THE NIGHTMARE COLLECTOR
Each night he calls you
for the leading role
in his gallery
of ancestral tableaus
that trails back
through the Pleistocene
to the red primeval.
From the endless slashes
in his voluminous greatcoat
you can feel the heat
of captured bodies
invade your rumpled bed
with delirium and fever,
you can smell a brassy
sediment of tears.
From the hollow blackness
of his flapping sleeves
you can hear the pulse
and thump of unborn shadows,
a dense hysteric fugue
winding up and down
the bones of your sleep.
The nightmare collector
waits on the landing
in the unlit hall
where the instruments
of ablation are arranged
on cold leather pallets,
where the dreamer's
balustrade of terror
rushes across landscapes
of a darkening retina,
where snakes coil about
your arms and ankles
and draw you down
bodily into a forest
of bloodstained hair.
Each night he calls you
for the leading role
in his gallery
of ancestral tableaus
that trails back
through the Pleistocene
to the red primeval.
From the endless slashes
in his voluminous greatcoat
you can feel the heat
of captured bodies
invade your rumpled bed
with delirium and fever,
you can smell a brassy
sediment of tears.
From the hollow blackness
of his flapping sleeves
you can hear the pulse
and thump of unborn shadows,
a dense hysteric fugue
winding up and down
the bones of your sleep.
The nightmare collector
waits on the landing
in the unlit hall
where the instruments
of ablation are arranged
on cold leather pallets,
where the dreamer's
balustrade of terror
rushes across landscapes
of a darkening retina,
where snakes coil about
your arms and ankles
and draw you down
bodily into a forest
of bloodstained hair.
VERMICULATED
In the infested volumes
alive with tunnels,
sentences broken,
words gone to fodder,
histories scatter.
Faces are erased in
part or whole and
landscapes likewise.
An eye missing here.
A tree without a trunk.
Fields of battle bereft
of their corpses.
All the backgrounds
blurred to gray.
Fact and fiction
crumbling together
in the worms'
digestive denouement.
In the infested volumes
alive with tunnels,
sentences broken,
words gone to fodder,
histories scatter.
Faces are erased in
part or whole and
landscapes likewise.
An eye missing here.
A tree without a trunk.
Fields of battle bereft
of their corpses.
All the backgrounds
blurred to gray.
Fact and fiction
crumbling together
in the worms'
digestive denouement.
| Illustration for "The Crow Is Dismantled in Flight" |
| Bruce Boston Home Page Details and Ordering Info for The Nightmare Collection |
| Illustration for "Crossing the Styx" |
| Illustration for "Incubus Revealed" |
| CURSE OF THE SIREN'S SUITORS When she sings they listen in rapture, not so much to her words but her voice, a voice that contains all manner of things: dregs, dreams, delights and darkling promises, a distillation of what they would possess. When they cross the water with eager hands upon the oars, backs stretched, arms wide against the waves, eyes open and gleaming, they listen in rapture not so much to the songs she sings as to how she sings them, not her words but what her voice conveys. They listen in rapture as the hull shatters and the masts crack and they dash their bodies upon the rocks of her cave. |
GARGOYLE PEOPLE
If gargoyle people
were the world,
standards of beauty
would be far different
than they are today.
The eye of the beholder
would adore the grotesque,
worship the malformed,
rejoice in the appalling.
We would stand still
for hours at a time
without flinching,
never blinking,
glaring into one
another's countenances,
baring our static rage
and indomitable horror
with pride for all
the world to see.
When shadows of the sun
or moon moved across
the lines and planes
of our chiseled faces,
umbra and penumbra
like shifting scars,
we would celebrate
the hideous chiaroscuro
that light and its
absence invoked.
The rains would darken
our expressions further,
mottling our features
like a pox, sending
the dirt from Heaven
coursing through our
orifices in torrents,
spewing from our mouths
and staining our lips
in muddied streams.
And when the winds
teased our cracks and
crevices and whistled
and thrummed through
the stone hollows
of our wrathful selves,
the music we would
make would be fierce,
lovely, rich, and mad.
If gargoyle people
were the world,
standards of beauty
would be far different
than they are today.
The eye of the beholder
would adore the grotesque,
worship the malformed,
rejoice in the appalling.
We would stand still
for hours at a time
without flinching,
never blinking,
glaring into one
another's countenances,
baring our static rage
and indomitable horror
with pride for all
the world to see.
When shadows of the sun
or moon moved across
the lines and planes
of our chiseled faces,
umbra and penumbra
like shifting scars,
we would celebrate
the hideous chiaroscuro
that light and its
absence invoked.
The rains would darken
our expressions further,
mottling our features
like a pox, sending
the dirt from Heaven
coursing through our
orifices in torrents,
spewing from our mouths
and staining our lips
in muddied streams.
