AUGUST 30, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY

Summer will be over soon, the equinox only three weeks away. Winds from the North signal the impending change in seasons. the rustle of leave underfoot foretell the approach of autumn. Last night a cold gust caught me unaware. Winter, the coldest season of all hates to be forgotten.

A delicate butterfly bobbles against the August sky
Its shoulder-high flight dodges cars and trucks on 1st Avenue
I pray out a warning to the danger
The butterfly soars above the traffic
Preserving its beauty
And my hope for kindness__

I want to write a short story combining my trips to Evans Mountain, the Moose Bar and Grill, and Peter Gorr's spooky mountain retreat. Lately I have been inspired by reading HP Lovecraft and sense the mysteries of the Other Side.

Our Boy Scout troop camped atop Evans Mountain overlooking Willeys Pond. Our sleeping bags lay next to the ruins of a stagecoach inn, a two-story wreck with a gaol in the damp basement. That evening the troop leader told a campfire tale of three Dartmouth students vanishing the night before the Thanksgiving of 1943. We went to sleep scared to the marrow.

As a teenager I checked the records from the surrounding towns without finding any information affirming the incident that although the East Village isn't very conducive to traveling through dimensions other than with LSD.

in the bed

Last night Alice was hurt by my staying out all night. Her decision to sleep alone drives me out of the apartment, despite loving me and wanting to share all her pleasures and woes. Once I woke, she said she had risen at dawn and watched me sleep for several more hours.

"Your chest rose and fell so gently, but your sleep seemed like too much a waste of the day."

We loved each other in our own ways.

Thanks for your support. In order to avoid ads, please donate to blogger.com.mangozeen through Venmo. Any amount will help us. I do have a large family. My Venmo account is @Peter.Smith.18

Much more to come.

Dunwich Horror - Wilbraham - Free Poetry - October 2022

THE DUNWICH HORROR was published in 1929 by Weird Tales. Three years earlier HP Lovecraft had stayed in Wilbraham east of Springfield, Mass. The lost farmhouses scattered on the low mountains exuded a foreboding gloom inspired this tale, especially the 18th Century Whateley Farmhouse on Beebe Road.

THE DUNWICH HORROR recounts the fictional life of Wilbur Whateley, son of a deformed albino mother and an unknown father, who matures to manhood in less than ten years.

The town's secrets remain secrets, until a college professor and his co-ed aide visit at the Miskatonic University'S Library, where they meet a young man checking out the dreaded NECROMICON, a time-worn book of arcane rituals.

THE DUNWICH HORROR has long been considered one of the core stories of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, in which Wilbur Whateley, son of a deformed albino mother and an unknown father reputed to be named Yog-Sothoth, and the strange events surrounding his birth and precocious development.

THE DUNWICH HORROR was a short story written in 1928 and first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales. The tale takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts, where the heroes successfully defeat the antagonistic entity or monster of the story.

This past October my comrade in arms and I headed to Boston. The battle with my disease had sapped my strength and I was in no condition to drive north. My comrade Brigette had the wheel and I sat a prisoner in the passenger seat. The traffic on I95 jockeyed for position on the interstates like demo derby drivers on crank. The two-and-half-hour trip took five hours and were more than happy to complete our journey to the Marciano residence south of Nine Mile Pond.

My good friend Eric Marciano passed away in the summer and I wanted to see his wife. The film director was a true New Englander. When I mentioned to his son Zach that I was visiting several HP Lovecraft sites in New England he mentioned that the house on Beebe Road inspired THE DUNWICH HORROR. Brigette and I immediately said we had to go the dreaded house the next morning.

Meredith said that the Wilbraham Drive-In showed horror and bike films.

"Young couples loved horror films. The terror forced young girls into teenage boys' arms."

Watching THE DUNWICH HORROR's trailer it was easy to see how.

Zach easily found he house on Beebe Road. He had long been a fan of the horrors of HP Lovecraft and its setting amongst the stunted trees of Wilbraham Mountains epitomized the gothic horror the arcane world lost to humanity.

Even on a sunny day thee was something about the house that betrayed Lovecrafts's inspiration for THE DUNWICH HORROR

The two-story house surrounded by trees had added steps to the entrance, a side access and electricity, but little else had changed in ninety years.

We set up our signs.

Free Poetry.

We didn't believe in social media.

If someone stopped, someone stopped.

Meredith went first.

Robert Frost's THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED.

One of Eric's favorites, which the poet read at JFK's inauguration in 1961.

Brigette Lundy Paine followed with one of our favorite poets.

