Deathmasques

 Deathmasques is a collection of early writings: a few prose poems and tales from 1970-1973. 

The prose poems comprised six pieces: 'The Poet' (1970), 'No More Beauty' (1971), 'In the Palace of The Sphinx (The Supplicant)' (1972), 'Dream of Stone' (1972), 'Into The Abyss (The Renegade)' (1972) and 'Silence' (1973).
One felt that the prose poem was a particularly Decadent form. Also included were two macabre short stories 'Mute Witness' (1972) and 'We Vampires' (1972). Other texts from this period include chunks of experimental neo-gothic or modern fantastic fiction (mainly dreadful!) and various quasi-theoretical statements relating to art projects such as Crisis of the Object and Rictus Sardonicus.
Deathmasques story 'We Vampires' appeared in the anthology Haunting Tales (2008) and 'Mute Witness' from the same collection appeared in Monomyth # 44 Issue 8.2 (2008) both from Atlantean Publishing.

Deathmasques publication 1999-2020

Deathmasques I The Poet, Headstorms Short Fiction Magazine Vol 1 Inclement Publishing, 2004
Deathmasques I The Poet, Monomyth Supplement Issue 12 Atlantean Publishing, 2004
Deathmasques I The Poet, International Times Jul 2020
Deathmasques II No More Beauty, Unhinged PJL Press, 3 Sept 1999
Deathmasques II No More Beauty, International Times Sept 2020
Deathmasques III In the Palace of the Sphinx (The Supplicant), International Times Sept 2020
Deathmasques IV Dream of Stone, Unhinged 6 Sex & Death Issue PJL Press, 2000
Deathmasques IV Dream of Stone, International Times Oct 2020
Deathmasques V The Renegade, Monomyth Supplement Issue 13 Atlantean Publishing, 2004
Deathmasques V The Renegade (Into The Abyss), International Times Oct 2020
Deathmasques VI Silence, Midnight Street 2, Immediate Direction, 2004
Deathmasques VI Silence, International Times Nov 2020

Related publications 2020

Mute Witness, International Times Nov 2020

We Vampires. International Times May 2020

Illus: Neo-Convulsive Self-Portrait 1973/2001

Vespula Vanishes

 

Vespula Vanishes is a new A C Evans poetry collection published Inclement Publishing (edited by Michelle Foster) in a limited edition of twenty copies. Here is a recent review notice by Steve Sneyd from Data Dump 118, Feb. 2008.

VESPULA VANISHES AND OTHER POEMS Inclement (Poetry for the Modern Soul), 2007 Limited Edition

Vespula Vanishes is dedicated to Tori Amos* and tells of a lady come ‘out of the light’, finding the elegant world she could not articulate a day place that ‘ignored her pain’, and via twilight longings this ‘ghostly shape of desire’ dissolved ‘into the night’. Is this title poem of A C Evans’ latest collection decadent psychological portrait or evocation of other (worldly) woman? Of the 25 poems here many raise similar questions as to the boundary condition/genre definition, intriguingly some are predominantly urban or other urban/social/mental decay evocations, and a few are niche-able as more clearly genre, including Lust For A Vampire (Mircalla) her ‘breasts running with gore’, the Dark Tower-set Slave Mask ‘A face I can trust because/ I cannot see your pain./Do you understand why I/ Lick your wounds tonight?’ etc being DF, while there is at least a trace of Sfnal, e.g. Lost Words with its ‘closed sphere’ holding a world last of ‘resplendent/dying/suns’, Only Shadows’ ‘failing star’ (ACE sharing Clark Ashton Smith’s love of star death imagery) and, in the enigmatic post-Surreal definitions of Reflections In A Mirror, alongside those for ‘closed syllable’ and ‘sympiesometer’ is ‘Jupiter’ as ‘an organic arabesque’ and ‘intellect’ as a ‘new type of space’, though the payoff is back to decadent psychology with ‘sacrament…morbid fear of light’.
* Whose only UK No 1 hymned the darkside figure of the ‘Professional Widow’

The poem Slave Mask from Vespula Vanishes also appeared in the collection Dark Tower 3 The Black Throne (2007) from Atlantean Publishing (edited by D J Tyrer) who published Fractured Muse, a previous collection from A C.

A review of Vespula Vanishes & Other Poems by Eve Kimber of Pulsar Poetry Webzine can be found here 

Believe This

I tell you (believe this) – I have explored
Fearfully with my alien mind the limits of art.
I have seen the horizon of fear which none may cross.
But no art is as cold as my heart.

Illustration Vampyr, 1970

Dea Phantastica

Dancing with the Dead - recently published fiction by A C Evans
Then turning to my love I said,
‘The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.’
- Oscar Wilde
‘The Vision of Morgan Le Fay’ (1992) was published in Awen 55, December 2008. ‘We Vampires’ (1972) was published in the Halloween anthology Haunting Tales (2008). ‘Mute Witness’ (1972) was published in Monomyth Volume 8.2 Issue 44, December 2008. These are all from Atlantean Publishing (editor D-J Tyrer).
The two short stories from 1972 are from Deathmasques that early collection of thanato-erotic symbolic psychodramas; ‘The Vision of Morgan Le Fay’ exists in various versions and is also included in the collection Colour of Dust (Stride, 1999).
Morgan Le Fay is the Dea Phantastica of all our nightmares. She embodies the anarchy of the wayward imagination. This short prose poem takes the form of a telepathic communication from Morgan, goddess of Strange Doorways, to a visionary ‘scryer’, the Hermetic Philosopher of the Dead Lake (a fictionalised Dr John Dee) revealing her attributes and history to him via his crystal stone.
Beware her ‘shape-shifting gargoyles’ they are everywhere!

Illustration; Dea Phantastica, photo by AC, 1971