Michael McInnis
My poetry and short fiction has appeared in Chiron Review, Cream City Review, Deadly Writers Patrol, Naugatuck Review, Oxford Magazine, Unlikely Stories and Yellow Chair Review to name a few. Back in the late 80s I founded the Primal Plunge, Boston’s only bookstore dedicated to ’zines, underground culture, and small press literature.
Words
A Secret History of Exorcism
When the door to door exorcist arrived, we let him in before he had a chance to introduce himself. At first, he stood in the hallway as if testing the space for satanic residue. Satisfied, the door to door exorcist ventured in to the kitchen. We offered him coffee and a snack, but he declined and moved toward the dining room. It was in that room that he realized he was in the wrong house. We insisted he stay for dinner.
An Alien Encounter
What if, the boy said to his parents, what if I build a spaceship.
Out of what, the boy’s father said.
From meteorites and platinum and seaborgium.
How will you pay for this spaceship, the boy’s father said.
With my keno winnings and hustling down at the pool hall, with craps in the back alley behind school.
You have such a vivid imagination, the boy’s mother said.
What if, the boy said to his parents, what if there is a spaceship already here to take me back to my home planet.
I gave birth to you, I nursed you, I bled for you, the boy’s mother said.
Did you, the boy said, did you.
Praise for Secret Histories
I was left breathless by the end of Secret Histories, as if I’d fallen “off the edge of the world,” and into McInnis’ mind-scape. Where is this place with a silence “so deafening that/the only sound you hear is your heart beating?” — Jennifer Martelli, author of My Tarantella
Mermaids walk amongst us, and fortune may allow us to trace their tattoos with our tongues. McInnis shows us “how we dream up gods in our desert consciousness,” knowing that all the while, the sharks feed below. — Heather Sullivan, author of Method Acting for the Afterlife
Cervená Barva Press (2019)
ISBN 978-1-950063-10-9
Music
I compose and record under the name d’Entremont. My music is ambient, drone, soundtrack music. It is music that can be played in the background. It is music that you can engage with, listening actively for pleasure.
Follow me at dentremont.bandcamp.com
Listen to more at Soundcloud