by Lee, Edward
cancer zip pop
cinders fagged in fire.
“Good bye! Good bye!”
Each soul blazing
that old Gethsemane yarn.
Having reached the Special Nirvana
that old black magic is bubbling
at Hell’s gateway.
All tongues flick greedily
at the mention
of the current Reign of Terror.
Incestuous as the thrice ancient Pharaohs
seeking a decaying warmth
from a nameless dead star.
All sufferings
its promise of reflection.
This their way out
or is it only a blind alley?
Their path of following
the too beautiful
and the too hideous.
The primordial stew of anti-desire
in nosing the alien sphincter
in front of you.
And ahead?…A dead end.
All pretenses stripped.
There is sight of bleeding prophecy,
a noise of shrieking jungles
drunk upon the rancid flavor of a warm gun.
It makes a certain sniffing physics
as the mob of nanosouls
storms the museum
to demand everyone claim
but one lost yet seething drop
from Morat-Sade’s bath.
| — | — |
About the Authors
Linda Addison
Linda Addison, born in Philadelphia, PA, is an American poet and writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Addison is the first African-American winner of the HWA Bram Stoker Award, which she won four times for her collections Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes (2001) and Being Full of Light, Insubstantial (2007) and How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend (2011) and Four Elements (2014).
Website: http://www.lindaaddisonpoet.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/linda.d.addison
Amazon page: http://amazon.com/author/lindaaddisonpoet
Twitter: http://twitter.com/nytebird45
Instagram: http://twitter.com/nytebird45
Pinterest: http://instagram.com/nytebird45
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Chesya Burke
Chesya Burke has written and published nearly a hundred fiction pieces and articles within the genres of science fiction, fantasy, noir and horror. Her story collection, Let's Play White, is being taught in universities around the country. In addition, Burke wrote several articles for the African American National Biography in 2008, and Burke's novel, The Strange Crimes of Little Africa, debuts later this fall. Poet Nikki Giovanni compared her writing to that of Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison.
Burke's thesis was on the comic book character Storm from the X-Men, and her comic, Shiv, is scheduled to debut in 2016.
Burke is currently pursuing her PhD in English at University of Florida. She's Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Charis Books and More, one of the oldest feminist book stores in the country.
Website: http://chesyaburkewriter.wordpress.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ChesyaBurke
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ChesyaBurke
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Randy Chandler
Randy Chandler is the author of the novels Dime Detective, Daemon of the Dark Wood, Angel Steel, his story collection Devils, Death & Dark Wonders and of two previously published novels Bad Juju and Hellz Bellz (all now available on Kindle). He also co-authored Duet for the Devil with the late t. Winter-Winter-Damon and has contributed short stories to numerous anthologies. Recently he became associate editor at Comet Press. Randy has been an Indie magazine editor/publisher, a freelance book reviewer, a mental health worker, a gas-pump jockey, an ambulance attendant, a soldier in Vietnam, and a funeral home flunky. He often haunts fields of carnage where angels and devils do battle.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Chandler/e/B003UNAHVG/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/randy.chandler.7
Twitter: http://twitter.com/randchand
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Charlee Jacob
Charlee Jacob is an American author specializing in horror fiction, dark fantasy, and poetry. Her writing career began in 1981 with the publication of several poems under the name Charlee Carter Broach. She began writing as Charlee Jacob in 1986. This native Texan is best known for her graphic explorations of the themes of human degradation, sexual extremism, and supernatural evil. Her first novel This Symbiotic Fascination (Necro Publications, 1997) was nominated for the International Horror Guild Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Her novel Dread in the Beast tied David Morrell's Creepers for first place for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel of 2005, and her poetry collection Sineater won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Poetry Collection in 2005 as well.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Charlee-Jacob/e/B00JI02IS0
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John Everson
John Everson is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of eight novels of erotic horror and the macabre, including his latest, the Fountain of Youth thriller The Family Tree, as well as the Bram Stoker Award-nominated tour de force Nightwhere, the Bram Stoker Award-winner Covenant, its sequel Sacrifice and the standalone novels The 13TH, Siren, The Pumpkin Man, Violet Eyes. He also is the author of four collections of short horror fiction, including his latest, Sacrificing Virgins.
John shares a deep purple den in Naperville, Illinois with a cockatoo and cockatiel, a disparate collection of fake skulls, twisted skeletal fairies, Alan Clark illustrations and a large stuffed Eeyore. There's also a mounted Chinese fowling spider named Stoker, an ever-growing shelf of custom mix CDs and an acoustic guitar that he can't really play but that his son likes to hear him beat on anyway. Sometimes his wife is surprised to find him shuffling through more public areas of the house, but it's usually only to brew another cup of coffee. In order to avoid the onerous task of writing, he occasionally records pop-rock songs in a hidden home studio, experiments with the insatiable culinary joys of the jalapeno, designs book covers for a variety of small presses, loses hours in expanding an array of gardens and chases frequent excursions into the bizarre visual headspace of ’70s euro-horror DVDs with a shot of Makers Mark and a tall glass of Newcastle.
