Acceptance: Danse Macabre Magazine, No.72 Oubliette

VISIT THE OUBLIETTE

That maestro of the mysterium; impresario of the illusive and surreal; acute anatomist of sortilege; and honeyeater in the gardens of the subconscious, none other than Adam Henry Carriére, editor extreme, has introduced another issue of his fantastical pharmacopeia of dark literature, that audacious amygdala-teaser, Danse Macabre Magazine. The number of the issue being 72, entitled “Oubliette.”

“Oubliette” has long been one of my favorite words, and the provocative cover and content season my penchant nicely. This might be AHC’s most raw collection yet, a test for the tensile strength of the boundaries of the plausible. But he continues to lace his madness with genius, never becoming blandly pornographic or over-kitschified. True, he loves the genres of the Hitchcock era, and the original Frankenstein-movie era, and even going back into the celluloid archaeum, when cinema made its first foray into things vampire: Nosferatu (1922). But none of this dominates or obviates the lush originality of Oubliette.

Let me add a twist. Another of AHC’s various personalities adores a fetch of the gothic and the baroque. He infuses this, too, with a Poe-ity of the Romantic. However, the subthemes somehow cohere, latch in mutual fever, to birth a mutating body of art, one with a recognizable core and yet also worthy of the tumults of Ovid. Carriére plays wild and heart-nude in the fast-paced free market of online lit. Part of this is being immensely prolific. In addition to DM’s continuous churn, he helms Hammer & Anvil books, plus affiliated blogs, and webs of social sites, and all that.

There are hints that AHC’s siren-search might be approaching a climax. For instance, he has just released what he claims is “probably” the last anthology of DM work. The last one! Rumors fly. Is DM to pass? Is Carriére paying the price for seizing the throttle as if he possessed immortal vitality? Any mind is a fragile cask, even the most cauldron-tough, when attempting to harbor sublime daemons.

I highly suggest you visit No.72. See three of my pieces in the Poetry section. They are under “Drei durch Drei,” sandwiched between the impeccable Chad Anderson and scintillant Kathyrn A. Kopple. The former has led a slam team to the national semi-finals, only to see them, apparently with pride, voluntarily withdraw. He is also magnificent with publications. The latter is an NYU PhD in Latin American Literature, and has been in journals that have rejected me umptillion times, and will continue to do so. Dr. Kopple also has plenty of other phoenix-quality quills in the fire of achievement. You've got to read it to see, I mean--

Wow, what amazing people wait for you in the blah-shattering underworld of the Oubliette!

(My three poems are: “Basin,” “Uprising,” and “Sprezzatura.” Some of “Basin” is below to entice).

These ramblings offer just the tip of 72's iceberg of absinthe. I dare you to visit. Once you are inside, you might hear an immortal song-phrase seep from the nether regions of your soul:

“It's astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness. Takes its toll.”

Fare You Well,

Owl


PS: First three stanzas of "Basin"...

Basin

where sand pulls shawls over shoes,
and the moon brags louder than the blued sun.
you can kick up anything, brute sorrow or hate.

logic scrabbles
in the weird oblong of the rocks.
where birds are gourmands scrounging for glazed eyes.

it all looks like water because there is none.
heat plays oracle in armored shine.
where scorpions are courtiers ...

(four stanzas more...)



-----------------------------------