48 pages
saddle stitched

exterior concept and design: Pablo Vision

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood. Write with blood and you will discover that blood is spirit." The epic rites workers in blood chapbook series showcases work by artists whose medium is blood.


epic rites press proudly welcomes the monstrous birth of hellbound by David McLean - the second entry in the workers in blood chapbook series. based upon Clive Barker’s insanely popular Hellraiser movie franchise, David does not merely interpret the Hellraiser mythology, he reinvents it - making it distinctly his own.

forget cheesy horror film remakes. if you want to get scared, really scared, wrap your trembling fingers around hellbound & let David McLean lead you deep into the labyrinth of the human psyche & leave you for dead.

hellbound is quite possibly the coolest, tightest collection of poetry you’ll ever buy.





Hellraiser


when we play with toys like words or thoughts
there are often doors inside them opened by words
to worlds where our eyes or a devil's hooks
can tear up suffering in us, like children tell them to

and suffering can be a box opening in a film
that devils live in, devils that perhaps can torture us,
but not much more worse than we ourselves like to do
devils are evil beings, mostly, a bit like me and you,

there is torture and boredom, but no suffering is new


Hellbound

when we want to feel more than the dull desires and needs
of these recalcitrant meat machines
that are we

then there is Hell, and anxious eternities to fall into
there, like dropping an unexpected tab
and knowing torture

is more than a night. and you are this dead scream
forever. it is time stretched to a devil's tail
where you remain,

angst alive behind your blind eyes,
measuring a severed heaven
we call life.

no body is unkind
the pain inside
is mind, not yours, not

mine. the only ever Hell
you truly know
is you,

the only one you need to


angels tied together

we were angels tied together by hooks and chains
that were words and absent empathy,
thus are we devils today,

so we fall apart since our skulls
were carved together
by madmen,

and we ourselves are the engineers
who weld our heads together
and call it love,

for we are cameramen who destroy
what they shoot, which is our selfish
selves

(but most people nowadays don't believe in Hell)


the worst Hell

the worst Hell for a devil
is one where eyes are sewn shut
so you cannot see the suffering you inflict
on others. the worst Hell for a lover
is when the loved one
never suffers


if Pinhead's chains and hooks

if Pinhead's chains and hooks
were no more than anxiety
touching us

i would be disappointed.
i want more than time
and nightmares;

i want living devils
in this Hell,
but they are not here,

just nothing, better
would have been Pinhead -
he almost cares,

loving the sufferings
we share, our brutal bodies
here


demons might seem to need

demons might seem to need real human beings
who were worthy of suffering and cunning torment.
but all we are is empty gourds we try to fill
with a little cum, a little meaning, a little love -
it all just gets to be dust.

none of us deserve our demons -
we don't even know how to be evil enough


visiting Hell

to visit Hell is being born to this place
not even designed to torture us
properly;

sin is the inappropriate assumption
that nothingness was supposed
to love us

though nothing could.
it was assuming our blood
wouldn't look better

in a proper Hell's dust,
better than heaven,
a real suffering to love,

not scrabbling here,
puppies in the mud,
doing stupid things

like “good”


time woke up

time woke up with mother's teeth in your throat,
like a striking bitch whose biting jaw
needs to be sliced and diced,

and a mother or two cut up.
patiently waiting, they are a devil's best
cenobites, and the boxes between their legs

release their victims into Hell;
their Lament Configuration
is the fleshy matrix we fall from.

a mother's heart is a box full of chains
and loveless hooks, they are dead now,
and deader, but never dead enough.

with so many other gashes
and slits in the possible skin,
who needs old cunts?


we are Tiffany

we are Tiffany today, mostly,
and release our demons without speaking
or apparently even feeling;

there are no loving mothers there for us,
though, and never were, not even in Hell
or any other degraded heaven.

there is not even a Pinhead to take us.
just the same sadistic interest we saw more than once
when young. we know what modernity calls it -

a mother's love


Hellworld

so much is impersonation, and being evil is often
only seeming, like feathers falling from a crow
who doesn't even want to feed on dead people.
his sadly knowing eye that is blind as time,

rehearsing us as answers to some hunger
when mankind is his humble pie, his eye lights
men greedy for him to feed on them. and we are dead men,
baby, who shall be deader yet,

and time's crow that feasts on us is not evil,
it's just that every hunger tends to forget
ethics. it's like Pinhead said,
not all pleasure is sexual –

we like to suffer too, sometimes,
we like to be dead


Pinhead's cathedrals

these bodies are Pinhead's cathedrals
when no love is in them,
and forgotten fingers are skeletons
groping at hopeless nothing.

we only fear the dead
because they are devils
themselves, and devils
can only hurt dead men,

only dead men -
and we are themSister Nikoletta

when nuns get to be devils
they grow our Hell within them,
and police it patient as any animal
waiting for flesh;

and the meaty we that is given
she takes and eats, the body
that is given for her
by fate and dark angels, her rapist

saviors are chains that bind us tighter
to her obtuse angles, for she alone
is essential sexuality - Lilith
with nipples rubbed away

by sandpaper and unnatural
lust, the black of tacky
chastity, the suffering we lack -
i call that dust, i call that love:

when nuns come to be devils
they get much too beautiful for heaven


and the children whimper

i assume there are lonely children
in autistic rooms tormented by insanity
and a tangible void inside them
that smells like forever.

they see that the sun rises, and light,
but it is nothing to them,
it is nothing to any body.
the sun is a nightmare

and their short eternity is but
the repetitive thud of heads on walls,
fingers tearing open life's thin skin,
in a world where such red truth

is not welcome, is seldom allowed in


Hell on earth

Hell on earth is no more than dismal cities
and tired feet that burn their memories there,
as though crossing sidewalks fast enough
meant futures came bigger and better.

all this dull light over stunted trees
that do not worry about meanings,
and nightmares are the slow rolling
absences in the eyes of children -

those who noticed that god had died
with their grandparents and anxiety,
as they all fell back into untidy time
and the children noticed they were not

within him, not really living -
and no angels or devils were listening -
because evil today is the domain
of priests and teachers and doctors

and politicians, evil is anywhere too real
where the ego comes into play, today
and not even a decent devil to offer us resurrection,
just the slow fall, just vitality fading away


what is missing

what defines us is what we are not,
all our absences
and failures,

metaphysical distance from wholeness
and the hope of wholeness
an idiot's dream,
a fool's sacred belief,

we are not whole but holes,
and yet living beings
made from compact meat.

this fleshy body deformed
and torn to shreds
suits us better;

a flabby discarded garment,
bits of battered bone and tattered skin
shows us what we are.
we are blind but an empty skull
is blinder by far.

what is missing is our absences
and a Hell to burn in -

what we need is people who are interesting
while suffering, not just whining
self-pitying children;

we need less human beings and more real people
who don't mind meaninglessness
and don't mind the blood,

don't mind bleeding

After reading hellbound by David McLean I contemplating kicking my kitten, punching a wall, or doping up to kill the pain. It's that good...

McLean's poetry comes at you on all levels except subtle. Powerful, delicate and written in a style all his own; McLean digs deep into the cultural psyche of Pinhead – and along the way, lays ruin to our own sense of being, worth and reality.

McLean's poetry has always kicked your balls until you puked; with this volume, you're choking on blood and praying for replacement.

- Jack Henry

David McLean lives in Sweden with his wife Amanda Boschetto, their dog, and five cats. David has several books of poetry out, including Cadaver's dance (Whistling Shade 2008), pushing lemmings (erbacce press 2008), la morte vivante (Shadow Archer Press 2009) and of dead snakes (Rain over Bouville 2009).