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Editor Олег Хасанов
Compiler Олег Хасанов
© Олег Хасанов, compiler, 2025
ISBN 978-5-0064-7336-2
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Horror Without Borders
Volume 2
Hidden Realms
A World Anthology of Dark Poetry
Edited by Oleg Hasanov
Horror Without Borders. Volume 2: Hidden Realms
The authors of the individual poems retain the copyright of the works featured in this anthology.
All rights reserved. No part of this production may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
© 2022 Oleg Hasanov
Cover Artwork © 2022 Infographics
A HORROR HAIKU FOREWORD
Do you have the time?I’ve got a story to tellAbout dead beauty.I once believed thatLife’s a fairytale romance,But no, I was wrong.Life’s a ghost story,It’s a cemetery walkIn winter. No doubt.I remember thatJourney to AntarcticaWas like a red mist…In a frozen shipIs where we found these demonsBy the night candles.Unholy unionChanting a spell for SatanFrom a little black book.Religions in ice…A disentombed communion…A cannibal house…A girl was summoned,Concubine of necrosis.This book’s the portal…A warm meal helped meTo regain my consciousness.They gave me potions.I see a ravenThrough the barred window.Landscape with a tower.They gave me a penAnd a big stack of paper.They want a report.The long road to hellThrough the labyrinth of myMemories, more like.In the darkness ofMy padded cell, all my thoughtsGo to Dorothy…They got their report.This diary of death isA piece of my mind.The revelationIn the asylum, a songFrom the wailing tomb.I want to escape.My amygdalaTells me I’ve got to.If I stay any longer,The lobotomy will beThe ultimate price.In the waiting roomI hit the nurse with a chair.Her brain’s a blood soup.Here comes death. I eat.No remorse, only hunger.I am Nosferatu.I grab the keys andOpen the door. I am free.Vampire energy.I am the ripper.Beyond the dying stars IGet my freedom.I have to get home,I’ve got to see Dorothy.I hide in the moors.The night in the swampDoes me good. It covered me,Saving from dissection.I go through the woodsAnd reach a railroad station.Red balloon floating.Now! I slip intoThe freight car and hide myself.But I’m not alone.Hidden behind theBig boxes is the dark man.He is watching me.His hand slides intoThe dark valise and comes outWith a little black book.The black book I sawIn the demented ship.He makes me read it…I know everything.What killed Aleister Crowley?Now I know it all.In her room at last.My lost love under the sea.Dorothy, save me.The day was breakingOutside. Footprints inThe snow… Not again!Thought I have escaped.The curse of the Internet!They know where I am.There is no escape.I shave my beard looking inThe mirror. That’s it!That’s it! The demonsAre acting on a par withThe government!They’re here to harvestOur citizens. Why amI still pretending?And Dorothy isTheir agent. I stop shavingAnd wipe the razor.She infected meWith thanatophobia.Sweet dreams, Dorothy…Better not take theTrain this time. They’re everywhere.Don’t trust anyone.There’ll be no escapeWhen the dark man comes. The Earth’sTheir inheritance.I go to the cops.The enemy within meTells me to do so.Do you have the time?I’ve got a story to tellAbout dead beauty.I ask for a penAnd a big stack of paper.I’ll write a report.They get their report.This night has a thousand eyes.So let them have it.I include weird signsAnd bizarre incantationsIn this new story.I write until thisChalice is empty. It’s done!The Black Testament.For all I know theyHid my little black book somewhereIn a frozen ship…I know it by heart,So let me be your darkness.Feel the poet’s pain.– Oleg HasanovFebruary 13, 2022Michelle Moroses (USA)
BLOOD SOUP
Michelle Moroses is an undergraduate student at Emerson College. She is on the management team for The Emerson Review and enjoys dogwatching and Wikipedia rabbit holes.
I’m making blood soup.I’m letting a lot of blood out for it.Enough to feed an army.Here we are in the blue bathroom.Cotton candy blue.I will miss you when you leave me.I’ll miss your oven mitts, yourgarlic stained hands, your paring knife, the way youseparate skin from bonethe same way god must have separated man out from under his own flesh.I will miss you even though you hurt me. This is the stupid thing, the part where the dinner guests you invited over get to clutch their full bellies and laugh. When they do, I will excuse myself to go out to the yard and beat the feeling back violently, with the biggest stick I can find.
