The Goreletter » Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems

Head Games

Michael Arnzen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:39:04 +0000

The mounted head begins to speak:
you know, I like it better this way,
I feel more like myself,

no body to worry about anymore,
just me alone with my thoughts,
and there’s time to talk to you
without the distractions of

yada yada yada

I know dear and I prefer it, too,
I say, putting on my
boxing gloves.

Now remind me,
where did you store
the tongs?

My Pet Vampire

Michael Arnzen — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:46:42 +0000

Tight as a tick to a scalp,
I keep my vampire nailed down
to the floor in my bedroom.
His arms are stretched pale and flabby
as the hairy little bat I know
he wishes he could turn into
when I see him squinching his lupine brow
and grunting like he’s constipated.
But the nails won’t set him free
from the clock-handed impalement of his limbs.
Maybe he could transform into a flying rodent
but he’s stretched so tight, the tension
between those silver spikes would only split
him right in two. I keep him fed
with stray pet blood and sometimes
he acts like he loves me for it –
cooing like he’s the one stray I kept,
the one pet I cared enough about to take in,
the lucky survivor I won’t kill.
At other times — usually at night
when I peek over the bed before sleep –
his eyes quiver ablaze and he stares
right at me like some starving feral animal
caught in a barbed wire fence.
Asleep, I dream of torture –
of drizzling holy water left-right
across pasty dead flesh, drawing
cross-shaped wounds in the gray canvas
of skin. I dream of taking needle nose
pliers to teeth before teasing him
with my bare wrist and strained neck.
But in the morning, the sunlight blares
into the windowpane, fizzling his face
and he screams like a drowning hyena.
It’s annoying. And as I close the curtains
I deeply wish I could just finish him off,
but this supernatural sundial
is the best alarm clock I ever had.

Dead Meat: A Haiku

Michael Arnzen — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:23:20 +0000

at the meat counter
cellophaned brains trick zombies –
the butcher runs out

***
The above haiku is one of many neat new ‘zombie zen’ pieces by various authors scattered throughout Kyra Schon’s website. Kyra is one of the coolest stars from the original Night of the Living Dead. Visit her site and you’ll recognize her instantly! And if you like zombie haiku, well, then you’d love this book.

The Fall Down the Stairs of the House of Usher

Michael Arnzen — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 22:49:23 +0000

When I push her down the stairs
she swims in the air for a moment
like we’re dancing
and I play a little song in my head
to accompany it
before the erratic thud of her skull
against the steps
breaks my waltzing daydream
with its own offbeat tempo
and I hear another voice sing
as I stumble forward

curse of the hempire

Michael Arnzen — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:50:57 +0000

hippie vampires look the worst
because they refuse to Lugosi
their hair back with pomade;
they sit cross-legged beside their
broken coffins and tie-dye
their funeral garb into spirographic florals
of mold and mud, tripping on homegrown
shockwhite graveyard mushrooms,
believing they’re good vegetarians
until the thirst for human blood
animates their groovy shambling
and like stoned-out stone-cold soldiers
they hunt hungry for a feast of friends;
“make blood, not war,” some cry and
they bite men in the spirit of free love –
their undead heads slurping in shadows
that no longer see summer or sunshine
forever young

People Repellent: A Flash Fiction

Michael Arnzen — Thu, 11 May 2006 01:34:05 +0000

He found the bottle of People Repellent at a health food store. The package was right next to the all-natural bug sprays and fly papers and anti-mosquito incense. It cost $24, emblazoned with a stick figure logo that raised a scrawny arm in a “talk to the hand” gesture. He thought it would make a funny gift for his girlfriend, who always complained about the people in her office, so he blew what was left in his wallet for the novelty spray, along with his usual assortment of herbal extract supplements and offbeat teas.

At home, he started wrapping the gift. He chuckled at the logo on the bottle again, but then found himself questioning his choice. Maybe she would read between the lines and accuse him of calling her anti-social. Or maybe she’d assume that all the gifts in their relationship from that point forward would be juvenile pranks. She might conjure an image of fake doggie doo in her Christmas stocking or a squirt ring surprise during their marriage ceremony, and then quickly remove him from her speed dial.

He didn’t want to “repel” his own girlfriend, after all. So he grabbed the bottle and opened the lid of the trashcan. Something liquid sloshed inside. He shook it. Wondered what it really was. Took a whiff of the sprayer.

It smelled fantastic. Like flowers fountaining inside of other flowers. But it was still musky enough to be called cologne. He decided to try it out. He sprayed People Repellent on his neck, then his arms, then his chest, and then inside the waistband of his jeans…spritzing copiously until he was sure he could keep inhaling it like a floral cloud descended from heaven, floating around his body.

Immediately a number of houseflies stirred inside his trashcan and zoomed up from the refuse to glom onto his flesh. More flying gnits zipped across his house and landed on his skin, fizzling in the still-wet sheen of People Repellent on the back of his neck and on his arms. Mosquitoes followed, whining around his ears before dipping their beaks into their newfound nirvana.