Learn more about John on his site where you can sign up for a direct-from-the-author monthly e-newsletter with information on new books, contests and occasionally, free fiction.
Website: http://www.johneverson.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/johneverson
Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/johneverson
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Ryan Harding
Ryan Harding is the author of Genital Grinder and the co-author of the upcoming novel Reincarnage, as well as a contributor to the multi-author collaboration Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road, all from Deadite Press. His stories have also appeared in the anthologies Excitable Boys and In Laymon's Terms, the chapbooks Partners in Chyme (with Edward Lee), A Darker Dawning and A Darker Dawning 2: Reign in Black, and the magazines Splatterpunk and The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01N1HSDZ5
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ryanhardmorbid
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Gerard Houarner
Gerard Houarner works by day as what could be described in Layman’s Terms as Arkham’s Recreation and Recovery Director. He’s had over 280 horror, fantasy, and science fiction stories published in the last 40 years, with some assembled in 6 collections, and 67 receiving Honorable Mentions in various St. Martin’s Press/Night Shade Year’s Best anthologies. He’s also had five novels published by both the small and commercial press. His latest, the The Sting of Wonder, The Seed of Faith will be available soon. He has served as Fiction Editor for Space and Time magazine since 1998. At night, he continues to write, mostly about the dark.
Website: http://www.cith.org/gerard
Amazon: http://w
ww.amazon.com/Gerard-Houarner/e/B001KCRFAA
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gerard.houarner
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Michael T. Huyck, Jr.
Michael T. Huyck, Jr. is a short fiction writer and editor who's published fiction and non-fiction in scores of publications since the mid-1990s. His stories have been included in magazines and anthologies such as Space and Time, Horror Garage, Mindmares, Cemetery Dance's In Laymon’s Terms, and Necro Publications Into the Darkness. He edited fiction for Carpe Noctem—a gothic lifestyles magazine—and wrote non-fiction for Speculations, SFWA’s The Bulletin, and the two-volume library compendium Supernatural Fiction Writers. A collection of Mike's short fiction, Of Dark and Yesterday, was published by Crossroad Press in 2015. He's also working on a novel that's been requested by a popular small press.
Outside of writing, Mike is a happy husband and a gloating father. He has been both an airman and a sailor, was once a bouncer and a business owner, and today he's a senior manager with a multinational corporation responsible for nuclear facility operations. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he's a fan of animals, off-roading, and beer. Never together, though.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Michael-T.-Huyck-Jr./e/B009OWUNIE
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Nukegumby
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Nukegumby
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/list/5338585.Michael_T_Huyck_Jr_
Internet Speculative Fiction Database: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?8345
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K. Trap Jones
K. Trap Jones is an author of horror novels and short stories. With inspiration from Dante Alighieri and Edgar Allan Poe, he has a temptation towards narrative folklore, classic literary works and obscure segments within society. His short stories have appeared in various anthologies and magazines. His novel, The Sinner won the 2010 Royal Palm Literary Award. He is also a member of the Horror Writers Association and can be found lurking around Tampa, FL.
Other Novels: The Sinner, The Harvester, The Drunken Exorcist, One Bad Fur Day, The King's Ox, The Crossroads.
Website: http://ktrapjones.wordpress.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ktrap.jones
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ktrapjones
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Jordan Krall
Since 2007, Jordan Krall has written professionally. He writes Weird Fiction, horror, crime fiction, apocalyptic literature, bizarro, and non-genre fiction.
He has been published by Eraserhead Press, LegumeMan, Bucket O'Guts, MorbidBooks, Black Rainbows, among others.
His book Fistful of Feet was called “a great homage to the spaghetti western” by the Spaghette Western Database and was recently published in a German-language edition by Voodoo Press.
His work has been praised by such authors as Jeff Vandermeer, Edward Lee, and Tom Piccirilli.
Jordan Krall also runs the cult fiction small press Dynatox Ministries as well as the Weird Fiction imprint Dunhams Manor Press. He has published such authors as Wilum Pugmire, Joseph Pulver Sr, Daniel Mills, T.E. Grau, Nicole Cushing, Robert Price, Thomas Ligotti, Seb Doubinsky, and lots more.