It doesn’t work. It never works. My love is not so easily killed as my body could be. You wanted both of them, together, in a way you could consume. I’m afraid I’m not going to taste very good.
Nevertheless you want me, and I want you.And I am fully clothed in the bathtub,And the water has been shut off for daysyet the tub is filling up.you’re making blood soup.Michael Mulvihill (Ireland)
WRITER’S HEAD ON A STICK
Michael Mulvihill was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1978. He eventually, in his late teens, became a bookworm completing degrees up to the Master’s Level in Addiction Studies, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Social Sciences. His initial fictional work was surreal short stories of horror which have been featured numerously in Black Petals, an online horror science fiction zine. He branched out to write an apocalyptic, post-Soviet horror novel, Siberian Hellhole, which was translated and published in Georgia. His latest novel, Syriacide, features The Syrian War. He is an avid reader of history and is fascinated by world events, South Africa, the USSR, and the philosophical idea of a dystopian society. At the moment he is writing a dystopian novel. An avid martial artist and film buff, he trains constantly in Kenpo Karate and loves to also relax whilst watching films.
They used to shoot the messenger,But this horde wanted gore,A torture and a killing from the days of yore,A piece were writ that had too much grit,It told truth,Stung a few living demons that wanted blood,And thus was vowed there shall be blood,Off went the writer’s hands thrown to starving dogs,Plucked out of sockets went his pair of eyes,Knee-capped by a shotgun as a chainsaw started on,When all was done his body remains was fed to crocodiles in a zoo,As this horde, this cult of death,Raised their flag outside a mansion,And placed the writer’s head on a stick,A thick stick yes,But none the less a stick,The hurly-burly was done,What was achieved in this?Stephanie Ellis (England)
COMMUNION
Stephanie Ellis writes dark speculative prose and poetry and has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. Her poetry has been published in the Horror Writers Association’s Poetry Showcase Volume 6 and her latest stories include Asylum of Shadows (Demain Publishing’s Short Sharp Shocks series), and Snowbooks industrial horror anthology, Thread of the Infinite. She is co-editor and contributor at The Infernal Clock and also co-editor of Trembling With Fear, HorrorTree.com’s online magazine. She is an affiliate member of the HWA.
Website: https://stephanieellis.org
It’s important, the detail.She sat, as I recallSmall, a doll, eyes daringBeyond caring of the futureAnd?She wore trainers, to runSaid she’d always been runningFrom men like meMen like you?Men like her fatherForever after possessionPaternal monsters, always huntingAnd did you hunt her?No, no need. She knew I would waitI’d baited her, held the line,Sedated her, reeled her inAnd then?I measured the length of her, the stretch of herAs communed without communionShrouded in scarletBut you see her still?Yes, she sits at my shoulderMy angel, my perfect angelAnd she whispers, Daddy…Norbert Góra (Poland)
CONCUBINE OF NECROSIS
Norbert Góra is a 29-year-old poet and writer from Poland. He is the author of more than 100 poems which have been published in poetry anthologies in the USA, the UK, India, Nigeria, Kenya, and Australia.
One-to-one trysts, which were too weirdto understand how those feelings appeared,the light of beauty met the darkness of eyesore,innocence tasted the filthy bitterness of gore.In the arms of death she quickly forgetsabout the sort of things that can upset,she worships the smell of decaying meatwhen the slimy tongue touches her teat.Longing washes her body during the day,at night she loves the carcass, to whom she obeys,infatuated and blissful, the concubine of necrosissubmerges in the source of lifeless hypnosis.With each grain of time her face becomes paler,brighter than the fabric kept in the hands of a tailor,with every sunset, such a visible differencebetween them disappears, fatal severance.Kevin J. Kennedy (Scotland)
THE CURSE OF THE INTERNET
Kevin J. Kennedy is a horror author & editor from Scotland. He is best known for his 100 Word Horrors & The Horror Collection anthology series. He is also the man behind the Collected Horror Shorts series and an editor on multiple other anthologies.
