I was chatting with a friend last night and this show came up …

… of all things.

I think we might have been talking about Halloween season fare that was safe for young children.  Because my favorite standbys, like “28 Days Later” and “Dawn of the Dead” (both of them), aren’t exactly appropriate for the grade-school set.

I remember watching “Bewitched” in syndication on broadcast television — with no sense of irony or nostalgia whatsoever.  I’m willing to bet a lot of my younger friends have never even heard of it.

I saw — and really liked — the 2005 film remake with Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman precisely once.  Maybe I’ll check that one out again before Halloween.

Anyway, I feel certain that the last photo still of Elizabeth Montgomery here did not appear on the 1960’s program.

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“Often have I asked myself whether Lucifer fell, or fled in horror …”

“… and with that question always does it feel that “In the Image of a Blind God” isn’t so much an epic poem that I am composing, but rather, is an epic poem composing itself through me.”  — Dennis Villelmi, on the development of “Fretensis” (Book I of “In the Image of a Blind God”), his book of horror poetry to be released by Dagda Publishing on Halloween.

So now I have yet another reason to look forward to October — my very talented colleague Dennis will be releasing his first book, and it sounds damn appealing to horror fans or to anyone who enjoys poetry.

From Dagda Publishing’s newsletter today:  “A work of mad genius,a manuscript of the damned, Fretensis tells tales of Damzui, Lord Of The Husks, through the ages of mankind, of the games that the Celestial Beings play with mortals (sometimes through malice, sometimes because it is merely within their nature), it lurches from Ancient, marble-columned Rome to the dust-blown American Midwest of the modern day to the inner-most darkness present within the corners of our psyche. Featuring madness-cursed immortals, thrice-damned whores and a myriad of characters, all with their own agendas and insanities.”

Yes … that sounds like Dennis!  I’ve loved his unique brand of dark, vivid poetry when it has appeared with Dagda’s publications before, as well as over at his website, “a death’s head in green light” (http://dentatus1976.wordpress.com/).   (See my reblog of “Medalion” yesterday.)  And this upcoming book sounds damn appealing, and perfect for All Hallow’s Eve.

For full details on “Fretensis,” by Dennis Villelmi, see Dagda Publishing’s announcement here:

https://www.facebook.com/DagdaPublishing/posts/71432902532658010518967_10202518189936834_3143106861925810624_n

Gustave Dore’s “The Raven.”

This was shared with me by the coolest girl in Utah, Lisa Poce — a selection from Gustave Dore’s 1884 illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”  I’m guessing the waiflike girl beside him is the specter of the lost Lenore?

See the link below at openculture.com for more info on Dore’s original steel engravings:

Gustave Doré’s Splendid Illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)

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This give me a few IDEAS …

… and, whaddya know … a few of my friends just happen to be ACTORS.

Russ, Linsee … care to stop over sometime?

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Medalion

“Oracle of the Dog,” by Vincent Starrett

Dear Lord, I LOVE this poem!  Why have I never heard this before?!

“Oracle of the Dog,” by Vincent Starrett

Only the dog knows why the moon

Floats down the night; his raucous tune

Is urgent with the thing he fears

But falls on unbelieving ears.

If we had only learned to speak

The tongue of dogs instead of Greek

We should be better schooled to fight

The spells and portents of the night.

Now at the coming of the dark,

Young fools adrift in street and park

Yield to an epidemic swoon,

Abuse the dog and praise the moon.

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“The First Temptation,” by W. H. Auden

(Part VI of “The Quest”)

“The First Temptation”

Ashamed to be the darling of his grief,
He joined a gang of rowdy stories where
His gift for magic quickly made him chief
Of all these boyish powers of the air;

Who turned his hungers into Roman food,
The town’s asymmetry into a park;
All hours took taxis; any solitude
Became his flattered duchess in the dark.

But, if he wished for anything less grand,
The nights came padding after him like wild
Beasts that meant harm, and all the doors cried Thief;

And when Truth had met him and put out her hand,
He clung in panic to his tall belief
And shrank away like an ill-treated child.

“The Worship of Nature,” by John Greenleaf Whittier

“The Worship of Nature,” by John Greenleaf Whittier

The harp at Nature’s advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.

And prayer is made, and praise is given,
By all things near and far;
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
And mirrors every star.

Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand,
The priesthood of the sea!

They pour their glittering treasures forth,
Their gifts of pearl they bring,
And all the listening hills of earth
Take up the song they sing.

The green earth sends its incense up
From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup
She pours her sacred wine.

The mists above the morning rills
Rise white as wings of prayer;
The altar-curtains of the hills
Are sunset’s purple air.

The winds with hymns of praise are loud,
Or low with sobs of pain,—
The thunder-organ of the cloud,
The dropping tears of rain.

With drooping head and branches crossed
The twilight forest grieves,
Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost
From all its sunlit leaves.

The blue sky is the temple’s arch,
Its transept earth and air,
The music of its starry march
The chorus of a prayer.

So Nature keeps the reverent frame
With which her years began,
And all her signs and voices shame
The prayerless heart of man.

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“I Lie Belly Up,” a dog poem by Anonymous — For Jax and the Liles Family!

I lie belly-up
In the sunshine, happier than
You ever will be.

Today I sniffed
Many dog butts—I celebrate
By kissing your face.

I sound the alarm!
Paperboy—come to kill us all —
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!

I sound the alarm!
Garbage man—come to kill us all —
Look! Look! Look! Look! Look!

I lift my leg and
Whiz on each bush. Hello, Spot—
Sniff this and weep.

I Hate my choke chain—
Look, world, they strangle me! Ack
Ack Ack Ack Ack Ack!

Sleeping here, my chin
On your foot—no greater bliss—well,
Maybe catching cats.

Look in my eyes and
Deny it. No human could
Love you as much as I do.

Anonymous

“The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost

“The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers