What We Leave Behind: Bloom & Grow is a collection of poetry about life, loss, and memories

 

Bloom & Grow

Peter J Donnelly

Alien Buddha Press, 2025

ISBN: 9798313441412

Ebook, 43 ppg.

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Bloom & Grow by Peter J Donnelly is not just a book of poetry; it is a book of memories. Of pets lost and people long gone. Of times spent enjoying meals and the company of others.

 

The book starts with memories of someone who never had pets. Why, the author supposes, is a mystery. We are presented with assumptions:

 

Was it the thought of a flap

on her back door,

saucers of food, milk

and water on the floor

of her kitchen with no utility area,

or heaven forbid, litter trays? (page 6)

 

Then the next poem is about a cat, Willow, that was once a part of the author’s life. It’s a sweet poem. Fur babies leave paw prints on our hearts long after they are gone.

 

The next poems are reflections of people who are now gone. The memories the author has of knowing them. The poem “The Morning of Your Funeral” on page 10 is about the arduous task of clearing away the things that belonged to a loved one. I have experienced such a thing, but my experience was not for the home of someone I was related to or someone I knew. It was a friend’s father, and as I did this, I noticed the calendar on the wall that was still on the month when he had been taken to the hospital, the records he probably enjoyed listening to, and the books he kept on shelves that he must have read or cited from time to time. All of those things were a part of this person’s life. So these lines in the poem were ones I understood:

 

Clearing your house was

like taking apart the pieces

 

of a completed jigsaw, but one that hadn’t

been recently done - the image

 

had been there for fifty years,

almost unchanged.

 

This poem makes me think about the things we leave behind after we pass away. Sometimes I wonder what will become of all of my own things. I already told my husband and kids that they are free to take of my stuff before passing it all on to other people in the family, but I always wonder about how hard such a task would be for someone who is essentially disposing of the things from a person’s life that MEANT something to them. Things that were important to them. How hard it must be to part with it all.

 

I am fortunate to have some things which once belonged to people no longer in this world, and I sometimes wonder how the people that owned them enjoyed them while still alive. Did my friend’s dad write letters at his desk, which is now in my bedroom? Did a friend often use a music encyclopedia which I now have in my living room, to look things up or for trivia?  

 

Are we ever attached to our possessions in the afterlife? I wonder about this too, because several years ago, my mom told me that she wanted all of my writing when I die, but she passed away first. I like to think she is able to enjoy all of my writing in spirit – even the boxes of writing that were left behind when I moved to Oregon. These thoughts came to me as I read the poem “Where It Hangs Now” on page 11, a poem which talks about a drawing that once belonged to someone which was “sandwiched between ivory paper,/its label folded over the top/of a cardboard window mat.” Here the author wonders if the original owner of this signed drawing would notice how it is now framed and:

 

we’ll never know what you think

of the frame I bought in Northallerton,

or the picture’s new home on the wall

of my entrance hall. It looks down

on your Chinese floor vase

and your small purple one

on the half moon table,

opposite the photo of you both

at Auntie H’s wedding.

I could say it’s as if you’re admiring it

but from the angle, it’s more like

your eyes are averted.

 

The title poem on page 13 is about two plant foods that had belonged to someone the author knew, whose plants he cares for now. Here he ponders:

 

but the one labelled Bloom

had less in it than the one labelled Grow.

Did you use more of it

or had you just had it longer?  

 

The author uses these thoughts as a comparison in how he cares for the plants and how discarding one after its use was a big moment for him, because it was “the first thing of yours I’ve thrown out.”

 

The other poems in this book are about reflections from the author’s life, how times have changed, as well as poems about food (I liked the one about honey). Sometimes the poem’s title answers a question the reader may have, or it states the thing the author won’t say in the poem.

 

Bloom & Grow is a collection of poems that I sincerely enjoyed reading. The poems in this book gave me a lot to think about, pondering the changing times just as the author does, while also reflecting on those once in my life who now exist only in my memories or their possessions I have in my home. The poems are written so well, drawing me in and taking me back to the past or on the streets of the United Kingdom. The poems in this book offer quality insights about our connection with people as well as attachments to things we leave behind. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading free verse poetry.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book as part of my digital subscription to Alien Buddha Press.

The Wailing Skin: The Skin Room is a chilling story that will make your skin crawl – or peel

 

The Skin Room

Carl Bluesy 

Independently Published, 2026

Ebook, 275 ppg. 

ISBN-10: 1069380814

ISBN-13: 978-1069380814

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You know the expression that if you play with fire you’re going to get burned?

 

That’s exactly what happens to Kenneth in this story, except that he managed to play with fire for a little too long. He enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle of using up women, stealing wives for sexual pleasure just so someone could get a good deal on the luxury cars he sold, and living comfortably in his condo with his wealth. He got away with hurting women for so long, viewing them only as sex objects to conquer, that he lost touch with his own humanity.

