excerpts give you something of the flavor of the whole that they represent.

Who would've thought a poem about screams could send chills up my spine? Did you know that Hell hath a sailboat? Pray you are never conscripted for the crew! You'll meet some peculiar monsters in this book. Zombies, sure, but garden gnomes? What is their horrifying secret? There is humor here, but who said humor and horror don't go together? I think they do, and if you read this book, I believe you'll see I am right. Shroud of Night brings a lot of darkness together in a handy package. You should read it.

A poetry reading has been approved for Mid-City Microcon (Baton Rouge, Saturday, Feb. 8). How many of you can say that you are likely to participate? I don't need a firm commitment at this time. I'm also going to allow fiction if you only read a few minutes worth. I need to let the library know about how much time the reading will encompass, so I need to get an idea about how many people are likely to be participating.

David

Halloween Hearts, 2022, Adele Gardner, Jackanapes Press (www.JackanapesPress.com), perfect-bound paperback (?), foreword by S. T. Joshi, 109 pages of poetry, ISBN-10: 1956702083; ISBN-13: 978-1956702088, $15.99.

Halloween Hearts is a full-length collection of Halloween poems, by someone who might be a little obsessed with the holiday. Like many people, she claims Halloween as her favorite holiday. However, she is one of the few who can back this up with masterftul and experienced writing.

The title poem is for (and about) Ray Bradbury. More precisely, it’s an extravagant romp through his works, capturing the effect they have had on Adele and her writing.

The cover, by Dan Sauer, is adorable. Stylized Halloween graphic fare is skillfully arranged with a bold cover scheme. Interior art, by Sauer and Gustave Doré, is a pleasing and apt complement to the poetry.

Make no mistake, these are horror poems. Witches who’d as soon kill you and eat you as cast a spell. Ugly as sin, but they don’t look as evil as they are. The ghosts might not kill you, The cats are black of course, magic, and they get a bad rap. Cats in general, they fill a soft spot.

From “The Chant of the Black Cats”

Despite the need for our Halloween magic,
we’ve had to give up perching on fence posts
in orderly, obvious rows. Now we cluster
in skeletal trees where you can’t get us—

Smith, Clark Ashton, 2014, The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies, S. T. Joshi, ed., Penguin books, ISBN 978-0-14-310738-5, paperback, perfect bound, 370 pages.

I have a particular fondness for Smith. Who else can use words no one else knows, without awkwardness? Gene Wolfe comes to mind, but that's it. Most of Smith's stories are set in the far distant future, which seems a lot like the distant past in many ways, because the technology is much less sophisticated than our own. And magic works. This setting gives Smith tremendous scope.

Dark Eidolon begins with probably the best-known Smith story: "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros." This is a good story, and I did not mind reading it again, but it has been repeatedly reprinted. This book contains a mixture of very familiar and good stories and unfamiliar and forgettable stories. So I found nothing new and meaty in here. That's because I have read almost everything by Smith that has been collected or anthologized in the past 50 years. Now, Dark Eidolon is probably the only Smith collection in print right now. For anyone who has discovered Smith within the past 30 years, finding the other collections might be rather difficult. For anyone new to Smith and his fantastic stories of far-future adventure, dripping with magic and monsters, and assembled from the broadest word palette imaginable, you need this book. But if, like me, you are familiar with Smith's fiction, this book will not satisfy your desire for more. Dark Eidolon also includes quite a few poems, about 40 of them. The editor, in the introduction, reports that Smith had a very low opinion of his own poetry. The author might be wrong about his work, but in this case I don't think he was. I am not the most eager fan of fantasy poetry, but I have read some that really blew me away. I am afraid that Smith's poems don't do that.

From "The Last Night":

I watched, until the pale and flickering sun,
In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,
And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.
Then Night, that war of gulf-born Titans won,
Impended for a breath on wings of doom.
And through the air fell like a falling sky.

To quote Beyond the Fringe, it's not enough to keep the mind alive. So don't buy this book for the poetry unless your taste diverges quite sharply from mine. By contrast, the 35 short stories that comprise the main part of the book are easily worth the price of admission. If you thrill to tales of demons, magic-users, and warriors of all stripes, if John Carter got your heart pumping, read this book.

