Arthur Machen was always smackin’

Women mysteriously

He helped create modern neopaganism

Before joining the Ministry of Truth

After the war, he enjoyed a brief resurgence

Before taking his final fitting place

In the annals of ecstasy and horror

Ambrose Bierce was nothing fierce

Except within his cups

His swords his wands his demimondes

And on occasion tups

Conservatives are those with a soft spot for preexisting evils;

Liberals in contrast typically exhibit a stronger taste for newer ones.

Just ask Colin Dexter and Chief Inspector Morse.

Edgar Poe waxed full of woe
He sang a song of sadness
He filled his days with minstrel rays
His nights bore down to madness

Take this kiss upon thy brow
And in parting from me now
This much more let me avow:

You are wrong should you not deem
All my days to be a dream.

Yet if hope is flown away
In a night or in a day

In a vision or yet none
Is it thereby less the gone?

All we see or seem to see
Is a dream within a dream.

To the glory that was Greco

And the grandeur that was Roma

I lingered round them under that benign sky;

watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells,

listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass,

and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers

for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

So the story goes.

It is not enough to seek

Who the hell was Mervyn Peake?

When thinking errant Edward Plunkett

Just stop and think

A bullet if you can

Like the man

Said

The true inspiration for Aeon Flux

and extra special things redux

Conan, Kull, and Solomon are kings

Immune from all indentured slings

Should the master speak

The boards may creak