How many ways can the world end?
In fire. In ice. In howls of laughter or tears of madness. As a flip cosmic joke or a tragedy of love destroyed. In private agony or sweeping apocalypse. In our ignorance we turn to the dead for enlightenment, but even they despair of the answer.
In Strange Wisdoms of the Dead, award-winning poet Mike Allen’s first book-length collection, the mysticism of tarot fuses with the magic of the Mayans, and childhood nightmares caress your face in the middle of the night. A playful kick sends Earth out of orbit, plots to steal time are thwarted, windows pulse with ghostly breath. The sacrifice of a daughter damns the world, and the dead struggle to communicate a fate beyond all understanding.
These poems and stories, spanning a 10-year career on the cutting edge of the alternative press, take you through bends in reality to bring you to places you’ve never imagined.
Contents:
I. krypta
THE STRANGE WISDOM OF THE DEAD
THE PSYCHIC ABOVE BURRITOVILLE
FUNERAL PIE
THE DREAM EATERS
THE STRIP SEARCH
saecula saeculorum
cotillion in shards
une petite morte
BIZARREMOST BAZAAR
GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE
A GHOST STORY
THE ROMANTIC AGE
THE UNSEELIE TREE
that strange man with the green petunias
THE CLAIRVOYANT, BETWEEN DARK AND DREAM
HUMPTY
II. chresthenta
JARS
MORSE CODE
A CURTAIN OF STARS
COSMIC EGO
GODSPORE
PETTING THE TIME SHARK
DEFACING THE MOON
PHASE SHIFT
MOMENTUM
PULSE
desolvation
METAREBELLION
APOTHEOSIS
THE BEST OF ALL PROBABLE WORLDS
HOW I WILL OUTWIT THE TIME THIEVES
SPACE WAR
PSYCHOSPACE SINGULARITY
EATING THE TIME SHARK
BETWEEN STANZAS
III. deina
THE NIGHT WATCHMAN DREAMS HIS ROUNDS
AT THE REM SLEEP FACTORY
THE WINDOWS BREATHE
THIRD SHIFT AT THE PLASTEEL SPIDER FACTORY
THE INTERVIEW
THE NIGHT GARDENERS
IN A PAST LIFE, I AM A WARLOCK’S SEVERED HEAD
THE TERRIBLE BEAUTY OF A SEVERED NECK
HOST
MOTHER
PATRICIDE
DEATH OF THE FATHER
THE ELDERS
THE EYEWISH STATION
AN EVENING STROLL
AT THE END
finale
LET THERE BE DARKNESS
IV. diauliai
ARANEA with Sonya Taaffe
TRANSFORMATIONS with Christina Sng
BLOODSPELL with Anita Allen
ASUNDER with Christina Sng
STRANGE WISDOMS OF THE DEAD with Charles M. Saplak