Ranier Maria Rilke.

We hate rich people.

Zach Marciano is a true fan of HP Lovecraft.

He read from THE DUNWICH HORROR. He like I love the terror.

Gorgons and hydras.

My reading was inspired by THE TERROR AT INNSMOUTH

A Cthulhu legend of haunted New England.

Only a Volkwagon passed us during the FREE POETRY reading.

A dog ran from the house.

It did not bark.

The dog did not scare Brigette. But not during the day

We sat on the wall.

In love with THE DUNWICH HORROR.

It must been great at the drive-in.

Beneath The Height Of Land

Beyond the windblown Height of Land
An equally windblown town
Off Route 17 running north to Quebec
Reached by rutted road
Neglected by county and state
The town has no name on a map
The few score of inhabitants call it Dogtown
There are no dogs
Nor knowledge of dogs
Under the Height of Land___

The town more a clearing
Worn weary by long and harsh winters The houses and shops and church bear witness
To the cold, snow, ice, sleet, slush, and blizzards
There is no global warming here
There is no summer
Under the Height of Land__

This is the true North
Beyond stretches the Deep North
To the Arctic
Only two seasons
The season of preparing for wintah and Wintah__

The towns people, young and old, walk like the dead
They are not dead
They live
Sad, frightened, unattached to the modern world
No cable TV
No cell phones
No Internet.
They are where they are
Dogtown
Surrounded by swamps
Under the Height of Land__

A battered Ford pick-up creeps along the rutted street
A young man behind the wheel
He parks before the church
He gets out of the car
A letter in his hand__

An old man rakes the church lawn
The young man lifts the letter
Written by a beloved grandmother
He reads the name
Out loud__
His aunt
Met once
Twenty years ago
At her brother's funeral
Outside Portland
On Falmouth Foresides
On the harbor
Far from the Height of Land____

White blonde hair, translucent skin, thin as a corpse
Moving like a goddess reincarnated from the grave
Her finger touched his face
Fingers colder than ice.
Her silver blue eyes on Portland
Like it had once belonged to her__

No smell of the sea
In Dogtown
Surrounded by the vapor of swamps
The young man says his aunt's name
Elyssas Commons
The man points to a house
Across the dirt road
A big house
Desperate for paint
The lawn a jungle
A Benz rusting on its axles
Its last ride
A long time ago__

The old man returns to raking
The young man walks to the porch
The weight of his foot
Answered by a creak
The outer walls
Caked with ashen dust
Unsullied by wind or rain or sleet
No one has been here in a long time.
A knock on the door
Nothing
He calls her name__

Elyssas__

Whispers of footsteps
The door opens
Her aunt smiles with yellowed teeth
Her gossamer gown reveals magic
She has not aged a day
She
Maybe a child
Maybe a crone
A beckoning finger
Skin and bone___

He steps inside
The house a mausoleum
Her bare feet
Pad on dust turned to powder.
The veil hides nothing
Skin white as Virgin vanilla ice cream
High hipbones

A concave belly
A protruding pelvis rod
Pancake breasts
Stiff cigartip nipples
His aunt a wraith
Skin and bones
Driven by
Desire of the wanton__

"Where's your husband?"
"Dead," his aunt whispered in the voice of a forgotten movie star. "Does it matter?"
"No."
She takes his hand
Leads him upstairs
There are no lights
More and more shadows
They are both alive
Also both ghosts__

Inside a bedroom
He hands her the letter
She puts it on a table
Next to a bed
Sheets smell of dead flowers and her flesh of the grave
Earthy.
His aunt parts her gown
His hand pressed against her groin
Wet
Her gash
Fevered
Unlike her cool skin
She lies back
Sighs
Legs apart
He
Enters
Her
She take him
Lost
Lost
Lost
Thrust into his aunt
His mother's sister.
Again
Again
Again
No words
Grunts and groans
Finish with a gasp
Again
Again
Again
Her bones creak with need
More
More
More
Under the Height of Land____

Small people bring food
Wine
Water
They wordlessly worship her
The young man only fucks her
More
More
More
He sleeps
She never
His body surrendered to hers
Day
Night
Day Night
Fucking
Naked
Always
His skin
Raw
Tattered by her nails
There is no nos.
She a demon
He a willing victim
Lust savage godless lust
Elyssas adn he her slave
His mistress
Under the Height of Land__

On the third midnight
He wakes to chanting
Then a scream
Firelight in the window
Red flames flickers through the cracked walls He crosses the room__

Outside
Elyssas
Naked
Dancing around a blaze
With the dwarves
Naked With her husband
Naked
Not dead
Not alive
Like Elyssas___

No desire to run
He is one of them
Them
Sharing the same wicked blood.

