Have to wait a bit longer for the paperback, but DEAD ENDS: A Dark Poetry Collection about death and dying is now available as an e-book.
Y’all, this is my first poetry collection ever, and that’s just really exciting, especially since it’s horror. It’s self-published because much of it was shared on social media, but DEAD ENDS curates and polishes the pieces to a fire-opal shine.
come on down to the river the current runs red and the algae blooms sweet come on down to the river nothing more refreshing in the sweltering heat
come on down to the fresh mountain spring just a trickle left but the last one clean come on down to the fresh mountain spring the clearest damn water that you’ve ever seen
come on down to the old deep well a drought’s piercing through the dry cracked fields come on down to the old deep well the trumpets all sound and the scroll’s unsealed
come on down to the dark gutter drain the bodies sink low and the corpse fluids rise come on down to the dark gutter drain where waste-streaked gods swallow all of our lies
come on down to the river for an old-time spiritual revival song come on down to the river the end times are coming and it won’t be long
I can’t even be coy about the cover reveal, because I’m kind of excited (nervous, but excited) that I’m putting out this little morbid poetry collection in April.
Most of the poems consist of flash pieces and reconstructed lyrics shared through social media the last few years that are already considered published and therefore unlikely to be republished. I include a few new pieces, too, though.
We need to let go of this idea of normal as something we’ve lost. There is no normal. It’s true monthly, yearly, five years, a decade, but easier to see if you look back twenty years, then another twenty years then another twenty. There is no normal. There is your childhood, and then there is now. Sometimes, normal just changes faster than usual with a cruel snap like whiplash, but the disaster is just as normal as the calm before. We always live in unprecedented times.
I shared this on Twitter but kept forgetting to put it here. My first paid poem, “An Empyrean Con,” is featured in BLOODLESS from Sliced Up Press, a collection of blood-free horror.
Not only do I have two poems coming out in Crow Calls Vol. 4, a short, melodramatic little story can be found in the June 2022 Melancholia issue of the gothic lit zine The Crow’s Quill.
I made a casual resolution that I’d like to write a Dracula musical, just for my own enjoyment, because I like my collection of them. This lyric has been clattering around in my head for a while.
is this a dream? or am I awake? does the lord come for my soul to take?
the twilight grows damp my vision goes dim the sunset downs dark all I see is him
i try to awaken but the whispers insist
the scarlet eyes the scarlet eyes the scarlet eyes in the mist
cool on my skin hot to the touch have i ever known love to desire this much?
lights in the shadow salt on my tongue sin in my heart yearning unsung
i try to remember why i should resist
the scarlet eyes the scarlet eyes the scarlet eyes in the mist
I’d been holding onto a few lines of this for ages and only came up with a song to go with it today.
Loosely inspired by Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones, should have a lovely, rough folk beat, like Bishop Briggs’ “River.”
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RATTLIN BONES (EZEKIEL 37)
Rattlin bones Rattlin bones Get up and dance You rattlin bones Can bones yet live? You rattlin bones Rise up in the name of the Lord
Skeleton fingers On skeleton hands Counting the time For the skeleton band Skeleton feet With skeleton toes Tapping along To the feast of the crows
Rattlin bones Rattlin bones Get up and dance You rattlin bones Can bones yet live? You rattlin bones Rise up in the name of the Lord
Tendons on bone Muscle to skin Build up the bodies To the flesh that they’re in The breath of life A song in the air To dance in the dust Of the flesh that they bear
Rattlin bones Rattlin bones Get up and dance You rattlin bones Can bones yet live? You rattlin bones Rise up in the name of the Lord
The graves are all open The souls are all free Teeming the valley For all souls to see The multitude sings Stomps thousands of feet Unsettling the dust To the living hearts’ beat
Rattlin bones Rattlin bones Get up and dance You rattlin bones Can bones yet live? You rattlin bones Rise up in the name of the Lord
I posted a simpler, cleaner version of WE ARE THE ENEMY last year, but I’ve revisited the first version and decided that, though it has some similar lines, it has a few different kinds of things to say. I’m battling a lot of feelings that are bigger than me, so big I can barely put them into words. I decided to borrow, for now.
WE ARE THE ENEMY 2.0
Truth, justice, and the American way Heroes fly with stars and stripes, red and blue and white It’s all okay at the end of an American day How we do it doesn’t matter if we’re right.
God bless America, we’re right, so we must be good And if we’re good, we can’t be wrong And if we can’t be wrong, we do what we should We do what we should, with an oath and a song.
We are the villains in too many stories And not just those of those we condemn We think power makes us strong And strength gives us the right to win.
That because we are strong, we must be good That because we are good, we must be free But look at what we do, look at what we’ve made of you and me We are the enemy.
Holding the unfinished in steel claws While buildings crumble to the ground Our words are sacred, absolute oaths Never to be torn, burned, or bound.
All without words spoken, without the mark Can fall to the conviction of our words Our deeds are counted by the cruelties dealt Cards we call good, the right of the sword.
I never thought I’d see the day I never thought I’d see the day When there were people we didn’t need to save Sacrificed because they had the wrong name Because they didn’t play the right game Or didn’t resist wrong the right way.
I never thought I’d see the day Until the day I knew it had been here all along Trails of tears, trails of blood Stepping on the bodies of innocents To climb to the top and tell ourselves It’s our day, our sun Because we’re the ones casting the shadow We never put down the sword or the word There was never depth too low for us to go As we cursed those casting shade in the shadow we made.
Because here I thought we were trying Instead of lying and calling it truth Instead of executions called justice out of court Instead of pride for an American way That’s always been the American way.
I knew we were bad. I thought we were better.
We are the villains in too many stories And not just those of those we condemn We think power makes us strong And strength gives us the right to win.
That because we are strong, we must be good That because we are good, we must be free But look at what we do, look at what we’ve made of you and me We are the enemy.
Amanda M. Blake 