He co-authored You Only Get One Shot & Screechers and has two solo collections available called Dark Thoughts & Vampiro and Other Strange Tales of the Macabre.
His stories also appear in a wealth of anthologies from a variety of publishers.
He lives in a small town in Scotland, with his wife and his two little cats, Carlito and Ariel.
Keep up to date with new releases or contact Kevin through his website: www.kevinjkennedy.co.uk
In a world where internet is king,We often forget it’s just a thing.It takes over lives every day,We had no idea it would get in the way.It seemed like a marvel at first,That was until the bubble burst.Our future is grim at best,Leaving social media and apps the real test.No one knew it would own us,All the info seemed like a bonus.We are zombies in front of a screen,No one’s internet history clean.Mankind was destined for annihilation,The machines an abhorrent violation.We can never turn off and go to bed,Not to worry. Not long till you’re dead.Vyacheslav Kotov (Russia)
MIDNIGHT
Vyacheslav Kotov wears many hats. He is a poet, writer, translator, screenwriter, film director, animator, songwriter and singer, and also the one who you can call the most popular catchword of today, a YouTuber. Vyacheslav is an award winner of several film festivals including in particular Dollar Baby Film Festival Russia where he won second place and audience choice award. He is the author of several songs for animation series released by Riki Studio (creators of Kikoriki series. His YouTube channel was given a Silver Creator Award. Vyacheslav is also a representative of The New School of Translation and Interpretation. He has more than a thousand translated films to his credit.
Midnight. Alley. Victim. Knife.Struggle. Stab. The dusk of life.Thunder. Scream. “No! Oh, my God!”A rain of tears and a rain of blood.No one near to make a call,Only me and him, that’s all.It is over. Quick. Too bad.He has left and I am dead…Paulo Palz (Nigeria)
THE RIPPER
Paulo Palz is a B. Tech in Polymer Science and Textile Technology and is currently a 300 level student of Biochemistry who hails from the southern part of Nigeria. He has written many poems and has also been recently featured in the anthology Nightfall and Other Poems.
Do yourself a favourWhen he hurts youDo not come for a hugMy arms would be tiedWhen he abandons youDo not seek refuge in meI would have gone abroadWhen he despises youDo not come for my loveI would be short of feelingsMy love has gone sourBled out cold and deadMy humanity’s been shutI have gone all black and greyMy heart seems to be missingEmotions are long goneI have accepted grief and painSadness and misery now clothe meLove’s been sent out of my windowWhen he abandons youDo not ask for clemencyMercy is for the weakI am ruthless nowEven the French call meLa Bête dans l’ombreMy penchant is your bloodThe scent and taste of itRolling down my tongueYour flesh stuck in my teethAll I see is darknessFor I am the ripperLinda M. Crate (USA)
YOU BAKED THIS PIE
Linda M. Crate’s poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has ten published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press, June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon, January 2014), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press, September 2017), splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018), More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, March 2019), the samurai (Yellow Arrowing Publishing, October 2020), Follow the Black Raven (Alien Buddha Publishing, July 2021), Unleashing the Archers (Guerilla Genesis Press, August 2021), and Hecate’s Child (Alien Buddha Publishing, November 2021) and three micro-chapbooks Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018), moon mother (Origami Poems Project, March 2020), and & so I believe (Origami Poems Project, April 2021). She is also the author of the novel, Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).
you thought you were theonly predator,you thought wrong;the only thing that will be musicto my ears is the beating of your heartand the quickening of your breath asyou run out of places to hide—tried to give you peace,but you wanted a war;so i left behind the magic of methat whispers in flowers and light toadorn myself in the battle armorof my wrath and rage—here i am fangs and claws out,i will rip you to ruin with a smile;after all you told me i should be happier—i hope you like the apples,you baked this pie of misery.Sam M. Phillips (Australia)
COVERED
Sam M. Phillips is the co-founder of Zombie Pirate Publishing, producing short story anthologies and helping emerging writers. His own work has appeared in dozens of anthologies and magazines such as Full Metal Horror, Flash Fiction Addiction, World War Four, and Dastaan World Magazine. He lives in the green valleys of northern New South Wales, Australia, and enjoys reading, walking, and playing drums in the death metal band Decryptus. You can find out more about his books and publishing at www.zombiepiratepublishing.com. He is also a prolific poet and his poetry can be read on his blog
www.bigconfusingwords.wordpress.com.
