Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 17: Faulkner Was Right

| October 17, 2013

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain” ~ William Faulkner This poem was inspired by personally experienced actual events that played out way back in the mid 1980’s. I have never been so happy to be in the grip of the worst physical pain I have ever experienced, […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 16: The Dark Side of Child Rearing

| October 16, 2013

“During the second half of the nineteenth century, death was the ultimate act of nature—beyond human control and ever present. The death rate of infants were so high that babies were often not given names until they were one year old, and the death of infants were often unrecorded. The ubiquity of death, due in […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 15: Indestructible Sam

| October 15, 2013

Samuel Dombey was a black man living in New Orleans following the Civil War. Times were tough in the south, but Sam continued to bring money in by digging graves. He did an excellent job and his price was much lower that the competing gravediggers in the New Orleans area. In time, the lower prices […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 13: Whither Thou Goest?

| October 13, 2013

I once convinced a small group of idiots that my birth certificate had an expiry date stamped on it. Don’t try this yourselves though, because my powers of persuasion exceed that of mere mortals, and I’d hate to be responsible for any of you hurting yourselves; at least if I’m not there to watch. Good […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 12: The Old Hag Returns!

| October 12, 2013

As if yesterday’s coverage wasn’t enough, I couldn’t resist trotting out The Old Hag just one more time. After all, in another life, I was married to her for quite a while, and back then, trotted her out more than a few times. Today we’ve got the trailer, and a sequence of ten bits of […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 11: The Old Hag

| October 11, 2013

So on his Nightmare through the evening fog Flits the squab Fiend o’er fen, and lake, and bog; Seeks some love-wilder’d maid with sleep oppress’d, Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast. ~ Night-Mare ~ Erasmus Darwin O’er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet, Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet; In vain […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 10: Death Comes to Call

| October 10, 2013

This poem was inspired by a combination of actual events – some of my own experience, and others reported to me. The character of Death came from a brief encounter with a striking black gent who strode through the front door of the Bridgewater South Shore Regional Hospital one cold morning while Mrs. LFM and […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 9: Your REAL Net Worth

| October 9, 2013

Look at you. You used to be so cocky. You were going to go out and conquer the world. You once called me a warped, frustrated, old man! What are you but a warped, frustrated young man? A miserable little clerk crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help. No securities, […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 8: The Proverbial Skin Off His Back

| October 8, 2013

Back while Dark Sentiments 2011 was in full swing, a Physician I hold in high Esteem placed in my hand a very curious artifact indeed. It was a whip fashioned in the form of three knotted leather falls that splayed forth from a darkly stained, wear polished handle crafted from a Human tibia – the primary […]

Dark Sentiments 2013 – Day 6: Frozen Dead Guy Days

| October 6, 2013

A whole 31 days in October every year, and it still can’t hold all the shit I find in the 12 months leading up to it. Ah well, one does what one can. “Frozen Dead Guy Days” is an annual event held in Nederland, Colorado – next scheduled for 7, and, and 9 March 2014 – […]