The Birth of Monsters and Other Poems

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In previous posts ("Horrific Poems: A Sampler" and "Charles Baudelaire's 'Carrion'"), I shared a few poems in the horror genre. In this post, I'm sharing a few of my own verses, which, hopefully, will be found diabolical enough to thrill, if not to chill.

I chose the sonnet because of its rhyme scheme. The sonnet form I've selected requires that, in the first twelve lines, the last word of each alternate line must rhyme. It also requires that the last two lines constitute a rhyming couplet. The overall rhyme scheme often forces an image, a trope, a thought, or a sentiment, thereby, helping, as it were, to write the poem itself, as if the rhyme scheme were something of a muse.

To The Wind

The wind blows free, but you and me,
We are captives, bound by a force
Mightier than stone, field, or tree:
Gravity determines our course.
Within the confines of the earth,
We may go wand'ring as we please;
Our minds may conceive and bring forth
Flights of fancy, winged fantasies,
Divorced of flesh and wed to naught,
With no authority to say
Nay, ye have transcended what ought
Be thought or tried by mortal clay.
Fettered by our humanity,
A faint breeze is cause for envy.

The Birth of Monsters

Beneath the canopies of trees, shadows,
Thick and dark, fall across stained, moss-covered
Headstones, and the rising winter’s wind blows;
Leafless branches, like clawed fingers, scratch; stirred,
By a sudden gust, wreaths and flowers leap
From vases overturned, blow and scatter,
And, were the cadavers not buried deep,
They might, clotted with gore and blood-splattered,
Rise from their coffins and their graves, to reel
And stagger across the dark churchyard’s grounds,
Insensible and unable to feel,
Among the tombs and the burial mounds.
Look! Listen! The imagination warns;
Of such wild nights are ghastly monsters born!

The Great Debate

In life, the skeptic and the man of faith
Each sought to refute the other one’s view,
The former claiming that to see a wraith
Meant one had lost his reason, for, ‘tis true,
That quick is quick and dead is dead; buried,
Bodies are removed from society,
Fit for naught but food on which worms may feed.
The latter argued that the soul, set free
By the body’s death, ascends unto God,
In whose image and likeness it was made,
Leaving but mortal flesh beneath the sod,
The transcendent spirit beyond decay.
Their passionate arguments have long since
Ended, unsure--by their own deaths silenced.

Fiendish Kinsmen

Winged, fanged things with claws, vague and indistinct,
Haunt the dark; furtive and stealthy, seldom
Are they seen, for which reason they are linked,
More often than not, with nightmare or some
Horrid fantasy, reason’s predators,
Slimed in mucus and enveloped in blood,
Stalking, or creeping, or slinking through gore,
Vile, evil things unseen since Noah’s flood,
The very spawn, perhaps, of murd’rous Cain,
Living embodiments of sin, exiled
From Eden, homeless, now, but for the brain
Of man, whose thoughts are both wicked and wild.
Not once were these mad fiends clearly described,
Yet we know them well, for we’re of their tribe.

The Book of Art, the Book of Life

The image, metaphor, and symbol each
Is plucked, as a leaf, from the tree of life
That it, pressed within an art book, may teach
The lesson of sorrow, anguish, or strife.
Authors may select a flower, a dove,
An ocean liner cruising the vast deep,
A rainbow shining in the sky above,
Or a road winding up a mountain steep;
Wordsworth wrote of a cloud of daffodils
Beneath a clear sky, both bright and azure,
Keats of a granary at autumn filled,
And Blake of a lamb, wooly-bright and pure;
Only in poems by Baudelaire and Poe
Does art blush to see blood and guts on show.

The Roulette Wheel

The roulette wheel, having been twirled, must whirl,
Its silver ball leaping from red to black,
Having, from the Croupier’s hand been hurled,
A fortune risked upon its fateful track.
Past the even and the odd, the small ball
Runs round the tilted track within the wheel;
Where it shall stop, no one yet knows, but all
Watch, transfixed, to see which fate it shall seal--
In Europe, thirty seven chances be,
One more in American destinies:
In the modern world, our technology
Has replaced the Norns, Moirae, and Parcae:
The wheel spins with pain, grief, and misery,
Red blood, black death, and silvery decay.

Sex Demons: Incubi and Succubae

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In times during which sexual urges were repressed, those who had difficulty repressing such urges had to find a socially acceptable way for not doing so. The solution was as simple as it was ingenious: say the devil made one do it.

