Production
Kristoph Klover (musical director, engineer, vocals)
Kristoph Klover operates Flowinglass Music, an independent studio, with his wife Margaret Davis, in Oakland, CA. Kristoph is a career musician and sound engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area, with eleven years experience recording and performing Celtic, Medieval and Renaissance music. He has recorded Grammy-winner Janet Harbison, leader of the Belfast Harp Orchestra, and two albums for all-Ireland concertina champion Gearoid o hAllmhurain, among many other clients. He leads Celtic Rock band Avalon Rising and also performs with acoustic Celtic/Early Music ensemble Broceliande. Watch for an upcoming profile of Kristoph and his album “The Starlit Jewel”—Songs from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
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Peggi Warner-Lalonde is Senior Music Editor for Strange Horizons.
The Golem
By Denise Dumars
10/1/01
I.
“And love is a thing that can never go wrong
And I am Marie of Romania.”
—Dorothy Parker
It took about a ton
of clay to fashion him;
aquamarine Pisces gems for eyes,
dirt from Jim Morrison’s grave
for a voice,
Cyril’s cross around his neck
instead of David’s star.
And when it was done—
I’d wanted a muse,
but had created a monster.
II.
“That is not dead which can aeternal lie
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
—H. P. Lovecraft
When my muse died,
we had a lovely funeral.
We sang old Negro spirituals
and all the songs we remembered
from Sunday school.
They had to break his legs
to fit him in the plain pine box
which was all I could afford;
dispensing with embalming saved cash.
When they lowered the coffin
I threw in a bouquet of blood-red roses
from the day-old bin at Boulevard Florist.
The roses had begun to turn black—
he would have liked that.
He was that kind of muse.
What friends I had left
hugged and kissed me then;
others had run screaming from my
monster muse long ago.
When I was sure that everyone was gone,
I ran back to where they buried him,
and threw in the fourteen-carat
Ten Commandments pendant I’d earned
for learning my psalms, so many years ago.
III.
“You kill the head, you kill the body.”
—Night of the Living Dead
What’s dead might not stay dead.
He tracked slurry into my bedroom,
looking more alive than I.
He smelled of earth and salt,
but no corruption; his lips
were as soft as a newborn’s.
So I patched him together
with spirit gum and spare parts
from a special effects house
in North Hollywood. But when he spoke
he blamed me for all his ills:
his broken life, his broken legs,
the evil that I’d done in making him.
I put a bullet between his lovely eyes;
took the cross from around his neck—
how it burned me! I cried—
and then I think I went mad.
So now you understand.
Purify me with salt water,
and smudge with Five-finger grass,
anoint me with Van Van oil,
and tell me that you understand.
Please tell me that you do,
please tell me.
Then let’s clean up this mess.
Copyright © 2001 Denise Dumars
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Denise Dumars is a college English professor; an entertainment journalist specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and horror; a writer of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and screenplays; and a lifelong resident of the beautiful South Bay area of Los Angeles County. Email her and she’ll take you to Brennan’s in Marina del Rey for a drink.
Gothic Romance
By Dave Whippman
10/8/01
We have altered each other more thoroughly
Than moon or potions ever could. Tonight
The experiments in creating anger
Escaped control. Change is irreversible,
The time of mutual regard a distant
Unsettling race-memory. Don’t run away:
Where would you go? There are no villages
Of superstitious well-meaning peasants,
Only suburbs purpose-built (not for humans)
And commuters who wouldn’t want to get involved,
Their own relationships decaying
Like hidden corpses. Wait for me upstairs.
Even my footsteps will be different:
Build the suspense. Don’t try to close your eyes
Until my face comes into the light.
Copyright © 2001 Dave Whippman
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Dave Whippman is in his fifties and a psychiatric nurse by trade. He’s been writing (mostly for small press magazines) since the 1980s: mostly poetry, but also some fiction, as well as articles for nursing magazines. Dave has been married twice and has two children. Aside from writing, his hobbies are chess and painting.
