Death-love: In Oakland Cemetery


(Horror Poetry: a strange poetic prose story of death meets love in Oakland Cemetery—face to face—in St. Paul, Minnesota, November, 1971)



We were alone, her and I (she was twenty, I twenty-four), beyond a mound or two, two-hundred yards east of us, were gravediggers; almost everyone had gone, left the cemetery, and the gates were locked (they lock the gates at 5:30 PM sharp to the front entrance of Oakland Cemetery, the side gate would be used by the diggers, to go home; the arc lights had just come on. She, Isabella de La Ree, had a bag; it had weight to it, Isabella looked at me, as a wolf would to its prey, if ever a face showed imminent death, hers did (almost a sorry face, with grim, slim wrinkles of love)! Then I noticed her crucifix was upside down, rays with images of anguish, of orange, purple and red, fell on them, from the lower world I’d guess. I looked towards the gravediggers they were gone (there was such a stillness, quietness in the cemetery now), I could hear the last sounds of their footsteps—as if descending down a spiral stairway, leaving us alone, for it was a full moon, and they knew something was stirring in this prodigious night.

I pulled out a flashlight from my jacket pocket, it was fall, and a chill was in the evening air (tons and tons of leaves everywhere, piles of them, racked by the caretaker, I could even smell some burnt leaves, the smell is indistinguishable, and very suitable to me); it would be dark soon, near winter, the sun has a menial task, it rises quick, and descends fast, and twilight, without a word glares like a lamp of mist, half full, flickering rays of rose-colored clouds, sandy moon above it, it is like a stammering drunk, and the lamp lit moon, this evening, seemed to full, and wanted to fall, it was right over us, over our heads, with sharp-looking teeth—carved by the shades and shadows that crept through its light.

Then a cat began to cry as if it was fighting with a rat, which squealed a long agonized weeping squeal, both as if in pain, as if in a love and death exchange, another and another cry came, seeping into the wind, almost in echoes surrounding the cemetery, they were somewhere beyond the grasp of me, in this gloom of the night. And they became louder and sharper cries, that of a ripping-death, as if flesh and more flesh were being ripped to shreds. Then the sounds died down, and I seemed to sink into a morbid chill.
(From the street, beyond the side gate of the cemetery, I could now hear the sounds of the tires of cars going down Jackson Street, a grim silence prevailed in-between, I looked helplessly about with eyes of terror, every side of me seemed to have caliches of death. I looked and could even see the drivers in their front seats driving, and disappearing, and then I shook my head and suddenly became more conscious to the task at hand.

The contents of her bag, seemed to wiggle as if something was alive in it, a rounded shape something, then came sounds of rattling teeth, clanking teeth.
“Let’s do what we came for,” she said (a flame burned in her eyes) knees bending, a groan from within her chest, her inner spirit, noisily making her head twitch, like a puppet, came out of her mouth, words jagged I didn’t understand.
“She must be in a trance,” I said out loud, as if talking to myself or someone who wasn’t there, for surely she heard (as massive bolt of chills, ran up and down my arms, legs, and spine.)
For a moment I thought she was carrying a bomb, I stood in silence where not knowing what to do, or say, then suddenly, I heard a whisper come from the bag, as she started digging next to a gravestone, on her knees and elbows, with a pocket shovel, one normally used for a garden.
“Is this really necessary?” I asked her.
“Just wait a while and you shall see, and judge for you…” she groaned, and mumbled, as her face grew harder, as she stared longer at the moving bag.
I took a step forward, towards her; I was a few steps back. The instant I did, she motioned in gesture, not to step to close to the bag, she moved it impulsively towards her knee, holding out her hand to stop me, should I venture beyond a threshold she had created in her head, I’m sure I would have been dead, her face now as cold as ice, likened to the palm of death, saying:
“Don’t come closer for inside this bag is love and death!”