A light source,I forceMyself up from a deep pit,Sit on the edge of a new world,I hate it,Want to be hurledBack down into the pit,Grit my teethAnd bear it,Bury myself beneathThe soil,I toilTo be free,But now I seeThe light,I fightTo be covered once more.Maxim Kabir (Ukraine)
LANDSCAPE WITH A TOWER
Translated by Oleg Hasanov
Maxim Kabir is a Russian-language horror writer and poet based in the Ukraine. He has penned eight novels. His latest novel, Wet Worlds, was co-written with Dmitry Kostyukevich. His short stories are included in various genre anthologies. He also has eight collections of poetry under his belt. Maxim’s poetry has been published in various countries of the CIS, the USA, Georgia, Israel, and other countries.
She woke up in a casemate of a tower, which had been built at the seaside by the Venetians hundreds of years ago.
The concrete mole was ablaze with lights in the night. The ships were cuddling up to it, like the young pigs to their mother. The nets were drying. The guest flags were droopy. The fishermen had hastened home to shuffle out of their oilskins, to snuggle up to their wives, to have dreams about the sea at the speed of 5/6 knots.
The resort city was pouring neon into the water. The trattorias and bars were noisy. But here, at the anchorage, it was peace and quiet. And the moonlight was dancing on the solar panels. The moorings were creaking, the waves were lapping, and a Smart TV was broadcasting a football match. Denmark vs. Czech Republic. The yacht’s owner drew himself a glass of Chianti. He fried a tuna. He checked the weather report. He sat back and cast a casual glance at the tower.
And above it, above this monolith, a shape rose up. She came into the world; she emerged from the casemates like a two-horned moon. The yachtsman was looking stunned, as the horrible giant was walking across the sky, going down the invisible stairs to the sea. The glass fell to the deck.
Her stomping hoofs went through the motorboats and yachts, through the cutters, schooners and yawls, and in a flash she was on the ground. And the city began screaming. The stupefied yachtsman looked, as the beach was blazing and the marina was being filled with blood. The Danes lost two-one. But there was neither sense nor the viewers to appreciate the tally of the game.
The tally was a shadow over the promenade.
The tally was the victorious clatter of hoofs.
And in the morning the sun crawled from the east to stare at the dead gulf. The yachtsman sliced his wrist with a piece of glass, and on the concrete of the mole he scrawled, “She woke up in a casemate of a tower.”
Yevgeny Abramovich (Belarus)
IN HER ROOM
Translated by Oleg Hasanov
Yevgeny Abramovich was born and grew up in the city of Novopolotsk in the North of Belarus. He is a civil engineer by training. Since 2014 he has lived and worked in the city of Minsk. And since about that time he has written fiction. He works primarily in the horror and science fiction genres. His short stories and novellas have been published in the anthologies, The Scariest Book, Aelita, and magazines DARKER and RedRum. In 2018, he wrote his debut war zombie horror novel, Cutthroats.
In her roomUnder zero gravityI’m drowning in the whirlpoolIn her roomWhispering biting wordsStroking her hairIn her roomHer hairSmells so goodOf lavenderSoon it’ll smell of incenseWe’ll all be there one dayAnd nothing at allI wantEverything will stopIn her roomIn the closetsShe has her blousesThe boys are screamingThrough the fortochkaDoesn’t respondNo time for thatLife’s dissolvingIn her roomLike cascadesStrewn all overOh, this hairHer hairAnd the ice floesThe eyes are pretending to beWith dark redCobwebsHalf-liddedThey do not closeThe living are pretendingTo be deadAnd vice versaThey are pretendingThe doors and fortochkasAre closingWhat used to live and growIs decayingWith a blue fingernailHer little fingersThe boys are screamingThe boys are screamingMotionlessHer little fingersHiding her nakednessIn the skirtallsIf you can loveThen love desperatelyIf you can floatUnder zero gravityIn her roomIn her roomAny vulgarityAnd all the libertiesIn her roomIn her roomOleg Hasanov (Russia)
THE DEVIL OF THE SANDS
Oleg Hasanov is a writer and translator, and also the founding editor of the international literary project, Horror Without Borders. He lives in the city of Chelyabinsk, where men are so tough that they light cigarettes off meteorites.
