Unearthly 
The Collected Poetry of Wendy Rathbone

Introduction

This book contains all my out of print chapbooks (mini-collections of an author’s work usually published by smaller presses.)  I decided to put them into an e-book in one convenient volume at a low price so they can remain available to those interested in my work.

The chapbooks published within include:

Moon Canoes, published by Dark Regions Press, 1994

(Im)mortal, published by Shadowfire Press, 1996

Scrying The River Styx, published by Anamnesis Press, 1999

Autumn Phantoms, published by Flesh and Blood Press, 2000

Dreams of Decadence Presents, published by DNA Publications 2002

Dancing in the Haunted Woodlands, published by Yellow Bat Review, 2003

Vampyria, published by Eye Scry Publications, 2005

These books by no means cover all my published poetry, nor even half.  But they contain some of my best from my most active publishing years.

I continue to write new poetry when the muse strikes.  In fact, I am very prolific but not as keen on marketing it as I once was.  The sheer volume of my handwritten chaos in stacks of journals utterly overwhelms me.  Getting these out-of-print chapbooks altogether in one volume is a start in a process of endless re-organization.

 One uncollected, unpublished poem, “The Moon’s Revenge,” stands as an epigraph at the beginning of this book, just a little bonus.

I heartily hope you enjoy this collection.  There is a lot here in these pages.  Hopefully something for everyone.

Best, Wendy Rathbone

Vampyria (an excerpt)

I have lived in the green moonlight
of centuries without order
   in mistlands
   in autumn valleys
forever beyond the folds of sunrise
   in the arms of the hunter
          Orion
in the whispered syllables of
   eldritch sibyls
faraway and closer to
no one’s dreams
and everyone’s wishes
   in drowsing villages
   and starving cities
I have lived
   sipping the nectar of
   hell-flowers
stealing October evenings
and sealing them in glass jars
   journeying through moon hills
   and crater shadows
where none can survive
   in the dust of a million planets
   worn to flint
I have lived
   underneath the transparent edge of
   perception’s assembly
where the blue flame always
          stands
   bloom of eternity
in a garden of vampires
my soul buried in the rain from
   another galaxy
I have lived
                    …in Vampyria

 

The capital of Vampyria is
   December

its candle-wreathed towers
its dripping gold forests
its masked minstrels
its wolves

country of cobblestone mazes
and dead princes
world of coffin-shaped night
thrown roses
vanity in death
   risen to kinghood

I am one of the mourners
pacing an uneven path
through the moon-burnt hills
 

Unearthly

170 pages
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