So stealing a boot and casting a spell, the witch had wreaked vengeance so very well.

Wearing moon silver like armor and mail, the former soldier, rode home to his wife.

They dried their tears and climbed in bed, the stars at their window, the wind at their door, the howl of the coyote like the call of the dead.

They came together in a tearful wail, loved one another with all their might, tried to make a child that very night, did what they could to set themselves right.

Back on the desert, next day in the sun, the Apache witch man was dead and done.

Found at the mouth of a cave near an army boot, the witch man was burned and wadded, with a hole in his chest, the demon of the desert had left its nest.

About Joe R. Lansdale Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels, twenty short story collections, screenplays, comic scripts, essays and non-fiction. His novel Vanilla Ride, from Knopf, is part of his Hap and Leonard series. Others in the series are currently being reprinted by Vintage Books.

Joe R. Lansdale's novella, Bubba Ho-Tep, was the inspiration for Don Coscarelli's cult cla.s.sic film, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis.

And now there is a new Lansdale book: The Best of Joe R. Lansdale. Lansdale's favored themes run from zombies to vampire hunters to drive-in theaters, and his storytelling encompa.s.ses everything from gross-out horror to satire.

http://www.joerlansdale.com.

DARK SHADOW CLUBBING..

by Everett Madrid.

Dancing there alone in the shadows, my eyes started to ring and sting.

When I saw that it was the real you, I wanted to cry and silently scream.

Then I barely realized with fright, it was only a cracked mirror.

You were dancing in the background, glaring at me and dancing nearer.

It was too dark to see, what it was you held in your hand.

It was too late to stop, by the time I realized what you had planned.

You get to have all that you want, when you dance with me behind the Black Door.

A th.o.r.n.y rose with black pedals dripping in your blood, the perfect gift I have been wishing for.

DANCING IN REPRISE.

by Everett Madrid I'm here to serenade you with the letters, written as you recently requested.

The fuzzy line between you and me, just went quantum with what you be-quested.

I know it's that bad and I've been there myself, many times before in another life full of strife.

The end is not the answer we're searching for now, until fully experiencing the roller coaster of this life.

I know you were expecting only one for you, mine must come as quite a pleasant surprise.

It wrote itself to the music as I wrote yours, two little suicide notes dancing in reprise.

I know you won't do it because you're not through yet, with yourself or me and so I can't let you be.

I can't let you in good conscience end it this way; writing the note that blames your pain on me.

Whatever the time that brings you to the very end, it is going to be in the cradle of my arms or not at all.

If you end it with step off of this very steep cliff, I'm going to catch you before the end of our fall.

INVISIBLE HAPPY EMOTIONS.

by Everett Madrid You are now gone and not because of death, once again I feel close to complete.

You left me with nothing but my last breath, and the empty feeling of deplete.

The day has finally come to linger, you are no longer part of my existing life.

When I think of you now I'll only remember the sickness and lonely, constant strife.

I should have known it was doomed to land, when the desire to have you was gone.

You only wanted a golden stage upon to stand, and my shoulders to place it square upon.

With you by my side I had never been so alone all of the way, to the terrible very end.

I've forgotten how to laugh, the feeling to belong somewhere, anywhere, with good friends.

My emotions are mostly invisible now or in rear, I can no longer imagine happiness as a station.

What I received in return was loss of everything dear, and a very big bad reputation.

You will not be remembered as an ex-flame, or the hand for which I was the glove.

You were just an artist I once tried to help, and the shadow I twice tried to love.

About Everett Madrid.

After a successful ten year career as a Navy engineer, Everett Madrid (otherwise known as b.a.d., which stands for beat art dealer) worked as a consultant and sales engineer for the semi-conductor and telecommunications industry. He completed advanced management application training (Total Quality Management), in addition to earning a BA in Organizational Management in 1995 at St. Mary's College of California. He left the corporate culture to follow his pa.s.sion and entered the art business as a sales consultant. His pa.s.sion for excellence and love for the arts enabled his quick rise in the gallery world, landing him a director position in one of the largest art galleries in the country.

Over the following five years, Everett would deal in the works of Pablo Pica.s.so, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Rembrandt, Andy Warhol and a myriad of historically important and contemporary artists.

While it was exciting dealing in the great arts of the past, Everett's true pa.s.sion grew to be contemporary art and promoting the careers of living artists. Launching Gallery Culture in 2003 as a hobby, he provided free artist portfolio hosting and event listings, thus creating a national network of artists and contacts. In 2003, he produced a six-month bi-weekly mini-series covering the San Francisco emerging arts community in addition to conducting countless interviews. In 2005, he curated his first museum exhibition that included the publication of the artist's catalogue reasonne and a doc.u.mentary film.

A RESPONSE TO SETH GRAHAME-SMITH'S ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER.

by Juan Perez.

The proverbial log cabin ax.

Shining with moonlight Where otherwise covered With foreign, crimson fluid Death, a fact.

To someone or something Always, yet what A barnyard blitz On a concrete jungle Puzzle pieces waiting.

To recover, return To its owner.

