A collection of poems and songs, including some older works as well as some works so recent the ink is not yet dry on the printed version. The material ranges from classically-influenced pieces ("Ariadne" and "My Helen"), philosophical observations ("Childhood's Paradise Lost") and some post-apocalypic works, both tragic ("Archiving Tears") and comic ("Ballad of the 2012 Believer"). Author Schrum has a reputation as a performance poet (reciting to backing tracks), and these works have been...

These three pieces, originally entitled, "Three Related Monologues," present the stories of three men who had been through some sort of abduction experience, but not always an abduction by aliens.In each, a man has a Faustian encounter with a woman, a manifestation of the "ewig Weibliche," the Eternal Feminine—but in each case there is also something Mephistophelean about the female—she may be perceived as evil, but she also brings forth good.Or, in less, literary terms: th...

What good is a silent oracle, we may ask. Then again, what good is consulting an oracle whose advice and prophecy one then ignores?This is a collection of poems by Phorkyad Acropolis, the performance poet Second Life avatar of Stephen A. Schrum. This collection includes very short works and haiku, along with longer works, some of which have appeared as youtube videos and others have been performed as part of Acropolis/Schrum's poetry performances in the 3D online virtual world of S...

In March of 1885 Aemelja Umber travels to New Mexico in her airship; there she expects to find the First Vampyre, who has created a legion of followers, some of whom killed her parents and destroyed her hometown. To her surprise, she instead finds Stephano Alchimi, a Renaissance alchemist made immortal when he discovered the Philosopher's Stone. In the intervening centuries, he has discovered the ultimate source of evil in the world—negative vibrations from another plane entering the Earth...

Immaculate Misconceptions is an amusing (and sometimes serious) memoir of life growing up in Catholic grade school and high school. Why is it titled "Immaculate Misconceptions?" This designation applies to the simplistic explanations, half-truths, canonical misinterpretations, and outright disinformation received from the mouths of the author's teachers. He entered Catholic grade school as a tabula rasa, a blank slate, upon which the nuns and priests would inscribe their version of the wor...

The two short plays in this book deal with the topic of aliens--although they make only one true appearance. "Aliens! 3 Miles, Turn Left" is a monologue by a man who, one night, found aliens in his backyard, and reacted as many humans would--by killing them. But what to do with the bodies? Roadside show place! "Abducted!" is a one-act play about the investigation into the disappearance of two children, whose mother claims they were abducted by an alien spacecraft. The detective on the case...

In a Prologue, we see Osiris attacked by Set, and chopped into pieces. Isis, Osiris' wife, searches for him, while Set and his followers unleash chaos on the world. Meanwhile, Bob, a young supermarket bagger, moonlights as a "dog assassin," to rid the world of "alarm clock dogs" and other canines that disturb their suburban neighbors. All is well until he meets Amber; some of her comments cause him to question why he doesn't feel powerful as cannibals do when they devour the blood of their...

The Future's Passed is a collection of poems by Phorkyad Acropolis, the performance poet Second Life avatar of Stephen A. Schrum. This collection includes very short works and haiku, along with longer works, some of which have appeared as audio pieces and others have been performed as part of Acropolis/Schrum's poetry performances in the 3D online virtual world of Second Life. The poems themselves veer back and forth from serious to humorous observations of love and life.Note that ...

First things first: if asked the Bernard Pivot Personality Profile question, "What turns you off?" Schrum's answer would be, "Buttcracks and willful ignorance." So that's where the title comes from. This volume contains a representative sampling of Schrum's writing from 1977 to (almost) the present. Many of the stories arose from inspirations of the moment; others resulted from letting imagination take flight to see where it would go.There are three sections: "Short Stories," "Chara...

Bob, a young supermarket bagger, moonlights as a "dog assassin," to rid the world of "alarm clock dogs" and other canines that disturb their suburban neighbors. All is well until he meets Amber; some of her comments cause him to question why he doesn't feel powerful as cannibals do when they devour the blood of their enemies. Worried, he applies to a local mafia Don for a job as a human assassin, and is sent off with two hitman. He is told only to observe, but the trip ends with quite unex...

"Be careful what you wish for," they say—and be even more careful if Hell is listening in….In a small town, a comatose patient is believed to be a conduit to the afterlife. When someone visits her, talks to her, and makes some kind of wish or prayer, the wish comes true. Word gets out and people start lining up with cash in hand to make their wishes—until things start to go awry as Hell begins to pave its way to the town with a portal and an occupying demon force. Who can stop them...

25 poems of love dedicated to my then girlfriend Gaynor. These are suitable whether you are straight or gay.