by Sara
I think it best to start with a shameless plug for my favorite "geek poet." Published prolifically and nominated for the Pulitzer at least twice, Bryan D. Dietrich is a fantastic poet who happens to spend his time delving into the darkness by way of our American mythologies--comics, Lovecraft, and Universal Monsters being among his subject matter.This one is among my many favorites.
The poem, after the jump...
Dementia
Bryan D. Dietrich
"You can't kill the Boogeyman."
-from Halloween
You meet a woman, a worker of words
who loves O'Connor and Hitchcock's Birds,
all horror stories, the better for worse.
She's blonde and Wiccan, a comely curse.
Zombie, chainsaw, fetus, hook,
athame, candle, bell, book.
Her spell is modern, her interests, yours.
She knows of triffids and cepheids and spoors.
She, too, once sat in the glow of the screen
while the monsters processed and summer grew green.
Alien egg sac, mouthful of brains,
priest on the sidewalk, count the stains.
She takes you first by neck by eye,
then takes you again with the gorgeous lie
of language spun from the life she's not
lived so much as faced and fought.
Tooth, claw, razor, bone,
Halloween, Twilight Zone.
The monsters she has staked and boxed,
buried out by the hollyhocks,
outnumber yours by kith and kind.
Hulk, brute.... Malign design.
Rosemary's Baby, Eraserhead,
Race With the Devil, Dawn of the Dead.
You want her to know that you understand,
that sometimes the thing in the dark, The Hand,
is still attached to a heart that speaks.
The first date comes. You rent her Freaks.
Stalker, slaughter, barker, blight.
We live and love in black and white.
-from Universal Monsters, published by Word Press, 2007. Get it at Amazon.
Bryan just did a reading in L.A. this week and is looking forward to publishing a book in the near future, Prime Directive, loaded with Star Trek themed haiku. Yes, you heard me right. He was crazy enough to do it. I'm sure you can look forward to a review here when the book becomes available.
I think it best to start with a shameless plug for my favorite "geek poet." Published prolifically and nominated for the Pulitzer at least twice, Bryan D. Dietrich is a fantastic poet who happens to spend his time delving into the darkness by way of our American mythologies--comics, Lovecraft, and Universal Monsters being among his subject matter.This one is among my many favorites.
The poem, after the jump...
Dementia
Bryan D. Dietrich
"You can't kill the Boogeyman."
-from Halloween
You meet a woman, a worker of words
who loves O'Connor and Hitchcock's Birds,
all horror stories, the better for worse.
She's blonde and Wiccan, a comely curse.
Zombie, chainsaw, fetus, hook,
athame, candle, bell, book.
Her spell is modern, her interests, yours.
She knows of triffids and cepheids and spoors.
She, too, once sat in the glow of the screen
while the monsters processed and summer grew green.
Alien egg sac, mouthful of brains,
priest on the sidewalk, count the stains.
She takes you first by neck by eye,
then takes you again with the gorgeous lie
of language spun from the life she's not
lived so much as faced and fought.
Tooth, claw, razor, bone,
Halloween, Twilight Zone.
The monsters she has staked and boxed,
buried out by the hollyhocks,
outnumber yours by kith and kind.
Hulk, brute.... Malign design.
Rosemary's Baby, Eraserhead,
Race With the Devil, Dawn of the Dead.
You want her to know that you understand,
that sometimes the thing in the dark, The Hand,
is still attached to a heart that speaks.
The first date comes. You rent her Freaks.
Stalker, slaughter, barker, blight.
We live and love in black and white.
-from Universal Monsters, published by Word Press, 2007. Get it at Amazon.
Bryan just did a reading in L.A. this week and is looking forward to publishing a book in the near future, Prime Directive, loaded with Star Trek themed haiku. Yes, you heard me right. He was crazy enough to do it. I'm sure you can look forward to a review here when the book becomes available.
Bryan's Website (though it seems to have been a bit neglected lately...)
Bryan on Facebook
Bryan at Poems & Writers
Bryan on Facebook
Bryan at Poems & Writers
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