We had met the night before, at a nightclub in downtown, St. Paul, Minnesota, from there we strolled drunk, uphill to Summit Avenue—or at least I was halfway drunk, feeling the walk would do me well, if not wake me up—walking though old mansions, folks unbelievably would forget to lock their doors, and she knew this, and in the last house we walked through, a woman came, appeared out of a room, beautiful as a painting, she came out of a side space asked what we were doing in her home, Isabella said calmly,
“We’re lost, and just happened to walk in…not sure why, but the door was opened” (it was, after she opened it, but she didn’t add this) and she just looked amazed at us, as we readied ourselves to turn about and leave—but before we did, the other woman whispered something like this to Isabella de La Ree,
“Come back you will be my guest, but without him…”and I thought in my mind, perhaps she was a lesbian, and left well enough alone, for she was not speaking to me, and I said, interrogatively, to Isabella, after a moments time, after they stood looking, gazing into each other’s eyes (both strange as the day is long, both seemingly with well-lit eyes, as if there were passageways I never knew of in each of them, I let my sigh within my chest escape as if a door was just opened,
“What did she say?” I asked.
She didn’t even look at me, but courtly replied to the strange lady of the house, “The night air is chilled, I shall return.” (But when was in her eyes now.)
“Good,” replied the other women, “I shall see to your comfort upon your return.”
I was still standing there with eyes of pretest, yet said nothing, for Isabella and I had—if you remember—just met. And that was that, and now this.

At this point, she was turning into to waking nightmare for me, and all she really was, was a pretty and shapely…girl (her face was strong, very strong indeed, with a soft straight bridge for a lightly thin nose, and small nostrils. An arrogant domed forehead, with long black, almost straight hair, thick around the temples, with thick eyebrows and dark eyes, and sharp looking white teeth, now they even seemed to protrude, I think I was imagining them for I could not remember them being this way the night before, but one must remember, I was semi drunk, and sobering up: her lips were thick, with a remarkable dull, deathly red, and a spirit inside of her with vitality beyond a mans. She had a pliable straight, thin chin that came to a peak and dull flat looking cheeks that once were firm and softer, all in a days notice. All in all, she seemed a tinged changed from a day before, one that was of a rosiness flesh, was now one of a dim paleness.

When I had met her at the nightclub (folks dancing about) we, she and I, so I felt, wanted to have company, and not be alone (as simple as that), and so we drank and talked, and I spoke of my adventures in San Francisco in 1968 and ’69, and she was interested among one, how I had met a trying, and huge ghost, thinking she’d find it entertaining, and be in disbelief, but it was to the contrary, she wanted to know more about I escape. This was surely a strange happening, I had kept to my soul, so I could sleep well and dream well—and go on with life, but with a courteous bow of her face, she showed no doubt, nor fear, but said, “You are lucky to have said what you said when you said it,” which was “In the name of the Lord, whomever you be, be gone from me, and Lord be my protection.”


The Grip Spirit

(My description of the ghoul was even more fascinating for her, and she would not part with out knowing its dimensions, character. I explained in as descriptive detail as I could remember. It was to me a grim spirit, who perhaps did not know much about weapons per se, for I lived in a dojo and held it a bay with a fighting stick, it was past midnight, it woke me up this one evening—although it was not a quite spirit at all anyhow—made the dojo tremble, its food steps made the wooden floor sink a centimeter or two as it paced back and forth, and then become visible. It was a foul smelling foe, a creature that came from who knows where, more on the Giant Finn of Ireland, order, or perhaps the Grendel order, of the Scandinavian lands of the 5th Century or so. A pondering evil I lived with for three months in the dojo, an ere fiend, with flame coming from its eyes. And I could tell it had a sudden grip, for when it tossed the chairs about and around the dojo, it smashed them hard. It was huge, perhaps 400-pounds, and eight feet tall, a monster who could have devoured me, now that I look back, and there I slept where no other black belts would dare sleep, for they told me the place was haunted. I did not seek to trap him, I explained to him, we needed to put up with each other for a time being, and that was that, adding, I leave him alone if he left me alone.)

And the noisiness in the karate dojo, where I lived in San Francisco, went silent, in the clap of an eye, in the middle of the night, and the beast that appeared, that shook the building and chairs, and window sills, had gone, disappeared.
And now here we were, I stimulating and bracing for some kind of a thrill,
silently and quietly next to twilight waiting for a bag to be opened, as she dug deep into the earth, I guessed to seal the fate of what was in that bag.