Website: http://jordankrall.wordpress.com
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Jordan-Krall/e/B002BMBTXW
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jordan.krall
Dynatox Ministries: http://dynatoxministries.com/
Dunhams Manor Press: http://dunhamsmanor.com/
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Edward Lee
Edward Lee is the author of almost fifty novels and numerous short stories and novellas. Several of his properties have been optioned for film, while Header was released on DVD in 2009; also, he has been published in Germany, England, Romania, Greece, and Austria. Recent releases include Bullet Through Your Face and Brain Cheese Buffet (story collections), Header 3, Witch Water and the hardcore Lovecraftian books The Innswich Horror, Trolley No. 1852, Pages Torn From A Travel Journal, Going Monstering, and Haunter of the Threshold. One of Lee’s creative ambitions is to one day write an effective M.R. James pastiche.
Website: http://www.edwardleeonline.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/writeredwardlee
Twitter: http://twitter.com/edwardleeauthor
Message Board: http://horrorworld.org/msgboards/viewforum.php?f=51
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Monica O’Rourke
Monica J. O’Rourke has published more than one hundred short stories in magazines such as Postscripts, Nasty Piece of Work, Fangoria, Nemonymous, and Brutarian and anthologies such as The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra and The Beauty of Death. She is the author of Poisoning Eros, written with Wrath James White, Suffer the Flesh, What Happens in the Darkness, and the collection In the End, Only Darkness. Her books and stories have been translated and published in Germany, Greece, and Russia She works as a freelance editor, writer, and book coach.
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Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Monica-J.-ORourke/e/B00AOO3SLU
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MonicaJORourke
Twitter: http://twitter.com/monicajorourke
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/search?q=monica+o%27rourke
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Jeff Strand
Jeff Strand is a four-time nominee (and zero-time winner) of the Bram Stoker Award.
His novels are usually classified as horror, but they're really all over the place, from comedies to thrillers to drama to, yes, even a fairy tale.
His book Stalking You Now is being made into the feature film Mindy Has To Die.
Because he doesn't do cold weather anymore, he lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife and cat.
Website: http://jeffstrand.wordpress.com/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8D3F0
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JeffStrandAuthor
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JeffStrand
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Lucy Taylor
Lucy Taylor was born in Richmond, VA, and never really got the South out of her system, as evidenced by the flavor of Southern Gothic in many of her works. She’s the author of seven novels, including Dancing with Demons, Spree, Nailed, Saving Souls, Eternal Hearts, and the Stoker-award winning The Safety of Unknown Cities. Her stories have appeared in over a hundred magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Historical Erotica, The Best of Cemetery Dance, Twentieth Century Gothic, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and the Century’s Best Horror Fiction.
Most recently her work has appeared in Exotic Gothic 5, The Best Horror of the Year #5, Of Devils & Deviants, Nightmare Magazine, Jan. 15 (“Blessed Be the Bound”) and Axes of Evil.
Her most recent collection is Fatal Journeys, horror stories set in exotic lands, published by Overlook Connection Press with an introduction by acclaimed horror author Jack Ketchum.
Taylor lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a land full of mystery, romance, and the macabre. It provided the setting for the novelette A Respite For The Dead, published by Omnium Gatherum Press in Sept. 2014.
Taylor’s dark fantasy story “In the Cave of the Delicate Singers” was acquired for Tor .com by editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow for Tor’s June online issue.
At various times in her life, Taylor has worked as a dance instructor, a bartender and waitress, an English teacher for Berlitz Language School in Tokyo, an artist’s model, secretary, newspaper reporter, editor, and freelance travel writer.
Taylor’s love of travel has led to many adventures (not to mention ideas for plots)! She’s been on safari in Zimbabwe, jogged with a troop of baboons in Zaire, ridden a camel in Coober Pedy, Australia, hangglided in Queenstown, New Zealand, gotten married on a beach in Fiji, scuba dived in St. Lucia, lost her passport, plane ticket and wallet in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, pony trekked in Iceland, and confes
sed her sins to a priest in Paris.
She is currently at work on a collection of stories with New Mexico settings.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LucyTaylorAuthor/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LCTaylorAuthor
Blog: http://darkfantasy.us/dark-fantasy-blog.html
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/40567.Lucy_Taylor
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Jeffrey Thomas
Jeffrey Thomas is an American author of weird fiction, the creator of the acclaimed milieu Punktown. Books in the Punktown universe include the short story collections Punktown, Voices From Punktown, Punktown: Shades of Grey (with his brother, Scott Thomas), and Ghosts of Punktown. Novels in that setting include Deadstock, Blue War, Monstrocity, Health Agent, Everybody Scream!, and Red Cells. His stories have been selected for inclusion in The Year’s Best Horror Stories (Editor, Karl Edward Wagner), The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (Editors, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling), and Year’s Best Weird Fiction (Editor, Laird Barron). Thomas lives in Massachusetts.
Website: http://www.jeffreyethomas.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.thomas.71
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Punktowner