john bennett | wounded emotions

Wounded Emotions

He took a long hard tumble and ripped up his emotional ligaments. They no longer rise to the occasion or reach out. They dangle at his side, blocking mundane input. They take refuge behind a wistful smile and glance away from vending-machine headlines. They shrink from the dark cloud of artificial seasons. And all this without drugs.

They know things that disaster brings to light. They know the past lives in the future, that under every eight lanes of freeway lies a wagon trail, under every sidewalk a foot path. But where has the air displaced by skyscrapers gone? Such questions give rise to suspicion in the humpty-dumpty people who bob around him like air balloons. Perhaps that’s the answer to air’s mysterious departure–the humpty-dumpty people! No-no, don’t go there, say the sentient watch-dog emotions, focus on the vacuum that’s been created by all that’s been excavated, go underground where each skyscraper leaves a gaping hole. The future is the past reconfigured, the present a transition.

This is what transpires when the iron fist of Moloch fails to kill but only mutilates. This is the soil of wounded emotions from which a Brave New World will rise up in glory.

click the Hcolom Press logo to visit the web page...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… or just hit any of the following covers…

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