I told myself, now leaning against a gravestone, making a graceful sigh, ‘I shall pray to make it out of here alive,’ knowing somehow I’d regret, having come with her this evening if I did not, absolutely, for my part I knew not why I remained, for all it seemed to me to be, was someone observing the insane. I knew in a heartbeat, there would be no more tomorrow’s with her and I, and perhaps for the better.
At this point I had wished I had finished supper, which I had not—for I was getting hungry even with such bleak happenings around me, and had rushed to meet her for this journey, this discreet and morbid journey, which humanity would have forbid, had they known it was as it would be.
For the first time, I had now noticed her nails were long, and those of her thumb, on the right hand, was pointed, thick as a knife: this somehow brought a horrid feeling of nausea, it came over me like hard bark on a tree. There silent for a moment I stood staring again, at the bag, seeing in the black cloth that now covered its contents, with the moon’s light shinning on it, I could see some kind of expression, indented expression, as if a face to be, then I knelt to her level and said,
“I am getting quite tired. I must leave, I live but a few blocks from here, perhaps tomorrow we can meet, I shall let you finish alone whatever it is you must do.” (I lied of course, I never wanted to see her again, to be quite frank.)
And with a courteous bow, more of a nod of my head I stood back up to leave (being in a deep sea of wonder, yet in a high fear of the unknown, and not wanting to face or endure the strange things that were about to creep forward out of this night), I did pray, “God keep me safe,” if not only for my loved ones dear to me!
I did not leave though, my mind had went absent for a while, and I forgot what I had said, and my intentions to leave, somehow evaporated in my head. Perhaps a spell she place upon me, this beautiful and costliest witch.

My body shuddered from her witch and devilish scorn she seemed to born upon her face and limbs, for the dead in this cemetery— if anything I felt I should salute her for her bravery, and hearty way she was handling this mysterious night—so tranquilly.
“What are you doing,” I asked inquisitively, and she whispered in a most horrid voice (with a vibrating haunting echo) as if it was not her voice:
“Digging a tomb!” the voice replied.
“For what or whom?” I asked, holding my breath.
And she pointed to the sack… and she then opened it, inside was a living head, and she said to me, in a most bewildering intonation,
“I can’t kill it!” And she rolled it out, and into the dirt tomb, the newly dug grave, and then stood up; strolled about it, as if mad (it was that lady I had seen from the house yesterday, I told my mind’s eye).
I knew I had said all I could say about leaving, so I just looked. Isabella now looked up at me, said,
“You may go anywhere you wish now,” but my mind was locked into this moment, adding, “All things are as they are, even if you wish to understand them, and you cannot. And there is reason for all things to be as they are.”
“I am sure of this,” I replied, “our ways are different to say the least.”
“Not too different, from what you have told me,” she responded, as she paced and kept out of the way of the head, observing it.
Then Sara cried, it was evident the head wanted to speak, but only said “Nay,” as if it did not want to be buried alive, for Isabella kicked sand it her mouth, saying,
“Foul head, of the demons, loathing nightmare, voluptuous bloodstained mouth, lay where yea be, and be silent, for none will pardon thee, fall into the hole, my friend, my death-love.”
And the head looked up at me, as if it wanted to plead. Then cried Isabella to me,
“Come now, my friend, let her rest in peace, I can do no more, this is all
death-love can offer a demonic whore, however visible she may be, she is captured inside of a dead beauty, preserved by habitable bleeding, and receiving; I can’t kill it, she belongs to the un-dead, and she will not leave the body, so I severed the head, she has immortality, but I can keep her head from her body, so she can no longer multiply—so now she must remain in the grave or go back to her evil world.”

Testimony of a Dead Soul
(The Blood-red Moon)


Advance: Don’t be fooled, dead souls live—it is one of the seventy-two deaths, and yet it can die, that also is one of the seventy-two deaths. I saw where they go, they flock, and they toil, and they lay cowed in corners, and they go on a journey, over the Canyon of Dread…and much, much more…! But this is the first time I’ve yet heard of a dead soul (and saw with my own eyes) it go where it did. Here now is what I saw and heard during one dilemma of an escape— here is the testimony of one dead soul!

In the quiet of a dreadful night—newly dead souls go on their last plight, their testimonies never to be told or heard (until the last judgment), but here I shall tell of one I saw, after the light and dark angels came to take this dead life to be: into its deep, pitted, entwined hushed skies, dim and cold were the sounds, around his soul’s entombed skeleton—he waited. His heart, frostbite; to his brain, numbness came, produced dead tissue, even gangrene seemed to seep in; here the stars guard heaven, silently stone-frozen overhead! Here, yes, here is where he thought to meet peace—rather he found he had to wait for the archangel, or hell’s representative, called the beast to be taken onto his journey’s end.
Remote, no ears to hear the clutter of a million words coming into the mind, to entrench the throat: here, oh yes here you are dead to the living world, and for a moment, just a moment ago you were there, now this moment is new you know not where you are, —but have a good guess where you are going: here the sky has eternal eyes looking down on you, eyes with cosmic tides—waves that make your head sway, break and sway, as all you sins are weighted, and a war rises in your chest, unrest, and you see the pit, the abyss, ebbing, and angels on each side of the hour glass, far-reaching, and waiting for prejudgment: the heavens above, and his numbing face—now changeless, and slowly he notices a strange peace—defeat, and silently the dark, the eldritch dark, has little relevance, his eyes are simply staring, in the cold, oddly numbed looking space: feet feeling for bridges to find balance, he feels he is on a limb of a tree.