 

Well, he gets a good slice of humble pie in this story. The Skin Room by Carl Bluesy is a splatterpunk novel of violence, murder, and tons of gore that will make your very skin crawl. Just be glad you still have it!

 

After Kenneth loses everything and is forced to survive on the streets, he joins the homeless community and, in the process, learns to dispel with his prejudices against the homeless. He keeps thinking “I’m not one of you!” or “I’m not like you!” and carries around this fantasy that if he goes to the police enough times, they will straighten everything out just like that and he’ll be back to sipping cocktails in his condo. It takes some time for Kenneth to adjust to life as a homeless person, and he is fortunate to befriend a couple of people who are kind enough to show him the ropes.

 

Meanwhile, there is a killer on the loose, a killer known as the “Panhandle Peeler,” a serial killer preying on the homeless and skinning his victims. Kenneth tries to remain vigilant to avoid being the Peeler’s next victim, but that lasts only for so long.

 

The title of this book has to do with the type of room that Kenneth is imprisoned in after he is kidnapped by the Panhandle Peeler. What does the Panhandle Peeler do with all that skin? Well, in one case, he creates a whole room covered with it. Literally a room made of skin. There’s quite a bit of blood still on the skins, blood which sometimes pools on the floor of the room, and it is mind-blowing that the skin continues to grow, even over the door to the room.

 

There were many times I stopped reading this book, not because of the graphic scenes of victims being peeled of their skins but because I kept thinking, No way! This is too unreal! The cruelties the Peeler inflicted upon his victims are unthinkable. Only a madman would believe every single thing he does to his victims serves a bigger cause. Make no mistake, a madman is certainly what the Peeler is. And the big reveal near the end of the story is just as shocking and disturbing.

 

But it was my curiosity about Kenneth’s fate that always drove me to pick up this book again to read. Does Kenneth survive? Does he escape? What about the Peeler; will he finally be brought to justice?

 

And actually, what does happen to the Peeler at the end is just as twisted as the rest of this story. Even so, it’s a story I recommend to fans of horror and especially fans of splatterpunk novels. This story is written so well and it’s full of surprises. Where else can you find a novel that describes the removal of a person’s skin in gory detail? Or the best way to remove an eyeball? Plus, there is fruit that isn’t really fruit at all – and filled with a different kind of “juice” to drink. (That pineapple!) Readers will be treated to such passages in this book. Perhaps they will exclaim “Wow!” at the end, as I did.

 

That ending, though. It blew me away.

 

Check out The Skin Room by Carl Bluesy for the most extreme survival story of them all. What would you do to survive? How far would you go? Within the pages of this book, readers will see just what it takes for one man to survive the streets and survive imprisonment by a delusional monster.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Horror So Real: Melancholia is a collection of dark poetry reflecting on real-life horrors

 

Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry

Sumiko Saulson

Bludgeoned Girls Press, 2024

Ebook, 95 ppg.

ISBN: 979-8990327719

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Collections of dark poetry can be about anything. They can be poems that are truly dark and disturbing, or they could be poems of dark things found in the real world. For Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry by Sumiko Saulson, it is both. Here readers will find dark poems of fictional creatures as well as dark poems about truly horrific events and goings-on that are in the real world, both past and present.

 

Not all of the poems in this book are dark, however. “The Doormouse Is Dreaming” is a cute poem. With descriptions of “Blankets and pillows/All covered with down” and “shallow waters puddle-wide.” I can almost picture the Doormouse dreaming while asleep, comfortably reclined on “handknit doilies.”

 

“The Child on the Lawn” was a sad poem to read. It reminded me of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old shot and killed by police when he was playing with a fake gun at a park. This poem is so profound, with lines like “Were there tears in his eyes/When he held his head down?” and “Now he's walking the streets/Though the guilty may hide/Their sanity is unwound/By the sound of his/Telltale Heartbeat.”

 

I loved how the poems “Replika, My Ex” and “Faceborg” explore our addiction with the internet/smartphones. Some of that addiction can be pretty terrifying, and there are no holds barred in these poems. These poems also touch on things many people fixated with this connection to artificial technology would understand.

 

I also liked the poems “The Queen of Death, Perplexed” and “The Melancholic Eye” and “Coachella Ghost.”

 

Many of the poems in this book are about real-life horrors as well as fictional horrors. Some of them are personal, while others are imaginative and dark. All of them are good poems and I enjoyed reading them.

 

Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry is an entertaining, thought-provoking collection of poetry that will leave readers with a sense of trepidation. Some of these poems will make readers think, while others offer reminders of how we cannot allow the injustices taking place in our society to continue. These poems are both haunting and depressing, leaving the reader with a lingering sense that perhaps it is time to do more to create change.

 

 

 

Five stars

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.