Arch Deacon

Even when man is asleep there's dogs howling in the night, so a wicked, restless spirit finds voice. I'm awake when they cry out and I recognize my own. I dreamed last night that wasps was crawling on my heart and my heart was laying on an old wooden table. There was me, Ted, Shel and Horseshoe out by Blackfoot Lake and I was daring em' to stare in the water and see what kind of sumbitches they were. Night was coming and I could feel that darkness in my heart. Horseshoe is staring into the lake. I pick up a big rock from the shore and smash him over the head with it. Ted and Shel act like they was birthed for murdering; I could smell blood on their breath, even past the smell of Bourbon and the atrocity that reeked of rotting apples being devoured by starving mouths. They held Horseshoe's head under that freezing, dark Kentucky lake until his frantic legs stopped kicking. I felt like cutting his spine out of his back cause I'd never seen one and never held one in my hands. Instead I walked his heavy body into the lake like he was being baptized and watched it sink slow like it was holding on to this world. I told Ted and Shel to get on home and waited on the shore for God to come down from Heaven and punish me. I saw him in the half light of early morning before the moon hid behind a cloud. He looked at me cross and then walked off into the forest. There I was on the shore all alone with no God to hurt me like I wanted to be hurt.

The conquering army

I was still and silent. I felt his force, tasted the metallic coldness of his rifle in my mouth. My vomit came in violent waves, blood and bile. His heavy breathing and sweat were pathetic, tears were streaming down my face as I understood the mindless banality of wickedness. I pitied the young soldier plagued with the errors of the conquering army. All they've won is the earth saturated with a cosmic sense of loss and their own infirm, transient bodies. When I was younger I knew God was alive because I sensed him in the changing of the seasons and the regeneration of barren seed. Now I experience Him even more directly in the violence of the young soldier and the transcendence of his brutality.

The Deformed Offspring That Grow To Murder Mother

The teeth that sever your genital organ
Come from mother's savage mouth
She castrates and mutilates her perfect child
Because she fears his deformed offspring

Her love for you grieves her deeply
Wild and primal is her love
So true it causes the loved one to fear
So true it causes you to fear

And now we see her standing in the ocean
With your genital organ in her hand
and your bright red blood on her mouth

Two mothers forever brutalizing
So uniform they coalesce

So mother disappears and all she leaves behind
is the frenzy and ecstasy
That found it's seat in your throbbing heart
When you came to understand her love

August Horrorscopes

Quarterly Horrorscopes
by Zack Kouns esq

Aries (March 21-April 19) Carve your name into his flesh when he's sleeping. He understands and blesses pain.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You and your animals are going to be swept away in the flood; it's God's wrath punishing you for your cowardice.

Gemini (May 21-June 21) Collect your menstrual blood in a Coca Cola can. Offer it to the dead child that you found in the garden.

Cancer (June 22-July 22) A god is knocking on your back door; he's coming to claim your first born son. Feed him and thank him for his violence, he's had a long journey.

Leo (July 23-August 22) The sun will rise in the middle of the night and the whole world will see you eating the intestines of a sacrificed beast.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) Drive your car off the cliff and into the sea. They'll never find you there.

Libra (September 23-October 23) There's a moon and a field with prairie grass inside your body. Serpents are coiling around your genitals.

Scorpio (October 24-November 21) You understand the songs of Sparrows and Blue Jays and the haunting call of the Carolina Wren. Ask them to stop speaking, the earth is lonely enough.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) If that fat fucking German girl doesn't shut her shit eating mouth, throw a drink in her face.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Howl and bay like a wounded, wretched, hunted dog about all the ugliness and atrocity and wickedness in your heart and the world.

Aquarius (January 20-February 18) Storm and sea. Vulva and streams of urine.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) You're gagged with a sock. There's tears in your eyes. You're in black lingerie and he's crouching above you.

Dirt road in Mexico

Supposed “magic” implies incredulity. I contend that it requires faith and a belief in the miraculous; in other words, nearly inhuman traits. I wandered on a dirt road in the vast desert of Mexico for thousands of years, watching carrion birds devour themselves. I ate dirt and drank my piss. I vomited daylight and wondered what I could offer to a vile world full of hells and cunts full of fever and longing. At the end of the day, struck by contagion and the visions of God I saw in the distance a cloud of violence that devoured men as it struck out in a garden of mushroom and sky. Both of my hands held the expiration of the physical world. I digressed where the feet of men rarely sensed ground or ether; so complete was my abdication from the human race. The splitting of the atom is the glory of God. I'll journey a thousand years more in search of oblivion, peace, mercy.