For the ladies, there were incubi; for gentlemen, succubae.
The Online Etymology Dictionary’s entry for “incubus” explains the term’s origin:

c.1205, from L.L. (Augustine), from L. incubo "nightmare, one who lies down on (the sleeper)," from incubare "to lie upon" (see incubate). Plural is incubi. In the Middle Ages, their existence was recognized by law.

According to the tales the sexually unrepressed told, these amorous, if not always sexy, demons would visit one during his or her sleep for purposes other than sleep. No, not for sex--well, okay, yes, for sex, but also to produce little incubi or succubae. These sex demons were also physical parasites of sorts, who, vampire-like, drained their human paramours of their vital energies. According to transcripts of Inquisition trials, victims of incubi reported the demon’s seed as being “ice cold,” presumably like its heart. Historians and other interested parties have explained (or explained away) such sex demons by attributing them to attempts to account for unsuccessful attempts at sexual repression, nocturnal emissions, and rapes by actual perpetrators, including clergymen.

Succubae are the female versions of such spirits.

Again, the Online Etymology Dictionary’s entry for “incubus” explains the term’s origin:

1387, alteration (after incubus) of L.L. succuba "strumpet," applied to a fiend in female form having intercourse with men in their sleep, from succubare "to lie under," from sub- "under" + cubare "to lie down" (see cubicle).

She had many of the same characteristics as her male counterpart, visiting men by night for sexual and procreative purposes, draining them of their vital energies, and providing an excuse for sexual behavior during a time period--the Middle Ages--known for its sexual repression and insistence upon conformity. Whereas incubi would impregnate their human partners directly, succubae would, instead, collect their victims’ semen, later using it to impregnate mortal women, who would thereafter bear their monstrous demon children, or cambions, a famous example of which is the magician Merlin. Their rather circuitous means of procreating was attributed to their alleged inability to reproduce naturally, having been considered infertile. Succubae were convenient scapegoats for nocturnal emissions and sexual molestations. According to Jewish folklore, Adam had a wife prior to Eve, known as Lilith, who is considered to have been (or to have become) a succubus. Possible modern equivalents are Brittany Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton. Some succubae appeared as beautiful women, only to transform themselves into ugly or fearsome hags during the sex act, displaying horns, hooves, tails, and the like.

Incubi and succubae were frequent lovers of witches, according to Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) (a manual used by inquisitors) and other Medieval and Catholic texts.

Some so-called authorities consider incubi and succubae to be bisexual beings who change their sex in order to avail themselves, presumably as the spirit moves them, of either men or women.

Many know of the horror film Rosemary’s Baby, which turns out to have been fathered by Satan himself, but quite a few other horror stories, both in print and on film, have concerned themselves with incubi or succubae, including:

• “The Succubus” (short story) by Honoré de Balzac
• Descent Into Hell (novel) by Charles Williams
• The Crucible (play) by Arthur Miller
• “The Likeness of Julie” (short story) by Richard Matheson
• The Gunslinger (novel) by Stephen King
• Treasure Box (novel) by Orson Scott Card
• The Succubus (novel) by Kenneth Rayner Johnson
• Hell on Earth (series of novels) by Jackie Kessler
• Operation Chaos (novel) by Poul Anderson
• Succubus: Hellbent (movie)
• Succubus (movie)
• Succubi (novel) by Edward Lee
• Incubus (novel) by Edward Lee
  Incubus (movie) (1965)
• Incubus (movie) (2005)
• The Incubus (movie)

Bibliography

Carus, Paul (1900), The History of The Devil and The Idea of Evil From The Earliest Times to The Present Day
Lewis, James R., Oliver, Evelyn Dorothy, Sisung Kelle S. (Editor) (1996), Angels A to Z, Visible Ink Press
Malleus Maleficarum
Masello, Robert (2004), Fallen Angels and Spirits of The Dark, The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Ave. New York, NY
Russel, Jeffrey Burton (1972), Witchcraft in The Middle Ages, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London.
Siegmund Hurwitz, Lilith: The First Eve

The Etymology of Horror

copyright by Gary L. Pullman

Words, like people, have origins and histories. Their meanings develop and change over time. They have stories to tell, some of which are more interesting than others. The words associated with horror are no exception. In previous posts, we have considered the etymologies (word origins and histories) of some such words. In this post, we are going to examine those of several key terms linked to the horror genre, referring to The Online Etymology Dictionary, a fascinating and indispensable source for writers of any and all genres of fiction or, for that matter, nonfiction.

Let’s start with the word “horror” itself. According to our source, this term originates in Old French, where it originally meant “bristling, roughness, rudeness, shaking, trembling” and had the sense of meaning “to bristle with fear, shudder.” It was associated with the ruffling of feathers and the “rough” appearance of the hedgehog. The word “horror,” our source shows, is related to quite a few other terms, including:

• “horrific”
• “pall”
• “horrendous”
• “horrid”
• “hideous”
• “abhor”
• “caprice”
• “gruesome”
• “creep”
• “phobia”
• “urchin”
• “gothic.”

