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September01, 2007 - Dark Windows #2 >> |
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DARK WINDOWS #1 - Aug 20, 2007 a stream of the dark & strange ===== ===== === INTRO Welcome to my dark windows. Why a newsletter? I already have a blog, but a blog will just sit there and hope people come by. I think that the more direct connection of a newsletter is a better fit. This "newsletter" is the convergence of several projects: a book-length volume of dark poetry & fiction I was compiling; a massive collection of clips from old texts and obscure places; a blog that was mostly a dream journal; and a newsletter that listed my fiction/poetry/other sales but had no meat on its bones. Brought together here, the result should be more meat, more variety, and plenty strange. What is it? Stories, poems, and "odd clips". My work is heavily inspired by dreams. They tend to resist when I try to hammer them into the formula of modern fiction, and that's where poetry comes in. Poetry is best real hope for capturing our thoughts. Don't let it turn you off, though. I don't write tricky, clever poems. I write readable works, what I think of as "folk poems." Poems anyone can read, although they will lead you to some strange places. How dark is dark? Frankly, I'm tired of crime and violence and killing -- TV is full of that junk, from the news through prime time, and on into the night. I don't sit around thinking up ways to kill things. My darkness is a primordial thing, the sense that we're not alone in the world, that we're not as strong as we pretend to be, that we could fall apart at any time. That's where my dreams take me. And I hope you will find some pleasant chills along the way. I also don't use a lot of profanity; I find it cheap and distracting. So, oddly, you could say this is dark stuff with a good attitude. I like a mix of horror, humor, and just plain weird. Dark Windows? The name comes from a short-lived column I wrote for a little zine called Nightmare Express from 1988 to 1989. It has stuck with me for all those years. Sometimes, when I sit down to write, I call feel that dark window opening. Since there's no other way to describe it, there's really no other name that fits. For the foreseeable future, the content will be written by me. It's simpler, and more personal that way. I have over 240 short stories and 1,000 poems to draw on. Even with some 400 items published over the years, the majority of my work has never been seen -- while submitting and tracking every single one is a nightmare (and not the fun kind). Part of the journey will be to bring the bulk of this work together, once and for all, and bend some minds along the way. So, it's not technically a newsletter, or an ezine. It's a serialized stream of "creative stuff". Purpose of the various sections: Story Bites - Fun quotes from fictional sources; lots of obscure, forgotten works have some great quotes! It's fun to guess where they came from before reading the credits. DarkVision - Selections from raw dream journals. Odd Clips - Twisted quotes from factual/historical sources. SCV News - News about my writing, upcoming publications & such. I'm not out to sell sell sell, it's just that the works should all complement each other. How much and how often? I'd like to hit 2,000 words per issue, and do 1 or 2 issues per month, so that it will hit book length within 12-18 months. I hope you will join me. = scott ===== About the author: Scott Virtes has had over 350 stories & poems published since 1986. Look for them in Analog, Space & Time, Ideomancer, Dreams & Nightmares, Cafe Irreal, Planet, and many more. He has two story collections and 5 poetry chapbooks available, and recently edited a collection of twisted limericks. You can watch him die in "Master and Commander", but he's alive and well on the poetry and indie film scenes in San Diego. Home page: http://tales.scvs.com?inw=dkw My story "Jimmy the Box" was in the July/Aug 2007 issue of ANALOG. ===== POEM DREAM SPEAK (an invocation) --- You can't feel me but you must know I'm there, You can't see me for I don't bend the light, You can't touch me for I am intangible, You can't hear me I don't ripple the air. My purpose is unique My nature is pure, My material electric My creation obscure, I am a concept but I'm not what I seem: I'm only a thought, a vision, a DREAM. ::: written 1983; unpublished. ===== DARKVISION: (real dreams captured) There was a submarine at the pier. I climbed aboard -- always wanted to see the insides of one of those claustrophobic things! -- and the crew were all people I knew, except that I didn't recognize any of them. Their crew uniform was a tattered t-shirt with a big "We are the Enemy" logo on the back. It was all downhill from there. ::: 6/3/93 ===== STORY Web Fingers --- Web fingers probed the furniture. The television looked out on its home and found it nice. It switched its own channels, each showing a different raucous miasma of insanity, things whirling and the color of living picture-tube blue. There were things on the coffee table to toy with, magazines it couldn't read, candies it couldn't eat. It didn't understand these. Ah, but the children were fun. The two brothers, Willy and Jon, played with their trucks, and it crept into their eyes to see how they thought about what they were doing. It took over one of the young bodies and began to walk ... around the living room, down the hallway, then up the stairs like an obedient zombie. The child climbed into the velvet shadows and ended on a platform where an ancient, gnarled man stood. This archetypal intruder had his hands upon the railings and stared down like a general overseeing invisible troops. "I knew you would one day find your way here", said the man. He had a quiet mindvoice glowing with power. This