And he sees Kings and Queens, and rock stars, and once famous human beings, heading with dark colored demonic beings with wide stretched out charcoal wings, into a canyon of flames, blazing firmaments— yea! Those who thought death was silence in the grave are now moaning to their hosts, “Why me!” others cry “I hope there is no immortality” and still others joke, “I see foes and enemies,” for the moment there is no harmony, only a perpetual cosmic dust storm all about, and dim is the sun, and he is handed a book, his book of sins, and he looks up towards heaven, but he gets no tidings, and now heaven has a face, one it says: “Who is he?” he knows the only thing he ever gave to heaven was disgrace, whence he cried, makes no difference, yea has died, the sum of his days is weighted with his sins, mindlessly he has played the game—the ten-winged beast has laid before his loins: to include: human greed, the lack of mercy, cursed Christ and gave to Satan, the deeds of he Holy Spirit (yes, he committed the unpardonable sin): and now he realizes it has always been in his hands, and somehow, he seems to adjust to the darkness quite well, no sign of tears nowhere, and yea, he sees the kind of moon, he lived under, “…blood-red.”

I see no sign of tears, no tears, I wonder why; I hear an angel whisper with fainting breath, almost silent, “…a blood-red moon means, he protests death, wants to see it annulled, yet he neither wants to go to heaven, for his soul says so, he would not fit among the saints, he would not be able to war with them, lie or cheat, nor does he care for the devil’s creed, where all are equal, with deceiving hearts, ill will, lies, and anything goes if it pleases thee—thus, he wants rule for the many. With his spectral mind, I think he will pick quiet and still-peace, strange as it seems the eternal grave is where he seeks.”
Eh! Yes! Oh yes, I saw and heard all this, and I learned that the death journey has a midnight sky with watchful eyes; I was one of those peering into this dying dreadful face, with barbaric deep eyes; it was if he was given a choice, divine it seemed, and divided was he, and expired was his will, he wanted to remain unaltered, and back on earth, with the same untouched corruptness in his veins, but earth didn’t want him anymore, no more than heaven. Hell didn’t care, they had many like him already, he was but half as bad as those he’d face, damaged destructed corroded souls, flames in their human frames, and he didn’t want to face them, as a result he chose none, but his heart preferred the chose of everlasting silence in the grave, one of the seventy-two deaths. And he looked at Teiai’el the Lesser (of the order of lesser angelic beings), said “He looks unbiased, let him chose for me,” and he did just that, and found himself in an aquarium, swimming around like a dead-bat fish, everyone looking in, and he looking out—knowing the torment on the day of the Great White Judgment— was yet to come, hence, he’d have to go through all this again: and perhaps this was his due punishment for all his sins.

And this was my friends, his testimony; I give it on his behalf, a stranger I once met on a lonely path, in the mists and transfer from life to the next.


4-5-2008 ((#2347) (written at home in the afternoon, in Lima, Peru on a Saturday, the sun baking the city below it))

The Double Curse of:
Senor Leonico Cesar Palma



(Advance) I wasn’t going to get into, or tell you what happened to the so called “New Arrival,” but I got a nagging in my head this morning, to do so, and I couldn’t get it out of my head until I wrote it out on toilet paper—the quickest paper available, put it in my pocket, and hopped it all went away later, meaning I file 13 it, or write it out. But it didn’t. My wife Rosa and I went to Wong’s to have lunch, and then purchased some CD’s, and she had asked if I was going to go to Starbuck’s and have some coffee, as I usually do in the afternoons abut 2:00 or 3:00 PM, to about 4:00 or 5:30 PM, coffee and a cookie, and home I go. But I said no, thinking about the story I wrote out on toilet paper, on in my shirt pocket, an outline I should say, on what happened to the Arrival in the book “The Cadaverous Journey.”
To be honest I didn’t know until it came to me like a flash of lightening, as if trying to wake up Frankenstein from the dead. I mean, my pen hand started writing it out like it had the story packed away in my fingernails; I didn’t even have to think, for it just came. So I must say at this juncture, it is all from the depths of some mysterious cellar vault, that was opened up for me, and now I must tell you what came about with this fellow who arrived at the Asteroid prison, and a part of his soul, the third part if you’ve read the story “The Cadaverous Journey,” what actually took place soon after he left the prison house.
I call this a double course, and you will see why in a moment, but the first curse was of course, dying, and ending up in a prison (something on the order of purgatory, waiting for the last judgment, or simply waiting out whatever punishment you must, and thus, waiting on your reprieve to go to heaven—hopefully).

