We are a small, independent press located in the metro-Detroit area in southeastern lower Michigan. We publish literary fiction and poetry. We were founded in 2006. We published a yearly volume, an ink and paper, hard-copy edition called Eklipse. However, we entirely closed down shop in 2010, even shutting down the website. At the time, we all agreed that it was a permanent move. But in 2015, the enterprise was brought back to life, albeit in a much scaled-down version. We brought back only the most prolific writers of our former incarnation and began concentrating everything on just their work. We are currently working with one poet (Roskowski) and three short-story writers(Ackermann, Foster, & Francis). We electronically publish at least one title per quarter, though we usually manage to get about a half-dozen titles published per year.
Our writer’s work offers you a glimpse into the other side of things. In a world ruled by an Apollonian force—marked by our culture’s emphasis on the ego, law and order, science and technology, materialism and the marketplace, and hollow divinity through organized religion—our writers seek to explore and emphasize tales from the so-called “dark side.” In this world, ruled by a Dionysian force, intoxication and sexuality are not secretly enjoyed or otherwise avoided, as they are in our sexually repressed, pain-rewarded Apollonian world. Here, at Dionysian Press, these things are pursued, explored, enjoyed—sometimes with reckless abandon—and are celebrated. So come with us! Drink of Dionysus’s wine! Let us sing songs and dance! Let’s be merry and just let it all hang out!
We are not actively seeking new writers at this time. However, if you really feel that your work resonates with what we are doing here at Dionysian Press, then please feel free to contact us through this site to see about submitting your work.
Dionysian Press 
Hello. I think I write grand stories. They are filled with words like, “shit” and “fuck”. I don’t know proper grammar; I often don’t put spacers in the right spot, e.g. commas, periods, and fuckin’ shit like that. I see there is only two authors currently. Fuck that shit. There ought to be three. I call dibs on being the Martin Short of the bunch. Please include me, at your earliest convenience. This will end my reply/CV.
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The moon is nearly full; half past which way I couldn’t say. Clouds or not, just a sliver will do; direct or reflection warms my face all the same. But those dark nights; when the moon and ourselves, are in the darkest.
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My mind is fresh like an newly emptied ashtray.
It won’t be long before it’s packed with butts.
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I suck like a hooker working for an abusive pimp;
Manic and without abandon.
If the world is to hate me, allow me to give them reason.
Reason compelled by abuse.
“That flannel looks like it smells like the last pussy I fucked.”
Statement, not necessarily a fact…
Fuck you.
Pissing on tombstones in mid-day July.
Civil War veterans, nonetheless.
It is not enough to coax the Gods
To bring about my demise.
I want the world,
Past, present and future,
To regard me as a filthy soul;
A human hell-hole.
Read, recoil, and pray,
You never become like the likes of me.
When your life is at its worst,
Say my name;
I shall slit my throat,
Spray you with my obscene,
And bless you with a better life.
Love letters written with feces.
This is my disease.
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Madness is an odd and fickle thing.
Reality takes a back seat
To the king of being.
Madness dons a crown on sanity.
Dry rot, bloodstains, scratches from an animal,
Cracks, gaps and missing planks
On an old wood floor
And the beautiful hand woven rug
That hides its history.
Lacerated thoughts
Unable to clot.
Nothing stops the thoughts.
Everything is bent.
Distorted.
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The tea kettle started to whistle as the water boiled on the electric stove. Charlie got up off his chair at the kitchen table, turned the coil off and moved the kettle to a cold burner. A coffee mug, jar of honey and a tea bag were pulled from the cupboard . The house was still. Only the rattling awnings betrayed infrequent gusts out in the cold early morning.
Charlie walked into the dark living room and took a seat in his grandfather’s favorite chair. It had been years since his grandpa had been alive to occupy that space. His eyes adjusted to the dark, picking up objects around the room in light emanating from the kitchen down the hall.
While his tea steeped in the kitchen, Charlie contemplated the upcoming day’s affairs. Two glowing eyes appeared from behind the couch. Muddy, his tortoise shell haired cat, sauntered over and leapt onto his lap. Charlie absent mindedly scratched the cat around its neck, getting his fingers under Muddy’s collar.
Falling into his subconscious, spurred by the soft purr of his cat, Charlie felt a physical twang in his heart. Shadows took on the shape of memories. How easy, he thought, if he just never had those thoughts at all. Reminiscent of a time when the past was obscured by dust and the future always favorable.
Now, looking back, as life had slowed down and the dust settled, it was clear the carnage he had laid in his wake. The simple, narcissistic approach to this was that he was just an emotional force of nature to be reckoned with. Beneath the surface, he was, just that.
Tectonic plates of morals and beliefs drifting and smashing into each other. At some point, neither side gave. Charlie initially thought this was some spiritual implosion. Much like the Rockies, this overture cavalcaded into a rift, a scar, for others to sense as something that divides.
