The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

wrote, “Piece de Resistance,” “Stained Glass” and “Hotel Hallucinogen.” I hope that you’ll find them more to your taste.
    Thank you for considering these submissions, and I’m looking forward to receiving my subscription to Night Terrors Magazine .
    Sincerely,                 
    Brian Warner            

    PIECE BE RESISTANCE
    When the fork eats the spoon,
    and the knife stabs
    the face reflected in the plate,
    dinner is over.
    STAINED GLASS
    In the wooden silence
    genuflecting fornicators
    seek penance and
    false-toothed idealists
    throw grubsteaks on the offering plate.
    light a candle for the sinners
    light a fire
    Self-pronounced prophet, parable-speaking Protestant
    preaches his diatonic dogma,
    disemboweling indiscreetly.
    supplicate
    congregate
    the world looks better through stained glass
    light a candle for the sinners
    set the world on fire
    Falsities
    Falsities
    Falsified factualities;
    All sitting like eager sponges,
    soaking up the tertiary realities of life.
    HOTEL HALLUCINOGEN
    Lying in bed contemplating
    tomorrow, simply meditating,
    I stare into a single empty
    spot, and I notice a penetrating
    of two eyes looking up and
    down and at various odd angles
    secretly inspecting me; and I
    feel my stare tugged away
    from the blank screen in
    front of my eyes and directed
    at the eight empty beer cans
    forming an unintentional pyramid.
    And I close my lids to think–
    How many hours have passed
    since I constructed such an
    immaculate edifice of tin?
    Or did I create it all?
    Was it the watchers?
    I open my eyes and return my stare to the pyramid.
    But the pyramid has now
    become a flaming pyre, and
    the face within is my own.
    What is this prophecy that
    comes to me like a delivery boy,
    cold and uncaring of its message,
    asking only for recognition?
    But I will not fall prey
    to this revelation of irrelevance
    I will not recognize this perversion
    of thought.
    I will not.
    I hurl my pillow at the
    infernal grave, as if to save my
    eyes from horrific understanding,
    and I hear the hollow clang
    of seven empty beer cans,
    not eight–
    Was it fate that left
    one to stand?
    Why does this solitary tin soldier
    stand in defiance to my
    pillow talk of annihilation?
    Then, for some odd, idiotic,
    most definitely enigmatic reason
    the can begins to erupt in a barrage of
    whimpering cries.
    Does he lament because his
    friends and family are gone
    or that he has no one
    with which to spawn?
    They were gone…
    But no, that’s not the reason.
    It is a baby’s cry of his mother’s
    treason.
    The screaming fear of abandonment.
    And this wailing, screaming, whining
    causes the dead cans to rise
    and I can’t believe my eyes,
    that this concession of
    beverage containers is chanting
    in a cacophony of shallow rebellion
    to my Doctrine of Annihilation
    that was discussed in my
    Summit of the Pillow (which is now
    lost among the stamping feet of the
    aluminum-alloy anarchists).
    I am afraid, afraid of these
    cans, these nihilistic rebels.
    As the one approaches–the baby cryer,
    I suppose my fear now
    escalates, constructing a wall
    around my bed, trying to shut
    everything out
    but without a doubt
    the cryer casually climbs what
    I thought was a Great Wall
    not unlike the one in Berlin.
    He begins to speak.
    His words flow cryptically from
    the hole in his head
    like funeral music: deep, resonant,
    and sorrowful.
    He says to me: “You must
    surrender to your dreams it’s just.
    We sit all day planning for your attendance
    and upon arrival you
    very impolitely
    ignore us.”
    In awe, I nod involuntarily
    and he closes my eyes.
    No.
    He gives me a pair of aphrodisiac sunglasses,
    and I fall asleep in the shade.
    Asleep in a field of hyacinth and jade.
    When I crawl out of my sleep
    I get up,
    my hair a tangled mess of golden locks.
    I enter the kitchen,
    and go to the icebox.
    I pull out a single can of beer,
    and as I begin to drink
    I hear
    The weeping of an abandoned infant.

    June 5, 1988             
    Brian Warner            
    3450 Banks Rd. #207
    Margate, FL 33063    
    John Glazer, Editor
    Night Terrors Magazine
    1007 Union Street
    Schenectady, NY 12308
    Dear John Glazer,
    I received my first copy of Night Terrors in the mail two weeks ago, and have now read the entire issue. I