Disbelief in the Sun
Stranger than fiction. More factual than apple pie. The slow leakage of protoplasm. A small cloud of betrayal with a frayed silver lining. The false gods and the real ones and their understudies. The misplaced foot on a wet cliff, the gloved hand of dissection. The great gray mind, sly and on the move.
Cells fly like fireflies from the fast-moving dream. The hero’s journey is withdrawal, only a fool comes out to deal cards in life’s gambling hall. The blasphemous are the anointed, men of god are apologists. Nineteen heroes on a street corner, a sure sign of trouble.
Self-inflicted pain is the only pain. The rain comes down without stopping and then we see what we’re made of. A short-circuit fuse box. A clown wrapped in cardboard. Mildewed toenails, unresolved conflict, the escape hatch of suicide. Disbelief in the sun.
Praise the moment in its pretty pink dress. What works today didn’t work yesterday and it won’t work tomorrow. Streak on out of here, make room for emptiness. Silence is a scream with no voice box, claustrophobia in an infinite universe. The mad mystery with no place to run to.
The brash promise of the Hurdy Gurdy Man. The sales pitch of perception. The trunk filled with gold medals. The thin ice on which we resurrect our slim hopes. The missing note in an unobtainable octave. We grapple with things that were never there to begin with.
HCOLOM PRESS is the heir to Vagabond Press, which began as a main player in the Mimeo Revolution of the Sixties and continued publishing right into the jaws of the new millennium. HCOLOM PRESS embodies the spirit of Vagabond Press, retooled for the times we live in.
Hcolom is Moloch spelled backwards. Moloch is an Old Testament deity to which children were sacrificed, a practice society still engages in with increased enthusiasm. Consumerism is the new Moloch, manifesting itself like cancer in war, politics, the arts and religion, in every nook and cranny of human endeavor, draining the intrinsic beauty out of life and mutilating the innocence and magic of childhood with its commercial meat hook. HCOLOM PRESS intends to publish books that by their nature repudiate this pernicious force–novels, poetry, children’s books and books that transcend genre.
Our launch book, in June of 2006, was John Bennett’s novel, Tire Grabbers, a fable of sorts, a reality book rooted in the fantasy of our times, the story of the coming of Moloch and the children who rise up in rebellion against it.
Books of kindred spirit will follow close on its heels. Go for it by clicking here… or hit the Hcolom logo above…