Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2012 - Issues 10 through 20

by Tanzer, Molly

  coda with loud music. stress.

  Bar. Red wine in glasses. Beer bottles calling sweet candy to the trap, no groin is naked yet. Clove cigarettes and a hint of reefer smoke. Chatting/murmuring/talking/singing along . . . Blonde who hasn’t found amnesty in the vodka pauses, closes eyes, her expression hardens and she looks him square in the eye “I won’t. No. No.” . . .

  The vigor of Combichrist’s “Throat Full of Glass” stops breathing it’s spiral downward . . . Soft cadence of grave candles homesteading in the looking glass routine of black walls with all-is-lost red highlights . . . Ennui, takes the spires married to phantoms off her radar, has another sip of the river’s tongue . . . To Beloved, “The sin flowers in this torture chamber reap what they sow.” . . . DJ noting medieval tablature and the language of a nocturne guitar—mood slips into foreboding, output phrases abruptly—t’ain’t the Stooges, but it’s got ragged and raucous, hits a vein of hard, serious as speedball-animal. Sadness and madness burn . . . Friday night looking at midnight’s approaching minutes, looking for a cure, or to pull a litany from Lucifer, if it swings with a wild mood. The sound of speed kissed the dethroned . . .

  A pawn looking for prayers in his footprints feels the tug of Macbeth’s compass . . . Rough laughter . . . Waiting for something clear to open in the mass. Wanting—Better—not cheap, not squashed. Watching. One scratches his balls. One wishes her boobs were bigger, or she’d worn the damn corset. Adjusting her earring, the fair-haired blonde who won’t sleep with another woman if she’s too large in the bust wonders if the Elfish woman-child is any good in bed. Greasy, raven-hair, eyes locked on her ample ass, hopes the next drink will talk her into his monsoon, orders two more without asking if she wants another.

  Wallflower afraid-of-men. Father put that deep in her, investigates motives. Asks herself, Why do we keep doing this? The face she sees inside turns, faces her, replies, Because in here, we want one. If there’s one worth having?

  Hoping. Some for writ soft, some a bridge rightnow-now.

  Clocks tick.

  Veins bring activity.

  Midnight provokes.

  coda unfortunate with cuts after apparent bang:

  Detective Sgt. Doull (finds the witness’ name in his notes.): “Rhys.”

  Witness Lin R: I was sitting there waiting for a friend to arrive. No, just a glass of white wine. That’s right. I was waiting for, Joe. We’d just started dating a few weeks ago. It was so . . . Horrible. (Cries.) I was about to leave as he’d just sent me a text and said he couldn’t make it, asked me to meet him later at his place. The music entered a quiet passage for a second or two and I heard shouting . . . I feel so terrible; I was so scared I couldn’t move. Watched it happen . . .

  DOA (toe tag states Samuel M). “Just a bystander.” Archer shakes his head. “Friday night you think you’d have a quiet drink, maybe meet someone to care about . . . Or to lift frozen out of your bed for the night . . . Sadly, some collide with genuine horror.”

  Detective Sgt. Doull: Shakes his head in agreement. “Messy. The Rhys woman said, ‘Lizards descended. Monsterish-looking things. Cut him up good.’ She got that part right. Woman was lucky. Far enough away she just got a few cuts.” One on her cheek will leave a nasty scar . . . Can’t understand why a lady like that was in that place. Wasn’t dressed like that Siouxsie chick, seemed more the Beatles type . . . Lady like her shouldn’t have to see shit like that. None of those kids should.

  Dr. Archer (hands struggling with the HOT water coming from the faucet.): “Throat. Torso. Legs, what’s left of them. Looks as if he fell through dozens of layer of glass. Most striking is the fact there are unknown crystal elements and some biological material we can’t identify in the wounds, no evidence of metal.”

  Detective Sgt. Doull: “The Rhys woman said, ‘Just like octopus arms. Ten, maybe more?’ This is all fucked, Doc. Sounds like horror movie shit.”

  coda dramatic skin:

  Starry wanted Thomas. wanted him a very long time. wanted him to slide the straps of her dress off her pale shoulders. slowly. one finger. or his teeth—she’d let him pick. show him the roses on her breasts. whisper, “‘The Nipple is a rose.’” listen to him sigh. watch the intended his eyes brought to it. wanted him. planned on tonight. planned on math. two. one. melting, letting his momentum script her text. reborn, wasn’t a fit she’d reject. flying off the thirsty map. fingers clawing his back. his hands on her ass, holding it dear as any starving child holds a bowl of rice.

