DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

It’s been in the back of my mind since April Fool’s Day that it might be neat to do a National Poetry Month tribute, even though the course of my writing has veered well away from poetry in recent years. I certainly wasn’t going to

John Neville, who played Romeo to Claire Bloom’s Juliet, Hamlet to Judi Dench’s Ophelia and Othello to Richard Burton’s Iago (and vice versa), but who may be best known in the United States as the title character in the exuberantly loopy film “The Adventures of

The cruellest month is over! So I wound up posting fourteen free poems total in honor of National Poetry Month — and mini-posts about the making of most of them — for no greater reason than the thought that it might be a fun thing

This poem, the thirteenth and final piece in my impromptu National Poetry Month series, is practically a fanfic — an unofficial coda of sorts to Laird Barron’s kickass horror novella “Procession of the Black Sloth,” directly inspired by that story’s final moments. It’s a fun

The Thirteenth Hell   Her voice in my ear said, look, look. Though I squeezed my eyelids shut, hid my face in my hands, I could still see it. I pressed my fingernails in, hooked my thumbs and pulled, like so many here before. And

“The Strip Search” was a piece specifically written for stage performance; the fact that it went on to appear in Strange Horizons and win a Rhysling Award was a nice unexpected bonus. I’m going to cheat today. I’ve already described the origin of this poem

The Strip Search   The Gate said “Abandon All Hope.” I thought I’d tossed all my hope away, but when I stepped through the Gate, it still pinged. One of the guards slithered out of its seat, snarling as it drew forth a wand. C’mere,

About six years ago my buddy Charlie Saplak and I collaborated on a short story that re-imagines the Greek myth of Sisyphus, condemned to push a boulder uphill in Hell until it grows too heavy and rolls over top of him — after which he

Sisyphus Walks   Sisyphus lifts the thighbone of a god Above his head (a bone thick and long as A felled tree) and begins his trudge Across the hard-packed dust. Spills of silver fluid blanket uneven stone, Not pooling in hollows but spreading in Thin

Another domestic poem, born out of nothing more than strange noises regularly heard at night outside my window in the very office where I now sit.  The poem’s approach owes a great debt to the wonderful ending of Thomas Ligotti’s horror story “Nethescurial,” which is