They itched, and he was surprised by just how many flying insects were living in his house, but he also understood what was happening with perfect clarity. He went outside and walked slowly down the sidewalk, heading towards his girlfriend’s house just a few blocks away. A thousand thousand more insects joined their brethren on his flesh. His body became a living block party for the local gnats. Moths landed on his eyelids. Honeybees buzzed and nuzzled into his belt line. And people quickly got out of his way.

He was a living coat of writhing wrigglers when he rang her doorbell, waiting to see what kind of person she’d turn out to be. Beneath a mitten of mites, he still clutched the spray bottle in a free hand, which he held behind his back like a lover’s bouquet.

***
If you like stories like this, you’d like my collection, 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories

blood, bath and beyond

Michael Arnzen — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 17:16:13 +0000

The claw foot tub clenches
the floor whenever I twist
the handle hot, scouring the bone
tiles and filthy basin belly.
Droplets spray and pepper the flesh
– and that’s just the curtain of skin
dancing on its meat hooks, absorbing
the stream, but perpetually unclean.
I don’t understand why the blood
doesn’t wash out; why it molds so much.
Maybe something ill spills
from the green gums of that open-mouthed
shower head, spraying its sickness.
Or perhaps it’s just my plumbing.

Air Sac O’Lantern

Michael Arnzen — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 17:40:48 +0000

the illumination of the lung
will bloom in blotches of bronchial
rot curdling a purple and black
kaleidoscope of cancer
that might even pop and wheeze
and make a funny face with its holes
as the candle flame voraciously
decays, eating through,
eating air

Figure With Meat

Michael Arnzen — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 01:03:05 +0000

“one has to remember as a painter
that there is great beauty in the color of meat.” — Francis Bacon

these heavy wings
of hand carved carcass
flutter with the ghost throes
of rusty meathook panic
pulling me out of my chair
with all the audacity
of a drunken butcher
lifting me high
as a crucifixion post
and my dinner fork
clatters on the table

[ Inspired by Bacon ]

Feature Creatures

Michael Arnzen — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 06:10:16 +0000

alone, the mortician plays
a facial reconstruction game
and calls it “Mr. Potato Dead”
the corpses skin like spuds
and he makes the freaks his friends
but when the Picasso-faced
cut-ups haunt his daydreams
and threaten to pull him apart
all he can say in his defense
is that he turned the other cheek,
over and over again

Hellicatessen

Michael Arnzen — Sun, 01 May 2005 15:56:02 +0000

the demonic butcher
asked me how I liked
it sliced as he hefted
the dripping live squealer
out from the rotisserie
with his carbuncular carving
hooves and I noticed it was
pregnant when I answered
paper-thin, please, paper-thin

Cobbler

Michael Arnzen — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:33:34 +0000

hammer stuck
in your skull
like a fork resting
inside the crust
of a half-eaten pie

the claw catches light,
as polished chrome clean
as your smile
and I regret both
the choice of my grip
and the bite not taken

Artist of The Living Dead

Michael Arnzen — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:01:47 +0000

the zombie painter flamboyantly
shambles back to the gallery
to slaughter all the critics with his new show –
it’s a mixed media piece, in pieces,
splattering walls with their brains and licking
yellow clumps off the red speckled canvas
with the flattened horror of his green tongue
which smears with all the flair of a brush.
If they all weren’t so creatively rendered
they might have called him something
of a post-postmodern Pollock –
but no matter,
he’s no longer a starving artist
and he hasn’t a care for their taste

Election Day Alarm: A Parable

Michael Arnzen — Sat, 23 Oct 2004 03:57:26 +0000

The brassy horn blows, stirring him from slumber. Not a horn, he realizes as he opens his eyes — an electronic drone, the tone on his “gentle wake” alarm clock that rises a notch up in volume every ten seconds until the sleeper turns it off. He lifts his heavy eyelids and confronts the clock face. 6:56 am. Too early. He hates this whining clock. Its siren creeps on him. Its soft tone deceives him.

He’s not sure if he wants to get out of bed yet. He watches the digits on the clock — the boxy numbers burning like three blurry gold bars into his eyes. He hesitates to turn the alarm off. Doesn’t want to acknowledge the coming day. But he doesn’t want to snooze, either. Politics is a tough game, and he’s not done with it yet. Even if he wins today’s election, he’ll have to make a lot of changes. Not sure he wants to. Not sure the time is right. Not sure of anything. It’s all in the hands of those who cast the votes, anyway.

6:56. The horn blares.

The waiting, he thinks, is unbearable. Always is. His wife finally groans beside him, tossing covers. He wonders if he’s just awakened the new first lady or the wife of yet another has-been.

The clock finally turns the next minute with an audible click. He presses the button. Silence. He gets up and puts on his fancy suit.

The numbers on the clock read 6:66.

Teacheruption

Michael Arnzen — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 07:53:15 +0000

The geologist takes his old rock
chiseler to the flunky student’s skull
and then impresses upon him
the concept of earth tectonics
the hard way, mashing the plates
of his gored gaia until the crust
breaks open and a tsunami
of blood and brain splurts
out of the volcano he’s made –
lava of the learned, burning
hot red and gray all the way down
the cold canyons of his corduroy sleeves