  “Thomas.” the only one who ever looked. saw her wit, wanted more bright. laughed, in the way the intrigued laugh, as her hilarious mesmerized. understood she had down-to-earth and tenderness to offer the right beholder.

  Murmur gave her sugar and kissability. nightswimming in “Star Me Kitten” R.E.M.’s color loads her, gives her sway. “I won’t be alone tonight. I’ll be—” dressed. just right for him. checks in the mirror, matches her destination. black dress was right, soft, flowed in the right places. choker was right. make-up was right. he’d have a hard time not adoring her eyes. have a hard time not looking at her breasts. have a hard time not kissing her pale shoulders.

  Nancy told her he liked her, her eyes, her laugh, how she fits in his lonely outside. “He wants to ask you out in the worse way, but he’s afraid it might ruin your friendship. But he wants to.” told her he had fantasies. her and him. her. her. goddess.womaness uncorked.

  skin.

  silk.

  anxious and sweet/immediate/whatever you want—motion/the shaft of his begging cock in her hand/leaps/kamikaze power brightening into stillness/you unlock the how

  eyes.

  desire.

  all of it in her mirror.

  all of her promising it.

  all in her mirror.

  put on her black cape. gazes at the horizon of her dull four-poster, whispers, “Later.”, smiled . . . she floated down the stairs, chanting.

  “He likes me. Cares.” locked her door. “He likes me. Cares.” warm asserts spirit to toes, makes her bones pliable, she carries it with her.

  “Thomas likes me.”

  finger caressed a bulge in her handbag. inside is a homemade kaleidoscope for Thomas. every time he gazes within the energy of her feelings will rejuvenate him, cure his itch with flare. she brightened it with spells, whispered, “Dear heart, your journeys, to the left, to the right, to the center, o’er the waters of desire, will be free.”

  walked.

  grey street—long as noir stretched to too late for definable.

  hard as the shitty bars under West-facing windows of racked narcissistic.

  empty as the empty glasses.

  thrusting its elevated squabbles and always pissed about it.

  after worst and misadventure… purgatory gets a new mouth

  not even a whisper . . .

  door: moored to dust.

  window: she saw what lingered. said i brought a little too much midnight.her thorns didn’t care to mend the stains of my condemned.

  on her way to him.

  another window: we hit the shore/no-brakes/when she said bigger baby . . . . sprays/gin/bursts/adjectives . . . (mismanaged) . . . aflutter stripped to “Ready!” with naughtily in the backroom went from sultry to cheap

  4th floor window Bob Marley beach towel curtain: each hand ajar crumbled in the rain.

  door: her ZIPcode was shaped like a poem

  3rd floor window open: the sins my flaws couldn’t combat.

  light isn’t durable in this valley

  window: and this is where i go down in the darkness.

  window: everyone said, puzzle pieces re(cover)y?

  how many floors in that apartment house? how many doors, faces, beds, mornings craving? how many pockets charged or lashing, hot hands itching for a battery or something it could stand to look at?

  all those windows—a hand incomplete, healing hungry air with a gate of flex/i only hear what’s beneath your face/if you turn this way you’ll see the pocket i
lost/i’ll make a map of your branches/embrace of a punchline did consume a black eye./filthy/our breath/white rabbit vodka weakly/breeding, irritation arrows whimpering/fat ass/prick/in name only/unsnapped the handle/and we.climbed. filling the corner w/ margins containing waiting/the far edges of a river.left.open/i am merely a streak of aspect in your forgetfulness. unless you/in the aisle of breathing bed/can spare.blending only;if your music calls i am not a sentence of misery when you/dance so now we are a tryst of strings unspooling building a way to tango/and she took off her limits. . . one at a time.

  that many and many more—

  Starry didn’t stop. walked by. fast. put quick in it. FAST—before a hand or voice or eyes affected by whim’s drug jumped catch, circled with taunted, all its sores nodding pussy—one way or the other.

  all those windows and double-locked doors and faces and beds and mornings too frightened to attempt sunlight

  Thomas would not be like that. not her angel.

  walked . . . kept something ready for the demon prowlers.

  more than one thing.

  ready.

  not just mace.

  all she studied. all she knew. all she could summon . . .