A human converted To the blood-sucking disease Surely will not stand So long as the hunter lives For man cannot endure In a place half-human, half-beast For one will surely end the other As man divides against himself So long as either shall live For as long as the hunter shall resolve As the last best hope for earth Lincoln, for the ages ONE NIGHT'S LAST STAND.

by Juan Perez Sana, sana, colita de rana Si no sanas ahora, sanas manana Precisely the morning That I had to hold on to My hands melting away Holding on for dear life La bruja was pleading Kicking, screaming Biting, clawing To get far from meI, frightened for life She, attempting to claim my soul For a strange night of s.e.x The smell of sanguineous sulfur Her morphean skin, my human one Begging to be mine forever a.s.sume any form I wanted Any woman I desired All I had to do was let her go before sunlight Yet, I would lose more Than I could ever gain l.u.s.t and one d.a.m.ned bottle of tequila Had gotten me here At the end of my proverbial rope Holding on to a sobering dear sun To burn this sin completely away A witch's death on my mortal hands Her dark husband shall have to wait A far, distant chilly night Before claiming what she paid for In this hot, beautiful new sun My scarred, melted hands Reminding me of this senseless conquest Sana, sana, colita de rana Si no sanas ahora, sanas manana THE MEXICAN WHO TRIED TO SAVE THE WORLD.

by Juan Perez Standing alone Where oblivion is not as noisy As I had first imagined Where all I knew Where all I loved Was sucked away Into a faceless vacuum Where my thoughtful warnings Did nothing to stop self-destruction Where life and counter-life Danced the wicked beat of time Where oblivion steps in now Not as noisy as I first imagined Had I not attempted To save this world Only dissatisfaction would remain With no room for lovely memories With no room left to be human Had I imagined a noiseless ending I would not had bothered as much Besides, human is my final name Yet, that too will soon be forgotten For what oblivion has truthfully taken It will never share again And death its only partner Yet that is okay somehow For life was a noisy world Oblivion not so much Not as I had first imagined CENTAUR-LET BI-POLAR OWNER.

by Juan Perez I la.s.soed a Martian centaur-let [to kill it]

So my little Machitaz could have it [to eat it]

How lovely they really are [on a platter]

Here on the red planet Mars [let's kill more]

My lovely Machitaz, she loves her [as a side dish]

She strokes all four hands on its fur [to prepare it]

She gently straddles its back and rides [right back to me]

Even secrets to it she confides [that I will kill you].

About Juan Perez.

After a decade of military service, including the First Gulf War (1991), Juan Manuel Perez is now a public school history teacher and author of six poetry chapbooks which includes Dial H For Horror (2006), plus two full contemporary multi-culture poetry collections, Another Menudo Sunday (2007) and the e-book, O Dark Heaven (2009). He has also completed three other poetry ma.n.u.scripts: W.U.I.: Written Under The Influence of Trinidad Sanchez, Jr., Comic Book Love Affair and Make Tortillas Not War.

He is a member of the San Antonio Poets a.s.sociation, the Poetry Society of Texas, and the Science Fiction Poetry a.s.sociation, as well as student of the great Chicano poet Trinidad Sanchez, Jr. He has also been a featured reader at many poetry venues in Southwest Texas.

His work has recently appeared in Jazma Online, The People's Comic Book Newsletter, Boundless, Voices De La Luna, International Poetry Review, Illumen, Star*Line: the Journal of the Science Fiction Poetry a.s.sociation, The Poet Magazine, di-verse-city, Voices Along The River, The Dreamcatcher, Inkwell Echoes, The Palm's Leaf, and Message of the Muse. He was recently named the second Runner Up in the 2009 San Antonio Poet's a.s.sociation's Poet Laureate Compet.i.tion.

http://www.juanmperez.com.

SANCTIMONIOUS SAINT AT THE SINNER'S BALL.

by Nathan Rowark.

Sanctimonious saint at the sinner's ball and my ticket's turned to dust.

As the tumultuous drums drown the vodka and rum flowing over the bodies of l.u.s.t, Through the rose-tinted scry of my twisted mind's eye stands a poet and beggar aghast, As the dwarfed brigade of the preaching concave are consumed in the fires of their past.

Making my way to the bar, seeing hope from afar, I pa.s.s by a fashion's high sin.

As she tilts down her head her eyes roll up in red and thick diamante garrotes neck and limb.

In a moment of shock, running demons amok in a last ditch attempt for the door; A man stops me in threads and what descends from his lips are the reasons, what whys and what fors.

Said he, "This place that you mar is living proof that we are all the deepest desires yet to come.

And if you continue this fashionable song, you will stay here, and d.a.m.ned be every one."

Unknowingly eloped in the thoughts of my hope, he did not see the truth fly his way, And with fire in my heart and courageous art, I dispensed my own song for display.

Said I, "The devils you speak are not just old and effete but their manners are portrayed in your words, All the people I know this way fight to not go, for none of this can be real anyway."

In mid note of the rhyme, I found frozen in time the devil's party-night sign on the wall, And asleep in my gla.s.s, I fathomed the cra.s.s revelers above looming tall.

I pa.s.sed out on wine, in mid-flow of a good time, and a taxi was called for my home.

Yet with blurry eyes fixed on the bar spirits mixed I could swear I saw shadows still roam.

In the back of the cab facing the evening's tab, I recalled the dark sight of dreams, Because it often relates that subconscious warnings do state that the path is not all that it seems.

UNENDING BATTLE OF SELF.

by Nathan Rowark Under fire and in chaos wrought the battle for my soul is fought.

Within my mind, self untaught takes arms against the dark onslaught.

A final stand becomes too large as dogma flashes the fields to charge.

Casualties are doubts homage to the fall of vanities' entourage.

Rising up with a fearsome sigh, the bowman's anger fills the sky.

With shields smashed and hopes goodbye, my conscience is the last to die.