man had created the TV-spirit and everything it had ever felt. It was awed and made no reply. "You must continue to daze and hypnotize their elders, and throw images at their young until they no longer have a grasp of reality. Mess with their minds until they can are unable to concentrate. Then we shall enter their world and suck it dry." "I work my stealth in your true shadows," the TV-mind answered, bowing low. The creator nodded slightly, then folded like an old roadmap and was gone. The boy wandered back downstairs, trying his best to remember why he had left his toys to begin with. When he got back to where his little brother was playing obliviously, there were faint filaments reaching out from the TV, swirling like smoke over an ashtray. "Neat, Willy. Cobwebs!" he said to his brother. "That's weird." But then their father entered the room and the webs were sucked back into the closing void, becoming an innocent afternoon cartoon. Jon went over to the TV and ran his fingers across the cool blue tube. There were crackles of static power, and the tiny hairs on his arm stood up. He giggled, yet he was remotely afraid of the cold power he felt. Dad waved him aside. "Don't stand so close. Your eyes will bug out." "Maybe bugging is better than what the old man has in store for us," he mumbled uncertainly. Almost remembering. Dad gave him a long, disapproving stare. "What am I going to do with a kid that talks nonsense?" he asked. Jon and Willy went back to their simple games. Dad flipped through various sports channels, while the TV waited patiently. It reached out one tiny thread of energy, no more than a single strand of spider's silk, popped it into the vein in Dad's arm like an IV, and began to feed. Dad yawned. "Long day," he muttered. "But I feel better now." (THE END) ::: written 7/7/97, published in Planet #22 (6/99) ===== POEM simple torment --- Torment poured from every chord Torment poured from every wait Torment poured from wait forever Torment poured wait forever and Torment wait forever and you'll see: Someone will come and there will be magic, But first the torment ... pouring from every forever. ::: written 5/85, Published in Glossolalia #9 (12/96) ===== MY NEWS - New Sales / Coming Soon: My recent acceptances, and works coming in the next few months: "Unusual Vampire Lore" (article) accepted at Hungur. "Blue sky tentacles" (cover art) accepted by Beyond Centauri. Poems accepted by Expressions newsletter, Sword Review, and the Verb. "Harrod Runs his Mouth" (flash fiction) in Burst magazine. A gruesome illustration has been accepted for the Hungur 2 anthology. "Jane Doe Discovered" (Poetry chapbook) coming in late 2007 from SamsDotPublishing.com ===== POEM Drowning --- I woke up to find an image of me rippling on the waves, It faded when I rubbed my eyes to writing on the wall, I turned about to face my clock rolling to see when, I've been in the sea for too long now -- I shall not rise again. ::: written 7/86, published in Dreams & Nightmares #9 (10/86) ===== ODD CLIPS: "When a person has been bitten by a mad dog, it is the practice to make an incision round the wound to the quick, and then to apply raw veal to it, and to make the patient take either veal broth or hogs' lard, mixed with lime internally. Some persons recommend a he-goat's liver, and maintain that if it is applied to the wound the patient will never be attacked with hydrophobia. She-goat's dung, too, is highly spoken of, applied with wine, as also the dung of the badger, cuckoo, and swallow, boiled and taken in drink." [1] "Councilman A. Funk has a peculiar sort of an apparatus in his shop. It has a brass jacket; is forced around by concussion and he calls it a pill for those using or trying to use undue influence. The thing is guaranteed to mash every bone in a man's body. One of them went thru a bear. Personally we don't like 'em." [2] 1. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History 28.43, ed Bostock & Riley. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat. 2. "Local News"; Box Elder News (Utah) 3/26/1904, p.4 ===== POEM Broken Beginnings --- Broken beginnings notes that go nowhere, trial & error pounded out in cut time quicktime corruption microphone buzz, Of these things a day is made. Some revv up to later run encircled, some end well but never popular, they fade like a bad dream lost, rejected sound bytes caught in stucco, Cut! ::: written 4/99, unpublished ===== STORY BITES: "We're not poets. This gentleman is a psychiatrist, and I sell farm implements." [1] "The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I." [2] "Then she saw on one of the broad tombstones a group of ghouls. These hideous creatures took off their rags, as if they intended to bathe, and then clawing open the fresh graves with their long, skinny fingers, pulled out the dead bodies and ate the flesh! Eliza had to pass close by them, and they fixed their wicked glances upon her, but she prayed silently, gathered the burning nettles, and carried them home with her to the castle." [3] 1. from "Step Into My Garden" (story) by Frank Belknap Long (1903-1994) 2. from "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), lines 236-39. 3. Hans Christian Andersen, "The Wild Swans" in "Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales" (DeWolfe, Fiske & Co; Boston, 1898), p.17 ===== Notice: Odd Clips and Story Bites all come from original sources in the public domain, or are brief clips in the spirit of fair use (a.k.a. free advertising for the source). All other sections of this newsletter are copyright Scott Virtes. All rights reserved. Please don't grab chunks of my work and post them all over the place. If you ask permission, you'll find that I'm pretty easygoing. ;-) ===== this issue: 2,070 words cumulative: 2,070 words |
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