Large Fierce Mammal

Visitors to the Alnwick Poison Garden are prohibited from smelling, touching, or tasting anything, lest they die. (Alnwick is pronounced “ANN-ick”)

Murder by poison has a long dark history. For example, whether historically accurate or cooked up by rivals, the Borgia family name is indelibly stained with it. Poison is less used today for killing things that walk on two legs for reasons well presented by Esther Inglis-Arkell in her article The Deadliest Poisons in History (And Why People Stopped Using Them). Go and read that. You’ll enjoy it, and might even avoid arrest thereby. Major thanks to my Esteemed Friend Jim Keating for bringing it to my attention.

In this iteration of Dark Sentiments, we’ve already looked at one poisoner in my poem Laura’s Pie back on Day 2. You will recall that Laura liked to lure men with her mysteriously long lasting looks, charm them with her skills in the boudoir and kitchen, and then kill them with her Hemlock laced pie. Her motives were obvious to everyone but her hapless victims who were all thinking with the wrong head. ~ Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 11: Bertram’s Restaurant

In 1995, Jane Percy became the Duchess of Northumberland when her husband, Ralph Percy, inherited the title and responsibilities of 12th Duke of Northumberland following the sudden and unexpected death of his brother. An interesting turn of affairs considering the subject matter of today’s Dark Sentiment, but I can assure you that it had nothing to do with what you’re thinking. (more…)

“Toilet of Lampito” by Aubrey Beardsley – click to enlarge

Today’s Dark Sentiment is about things that some people permit to smell bad but shouldn’t, for there have been times and places in history, including very recent history if you get around much, when the olfactory senses have found themselves in need of assistance that has to be nothing short of supernatural.

The poem that follows was inspired by Toilet of Lampito by Aubrey Beardsley, of whom we’ve recently spoken.

The Bum Puff Fairy

By LFM

The Bum Puff Fairy comes to serve
Who speaks the righteous word.
He’ll freshen you both front and back,
And fears no size of turd.

To summon him to serve you is
As complex as it’s long,
But truly worth the trouble
For an arse that’s worth a song!

At moonlit crossroads, dig a hole,
And fill it up with rum,
Then add a bit of corn cob
That you’ve used to wipe your bum.

Next, counterclockwise spin about
Until the count of three,
Then just before you cover it,
Top up the hole with pee.

Now raise your kilt and moon the moon,
Then squat above the hole,
And speak these words as loud and clear
As with your very soul!

“Crossbow! Crossbow!
“Daddy shot a bear!
“Shot him up the asshole,
“And never touched a hair!”

Now fart three times and leap away,
The spell has come to pass!
Be speedy now, lest like the bolt
He shoots straight up your ass!

A thing of purest cleanliness
The Bum Puff Fairy is.
Every bum he cleans he makes
As clean a bum as his.

Your household full of privates,
When the Fairy sees them quelled,
Ensures that every fart and queef,
Though heard, is never smelled.

Despite his name, this Fairy’s not
Exclusively for ass.
He’ll quiet any stench from
Exudation come to pass.

He has a wee erection that
He will not leave alone,
So hand rubbed to perfection
That it gleams like polished bone.

A really small perversion though
For hygiene so profound,
But all the same you’d best not
Drop the soap when he’s around.

Tessa’s miniscule sculptures reinvigorate a belief in fairies: not the sweet Tinkerbell image in popular conscience, but a biological, entomological, macabre species translating pastoral fable into nightmarish lore. Constructed from bits of organic material, such as roots, leaves, and dead insects, each of Tessa’s figures stand barely 1 cm tall, their painstakingly intricate detail visible only through a magnifying glass. ~ About Tessa

