Secret agent moon

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:56:00 -0500

it was here

moments ago,

check your penumbra

from the Earthlit side some green light blinks

silk wedding gown,

the trim two klicks of

blasting cord

Bob beams (his front tooth is a camera)

Yet Another Vampire Horrorku

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:59:00 -0500

ever since,

next to her bed she keeps

a sharp stake

we can prove your guilt: Scythe-Angel-Scythe

shambling horrors

move in next door

flanked by lawyers

Congruence

Q

You don’t need to explain horrorku to me. It’s pretty obvious that if one can accept science fiction-themed poetry, why not horror-themed in the same form. But what is this “yet another” thing?

A

That’s just me getting snarky about cliché. I’ve done others in this vein before, criticizing the kind of writing which does not take enough risks by avoiding the obvious path. If you read enough verse with vampires and werewolves, blood and carnage and fear, monsters and midnights and other low-hanging horrible fruit in them, you want to see something that has none of those elements in them to see if it can be done.

Q

Sounds pretty dismal.

A

Well it would not be horrorku if it weren’t dismal, would it? Think of the poor dark poetry editors who have to read things like this day in and day out:

Bloody vampire

a bloody vampire

waiting by the dark graveyard,

a bat flies over

(Which I just made up.) To me, even though that has all the elements of a horrorku, the way it just kind of throws them out there makes it less interesting than it could be.

Q

You mean it just sort of tells you about the subject instead of showing it in any kind of novel way.

A

Take a look at this list:

It is a poem.
It is a poem limited in length, in English that limit being somewhere between 15 and 20 syllables.
It presents images rather than ideas.
It is intuitive rather than intellective.
It uses observation of nature and the seasons as a basis for that intuition.
Its observations are specific rather than general.

That was written about English-language haiku, not any of these speculative fiction derivatives (thus the item about nature and the seasons which would not apply to scifaiku or horroku), but the esthetic point being made is still useful to ponder. I think the bat poem has problems with the part about being intuitive, more so than the wooden stake poem, which starts out open-ended and ends before the reader really knows what went on.

Q

Oh, so you’re saying that the original poem wasn’t supposed to be using cliché after all, but is actually an anti-cliché statement?

A

You didn’t get that? Yes, the idea is to write a horrorku (or whatever) that takes a hackneyed subject but which itself tries to put a new spin on things. There’s enough trite verse out there that there seems to be no real point to add to the collection.

Q

You mean that

Yet Another Mummy Horrorku

on my way to work

I passed a mummy - he was

a very strange sight

isn’t worthy of posting to the Scifaiku list?

A

Keep working on that, there.

The third in a projected series of discussions on poetry.

A world o' pain

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:04:00 -0500

exquisitely

pain tolerant:

Venusians in furs

“I imagine the goddess of love as having descended from Mount Olympus for the sake of some mortal man. And always cold in this modern world of ours, she seeks to keep her sublime body warm in a large heavy fur and her feet in the lap of her lover. I imagine the favorite of a beautiful despot, who whips her slave, when she is tired of kissing him, and the more she treads him underfoot, the more insanely he loves her. And so I shall call the picture: Venus in Furs.” — Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

(Untitled)

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:15:00 -0600

¡toro nosh! lunch with social morays

Sorry, this job just wasn't your cup of blood

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:07:00 -0600

he smiled

a sharp, thin grin -

Vlad’s exit interview

“plasma” TV? I want a refund!

Hellfrog Chasm:

our cadres fall back,

hemorrhaging

Behold the mightiest attack frog known to man.

(Untitled)

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:35:00 -0600

madness and painful death – Shaitan KKKlaws

Kids hate Santa Photos

Frabjous Times : Tag pun, everything about pun

Secret agent moon

Yet Another Vampire Horrorku

Bloody vampire

Yet Another Mummy Horrorku

A world o' pain

(Untitled)

Sorry, this job just wasn't your cup of blood

(Untitled)