The word “horror,” we may observe, references the physiological aspects of fear, reminding us that horror, like other emotions, has not only a psychological, but also a physical, even a visceral, nature. It is as much of the body as it is of the mind, making the hair to stand on end and the frame to shudder. A poem, a short story, a novel, or a film that can cause such a visceral reaction is successful as a horror story, whatever its demerits or other merits may be.

Since we’ve considered the term “monster” in previous posts, we won’t repeat its consideration here, although its etymology and those of the words associated with it are quite interesting.

Where there’s a monster, there’s likely to be a victim. According to our source, this word derives from the Latin language, where it originally referred to a “person or animal killed as a sacrifice” and is associated with such other terms as:

• “con”
• “sponge”
• “patsy”
• “sandbag”
• “immolate”
• “Harry”
• “mark”
• “humor.”

(Concerning “humor,” our source offers a handy, dandy table of terms listing “types of humor,” which originally appeared in H. W. Fowler’s Modern English Usage [1926].) (One never knows what unexpected treasures he or she will come across in the pursuit of knowledge.)

Victims often bleed, which brings us to “blood.” According to our source, this term comes from Old English, where it meant “to swell, gush, spurt.” As one might expect, it is associated with a large family, as it were, of fellow terms:

• “bloody”
• “sanguine”
• “Rh factor”
• “bless”
• “sanguinary”
• “Aceldama”
• “bleed”
• “-emia”
• “sambo”
• “consanguinity”
• “O”
• “dreary”
• “sang-froid”
• “vampire”
• “ichors”
• “gory”
• “Inca”
• “raw”
• “blue blood”
• “antibody”
• “circulation”
• “arena”
• “corpuscle”
• “spirit”
• “hoopoe”
• “gout”
• “red-handed”
• “carnal”
• “sangria”
• “bask”
• “Rambo”
• “angio-”
• “bucko”
• “gore”
• “cinnabar”
• “Pegasus”
• “donor”
• “coronary”
• “hemophilia”
• “flux”
• “vein”
• “quadroon”
• “stanch”
• “hyperglycemia”
• “hypoglycemia”
• “vendetta”
• “septicemia”
• “octoroon.”

Some of these associates have interesting origins or histories themselves. “Bless” refers to the former tradition of marking the body with blood so as to consecrate it, and alluded to “a blood sprinkling on pagan altars.” “Sanguinary” meant “characterized by slaughter.” “Aceldama” is the name of the potter’s field (a cemetery for indigent corpses) “purchased with the blood-money given to Judas Iscariot” and, by extension, has come to mean any “place of bloodshed.” “Dreary” once meant to be “cruel, bloody.” “Ichors” is the vital fluid that flows through the veins of the Greek divinities, instead of blood. “Red-handed” referred to a “murderer caught in the act, with blood on the hands.” “Bask” originally meant to “wallow (in blood),” not sunlight. The mythological flying horse, Pegasus, was said to have sprung from the blood of the slain Medusa.

Like round, dynamic characters, words have both origins and histories--in short, lexicographic biographies. Knowing the lineage of a language’s terms enables a writer to discern possibilities for dramatic situations and twists. For example, knowing that a victim was originally a “person or animal killed as a sacrifice” could have led one to imagine a woman who was intended as a sacrifice not to a god or another supernatural being but, rather, to an animal--a gigantic ape, perhaps. Viola! King Kong! (The fact that this is not the origin of this story’s plot does not preclude the possibility that it could have been its inspiration, nor does it preclude the possibility for its being the actual inspiration for a wholly new story along similar lines.) Likewise, knowing that copses reside, as it were, in a cemetery that was “purchased with the blood-money given to Judas Iscariot” suggests some horrific possibilities to the imaginative thinker, particularly one who is in search of a vehicle for yet another tale of vampires or zombies, perhaps. Likewise, what might happen were a contemporary Heinrich Schlieman to find, instead of the ruins of Troy, a vial of ichors (or, for that matter, a little leftover nectar and ambrosia)?

Not only have the etymologies of words associated with horror fiction given us ideas for possible horror story plots, but they have also suggested a simple, but effective, means of testing the success of such literature: does it make the hair stand on end or the body shudder?

Charles Baudelaire’s “Carrion”

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In a previous post, we shared several relatively short poems that express horrific themes. In this post, we share Charles Baudelier’s “Carrion,” a strange rhyme, indeed, and appalling.


