"Death Rattle" by Pantera

Numbing rumble, countless medicine,
Depleted from years of abuse
Death rattle shaking
And there’s no faking, undertaking

Pressure point, rigor mortis
Induce, grasp of poison hands
Death rattle shaking
From years of compulsive mistaking

Death rattle shakes (x2)

Disease of eyes, the addict blindfold, reduced to
The realms of death
Death rattle shaking
Accumulating life it’s taking

Death rattle shakes (x4)

(mid)
I’ve seen the end, and there is no light.
Like deadly snakes, death rattle shakes

(solo)

Death rattle shakes (x4)

"I'm Not Crazy" by Matchbox 20

All day staring at the ceiling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All night hearing voices telling me that
I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good
For something
Hold on feeling like I'm heading for a
Break down and I dunno why

I'm not crazy
I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then You'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy
I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me

And how I used to be
Talking to myself in public
And dodgin' glances on the train
And I know I know that they've all been talking about me
I can hear their whisper
And it makes me feel that there must be something wrong with me
After all the hours thinking somehow I've lost my mind

I'm not crazy
I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy
I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be

I've been talking in my sleep
Soon they'll come to get me
And they're taking me away
I'm not crazy
I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy
I'm just a little impaired I know
Right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be
And how I used to be
How I used to be
I'm just a little lonely
How I used to be
How I used to be
I'm just a little unwell

"the mesh of a contusion"

i.


the heat of your hormones beats through well-worn trails, tigers
push through weak bivouacs. an opportunity to catch a dragonfly

arises, drawn irresistibly like a kite pulled to its grounding. natural
as an outbreak of brushfire, you caress her white skin feeling as if

your world had never ended the first time. tendrils turning towards
her sun, burning as if molten gold filled your cavity, you yearn to

drench your incandescent center in her timeless tides. your mind's
eye erases our sketches, the dandelion seed is supplanted. you are

engulfed as if rising through loaves of bread, only to crash into a
detailed picture of pale sunrise hair, near an aquiline face. her

eyes are like the skies in heaven, but her laugh will be
sharp hoes, cutting rows in your gentle landscape.



ii.


this spider's gossamer unspins, an orbit corrupts. a starling
falters and plummets towards earth, the wide ocean. sight

fades gray like a cat's paw, creation's air rushes out of this compressed
chamber. ground crumbles into spineless fossils, time holds still like a

lingering reflection of late sun on steel green buildings. morphine
can hardly quell the phantom limb, pictures curl, ochred on carpet

in abandon. a swan lake dancer became disabled from your steps that
nightfall. cinderella was only a poor girl after all. my mind's

engravings rotate in a museum's halls, lying in bed, waiting to die
takes longer than all afternoon. there was a vacuum waiting to be

unsealed, tomblike. dust of the ages will rise and spell
the same story, written in more than three languages.



--jennifer crystal chien

Movie Review of "Coraline"

"While Selick's production is not by any stretch graphic or gory, the use of odd and irregular shapes, proportions, and movement creates a dark symphony of macabre images that horrify the psyche and chill the blood all the same."

- Jordan Hiller of bangitout.com

Movie Review of "9"

"In movies, our technology is so often the ruin of us. We got that message from Stanley Kubrick way back when, and we get it now. But couldn't filmmakers let something else ruin us for a change? Even the apocalypse needs variety."

- Mary F. Pols of Time Magazine

An Excerpt from "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allen Poe

On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts -- and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire -- a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck.

The Jabberwocky

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.