His grandother's letter untouched on the floor.

Later
Elyssas lifts her head
Semen dripping from her lips.
A knife gleams in the candlelight
The blade traces runes on his skin
She wants him to cry
To feel his pain
To bury him under surrender
The point cuts deep
He does not cry
He does not surrender
He is he
No longer belonging to she

A right to her head
Elyssas topples from the bed
Knife on the floor
Grabs his clothes and the letter.
He does not run
Not from her__

From the house
Across the tortured garden
Past the fire
The dwarves
His uncle
To the pick-up
Naked

The F 150 starts
His foot revs the V6
His eyes on the second floor
Elyssas at the window
With with her husband
Wraiths
His blood
The dwarves grab at the door.
Drive
The wheels thump over small bodies
He'll have to wash the pick up later__

At Route 17
The young man opens the letter
One word
Shaky script
'Family'__

Over his shoulder.
Only darkness
No one in the rearview mirror.
Only darkness.
His foot stamps on the gas.
Away from the Height of Land And Elyssas
And family
No one waits at his destination
New York
And that's a good thing
Sometimes.
Having no one is a good thing
Especially under the Height of Land__

Copps Hill Cemetery

On an October afternoon I wandered through the Copps Hill Cemetery.
One of the oldest in Boston.
HP Lovecraft wrote a story About tunnels running underneath the graves.
To a hellish world.
Pickman's Model
"There were witches and what their spells summoned; pirates and what they brought in from the sea; smugglers; privateers—and I tell you, people knew how to live, and how to enlarge the bounds of life, in the old times!"
The horror.
None of a sunny autumn afternoon.
I looked for my family Brewsters Howells and Hamblins.

On the black flat tombstone
I knew none of the buried
But recognized the names

Of the dead from three hundred years ago.

Dead for centuries

But still alive in eternity.
As we get old

We forget
As we get older
We are forgotten
Except by the gravestones
Until the wind erases away the names.

Dead Dreams

Most people think that it is impossible to dream about your death. Common myth upholds to dream of your death would cause your own death, however according to experts most dreams of death symbolize a renewal of life or a change in the path of your destiny. Freudians regard all dreams interpreting the two basic drives in life; sex and death.

I came close to dying in my dream after eating a potato taco in a small Mexican village. That night my stomach rumbled and my head was filled with danger, as I read HP Lovecraft. THE TERROR AT INNSMOUTH was not the best story to read before sleep.

In my dream zombies chased me through a garden. I was trapped in a screened gazebo. Their fingernails scratched at the thin barrier.

"Stop." A dirt-covered zombie called out to his minions. "Tell me the secret of human life and we will let you live for another 60 seconds."

"The secret of human life?" I was stumped having only score a C in Philosophy 101, then it came to me. The secret of human life was that even though my end was going to be horrible, I wanted those extra sixty seconds.

"I'm waiting." The undead's overlord was impatient and I rewarded his vice by waking up and saving the human race. I asked several psychic friends for an interpretation of this dream. Most said that dying wasn't bad.

"But I didn't die. I only met dead people."

The majority of the dream-soothers considered this encounter to be the subconsciousness' way of grieving, except none of the zombies had been family members or friends or foe.

The only psychic with any sense was an old gypsy woman on the Lower East Side.

"Some dreams don't mean anything. They just are. Same as death as in life."

I believed her words until dying in a series of dreams in 1982.

I died from nuclear blasts in New York, Moscow, and a Siberian airfield after making love with a Russian airwoman. The dreams occurred over a three month period during the Pershing missile deployment in Germany. I was living in Hamburg. The sex and death aspects of these dreams were overpowered by the premonition of impending doom.

My fear of nuclear holocaust was superseded by the threat of a German pimp, who said that owed him 20,000 for having sex with one of his girls. Ilsa never said she was working. SS Tommy laughed, saying everyone in Hamburg was working for someone.

I fled northern Germany, leaving behind a car and apartment.

No nuclear bombs killed me and neither had SS Tommy.

Not in reality or my dreams.

COUNTRY BOY HP Lovecraft

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxpmTNmPGms

I love HP Lovecraft. The band and the writer. I am an old hippie. ps fuck Steve Palazzo GOP-Missisppi To hear COUNTRY BOY, please go to the following URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxpmTNmPGms and to hear them live at the Filmore, go to this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEB-MpXJAMI