And when the winds
teased our cracks and
crevices and whistled
and thrummed through
the stone hollows
of our wrathful selves,
the music we would
make would be fierce,
lovely, rich, and mad.
AVOCADO HORROR
An avocado is
the choicest of fruits,
for fruit it is,
even though its
flesh is not sweet.
The dark green
grainy variety
yield the best meat.
Cut it up on
a bed of lettuce,
add salt, ground pepper,
and toss vigorously
with balsamic vinaigrette.
Or whip up a spicy
guacamole with fresh
tomato and onions
and jalapeno peppers.
One way to eat an avocado
is to cut it in half,
remove the seed,
and fill each
curvaceous cavity
with the finely sliced
flesh of your victims.
To savor this rare
delicacy raw is
the rumored delight
of the discerning
gourmet cannibal.
Meat, flesh, and all,
it remains an avocado,
choicest of all fruits.
An avocado is
the choicest of fruits,
for fruit it is,
even though its
flesh is not sweet.
The dark green
grainy variety
yield the best meat.
Cut it up on
a bed of lettuce,
add salt, ground pepper,
and toss vigorously
with balsamic vinaigrette.
Or whip up a spicy
guacamole with fresh
tomato and onions
and jalapeno peppers.
One way to eat an avocado
is to cut it in half,
remove the seed,
and fill each
curvaceous cavity
with the finely sliced
flesh of your victims.
To savor this rare
delicacy raw is
the rumored delight
of the discerning
gourmet cannibal.
Meat, flesh, and all,
it remains an avocado,
choicest of all fruits.
The Nightmare Collection Sampler -- Bruce Boston
FUTURITY WEARS THE HEAD
Futurity wears the head of Medusa and the body of a cinema goddess.
Futurity is a clown without humor, without greasepaint, its eyes large
and sad and lined as the evening sea.
Futurity is infinite in its potential and terrifying in its command.
It bedazzles you with promise and threatens you with dark possibility.
Futurity never asks permission to be itself in mixed company.
Futurity is vivid as black light violet, cool as a retrospective
on heroin jazz. It needs no makeup to sport a Mediterranean tan.
Futurity takes your hat at the door and your shirt at the table. It leads
you down a hall where your portrait becomes ancestral.
Futurity beds you on a mattress too hard with pillows that migrate
through the night. It bestrides the lines that scroll across your back to
mark you with its legend.
Futurity claims a cast of millions. It is always over budget and often
reneges on its debts.
In isolated and remote regions Futurity sleeps for centuries only to awaken
refreshed with an accelerating appetite that can devour generations.
Futurity burns the compact disc of your day's declensions, available in the
theatrical version or the director's cut. It wears you like a coat into the storm.
Futurity has been known to tease the country of the blind with tales of
stereoscopic vision.
Futurity is the ghost in the machine, the fragrance and the thorn, a dynamic
rendition of the hop-scotched past.
Futurity makes no excuses and arrives in its own time.
Futurity wears the head of the Minotaur and the body of Aphrodite.
Futurity wears the head of Medusa and the body of a cinema goddess.
Futurity is a clown without humor, without greasepaint, its eyes large
and sad and lined as the evening sea.
Futurity is infinite in its potential and terrifying in its command.
It bedazzles you with promise and threatens you with dark possibility.
Futurity never asks permission to be itself in mixed company.
Futurity is vivid as black light violet, cool as a retrospective
on heroin jazz. It needs no makeup to sport a Mediterranean tan.
Futurity takes your hat at the door and your shirt at the table. It leads
you down a hall where your portrait becomes ancestral.
Futurity beds you on a mattress too hard with pillows that migrate
through the night. It bestrides the lines that scroll across your back to
mark you with its legend.
Futurity claims a cast of millions. It is always over budget and often
reneges on its debts.
In isolated and remote regions Futurity sleeps for centuries only to awaken
refreshed with an accelerating appetite that can devour generations.
Futurity burns the compact disc of your day's declensions, available in the
theatrical version or the director's cut. It wears you like a coat into the storm.
Futurity has been known to tease the country of the blind with tales of
stereoscopic vision.
Futurity is the ghost in the machine, the fragrance and the thorn, a dynamic
rendition of the hop-scotched past.
Futurity makes no excuses and arrives in its own time.
Futurity wears the head of the Minotaur and the body of Aphrodite.
KISS OF DEATH
Asking nothing in return but surrender,
it is a deep kiss, full of tongue.
Its taste is foul and bitter for most,
sweet for those who welcome its embrace.
It is the last kiss you will know.
A brutal passion that consumes you completely.
Asking nothing in return but surrender,
it is a deep kiss, full of tongue.
Its taste is foul and bitter for most,
sweet for those who welcome its embrace.
It is the last kiss you will know.
A brutal passion that consumes you completely.