Hearts So Strange and Wild

Rise gently
Shedding your murdered body
The ache of tenderness
in your still heart
The throbbing a rope that murderers cling to
and use to climb from the lake of fire
that hides in our slumbering selves

Gather them so close
that you can hear eternal life intoning softly
in the most mysterious of their organs
Hearts so strange and wild
struggle to express their terrifying love
As they unfold to receive love
they become both pollinated and pollinator
Spreading their dark seeds
in remote places

Liner Notes for "He must have contemplated his death during those long drives on the bypass at night"

The bulk of the modern human race spend the entirety of their lives attempting to ignore the fact that they will die. An event that was solemnly and sacredly prepared for in cultures that preceded us has been relegated to nightmares and sudden spasms of unwelcome thought. At his emotional and spiritual peril, man consigns death (and the many things that he fears and doesn't understand) to the vast unconscious realm where he believes his secrets are kept safe.

I had a neighbor who was stricken with an unnamed illness and who hadn't long to live. He lived in Columbus, Ohio previously and confided to me that he knew that he was seriously ill before he was diagnosed. He discussed long drives on 275 at night, endless hours of driving the loop around Columbus. Thus, I conceived the title; but I hadn't yet received the tools and illumination necessary to write the music. I struggled unsuccessfully to produce the album.

As so often occurs, two years go by and the music hasn't been written. I had just buried my grandfather in the cemetery near my home and I'm lost in the forest, sick with grief and sorrow. During this aimless exodus away from my family and the funeral procession, the consideration of the meaning of death was central in my thoughts. From this painful contemplation in the holy wilderness, a different album was conceived: “He disappeared into the forest, yet he remained with us” a work that concerns the impossibility of ending and the everlasting nature of existence. It also became apparent that I had to write about death for a person who had an entirely different outlook on the subject if I was to successfully create this album. I had to write about death's fearsome properties and hopelessness for the majority of human beings who intentionally ignore it to illuminate it's dark corners so that the things that stay hidden are called forth into the light and are shown to be sort of bruised, sorrowful things but not as frightening as we thought. So, I was able to begin in earnest on this album: Automobiles for our accidental protagonist are rhythmic and propulsive, night is haunting and harrowing, the bypass is an abstract spiritual plane, death is a ghastly, unknown thing that stalks our protagonist in the hidden places inside himself. So here it is: the fruits of my flawed empathy, the sum of my mistakes, the cause of many sleepless nights...

July Horrorscopes

Aries (March 21-April 19) There's two dead women on a bench in the park. One of them is your aunt.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) He's been outside your house for days. He's staring at your family through your windows, scaring your children. Bash his fucking brains in with a hammer.

Gemini (May 21-June 21) Your father will abuse you; your father is violent. Imagine his hands on your mother's body.

Cancer (June 22-July 22) Stay away from children; they will cut your stomach open and crawl inside your body pretending to be the person they believe you are.

Leo (July 23-August 22) Put all the dead bodies in your kitchen in the the most remote cave in the State Park...that's the only way to get rid of that smell, pal.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) Scratch out your eyes, peel off your skin, tear off your genitals; die to yourself and die to this world.

Libra (September 23-October 23) Hang her by the tree in the back yard. She's asked you politely, after all.

Scorpio (October 24-November 21) We will carry your body through the streets: trumpets, trombones, snare drums, harps, gods; there's something dark in the forsaken corners where we hide from ourselves.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You will raise your loved ones from the dead; now they are hens and various other types of small fowl.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) You come home and someone has tied up your pets and made them watch an elaborately staged reenactment of the burning of Joan of Arc. Your living room is ruined! All that ash and all those dove feathers!

Aquarius (January 20-February 18) You've convinced yourself that you're the reincarnation of an 1840s gold prospector...but as a point of fact, you're not. Get rid of those six shooters and cowboy hats and stop using colloquialisms from the mid 19th century and you'll be just a little less lonesome and lost.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Your mouth is on her mouth, life everlasting; she puts her hands on your genitals and you get an erection. Kiss her for hours, she's yours.