  “Nyarlathotep.”

  Might? This time. prayed he would, if she needed him to. hadn’t she paid the price? she’d placed all the elements in his net. many times . . .

  coda an ominous spark / point and measure / gloves off:

  King Negation turns. Eyes the witch. Fangs want a bite. Some lower part wants her lower playground. Wants to settle his darkness on the peaks of her soft mountains. He’ll choose terms and require the wedding to smoke and after she cooks his mass sweet and to the limit he’ll laugh or toss her to his remoras.

  His dim hand awake. Blade ready for red. For deeper.

  Her eyes hiss. Forbid. Too late. She is the gears of dust, crushed. Mass uglyviolent shock-riot churns. HOTragetears. Anger spread as FU—DEAD. “Thomas.” Slips from the rim of her lips.

  coda just facts, ma’am:

  Witness Lyn R: I really don’t know what more I can add, Detective Sgt. I enjoy horror, in movies and literature. Short stories for the most part. Ghost and vampires, inexplicable and unlikely atmosphere, dark romanticism, the literary kind. I don’t care for gore or blood and guts. Seeing that poor man cut up . . . That will stay with me, haunt me forever. The only deceased person I’ve ever seen was in a coffin and she was ninety-two and suffered from a longstanding illness. We knew she was dying. That was not like this.

  Detective Sgt. Doull likes this woman. Not just her looks, her eyes, curves, exactly his kind. Likes her. Warm vibrates from her, traces color-shades in his clatter of tossed brush. His weighty is lighter in her air. Rewrites her number down. Puts it on a separate page in his notebook so he can take it out later and tuck in his wallet. Already has a hundred reasons to call her. Nice hips.

  Patient #2 Nancy F: It was weird. Like some horror movie. Things went wild. They changed. She did. I saw some fugue of ripped, with pincers and tentacles, body parts and blood, I truly can’t explain or describe it. It was an explosion. Bang and it was over.

  coda what Adrienne stated she observed:

  WAR-bringer.

  there’s never any logic to these things. ever. fear and revulsion on that anvil burdened with that kind of heat. boils. pain comes—

  phantasm not history. evil chances and events to binde us—exterminate the sons of Adam. no apt and fit holy names of God— When the person is in the appropriate disposition an appropriate connection between man and The Others can be attained . . .

  fins—plumage—magic without pentacles. hard.tentacles.black.BLACK. quantity. no everyday handiwork.sorrow. flip of mire singed. thoughts. no beauty.image object. procession. deadly.solitude.ANIMALpath.far inward.verses black.umbilical must—every Dracula every Jack the Ripper every Cain sown in flesh every mutilation they were too small to know. Hostel’s a joke, a little freak-show carnival when you hold it up to this. COLD. descent. frost articulate with insect sermons. inmost strangling throat.current-fence, barrier-spike.shoots.joins. compels. accomplishes depth.

  man, you never get free.

  after’s only tears. and rooms, need blanched out of them. goddamn rooms of scars you can’t get a lock for. can’t see through that kind of sorrow.

  10years later you’re still laced with and rooted to the phantasm, you wear that shit like skin. bends you, you look like a freak. fucks ya. blasts and blasts. hardcore. jesus can’t, not after it cancels light and heaven.

  Detective Sgt. Doull doesn’t need to see her chart to see she’s narco-blitzed. Doesn’t ask the attending what she’s loaded with just tries to write down what she says.

  Walks outside and lights a smoke. Looks at it. “Like you’re helping anything.” Takes out his notebook. Doubles back, flips through his notes, skips the first responder’s statements, stretching for the actual cause of death. Stoned or fairly-straight, it all jives.

  Makes no sense, but they all tell it the same way.

  Watches the scene another ambulance consigns . . . Gurney rolls by. Her face says she took a hell of a beating.

  His fingers curl into a fist.

  Thinks things were easier when he worked Robbery.

  outcrawled it.

  All those bulbs, pods,

  tentacles, fins, tracheae,

  nuptial plumage, and winter fur

  show that it has fallen behind

  with its halfhearted outcrawled it.

