Something so beautiful brought me down here and it's terrible

[sovay]

My poem "The Ghost Marriage" is now online at Uncanny Magazine. It was directly inspired by Roy William Neil's Black Angel (1946), specifically by a line in my Patreon review: "Somewhere the ghost marriage is still going on." Even as I wrote it, I knew the image would stick with me until I did something else with it. I would have enjoyed something sunnier, but it's a bittersweet film: the same actions that open a space for the possibility of romance between the protagonists have already closed it even as their relationship plays itself out, a contrafactual clause from the beginning. They are a kind of half-flipped Orpheus and Eurydike, June Vincent's Cathy questing to recover her husband from death, Dan Duryea's Marty surprisedly finding a reason to come back into the light. From that perspective, it is even less surprising that the film ends as it does. When the underworld gets involved, someone always has to stay below. I seem to believe that is still not quite the same as gone.

Comments

[yhlee]

Yay poem!

[sovay]

Yay poem!

Thank you!

[gwynnega]

Beautiful poem! It really evokes the film, too.

[sovay]

Beautiful poem! It really evokes the film, too.

Thank you! I'm glad to hear it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you ever posted this under lock, but I don't recall seeing it before. Very nice--I loved this:

His hair spills back from his forehead
like an upset glass

[sovay]

I don't know if you ever posted this under lock, but I don't recall seeing it before.

I didn't—it was one of my Patreon poems and only went out to my patrons in January. I need to write about . . . ten . . . more of those before I get any more belated. Almost everything about this year dissolved, but I am hoping it puts itself back together soon.

Very nice--I loved this

Thank you! Dan Duryea's hair in Black Angel is a wonderful contributor to his character.