Goblin Fruit: Autumn Edition
Bacchanal
Mike Allen


He traded his robe for a lab coat
its filthy tail
sweeps through oil-sheened mud
flaps with back alley lurch
spine hunched in huddled conspiracy
hooves split bleeding
a black bile wine
reeled everywhere on the tainted ley lines
blind husk heeds
the zombie century call
hopes the fix fixes all
hops the walls
prints trickle behind
rolled up sleeves reveal
the needle
tracks of self consumption
sore of entry throbs
purple jellyfish
hissing mob slithers behind
hollow-eyed supermodel squad
anexoria hot pop singer dirty
wilted parrot plumage
used-up Maenads
hunting for another Orpheus
no talent required any orifice will do
pop'n'play in the master bedroom
to the music artery beat mad-eyed
waif kneels curls fragile fingers
in the wool of His hips
boy girl no matter
Pan by Michael Finucane liberate the libation
gunshots outside the undead
can't wait their turn
cultists sweating and trembling
in the Superdome
the worst of this generation
the best of this generation
bored to distraction
conjure Him in the seedy glade
of tire ruts beer cans broken glass hymens
clumsily torn
see the horns on his haggard head
glint in the headlights
of the pickup truck
sticks into snakes for everyone
curl them round your arm
to raise a vein
discover something new to do
for true we're all born again
grown on our fathers' thighs
like a cancer


Mike Allen is the editor of the speculative poetry journal Mythic Delirium. With Roger Dutcher, Mike is also editor of The Alchemy of Stars: Rhysling Award Winners Showcase, which for the first time collects the Rhysling Award-winning poems from 1978 to 2004 in one volume. Nineteen of Mike's poems have been nominated for the award, and one so far has won: "Epochs in Exile," co-written with Charles Saplak, now available in Nebula Awards Showcase 2005. His newest poetry collections, Disturbing Muses and Strange Wisdoms of the Dead, are both available from Wildside Press.

After some hesitation, Mike says that the word "cherry...only conjures one so-called poem, the traditional 'Riddle Song' ('I gave my love a cherry that had no stones ... ') -- specifically in the context of the guitar player's cloying rendition during the toga party in 'Animal House,' before John Belushi grabs his instrument and smashes it against the wall."

Michael "Warble" Finucane is an artist in the Art Nouveau tradition, but with various modern influences that span over the last century. The most powerful of these influences are the MacDonald Sisters of what was called the “Spook School” in Glasgow, Scotland. Also, the work of Alan Lee, Frank Frazetta, Jan Toorop, and the Pre-Raphaelites have been important in forging a style that is based on various medieval themes. Warble has been working with these styles to create a unique hybrid of line, color and watercolor technique that brings his own idiom of art, alongside these masters of past generations. By learning and examining art of the past, Warble presents a classic, yet endearing modern style in the fantasy art spectrum.

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