Source: facebook

Unless otherwise noted, all still images that appear in this article are from the official Tessa Farmer website which states, “Tessa Farmer was born in 1978 in Birmingham, UK and is an artist based in London. She received her BA in 2000 and her MA in 2003 from the Ruskin, Oxford. Subsequent awards include the Vivien Leigh Prize, a sculpture residency in King’s Wood, Challock, Kent, and a Royal British Society of Sculptors Bursary Award. In 2007 she was nominated for The Times/ The South Bank Show Breakthrough Award …

“… Hovering with rarefied, jewel-like beauty, Tessa’s tiny spectacles resound with a theurgist exotica: their specimen forms borrow from Victorian occultism to evolve as something alien and futuristic. Playing out apocalyptic narratives of a microscopic underworld, Tessa’s manikin wonders rule with baneful fervour: harnessing mayflies, battling honey bees, attacking spindly spiders. Presented as wee preternatural discoveries, Tessa’s sculptures conjure a superstitious premise, dismantling the mythos of fantasia with evidence of something much more gothic, sinister, and bewitching.”

When I first set eyes on the Good Ms. Farmer’s work, I was reminded at once of the work of Juan Cabana, Kate Clark, and also of a personal experience I once had, except in that last case far less delightful in demeanor. (more…)

The macabre has long held uneasy sway over the human condition. From ghost stories to creation myths, from CSI to Shakespeare, from cable news voyeurism to Edgar Allan Poe, subjects of death, murder and all things ghastly have fascinated and frightened for centuries. Songs are no exception. From Old World roots to more recent incarnations in America, the murder ballad has traversed, shapeshifted and persevered. Despite our collective desire to be good and virtuous, people do very bad things. And then we sing about them. ~ Vandaveer – Bio & Media

Source: Vandaveer – Bio & Media

Releasing their debut album in 2007, “Vandaveer is a musical project spearheaded by Mark Charles Heidinger, who also fronts the group the Apparitions and plays bass sporadically for These United States. Unlike his other groups, Vandaveer is primarily a solo project anchored by Heidinger’s voice and acoustic guitar, displaying the influence of such iconic singer/songwriters as Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, though both on-stage and in the recording studio Heidinger is assisted by a number of talented friends and colleagues. For Vandaveer’s debut album, 2007’s Grace & Speed, Heidinger’s accompanists included guitarist Justin Craig, percussionist Robby Cosenza, and Chris Sullivan on clarinet and ukulele, while Vandaveer’s live ensemble usually features vocalist Rose Guerin and drummer Robby Catholic.”  (Source: iTunes)

Vandaveer’s 2013 album Oh Willie Please is comprised entirely of murder ballads, which more than qualifies the Artist’s inclusion here. It was an interview for The Order of the Good Death titled Vandaveer Takes On the Dark, Luscious Murder Ballad “Pretty Polly that first brought this music to my attention.

I’m going to keep it short and anything but sweet by presenting two Vandaveer performances for your enjoyment. Only two here, but don’t let that stop you from pursuing things further on your own! (more…)

The study of any Martial Way that may lend itself to the harming or killing of another human being both broadens one’s horizons and limits options. I speak of limitations because if you are known to be skilled in empty hand techniques, a blade, or with firearms for example, you will be immediately suspected if your presence ever comes to be inconveniently coincident with a violent death inflicted by means you happen to be good at. Obviously, what I’m saying is you have to use other methods.

It’s a Dark Sentiments tradition that every year I either dedicate a piece to, or overtly write something inspired by Martin, my Esteemed Friend and forensic investigator for no less august body than the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Well, this year it’s both. While I’m sure his approach is more detailed than that of the Corporal in this tale, perhaps that Corporal knew more than one might think. (more…)

Fun With the Great Unwashed

By LFM

There’s a thing I like to do,
Each seven years or so.
I spread a rumour that I’ve died
Through towns I rarely go.

Then off about my business
For at least another year,
Watching people stop and stare,
Then cross themselves in fear.

Most fun of all is something
That my Wife and I enjoy.
And pretty soon we’ll teach it to
Our darling little boy.