Cox, Cardinal, 2010, Codex Dagon, 12 page but unpaginated saddle-stitched pamphlet to be given away at Weird Winter, Reading Central Library, United Kingdom, December 2010. Numbered edition of 100 on plain white paper. For information: 58 Pennington, Orton Goldhay, Peterborough PE2 5RB United Kingdom or e-mail cardinalcox1@yahoo.co.uk

I don't know why I have started getting Cardinal Cox's free chapbooks or what have you, sent winging across a pond so wide I have no hope of attending the events at which the booklets are to be distributed gratis. Of course I'm grateful; they are very nice publications. I only hope the readers of Star*line, perhaps months after the fact, have a hope of getting copies themselves. E-mail Mr. Cox and offer to send him money. I will hope for the best.

This is the second Lovecraftian chapbook from Cardinal Cox. It is witty and humorous, and that's the way I like them (chapbooks of Lovecraftian poetry I mean). There may be some folks reading this review who don't know that Dagon is an aquatic old one, a supernatural being who, while not precisely evil, is nevertheless inimical to humans and human society. Dagon is worshiped by a race of intelligent fishlike creatures who live a very long time and inhabit cities in some of the deepest parts of the world ocean. The literature referring to Dagon is somewhat ambiguous about the question of evil versus alien, but Lovecraft was pretty clear that what seemed evil to us was really more like indifference.

This book contains seven poems and an essay about the evolution of the Deep Ones, Dagon's aquatic worshipers. The poems refer to literary traditions ranging from traditional Japanese legends to the short stories of HG Wells. From "Haploteuthis Ferox" (which should be italicized and the specific name should be in lower case)

Arms welcome him to the dark wet world
Mollusc muscles pull the helmet apart
The tight embrace of the fatal sweetheart
Eyes roll as though in ecstasy pearled

Referencing a short story by HG Wells. Another refers both to Lovecraft's "Pickman's model" and to worldwide legends of dogheaded people. The book opens with an hymn to Dagon. One poem conflates the idea of the Deep Ones with Irish mythic history with interesting results. And why wouldn't Japanese myths be turned into Japanese monster movies and then perhaps Hollywood remakes? The essay is entitled "An evolution of the Deep Ones." Cox here considers the well-known theory that humanity's hairless condition might have evolved as a response to living in the sea. If it did, are the Deep Ones our sister group? Maybe that's why we can interbreed with them, even though we cannot interbreed with our closest relatives known to science, the chimpanzees.

Any fan of Cardinal Cox or of the Cthulhu Mythos or indeed of fantasy/mythic poetry would probably enjoy this book. And the transformations of various forms of literature into annals of the cult of Dagon are charming and amusing. There is definitely something in Codex Dagon for the irreverent.

Cox, Cardinal, 2013, Codex Ponape, Starburker Publications, c/o 58 Pennington, Orton Goldhay, Peterborough PE2 5RB United Kingdom, 12 pages, saddle stitched, probably available for a stamped digest sized envelope (large enough to hold a few pieces of A1 paper, folded in half), but if you don't have any UK stamps I suggest you send a couple of euros worth of your local currency. Or something to trade.

This is the latest in Cox's series of thin white pamphlets of poetry based on the writings of HP Lovecraft. As the title suggests, Codex Ponape focuses on the greatest malevolent deity of them all, or at least the one with the most cachet: he who waits dreaming in the drowned and otherwise deserted city of R'lyeh, under the Pacific Ocean near the island of Ponape. There are 11 poems, and as usual, there is some sort of “description” at the bottom of most of the pages. However, in contrast to previous publications in this series, these bottom of the page descriptions are not part of the game. Instead, with one exception, these are actual explanations of how the poems came to be written.

This is not one of my favorites of these small lovecraftian offerings. The first poem, entitled “Just read what it says on the card,” is priceless. If your ophthalmologist was an adherent of the cult of Cthulhu, this would probably be on his wall. Several of the poems in this collection, such as “Trout Mask Replicas,” seem like great ideas that are not adequately realized. I should also mention that a couple of the poems in Codex Ponape are actually songs. The last poem is a piece of flash fiction. If you are familiar with the Cardinal's work, it is enough to know that these are typical of it. If you are not familiar with his work, this review is not going to convince you to get it.

Why am I reviewing a small-press publication about which I have so many reservations? First, it is part of a series and there may be some people who want to read every one in the series. Second, I really like two of the 11 poems a lot. Third, there may be other people who, for various reasons (Cthulhu fans, lovecraftian completists, etc.), want this booklet even though I am lukewarm about it. Finally, this review will have a small environmental footprint because only an excerpt will be printed on paper and the rest will become phosphors. In conclusion, this little book is not without merit and I hope I have told you enough to let you know whether you will like it.