Centaur shit by the steaming mouthful

In a beach front bar with a throat full of bourbon and a heart full of savagery, I made a connection with a short haired brunette with a long flowing dress that draped the floor. We slipped into the bathroom and locked the door; frenzied hands stripping clothes from trembling bodies. In the midst of this ecstatic disrobing and in a state of extreme excitation, I discovered that my potential mate was a centaur. I was admittedly taken aback but with an erect genital organ and a cold mind full of dark Eros, I decided to do what I went in there to do. As I squared up to her backside hoping to not get kicked, she started shitting: foul, steaming piles of centaur shit. She stared me directly in the eyes and smiled, then she immediately started eating the dark brown shit by the mouthful. She looked up at me with her craned neck and with her mouth crammed to the cheeks with feces and asked if I'd like some. Not wanting to be rude and kind of intrigued, I bent down and put a bit in my mouth. It tasted like mythology and grain. Somebody was beating the door down, so we put our clothes back on and went our separate ways. I chased the centaur shit with another glass of Kentucky bourbon and passed out on the pier.

Mutter Museum--Philadelphia, PA

The Mutter Museum, a medical museum in Philly that is dedicated to physical abnormalities, curiosities and death elicits an admixture of awe, empathy and a profound sense of the often profane nature of physiological functions. Browsing through the photography depicting the human animal with remarkable deformities, the embalmed and distorted fetuses, the bones disfigured by gun shots, syphilis, pathogens or general misfortune I found myself deeply moved and marveling at the handiwork of the penumbral shaping hands. The lack of supposed moral acumen in the natural kingdom and it's startling purity is further evidence that the laws of man are meaningless and his godless civilization will mercifully crumble and vanish.

Haitian hearts in Lexington, KY

Beleaguered and harrowed by tenebrous and darksome dreams, Noah and I struck out in search of a meal in Lexington. We were fortunate enough to discover a street vendor whose exotic fare included roasted human hearts and genitals, a meal I greedily consumed with a rare gusto found only in the pentinent sinner who has fasted for weeks and is only now able to enjoy his feast with peace in his wounded heart and atonement in his grieving spirit. The heart tasted like pain and fear. The genitals were garnished with poisonous weeds and tasted bitter and unfulfilled. With a full belly and a heart so strange and wild, I saw and made avail of a brief opportunity to peer into the ghastly trailer when the proprietors left for a short break. Finding the back door unlocked, I discovered a grisly scene: black corpses decapitated and delicately carved up, heads on a spit with bulging eyes and knives between their teeth. Bringing the minimal extent of my anthropological insight to bear, I surveyed bone structure etc and decided that the cadavers were likely Haitian.

June Horrorscopes reprinted from Champs Quarterly

Aries (March 21-April 19) You will fill a bathtub with gasoline and human blood and set yourself on fire, dreaming of tenderness and silence.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Swallow those flat round stones from the creek bed behind your house, then those vines will coil around your lonesome heart.

Gemini (May 21-June 21) You'll wake up in a cave three months from now totally nude with an empty bottle of bear juice lying next to you and think: did I marry a fucking black bear?

Cancer (June 22-July 22) Hang father by his tiny, wilting spermatazoa, crawl back into mother's bloated ovum.

Leo (July 23-August 22) Shark men are hiding in those wasp nests hanging from your gutter; listen to their wise shark words and learn about the murder in your heart.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You've wondered what a human heart tastes like for too long; cut yours out and devour all the frenzy and longing.

Libra (September 23-October 23) You'll find love hiding in the dark forest; don't go in there without a machete. Love means to eviscerate you and dance like a wounded horse in the rain with your intestines draped around it's lovely body.

Scorpio (October 24-November 21) Your apartment complex will catch fire. Your husband will die. Your two children will die. You'll start a new life in the forest, drinking from the stream with wild dogs.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) Smear excrement on your face and hands, hide in the bushes and wait for your neighbor to come out of his house.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) You've been thinking about the surgery for some time: Don't delay! Now is the time to have yourself transformed into a minotaur.

Aquarius (January 20-February 18) There's a dead animal in your bed. Dig a hole in the soft,wet earth and bury yourself alive with the dead beast.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Put your hands on her buttocks. Kiss her mouth. Kiss her breasts.

I'd rather be down some dark holler where the sun refuses to shine

The dogs are all barking. Wonder who's coming up the driveway? I go into mom's room, but she's asleep. She doesn't know who's coming for me, she doesn't understand my dread. She hasn't seen my coughing up blood, she hasn't noticed that I'm short of breath. She's got her own weight to bear. When I seem down, she'll run her hands through my hair and tell me she understands. She doesn't know me. She only knows the person that life made me. I was laying in my bedroom one night and I saw the Angel of Death. She spoke in every language at once, but I understood what she said.