Orpheus Among the Cabbages
By Tim Pratt
10/15/01
She picked up a pomegranate, squeezed
it hard, sighed. She’d always preferred golden
delicious apples, but they were all
mushy today. Someone called out
from the direction of the cabbages,
not her name, just pleading. She pushed
her clattering cart toward the greenest
part of the produce department.
A man’s head rested among the cabbages.
He had black hair, and the kind of olive skin that
some women find exotic when they don’t know
better. “I am Orpheus,” he said, “cursed to live
forever, bereft of love, and now left
among these living green things
that by their fecundity mock my living
death. My woe is legend….”
She resisted the urge to thump
his forehead like a melon. She called
to a beefy old man wearing a
supermarket smock. “What’s this head
doing in among the cabbages?” she asked.
He walked toward her, looked at Orpheus,
grunted. “I just unload the crates,” he
said. “The quality of the vegetables
is none of my business.”
“Did these cabbages come from Greece?”
she asked.
“Olives are what come from Greece,” he
said. “Cabbages come from places like
Ohio.” He wandered away.
“Long I sought my love,” Orpheus said.
“Long I wandered singing in
the lands below the earth.”
She looked at the sign. “Cabbages, 89 cents
a head.” She picked up Orpheus by his
hair. He didn’t seem to mind. If his neck
had been bloody she might have left
him there, but his wound was smooth
as cut cucumber. She dropped him
in her basket, paid for him at the register,
thinking “Of all the places to find
true love.”
In the car, on the way home, Orpheus went
on and on about his dead wife from inside
the grocery bag.
She wished he would stop; a girl could
start to feel like an afterthought. She decided
he would never love her after all.
A mile from her house he started singing.
She wept. So did a dog in the street, a mailman
passing by, and a stop sign. She decided to keep
him after all.
When she got home she put the rest
of the groceries away, but took Orpheus
into her dusty bedroom, swinging him
gently by his hair. “Long I sought my love,
and an end to loneliness,” Orpheus said.
“Long I searched to find the gates
of my paradise denied.”
She undressed, surprised to find
herself trembling. She stretched out
on the bed and bent her knees, then
tucked the murmuring head of Orpheus
between her thighs.
“Sing out,” she said, and he did.
A bit later, so did she.
Copyright © 2001 Tim Pratt
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Tim Pratt is a misplaced Southerner currently living in the California Bay Area. He is a poet, novelist, short story writer, and poetry editor for the online magazine Speculon. Tim’s previous publications in Strange Horizons can be found in our Archive. Visit his Web site to learn more about him.
The Fright Before Christmas
By S. K. S. Perry
10/22/01
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the morgue,
Not a creature was stirring, not even the … um … Borg. (Yeah, that’s
it. Borg is science fictiony. This poetry crap isn’t all that hard.)
The zombies were nestled all snug in their coffins,
While visions of juicy brains, ran through their … their … (Nuts! I’d
better come back to that one later.)
When out in the cemetery there arose such a ruckus,
I thought, “It’s a succubus, come here to … (Hmm. Better not.)
I sprang from my crypt, and ran to the window,
Looking for signs of that netherworld bimbo.
When what to my pustulant eyes should appear,
But a battered up sleigh, and eight rancid reindeer. (Hey, I’m on a roll here.)
“It’s Santa,” I thought. “There’s nothing to fear.”
The old fart’s been dead for over a year.
His flesh was rotting, his bruises were purple,
His scalp showed in patches, his beard was all … (Aaarrgghhh!!)
He wasted no time, and got to work with a cough.
He hefted his sack, and two fingers fell off.
He spoke not a word, but filled all the crypts,
With brains, and blood, and a pair of wax lips. (Hey, at least it rhymes.)
Then he sprang to his sleigh, and with a wave of his mitt,
Left in a cloud of dead reindeer sh … (Hmm … I’ll edit that later.)
I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight.