Eden Underground: Poetry of Darkness Read online

  stronger than a bulletproof vest.

  The time of the King is over,

  the hem is full;

  Josh swallows the last chip

  and explodes in a hail of flesh—

  a real show, better than the gas chamber—

  The cop with the star on the collar

  grabs the flying head of the boy.

  It seems like a cannonball

  shot from an old, rotten brig,

  adrift.

  THE GARDEN

  The garden is closer

  than you think.

  It’s not hidden in Mesopotamia

  under that big slice of yellow ground

  where the Shatt al-Arab melts—

  fine sand, water, and angels’ piss.

  The garden is everywhere,

  two blocks from your house

  where you pass without knowing it,

  riding in your haste.

  The garden has only two trees,

  many green benches,

  a dry fountain with red fish fossils,

  and an iron gate, padlocked,

  open only on Sundays.

  You call it the asylum

  because that’s what they taught you,

  but inside, in the garden,

  there are survivors of the Great Flood,

  unkempt men and women

  wearing white pajamas

  walking around a piece of the Ark,

  their rotten wood totem.

  The inhabitants of the garden

  look around with their hawk eyes,

  look out, look at us:

  we are their ghosts,

  faceless, meaningless.

  We are hallucinations with legs and arms

  that they have to insult,

  to strangle at the earliest opportunity,

  before the next shock fries

  their memories of Eden.

  DAMES DE VOYAGE

  Flora, my oldest doll,

  has latex skin and glass eyes.

  She started my Eden,

  teaching the craft to the others.

  Flora is the favorite

  of my inanimate harem.

  She always wears the red velvet dress,

  the same as Puccini’s Floria Tosca,

  the same as Callas at the Covent Garden,

  with precious trim

  along the breast.

  Béatrice, who sleeps in bed with me

  on Thursdays,

  looks like a real woman,

  with her silicone flesh,

  the articulated joints, and the PVC skeleton.

  I love watching her mouth half open,

  the rain of her red hair on the pillow.

  Béatrice knows how to cry and laugh.

  Her artificial sweat

  smells of sunflowers.

  Doriane, my latest purchase—

  $12,000—

  is installed on all fours

  in my living room, over the Persian carpet.

  She is a custom doll,

  a replica of a fat teenager

  with slits smaller than those of the others.

  Many other dolls live in my Eden,

  cold and warm flowers,

  eyes fixed on the ceiling

  or on the oval windows

  from which you can see the roofs of Paris,

  the maze and confusion of reality.

  Ants running on the roads

  are nothing but restless souls,

  disordered, shaped by chaos.

  But all this shit

  remains behind the door,

  outside of my Eden.

  Wednesday.

  It would be Lise’s turn.

  Her adjustable tits and long fingers,

  light and flexible

  as the spears of the Macedonian cavalry.

  But I can’t wait another day

  for Béatrice, for her scent of sunflowers—

  I change the rules—

  The battery is switched on. Her eyes open.

  I move her on the bed.

  I tighten a leather collar

  around her slender white neck.

  I push myself between her thighs,

  bending her mechanical knees.

  My back burns, hit by cold flames.

  I look back. I see her . . .

  Flora wielding a knife,

  my blood dripping from her hands.

  Above the plastic diamond necklace

  appears a wicked smile

  that has never been created for her.

  Then she pierces her tits,

  letting her white love

  bleed on the marble floor.

  ELECTRIC MONKEYS

  A building scratched by green

  phosphorescent moisture;

  the laboratory inside,

  where shouts are sealed—

  The Cage—

  A monkey running

  inside, with its jaded paws

  along the perimeter of a few-inch world,

  its steel-bar forest,

  where plastic bowls and silicone branches bloom.

  The rectangles of stars, their blue neon

  always lit—

  fake constellations, too many ceilings

  inside.

  On the right, a companion with its belly open—

  ripped—

  lying on a table, its tongue out,

  surrounded by human butchers

  sticking their faces, their lights, into him.

  “What are they looking for?”

  To the left, the head of its brother

  immersed in a plastic tub

  with a label full of numbers (4587…)

  around its neck.

  That head, the monkey knows,

  has never been able to swim

  or breathe underwater.

  The man in the white coat

  comes back to The Cage,

  holding a magical syringe in one hand,

  leather ropes in the other.

  The bastard is smiling,

  showing perfect white teeth—

  the ivory house of his rattlesnake tongue—

  while his red-haired friend

  drags the electric machine

  from which poisonous suckers,

  tentacles, and burned monkey hairs

  stick out, and upon it

  crazy LEDs light up

  forming curves of red-dot tides.

  Someone turns on the music.

  The violas of the first movement

  of Mahler’s Resurrection

  vibrate, languishing for a few seconds,

  followed by horns, violins,

  and hard-skinned percussions;

  all the instruments play together

  to overpower the cries

  of the electric monkey.

  THE TENTH CIRCLE

  Lucifer, the Beast,

  shows the man the rooms of Hell;

  the swollen corridors,

  the chandeliers made of bone and onyx,

  the black bulbs,

  screwed cancers,

  ten per group,

  ten per room.

  The metastases of the bottom of the Earth

  lit by darkness.

