REVIEW: Necrotic Tissue # 7 (1st print issue)

After six electronic issues in pdf format, Necrotic Tissue has evolved into a print magazine, and has done a fantastic job. The digest-sized magazine continues the standards of fiction and art established in the electronic issues, and the transition interpreted very well. The feel of the artwork and the overall layout establish a definite continuity and connection to the pdf issues.

Then we get to the stories, and what a selection! Tale after tale of dark, chilling, atmospheric, and eerie stories. Some of my favorites: El Dorado by Horace James; Death Grip by Guy Anthony DeMarco; The Failure by Jason L. Keene; ...What You Eat by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt; Savior, Teach Us To Rise by Doug Murano; and The Scratch Of An Old Record by Catherine J. Gardner. Necrotic Tissue also continues its tradition of offering quality micro-fiction in the form of '100 Word Bites' (tales of 100 words in length, including title) with tales like: The Sum Of The Parts by J.B. Daniels; Writers Wanted by David McAfee; and From The Journal Of... by Matthew Ewald.

Finally, we get to the Non-Fiction, basically editorial pieces. Well-written and informative, they cap off the issue nicely. Of particular interest is the editor's rant, Money Is Tight & Times Are Tough, by Publisher/Editor R. Scott McCoy. Basically, it is a rather angry plea to writers and readers of horror fiction to support the indie presses, and a message well delivered. Mr. McCoy hammers home the very important fact that if we as writers and fans of this genre wish to see our favorite indie and small press publications continue, we need to shell out the dollars in support. Subscribe or purchase individual issues of your favorite magazines as often as your budget can support, even if it is just one subscription a year. This is a sentiment I fully support and endorse, and I do my part by buying individual issues to magazines I am interested in, and if after a few issues it holds my interest, I debate subscribing. As a starving artist with a family to support, I can totally relate to not having disposable income, but I also love poetry and fiction enough to sacrifice a few bucks here and there. Hopefully readers will take his message to heart.

To wrap up, I strongly encourage a visit to www.necrotictissue.com. As a matter-of-fact, I all but demand it! Consider it a two-fold mission. Your first duty is to go to the Archives page and download the first six issues in pdf format, which are FREE (nothing to lose, much to gain), and well worth the time and effort. Your second duty is to either order issue # 7 or subscribe. Trust me, if you like horror that tests the boundaries, you will love Necrotic Tissue. Besides, if you don't visit their site, I will be waiting in your bedroom closet wearing a glow-in-the-dark Jason mask and holding a rather large machete. So go and visit Necrotic Tissue, right now!

SHAMELESS SELF-PLUG: You can find my stories 'Carnal Desire' and 'Lucid Dreaming' in issues # 3 & 5 respectively, and my tale entitled 'The Hungry Ones' will be appearing in issue # 9 to be published in January 2010.

What are you still doing here? Got to Necrotic Tissue NOW, don't delay, don't procrastinate, get moving, start clicking and downloading and ordering. Remember, I am watching...

Paul Ingrassia

The REAL Dead Poets Society

This is great stuff!

A gentleman by the name of Walter Skold has a passion for visiting the gravesites of dead American poets. He embarked on a 90 day journey in his 'poemobile' across country photo documenting, holding poetry readings, and creating what he calls 'tombstone art' at the gravesites of famous and forgotten American poets. His tombstone art consists of photo collages created at the gravesites using the tombstone and props related to the poet's life, death, and work.

He intends on making this an ongoing project, and he is encouraging others to join him by photo documenting, submitting tombstone art, and/or holding graveside poetry readings.

What a wonderfully dark and morbid way to honor poets who have passed on. I think I just might consider joing in the fun, I love old boneyards and cemeteries, and of course, dead poets!

More Info:

Yahoo news posted the following article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091031/ap_en_ot/us_dead_poets


Visit the Dead Poets Society home at:

http://www.deadpoes.org/

FREE pdf Chapbook by Paul Ingrassia available for preorder

Pot Smoke, Rage, Society, & Time by Paul Ingrassia, a FREE pdf chapbook, is available for preorder NOW! Send an email to the_mystic_fool@yahoo.com with the Subject 'Free Chapbook'. Orders will be shipping very soon!

FEATURED ARTIST: CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821 - 1867)

Below I have posted two of my favorite prose poems by French decadent poet Baudelaire. He is considered by many to be a pioneering master in both decadent and prose poetry. He lived life as he pleased, was infamous for his drug use and indulgences, and much of his work reflects the beauty that can be found in death and decay. His work was considered shocking for its time, often called Satanic, obscene, and heretical, but ultimately he was revered by some literary critics. Despite his infamy, he was unhappy and most often poor due to his refusal to work. His highly over-indulgent lifestyle eventually caught up with him, and he died of general paralysis (most likely from his huge appetite for hashish and opium).