Well, the man who was or is called the ‘New Arrival’ had died in a car accident, as most of us readers know now, and his wife and child died with him. His actual name was Leonico Cesar Palma, from Peru. They had been on their way to Huancayo, from Lima, while about 15,000-feet up in the Andes, they took a sharp curve, and crashed. The child went right to heaven, and the mother had found herself wandering within that vicinity of the accident, but a little farther down the road, when upon a stranger and his wife (Dr. Dennis Siluk, and his wife Rosa, along with his godchild Ximena) found her wondering, picked her up, and ended up in a car accident themselves.
Anyhow, Leonico never did find out what took place with his daughter and wife, and I shall explain why here. Now you need to listen closely, read every word, keep an open mind, and remember this is what came to me, told to me you might say, but first I must explain some of the dimensions in the other world.
Ghosts are the residue of those who were once human, having physical souls and flesh beings. Demons are to the contrary, they are, or have no physical parts to them; this is why they must find substance, an essence to incorporate their intangible elements into, around, within them; so they can operate in the physical world. They housed themselves in humans, animals, even inanimate objects, and believe it or not, the residue of a runaway soul of a past human.
Ghosts are not all bad folks, they are searching usually for something, but demons are again to the contrary, almost always bad news, and once they enter a living thing, that thing is taken over by its character and all by the demon’s possession, and thus becomes the personification of that of which possesses them.

With this being understood, here is what took place.

Leonico left the prison house, also known as the asteroid-prison, and when he arrived on earth, for the prison house is in the cosmic universe, he was about to get his direction. The demon named Woodbridge, was present, had been present hiding in a dojo, second floor (karate gym) down at 97 Collingwood Street in San Francisco, in the Castro district, he saw Leonico Cesar, and he looked lost, he looked closer and he approached him slowly, slyly, and like a whirlwind, like a spider to a fly, he sucked the essence of Cesar into his web, and Woodbridge subjugated his essence as if it was woven into his, and thus, Cesar lost his capability to act separately, and acquired the character of Woodbridge, bound to him until he would find a more suitable human being to do his bidding.
Demonic beings, and angelic fallen beings must find a physical force to enter to do their bidding for them; often times, the human filled demon thinks he is he, when in essence, he opened the door for the demon, and the demon took advantage of it. Thus, if you are in magical practices, or things like reading or watching, or allowing this side of life to influence you, it opens more doors than you think.
Cesar was now stung and paralyzed within this gripping unstable creature’s mist, and with this, there was a little substance to him now (to Woodbridge), even could appear and be seen if in certain light reflections. Yet this was not exactly Woodbridge’s full desire. He wanted to be inside of a more open-minded human, that didn’t mind the aggressive side of life, but Cesar would do. It is you see the nature of the beast. Demons have not mercy side to them, no practical side you may say, to a psychologist, they would be categorized as psychotic, some with paranoia, and others with other un-wishful maladaptive behavior styles.

(Conclusion :) What Cesar did not know was this: he was sent to the prison house, as a penitence to be served. He believed in Christ, but was a bad Christian, and so he needed to be punished somehow, hence, he was actually given 10-years, a minute for each sin he committed in his lifetime. Then with all three parts of his soul intact, he would have been given a white coat, and a seal of approval, and would have been escorted to heaven. Now, his time for penitence would not start until the third part of his soul returned, and the truth of the matter is, Woodbridge would not leave Cesar for thirty-years, whereupon, he quickly returned to his prison, connected with the other two parts of his soul, the personal part and the pure part, the part that returned was the negotiator (or rebel part), and in the year 2008, at its end, he will have served his time completely, and onto heaven he shall go.

Written 4-4-2008