Moldy Heart

I kept his red blood beater in my heart-shaped box lined with green velvet as my personal valentine -- a gift I could open each year. But now his misshapen heart is velveted with a green mold lining the gaping ventricles like four obscene mouths -- chambers awaiting some small treasure I no longer have. Explanation: I found that list of offbeat phrases in the "Strange Visitors" contest awhile back amusing, and began to think of them as titles for poems...I may do more based on the others, if/when time permits. (Hint: click on the "Weblog Exclusive" department to read…

Grave Markings X & 100 Jolts NOW SHIPPING!

Delirium Books reports that the hardcover edition of Grave Markings has shipped today, so if you ordered a copy, it's on the way! The sold-out leatherbound edition will ship in about a month. I'm told there are only twelve hardcovers remaining, so if you had any inkling of getting your hands on this Stoker-award winning collectable directly from the publisher, act now! It may be difficult to get from distributors after this week. Hint: the online bookseller Shocklines, by the way, offers a slight discount on this title if you subscribe to The Goreletter. Sign up and you'll get the…

Open Caskets

the creak of a casket, opening, sounds awfully undramatic: the coffin nails slide out brown and loose on lubricated rust when the wood bends wet with worms. The box is as soggy as the body inside -- curing fetid in its pillow of shadow, wasting but the smell is what gets you: pungent as the green snot and silt cracked out of a sun-roasted oyster shell, and the information you sought out here in the soil is no longer worth chasing so you scrape dirt back into the hole, not bothering to nail the limp box shut, crushing the body…