Some frightful, eldritch poetry by EP Dickcraft

A PS to yesterday’s post about Emily Dickinson and some noxious jelly that came out of a meteorite at Amherst, Massachusetts in 1819. I mentioned HP Lovecraft and Emily Dickinson: I have now mashed up HP Lovecraft and Emily Dickinson. I also mentioned Morrissey. PRAY I DO NOT MASH UP HP LOVECRAFT AND MORRISSEY.

I started Late – Killed my Dog

And visited Arkham –

The Shoggoths in the Cellars

Oozed out – To my alarm –

And in the Upper Floors

Folk with mien of Frog

Extended Rugose Hands –

Presuming me to be their Dinner

Sent over – to be devoured

Delivered – in Butcher’s paper

To a Color out of Space –

Frightful messenger

From Unformed Realms –

Of Infinity beyond all Nature –

Whose mere existence

Stuns the Brain –

Numbs us with the Black Gulfs

It throws open

Before our Frenzied eyes.

No Figment of the Thing That dazzled, Yesterday

I made this picture of Emily Dickinson. I can only apologise.

In which I manage to discuss the poetry of Emily Dickinson, cosmic horror, Superman, Morrissey and Steve McQueen without exerting myself unduly.

Recently I was perusing a laughable book about- well, it’s hard to say exactly. Just sort of general things that might be called inexplicable or mysteries if anybody actually gave a shit about them or they weren’t clearly the result of somebody suffering from a bout of delirious, drunken stupidity or mental illness. Like Fortean Times, but even more random. Is there a turkey in the Bayeux Tapestry? It’s not really a mystery if nobody cares about the solution.

It’s the sort of book that usually costs a few pounds in a remainder shop, or is for sale in what my esteemed colleague Kid Carpet calls Mystical Shit shops (Seriously, I am a huge fan of Kid Carpet. Download his song Mystical Shit for a start), alongside dream catchers, rag rugs and crystals to unbung your chakras. My local library has loads of these books, for some reason. And a very comprehensive  but never used section on things like irritable bowel syndrome, drug induced psychosis, anorexia and whatnot. For obvious reasons I’ve never made any effort to befriend the librarians.

Anyway, there was one interesting thing in the aforementioned book: an account of some strange jelly that apparently fell out of space in 1819 and landed in Amherst, Massachusetts. It seems not to have occurred to the author that this (at the time very small) place was the lifelong home of the poet Emily Dickinson and her family, although she wasn’t born for another 11 years.