First, the poem; then, the commentary:

Remember, my soul, the thing we saw
that lovely summer day?
On a pile of stones where the path turned off
the hideous carrion--

legs in the air, like a whore--displayed
indifferent to the last,
a belly slick with lethal sweat
and swollen with foul gas.

the sun lit up that rottenness
as though to roast it through,
restoring to Nature a hundredfold
what she had here made one.

And heaven watched the splendid corpse
like a flower open wide--
you nearly fainted dead away
at the perfume it gave off.

Flies kept humming over the guts
from which a gleaming clot
of maggots poured to finish off
what scraps of flesh remained.

The tide of trembling vermin sank,
then bubbled up afresh
as if the carcass, drawing breath,
by their lives lived again

and made a curious music there--
like running water, or wind,
or the rattle of chaff the winnower
loosens in his fan.

Shapeless--nothing was left but a dream
the artist had sketched in,
forgotten, and only later on
finished from memory.

Behind the rocks an anxious bitch
eyed us reproachfully, waiting for
the chance to resume
her interrupted feast.

--Yet you will come to this offence,
this horrible decay, you, the
light of my life, the sun
and moon and stars of my love!

Yes, you will come to this, my queen,
after the sacraments,
when you rot underground among
the bones already there.

But as their kisses eat you up,
my Beauty, tell the worms
I've kept the sacred essence, saved
the form of my rotted loves!

Some time after the incident (“the thing we saw/ that lovely summer day”), still haunted, it appears, by the sight, the speaker of the poem recalls having seen, while walking with his lover, the dead and bloated carcass of a maggot-infested beast. In describing the animal’s “corpse” as he reminisces about the sight to his girlfriend, thus keeping alive in his memory the appalling sight, he mixes distasteful images and adjectives that bespeak unpleasant qualities and states with images and adjectives that express agreeable and pleasant characteristics and conditions:

“thing,” “carrion,” “whore,” “sweat,” “gas,” “rottenness,” “corpse,” “flower,” “perfume,” “flies,” “guts,” “maggots,” “scraps of flesh,” “vermin,” “carcass,” “music,” “water,” “wind,” “fan,” “bitch,” “feast,” “offence,” “decay,” “queen,” “sacraments,” “kisses,” “Beauty,” “worms.”

The negative images and descriptive words and phrases suggest his disgust, but, strangely, it is a disgust that merges with attraction. He is fascinated, it seems, with what he considers the beauty of death as it is represented in the concrete and vivid spectacle of an animal’s decomposing carcass. The rotting nature of the body seems to show life’s dirty little secret, as it were: the reality (death, or nothingness) that is hidden at the center of existence.

Nature does not discriminate in its destructiveness to accord with human perceptions and prejudices of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, and value and insignificance, but kills and dismantles all. In doing so, it feeds upon itself, life deriving sustenance from the effects of death, as the flies feed upon the carcass and lay eggs that, as “maggots,” can later “finish off/ what scraps of flesh” remain, the crumbs, as it were, of the flies and dogs’ “feast.”

The speaker next personalizes death by applying the lesson he has learned from having seen the dead animal to the eventual fate of his girlfriend, observing that she, too, “will come to this offence,/ this horrible decay,” despite her religious faith, as indicated by the “sacraments,” and “rot underground among/ the bodies already there.” Death will not spare her, any more than it has spared others of her faith or, for that matter, those of no faith. Again, death is indiscriminate in its destructiveness, and neither faith nor disbelief avails against one's demise.

He ends his reminiscence and commentary upon the experience of having come across the dead animal’s rotten and bloated body by foreseeing, as it were, an ironic future situation, asking his lover to imagine herself, conscious despite her death and being devoured by “worms” whose “kisses eat” her, that he, in having survived her (for a time, at least), has “kept the sacred essence” and “saved/ the form of” his “rotted loves.” Moreover, he makes her, his “queen,” an embodiment of “Beauty,” addressing her as such.

This appellation may refer to the last lines of John Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,” Keats wrote. Regardless of what these closing lines of Keats’ poem may mean (critics continue to debate the issue), it is truly chilling to suppose, as Baudelaire’s speaker seems to imagine, that the truth, concerning “Beauty,” is that it must, like a lovely woman, end in death, in nothingness, and in absurdity, just as love itself must end.

In such a poem, there is no hope, nor is there any reason to suggest that the repulsive and the beautiful, in the final analysis, signify any difference. If death and destruction are the end of life, of beauty, and of love, death, ugliness, and apathy are no better or worse than one another, and good and evil themselves become but moot and meaningless points.