  All those bulbs, pods,

  tentacles, fins, tracheae,

  nuptial plumage, and winter fur

  show that it has fallen behind with its halfhearted

  coda room with eyes on dead:

  Sarah W aka Starry MoonBunny Wizdom: Am I under arrest?

  Detective Sgt. Doull: I want you to tell me what happened.

  Sarah W: I did. Three times.

  Detective Sgt. Doull: Once more please.

  Sarah W: He was nasty, just a pig. And he had that knife . . . I was scared to death . . . and angry. I am not some piece of meat. Just because I look like this does not mean I’m a whore, or trash. I was with someone, on a date. He came at us—That animal butchered My Thomas right in front of me . . .

  Detective Sgt. Doull: Did Thomas try to fend off his assailant, or fight back?

  Sarah W: You have the knife he had, used. It must have fingerprints on it? Thomas didn’t touch it. I don’t remember touching it, but I know I lashed out . . . You would have.

  Detective Sgt. Doull: You ‘Lashed out’, with what? How do you explain the fact that your prints are not on the weapon?

  Sarah W: My Thomas . . . I can’t.

  overture drama shaped like an infection of things to some:

  released by the police.

  out of stars. and dreams(again).she went home/ripped by their questions, by hers/by fear—angerseething/walkedBENTslow.crawled. barefoot .as .justSarahnow .could not run.home.prison. alone.lostROARS. thick in DONE. again. lifeless as her sepulcher-lamp. the choked sound of her “Thomas.”

  “Thomas.”

  grabs her purse for connection. the alphabet-forever her ripened heart put in the kaleidoscope she made for Thomas in her trembling, tear-smeared fingers. flash-image of Thomas’ sweet face/briar-knot of BLOOD. wheel/FIRE crying in grieve’s battlefield. riding intolerable—spiting the venom of rage. all of her flung open—the siegeseizure rape by her own pain—the nebula of her scream

  and The Unclean comes

  (as before, the tigerstar river) stones to the depths. debauched.screamsPUNISHMENT—its horde of mouths/tongues/hands—“TAKE IT!” pass it to hazard.her venom is its symbol of invitation.her eyes amulets. It, The Other, called by the ointment of her blisters. the black and green thing with the tentacles came. her clothes came off—this is not how she planned it. openedher.penatrated.niche.layers.crammed by the BULL to Hell’s table.steamingevery sound from her mouth slurred.it .entered her again.swollenapart hot frequency fear. escalat
e on boost.raw canals.snarlmolded-insistently blazetongue-ante of unusual BULLDOZERfornication . . . toescurled fingers griping the sheets in FISTS—this is not how she planned it.ithurts—mouth of soot will not hide the soul’s teeth—HURTS! mouths obvious with viciously’s victoriously . . .

  painsculpted-scream of a shape, a relentless calligraphy quoting her shivers.plugged in a blister of heatpain/PAIN—BLACK that sings devilsongs as it rewires and burns.fabric squeezing-stretching her scream painquick.cannonball tongue winding shoulders to thigh/nape to nook. shrill.lock and pounce/stripping/bouncing/punctured. PUNCTURED. she’s bled . . .

  slumped. sucked,nape to knee,forearm,scalp,ass,smallest tether to alive. body searched through—gathered by NO QUARTERmuscular.stained and crushed, doubled-over in sweat and bruised, breathing the waves of the horn’s rains . . . locked in obscene loneliness and shame . . .

  fever. hours crawl and hour becomes new hour. locked to her bed.heavy.sweat a river, black sweat. river searing skin.moon comes in her window.glares.drops nothing.no calm in the steel no civil in exhausted muscle.strapped to swollen. ravages.constriction.cramp.fire-tight.shaking. back.thighs. bas-relief nipples scream with every lasernova-scramble. IT’s vessel. parts not made to arch.cry till it’s spent as screams. CRAMP! spiked seeds roiling in her swollen belly name OUT—deliver IT’s insemination children. no water to break they’ve absorbed it all. DRYbirth. cuts the black cord. doesn’t count The Unclean’s litter—won’t. again, like the last, and the last—womb-mother of the black-maw serpent-shapes. appendages of greed thrashing, chirping from vaginal mouths, hammers climbing(—clinging—spreading—craving) her belly, reach to clutch. blackgestures-suckermouths gape, spill hunger at the drops of black milk oozing from her nipples. another litter, numbers too high to recall. again . . .