Men of God
I do my best to fit in. I sing along with the glee club, hammer nails with the carpenters, stir the cauldron for the trouble makers and ladle out equal shares of comeuppance. I punch in at one job and punch out at another, join the union, walk the picket line, bake the bread. Some say I’m in over my head, others question my motives.
Women find me attractive in a strange way but cry out “No! Never!” and hide their children behind their skirts when I approach. This brings out the wardens in white helmets. They read from a scroll the age-old edict and then blow their whistles. The children peek out from behind their mothers’ skirts, the sun rolls behind a cloud like an orange, and the wind begins to howl. It rains torrents and they all run for shelter.
Sometimes I feel like the leading man in the third act of a Shakespearean play. The curtain goes up, the curtain comes down. Is it opening night or closing night? And where are the stage hands?
When will the weather even out so we can make our amends? Why won’t the earth break its orbit and give us something to talk about?
Anyone without enough courage to take on the universe is not a man of God.
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…