GARTH VON BUCHHOLZ is an author of dark fiction, poetry, drama and non-fiction. He is also the editor-in-chief and publisher of Dark Eye Glances. He was interviewed for the book Horror Prodigies & Legends (Whitmore Publishing), which was released in March 2010. His stories include Thirst of a Thousand, Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Make Mad the Roaring Winds. His books include Land of Milk and Honey and Song of Songs. Garth is currently working on three non-fiction books. Three of his previously unpublished poems have made their way into this issue.
About his poetry: ”I write dark fiction, poetry and drama, and each work assumes a different form. Sometimes it’s speculative or fantastic, and sometimes it’s literary. The Opening of the Citadel Hotel arose from a cycle of stories about a skid row that I have been developing for many years without ever completing it. I was doing some research on an old hotel where I used to work after I finished high school, and found out from an oral history that in the 1800s the saloon had a trough where the men stood so that when they needed to urinate, they didn’t have to lose their place at the bar. That image was so outrageous that I fictionally reconstructed the hotel’s opening around it.
“Sans Regret was inspired by the newspaper story about a convicted murderer who was sent to prison for the brutal beating death of an old woman. After he was released he committeed suicide. Was he regretful about how he had taken someone’s life or simply despondent about his own life? Or both? I realized that, ultimately, his violence did him more harm than the harm he did to his victim.
“The Tide of Hatred Never Ebbs is a terse poem that was written in a cynical moment. I envisioned our lives as a shrinking island where waters are encroaching. Will our society drown or will we just devolve?”
The Opening of the Citadel Hotel
When the doorway to the Citadel opened its jaws in October 1898
And its grand three stories loomed above the urban prairie landscape
Eighty men shoulder to shoulder at the longest bar in town
Imbibed beer and spirits, while the gas lamps shone around
Pissing in the porcelain trough installed beneath their feet
Which glowed ethereal in the light as yellow rivers ran to the street
And a piano player keyed the first bars of Beautiful Dreamer.
No women permitted yet randy ladies leaned lascivious by the mark
And boys with crates of whisky bottles ducked fearfully at the barman’s bark
While drunks toppled backwards, saturated, crack’d on the heartless tiles
Dragged away like sides of beef by hotel staff with sated smiles
Who mopped patrons’ blood into a pail of pink soup that darkened to red
New revelers filled the gaps at the bar like teeth flying into a toothless head
And the whores tapped upstairs in their heels with their Gentlemen.
Sans Regret
Forgive me, though I am sans regret
And my hands stayed not from
Murder, or even
Hesitated.
Forgive me, I know not what I do,
Or why, or how
I hurt you
But my pain is tenfold yours
And every blow
That seemed to crack your bones
And weaken you
Has not.
The weight of anguish strengthens
(Immortally,
if life is finished)
It is I who am diminished.
The Tide of Hatred Never Ebbs
The tide of hatred never ebbs;
The isle surrounded sinks and drowns;
while we, the natives, scale the trees
as gills emerge upon our faces,
gaping—like fresh, opened wounds.