  The man looks around,

  checks the moisture stains

  on the walls.

  The basilisks’ purple nests

  pulse in the corners.

  He leans out from the terraces,

  from the iron gratings of the windows,

  enjoying the view

  of the tenth circle attic;

  the tallest, the most expensive.

  Lucifer stops

  in front of a large wall of eyes

  that blink open and shut,

  forced to constantly watch

  the first cascade of the Styx,

  the hydrochloric acid river

  that melts the souls recently arrived.

  The visit ends;

/>   the man gives the Beast

  a check with many zeros,

  a handshake.

  The elevator goes fast.

  The cables run for hundreds of feet,

  covered by the voices of elsewhere,

  by the sudden tympanum

  of Mozart’s Lacrimosa

  which fills the cabin.

  Then, after the sound of pistons

  of arcane gear,

  the man arrives at his floor,

  lifts the manhole,

  and comes out.

  Here, where money buys everything,

  even a piece of five-star Hell

  and a requiem that never ends.

  ALMOST TO THE END

  The hooker flips a switch

  and turns on the lights of Eden—

  red, purple, orange.

  The road twists like a spine

  trying to rid itself of too many quills,

  then stretches and becomes infinite.

  The waste on the roadside

  looks like monuments—

  statues of the moment—

  remaining intact for only a few minutes

  before being gnawed

  by rats,

  by winged insects,

  by the lights of reality.

  It’s cold. January knows no half measures.

  Eden is frozen.

  The hooker is carved between tongues of ice.

  You may confuse her

  for a Renaissance fountain,

  with small groups of heretic frogs at its feet

  inflating their latex bodies.

  Your car turns right,

  as the sign says—

  Eden is here—

  pieces of flesh reflecting on the windows,

  disappearing behind the last curve,

  three hundred feet

  of hedges of ribs, mosaics of tits,

  and then you see her, your Eden,

  the broken-down spaceship of your imagination,

  towed by an old yellow truck

  that slides

  to the right and left.

  Only the glue of your obsession

  remains on the road,

  mosquitoes trapped inside it,

  and other hookers all around

  asking too much money

  for getting strangled,

  almost to the end,

  can’t stay balanced

  on the blade’s edge.

  THE END?

  Not if you come and take a look at Crystal Lake Publishing’s other titles.

  www.crystallakepub.com/books

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Alessandro Manzettiis a horror, science fiction, weird fiction and dark poetry writer. His published work in Italian includes novels, long fiction, short story and dark poem collections, as well as many short stories that have appeared in anthologies. English publications include The Massacre of the Mermaids, The Shaman and Other Shadows, Venus Intervention with Corrine De Winter as co-author, Dark Gates with Paolo Di Orazio as co-author, and stories and poems that have appeared in both print and online USA and UK magazines and anthologies, such as Dark Moon Digest, The Horror Zine Magazine, Disturbed Digest, Bones III and others.

  His poetry collection Venus Intervention was nominated for the Bram Stoker Awards 2014 and for the Elgin Award 2015, his poem The Man Who Saw The World was nominated for the Rhysling Awards 2015 and his poem Interiora was awarded with the Sinister Poetry Award 2014.

  He can be found online at www.alessandromanzetti.net

  CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR:

  Website: www.alessandromanzetti.net

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/alessandro.manzetti.5

  Twitter: www.twitter.com/amanzetti

  Email: [email protected]

  CONNECT WITH CRYSTAL LAKE PUBLISHING

  Website:

  (and receive a free eBook by joining our newsletter)

  www.crystallakepub.com

  Facebook:

  www.facebook.com/Crystallakepublishing

  Twitter:

  https://twitter.com/crystallakepub

  With unmatched success over the last two years, Crystal Lake Publishing is quickly becoming the go-to press for Dark Fiction authors and fans. We publish the highest quality Dark Fiction books and poetry collections, which include Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Thrillers, Suspense, Supernatural, and Noir.

  Crystal Lake Publishing puts integrity, honor and respect at the forefront of our operations.

  We strive for each book and outreach program that’s launched to not only entertain and touch or comment on issues that affect our readers, but also to strengthen and support the Dark Fiction field and its authors.

  Not only do we publish authors who are legends in the field and as hardworking as us, but we look for men and women who care about their readers and fellow human beings. We only publish the very best Dark Fiction, and look forward to launching many new careers.

  We strive to know each and every one of our readers, while building personal relationships with our authors, reviewers, bloggers, pod-casters, bookstores and libraries.

  Crystal Lake Publishing is and will always be a beacon of what passion and dedication, combined with overwhelming teamwork and respect, can accomplish: Unique fiction you can’t find anywhere else.

  We do not just publish books, we present you worlds within your world, doors within your mind, from talented authors who sacrifice so much for a moment of your time.

  This is what we believe in. What we stand for. This will be our legacy.

  Welcome to Crystal Lake Publishing.

  We hope you enjoyed this title. If so, we’d be grateful if you could leave a review on your blog or any of the other websites and outlets open to book reviews. Reviews are like gold to writers and publishers, since word-of-mouth is and will always be the best way to market a great book. And remember to keep an eye out for more of our books.

  THANK YOU FOR PURCHASING THIS BOOK