This is likely no longer available, but who knows?

Cox, Cardinal, 2012, Codex L'ng, Starburker Publications, c/o 58 Pennington, Orton Goldhay, Peterborough PE2 5RB UK, saddle stitched, white paper, 100 copies, 12 pages, price unlisted, the Cardinal is on Facebook: ask him.

This codex follows the format of its predecessors. Each page bears a short poem and description. The descriptions links lovecraftian mythology with history. This codex seems more successful in this than the others. Perhaps because I am less familiar with Central Asia, or because Leng (here, L'ng) has always seemed as though it really could be in Central Asia. In any case, the descriptions have the ring of truth (or at least, of historicity). For example:

“Among the oldest Tibetan legends of the terrestrial land of L'ng is that of Gesar, who has aspects of a Bonist sacred king.” Or “described in Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. as gold digging ants, the curious insect-daemons of the outer darkness... pose many questions.”

According to Cox, there are two L'ngs: one in Central Asia, another in dreamland. This accords with Lovecraft's writing, but Lovecraft never said there were two. Cox does not repeat Brian Lumley's and August Derleth's errors in making the Mythos so matter-of-fact that it isn't even mythic anymore. No crimefighting Justice League style struggle between technocrats and eldritch horrors. Instead, Cox mimics the tone of anthropologists describing in matter-of-fact terms something they clearly don't understand. Something which, as is plain to the cognoscenti, is anything but mundane.

From Beast Men:

Enslaved by Moon frog-folk
Still they keep faith with the
Distant, cold, Sleeping God
Creatures crushed beneath chaos

Remember that the price is right, you have to act fast if you want it at all, and it's a charming little foray into the narrative as faux history genre, one that Lovecraft used all the time.

Clark, G. O., 2009, Strange Vegetables, Dark Regions Press, Box 1264, Colusa CA 95932, www.darkregions.com, cover by M. Wayne Miller, interior art by G. O. Clark, $7.95, perfect-bound pb, ISBN-10 1-888993-67-7, 1SBN-13 978-1-888993,-67-7, 53 p.

Dark Regions Press has been publishing poetry chapbooks since the early 90s at least. The early ones, all out of print, had black-and-white covers, but they included remarkable work from some of the best science fiction, fantasy, horror poets then writing. I don't remember whether G. O. Clark was in that lineup, but I would not be surprised. Like Dark Regions, he has been around for a while. This new offering, Strange Vegetables, bears a nice colorful cover. The produce inside is black and white of course, but crisp and tasty.

Strange Vegetables contains 31 poems, many previously published in various periodicals. I published one in Dreams and Nightmares. The cover is an amusing tribute to "American Gothic." Interior art; that's a bit of lagniappe. Oh, and I didn't know Clark could draw. He is pretty good. Alas, he doesn't draw for the small press as far as I know, except here.

Clark frequently uses a deadpan style when describing far out situations, as in the title poem, or "Unusual employment opportunities."

Balloon artist needed for the
Annual Miskatonic Faire. Must have
own equipment, be open-minded,
and agree to sign waiver.

The style is well suited to dry humor, and the poems almost feel like that even when they really aren't funny. For example, "As if we could change anything."

As if Frankenstein could find a happy balance
between the sum of his parts.

Clark never seems to run out of this kind of zinger. Poems range from the silly, to serious with and without puns, to sharp as knives. Whether making an analogy between the life of a snail and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence ("In the shadow of Aricebo"), or comparing the movement of galaxies to human interactions ("Shiner"), Clark's observations are right on the money.

Most of these poems are science fiction, sensu stricto. Even when looking at concepts invented by H. P. Lovecraft or Mary Shelley, Clark tends to look at them with a precise and naturalistic eye. I love this cross-genre use of the authorial lens. Whether you pick up a pair of science-fiction spectacles or another it makes no difference. Previously neglected aspects of old works are examined or displayed. For me, this only adds to the beauty that was already there. Then again, most of these poems are science fiction, but not all. "Naked angel" includes these lines:

My body is of
two minds, one pulsing
with the blood of unreason,
the other, thoughts impure.

There is more, much more: a tale of a considerate and most unusual hourly companion, a steampunk robot, artificial poets, religious dystopias, excommunicated deities, imprisoned rulers, monsters, and so on. I think I let slip that I like this book. Enough said.