Don’t believe in what you see, or madness will creep into your soul like grains of sand, and waves of dunes will hide your tracks. The thirst for blood has led him to you – keep going, don’t look back, or you are doomed to be imprisoned, to be swallowed by this ghostly world of dreams… Your caravan vanished in the desert of deception, taken by storms blowing for fifty days, these blinding, suffocating walls of dust. And the fine sand castle, which you have built, will now become your home forever.Michael Mulvihill (Ireland)
LIFE BLOOD
Michael Mulvihill was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1978. He eventually, in his late teens, became a bookworm completing degrees up to the Master’s Level in Addiction Studies, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Social Sciences. His initial fictional work was surreal short stories of horror which have been featured numerously in Black Petals, an online horror science fiction zine. He branched out to write an apocalyptic, post-Soviet horror novel, Siberian Hellhole, which was translated and published in Georgia. His latest novel, Syriacide, features The Syrian War. He is an avid reader of history and is fascinated by world events, South Africa, the USSR, and the philosophical idea of a dystopian society. At the moment he is writing a dystopian novel. An avid martial artist and film buff, he trains constantly in Kenpo Karate and loves to also relax whilst watching films.
In the meantime,Take of my life blood,Drink it whole,It is all I got to give,You have asked for everything,It is there with a noose.Laura McGlashan (England)
INHERITANCE
Laura McGlashan is a mature creative writing student, mother, and lover of written word. Laura is a poet and passionate about bringing a raw renewal of energy to creative nonfiction.
At five I am freckles and pigtails.I inherit Marvin Gaye from my mother.My father disappears the way cotton candy does when a tongue turns itself inside out.At Twelve I am Donnell Jones.I drink a fifth of Vodka and find my father between the sheets of other people’s beds.Do you wanna love me?At Sixteen I am DMX.I am sewn back together after she’s born.My mother’s indifference tastes a lot like the colour a fist paints itself when it unclenches.Is you with me or what?At Twenty I am Wu Tang Clan.People who love me give my father’s violence back to me in mirrors.Bring the motherfuckin ruckus.At Thirty I am a mixtape from the 90’s.I have cellotaped my inheritance to my collar bone.I am 2 parts Htown, and one part sin. Isn’t sin just sagacity anyway?Gimme some good love.Same song, different headphones.Artyom Maksul (Belarus)
NOSFERATU
Artyom Maksul is a translator of English and Scandinavian languages. He founded the Leo De Nord publishing house and is the creator of the music project Alhor Ern. His hobbies include music, history, Viking Age re-enactment, and martial arts.
Babe, can you recall who I am?Do you remember who we are?Standing inside of this burial vault,Watching for another bleeding sunsetWith ravenous, lucid emerald eyes.Dense twilight’s creeping,As a black wounded panther,To the strong orphanedAnd unprotected huts of menBeyond all its nocturnal powerAnd we will follow itWe’re Nosferatu,Infants of the best-forgotten,Beasts of the howling wildsNone can’t recall where we have come from.I know nothing, but my hungerOf disrupted human flesh.Can you smell their fear,It’s awesome, like a drug,May you perceive the taste of gore,So delicious, so eternal?Upon our paly iced-blue lips?And black and arcane constellationsAlways shine on our way.Light has come from the dusty pleatsOf our moonlit cloaks.That is a path,Per aspera ad astra…Would you be there,Would you stay here with me,When they come,Armed to the teeth,To wash our immortality away?Because if they fail, we can say to them,“Join us…”