We both dress all in black and then
We go out on the town.
We pick a place to watch the crowd
And sip our cocktails down.

Pretty soon, it never fails,
Some hoople takes the bait.
They’ll find a way to sidle up
And interrupt our date.

“Whose funeral?” they’ll ask,
In meaning, anything but kind.
I’ll nod toward my Wife and say,
“She’s making up her mind.”

T’is not to say all women crave
Such ravishment as this.
And if you think that’s what I’ve said
There’s something that you miss.

A Lover worthy of the name
Is one who’s come to find
That the truest path to heart’s desire
Lies through a woman’s mind.

~ Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 28: Force Continuum ~

In the spirit of Dark Sentiments 2014 – Day 4: The Erotic Art of Yoji Muku, I was inspired to write this. I invite you to either visit or revisit that episode with respect to the customary adult content reminder. (more…)

Before Canada eliminated the death penalty for murder on July 14, 1976, 1,481 people were sentenced to death, with 710 executed. Of those executed, 697 were men and 13 were women. The only method used in Canada for capital punishment of civilians after the end of the French regime was hanging. The last execution in Canada was the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin on December 11, 1962, at Toronto’s Don Jail.

On June 30, 1987, a bill to restore the death penalty was defeated by the House of Commons in a close 148-127 vote, in which Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Minister of Justice Ray Hnatyshyn and Minister of External Affairs Joe Clark opposed the bill, whereas Deputy Prime Minister Donald Mazankowski and a majority of Progressive Conservative MPs supported. ~ Capital Punishment in Canada

In my studies of Canadian executions and those charged with the doing of the same, I soon learned that the well runs deep. So deep in fact that that what you’ll see today is only a fragment of what floated to the top when I started dredging. (more…)

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-1898); photographed at the approximate age of 23 by Frederick H. Evans. (Click to enlarge.)

The Valiant

A ballad

The valiant was a noble bark
         As ever ploughed the sea,
A noble crew she also had
         As ever there might be.

When once at night upon the deep
         The Valiant did sail,
Her captain saw a pirate ship
         By the moonlight dim and pale.

Then up he called his goodly crew
         And unto them thus spake:
“A musket and a cutlass sharp
         Each must directly take.

“For yonder see a pirate ship,
         Behold her flag so dark;
See now the gloomy vessel
         Makes straight for this our bark.”

Scarce had the Captain spoke those words
         Than a shot o’er his head did fly
From the deck of the pirate ship which now
         To the Valiant was hard by.

Approaching near, twelve desperate men
         On the Valiant’s deck did leap,
But some there were less brave and strong
         Who to their ship did keep.

And then a moment afterwards
         Did a bloody fray ensue,
And as the time sped onward
         Fiercer the fray it grew.

“Come on!” the Valiant’s captain cried,
         “Come on, my comrades brave,
And if we die we shall not sink
         Inglorious ’neath the wave.”

When the morning came, and the men arose,
         The pirates, where were they?
The ship had sunk and all its crew;
         Dead ’neath the sea they lay.

What you’ve just read was the first published literary work of Aubrey Vincent Beardsley whose artistic talents were silenced when he died of tuberculosis before reaching his 26th birthday. The poem was published within the covers of Past and Present, the magazine of the Brighton Grammar School, Vol. X, No.2, June 1885, but he’d written it the previous year when he was twelve, inspired by a popular childrens’ book, The Lives of All the Notorious Pirates. Only twelve and already inspired by blades, blood, and mayhem on the high seas. Ah, what levels our modern times and their so widely held and meagre efforts at child rearing have sunk to. (more…)

I’m not sure how I managed it, but I only first learned of the Norwegian brothers Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker, and their musical talents under the name of Ylvis, in the past few months. Lucky for me, they came into my life just in time to provide the musical introduction to today’s Dark Sentiment with The Fox. From my informal opinion poll conducted among my array of associates, you’ll either love it or hate it. (more…)