This wasn’t a pleasant thought for Charlie. Division, by definition, does not unite. At least not without an algebraic algorithm. Somewhere deep within his recesses, he heard his grandfather’s voice, “Gibberish! How the hell is sittin’ on your ass thinking about this shit goin’ to pay the bills?”
The sun broke over the horizon, sending a ray through the blinds, a veritable dead line, across the living room wall, precisely at the moment Charlie knew.
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So there I was;
Left to ponder the electromagnetic rainbow.
Aluminum cylinders ignite my hyper-imagination.
Images of love and happiness and other hippie shit.
Thoughts of grandeur. Thoughts of redemption. Thoughts of vindication. Thoughts of acceptance. Thoughts that wander into realms of non-existence. Untouchable, at least, from this orbiting body.
Flying at sub-sonic speeds around an otherwise mach something object.
Mist from my burps mingle with the cigarette smoke.
Big rocks blasting holes through obscurity.
My lungs ache, my head reels.
My feet tap dance a beat akin to an odd numbered atom with odd numbered electrons flying around it.
Random.
Vacuum.
Take away the air, wind.
Hanker down beside the mast.
Allow me to have the energy to pull the sail when a fresh breeze blows my way.
Everything is so stagnant. The people I meet, the things I do. Caught in a current that pulls me to an unacceptable shore.
This is not India. The spice on this continent seems so stale.
Salt. Salt the earth. Dig in the recesses for something to make this palatable.
Shock me.
Shock me with a bolt of necessitude.
Give me what I’ve given you.
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I must have looked like a demented clown; my lips and cheeks smeared with her menstrual blood. I always was a sloppy eater. There was so much blood. We began to paint each other with her placental dye.
I pinned the cat to the back of the couch while it was sleeping. My right hand gripped the domesticated beast around the neck while I kept it in check with my forearm. I shoved a newly emptied shot glass, that moments ago held bourbon, with my other hand into the cat’s face. It fought like hell! I couldn’t help but think, “Holy fuck! This thing finds the smell of good hooch repulsive!”
“Hate Slinger 5, this is Bad Hand 6! Adjust fire! Troops in the open! TP 1009, left 25, drop 50, fire for effect!”
I managed to call this indirect fire, to rain hell in the form of steel splinters and phosphorous, onto an enemy position as I lifted my leg to allow a beetle to continue its course to do what ever it was that nature compelled it to do.
Yolk. The thing that binds beasts. The tasty yellow shit in eggs. Yolks;
Note:
To those that read this nonsense:
Often, it takes pain, disgust, or other distasteful deeds, thoughts, agenda’s, to promote some sane, insane, revelation of truth, how ever distorted, to show growth, pain, or otherwise contorted view of needs.
So. My query: How does one tap into pain and crap, when one is happy?
You, fucking suck. Just to put that out there.
If I made sense, I’d call it cents, and make some money off the shit.
You dig?
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They gathered around a rock
And contemplated its existence.
The man standing to its west cardinal direction
Declared it unmovable.
The woman standing on its south side
Viewed it as a distraction.
The dog sitting due north
Licked its balls.
The child, with his back facing the east of this rock
Pointed to the sky and asked, “What’s that?”
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Dave and his partner, John, responded to a call on the Northwest early in the afternoon. They walked up onto the porch and saw that the front door was ajar. John stood back. Dave gave the door a couple of raps with his knuckles, then gave the door a gentle push. The smell that hit them wasn’t all that unusual. Trash, smoke, nasty. The TV was on and a woman was sitting on the couch staring at the wall. Dave and John walked in. There was a spoon, lighter and a needle on the table next to the couch. The woman was drooling, unaware she had company, her shirt was open with her breasts hanging out and her dead baby was laying in her lap.
Dave joined the police force some five years earlier. Always the adrenaline junkie, he thought Detroit would cure his itch chasing the bad guys around the city, mixing it up with undesirables and working on high profile crimes. Instead, he found himself day in, and day out, dealing with situations that were far more tragic. They slowly took their toll.
After filling out his report on this last call, he wrote, and submitted his letter of resignation.
There was an apex. A turning point. Somewhere the memories of good times were overtaken by memories of bad times. The optimist, faced with this realization, became a pessimist.
I was eating some M&M’s talking with McCarty when the whip-crack announced the bullet’s arrival. McCarty was laughing at a joke I had just told. He died laughing. I was still grinning and chewing my candy when his body slumped over. Elsewhere, somebody was yelling, “Medic!” The fight was over. Hit and run.
Jake always struck out with the ladies. Even hookers would cross the road to the opposite side when his death trap rolling on four bald donuts rattled on by.
Just this morning, I fixed myself a bowl of cereal. A sudden urge to shit hit me. By the time I got out of the can, my cornflakes were soggy.
Some people cannot win.
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Sea breeze gusts
And mid-morning warmth.
Hair of the dog
And a woman’s touch.
These are the things
That make life’s musts.
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