Further Reading:
~ Twenty Prose Poems, Translated by Michael Hamburger, Grossman Publishers Cape Editions, London
~ The Flowers Of Evil And Other Writings, Translated by F.P. Smith, W.J. Robertson, and Joseph T. Shipley, Barnes & Noble, New York
~ http://www.baudelaire.cz/

The versions I have posted here were translated by Michael Hamburger in 'Twenty Prose Poems Charles Baudelaire'.

~~~

GET DRUNK!

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters; that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing.

But what with? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose. But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on the steps of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your room, you are waking up when drunkenness has already abated, ask the wind, the wave, a star, the clock, all that which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will reply: 'It is time to get drunk! So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk, and never pause for rest! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose!'

~~~

The Old Woman's Despair

The little, shriveled old woman felt quite overjoyed when she saw the pretty child whom everyone wished to amuse, whom everyone tried to please; that pretty creature, so fragile, like herself, the little old woman, and, like her also, without teeth and without hair.

And she approached the child, wishing to smile at it and make faces pleasantly.

But the terrified child struggled against the caresses of the good, drecepit woman, and filled the house with its yelping.

Then the kind old woman retired into her eternal solitude, and cried in a corner, saying to herself: 'Oh! for us wretched old females, the age when we could please, if only the innocent, is past; and we fill with horror the little children whom we wish to love!'

FOOLISH MUSINGS is now DECADENT BLOSSOMS BENEATH AN ABSTRACT SUN

FOOLISH MUSINGS has been relaunched under the new title DECADENT BLOSSOMS BENEATH AN ABSTRACT SUN. All but a few of the old posts have been removed, and the sidebars have been redone to focus on my writing and where to find it. The focus of the blog posts will shift almost completely to topics that deal with darkness, decadence, the strange or fantastic, and/or speculative themes in art. The works of artists I admire will be dealt with primarily, be it in poetry, fiction, music, or other forms of creativity.

I hope every one enjoys the ride as much as I plan to!

Paul Ingrassia

PS: Keep an eye out here for details regarding my forthcoming electronic mini-chapbook, Pot Smoke, Rage, Society, and Time. I will be offering it for FREE as a pdf very soon!

In Memoriam: Adelaide Crapsey (September 9, 1878–October 8, 1914)

In memory of Adelaide Crapsey, I present four of her poems below from her book entitled Verse. I have also included a poem (which is a tribute to Adelaide) written by Carl Sandburg from his book Cornhuskers . Finally, there is a tribute poem by myself.

Paul

~~~

Moon Shadows

Still as
On windless nights
The moon-cast shadows are,
So still will be my heart when I
Am dead.

~ Adelaide Crapsey

~~

Dirge

Never the nightingale,
Oh, my dear,
Never again the lark
Thou wilt hear;
Though dusk and the morning still
Tap at thy window-sill,
Though ever love call and call
Thou wilt not hear at all,
My dear, my dear.

~ Adelaide Crapsey

~~

On Seeing Weather Beaten Trees

Is it as plainly in our living shown,
By slant and twist, which way the wind has blown?

~ Adelaide Crapsey

~~

The Immortal Residue
Inscription for my verse

Wouldst thou find my ashes? Look
In the pages of my book;
And as these thy hand doth turn,
Know here is my funeral urn.

~ Adelaide Crapsey

~~~

Adelaide Crapsey

AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July,
I read your heart in a book.

And your mouth of blue pansy—I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered.

And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held there listening to the sea, the great naked sea shouldering a load of salt.

And the blue pansy mouth sang to the sea:
Mother of God, I’m so little a thing,
Let me sing longer,
Only a little longer.

And the sea shouldered its salt in long gray combers hauling new shapes on the beach sand.

~ Carl Sandburg

~~

Adelaide Crapsey

Whisper
of flame at dusk
twinkles on the lake's edge,
shadow-shrouded, frail - eternal
echoes.

~ Paul Ingrassia

(First Published in Amaze: The Cinquain Journal, Spring 2006 Issue. Awarded 4th place in first annual Adelaide Award, nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006. I was inspired by the photo at the top of this post.)

OZYMANDIAS

OZYMANDIAS

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

~ ~ ~

OZYMANDIAS

or

On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below

Horace Smith

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand." The City's gone,
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

~ ~ ~

for info about these poems visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias