Pif Magazine

 ✍🏻 My three poems, "The Mist", "The Prisoner", and "Seduction", appear in the November 2021 issue of Pif Magazine. This is the first publication I've had in quite awhile and it gives me joy to "be out there" again. I hope not to stay away too long.

The Horror Zine

It's just about July and The Horror Zine is celebrating its 12 year anniversary! I am glad to be a part of it, as I have 3 new poems featured in the July issue. Very proud to be a part of this wonderful 'zine.

It's been hard to focus on my writing, but I've been trying. Starting to shop my novella out again and such. I keep promising myself to work harder on the fiction, get it out there, hone my skills. I'm not getting any younger. Writing is very important to me.

Throwback Thursday Poem

"Standing at the Door of Death"

We are all standing at the door of death

waiting for our final judgment

falling onto our knees

begging for salvation

from a graven image

who can easily plague us with damnation

We keep spinning a new web of dreams

creating new stories to tell

but we turn away when they

turn into demon fairy tales

We long to shed our skin

into the blood red sea

but we never lift ourselves out of the mire

because we're afraid of what we'll see

fecundated in this holy fire

we are stuck here in reality

I'd rather be standing at the door of dreams

where things aren't what they seem to be

where there is no good or evil to speak of

where pleasure emanates from pain

where reality is an illusion

and death is just the same

(published in Outer Darkness, 1997. My Clive Barker inspiration seems to shine through in this poem!)

Throwback Thursday Poem

 "Field of Death"

by Stephanie Smith

this place is a wasteland

for angels with glass wings

decrepit and shattered--demon angels

that fly through fields of death

this place is a haven of horrors

a grave of tired souls

where skin is a sacred illusion

and the life inside is left unknown

this place is a junkyard for dead minds

that crush their angel babies with their fists

it's just a craving they have

they've no tears of their own to shed

(published in Outer Darkness, Issue 13, 1997...Looking back I feel honored to have been published in such great small press 'zines as this alongside writers like the late Charlee Jacob. I miss her.)

Throwback Thursday Poem

 "Sphere"

by Stephanie Smith

Mixing midnight oils on a darkened canvas.

an artist professed his view of the world.

He birthed a sea

and found Earth's children had drowned.

Firewater had scalded their skin

and left them fleshless on the ocean floor.

Dead before they got here.

He created a setting sun through crimson tears.

A dreamless day gone by,

As banal as days forgotten.

The morning found his images as dust.

And he an illusionist

inspired by the night to work magic

on a world that left him feeling

nothing at all.

(published in Not One of Us, #19, 1997)

Illumen

 First post of the New Year!

(Yeah, I know it's the end of February, already)

I have three new poems published in the Winter 2021 edition of Illumen , so please consider purchasing a copy. Your support helps magazines like these keep going. :)