Evernight
Or
The Verse of a Deranged Mind
By
Robinson Stone
Foreword and Notes by
Lawrence Snyder, Ph.D.
Foreword
It has been a rare and truly humbling opportunity, preparing these dozen or so poems for publication. Very rarely does a work of literature attain a sort of infamous stature, Mein Kampf and the works of Charles Manson jump to mind, but even more so rare are works of poetry that take on a mythic stature for all the wrong reasons.
The book you hold in your hand is one such collection.
Robinson Stone shocked the US and the world when it was revealed that he had kept an obsessive and truly terrifying poetic journal chronicling his obsession with one Alexa Snow, a grad student at the nearby Jackson City University. Stone encountered her by pure chance one day as she was perusing through the book store in which he was employed. He never knew her name, but that did not stop him from stalking her, burning down her boy friend’s house (he admits to the crime with pride), and finally kidnapping Snow and keeping her tied up in his basement for some weeks. I personally will never forget the harrowing footage of the JC SWAT Team rescuing Ms. Snow from Stone’s basement.
But you all know that already, even if you’ve only given the news a cursory glance.
What you do not know is what was going on in the mind of Robinson Stone. I was approached by the police both for my knowledge of literature and abnormal human psychology to compile and create a comprehensive volume of Stone’s poetic works that describe, in vivid and sickening detail, his actions and his mind set. The police have granted me unfettered and unparalleled access to the evidence in this case and thanks to them I can safely say I have the whole story.
I have compiled the notes for the following poems from Stone’s journals, security cam footage, dozens of witness statements, interviews with Ms. Snow, and interviews with Stone himself. I can’t say I hope you enjoy these works of a truly disturbed mind, however I am glad that you are reading them.
− Lawrence Snyder, Ph.D.
Sonnet Dedicatory 1
The story you have come by you posses
Because the maggots, in the end, won out.
When God is put in chains, what can transgress
But despair? I ask, with a saddened shout.
Treachery from my one true holy love
Tore down my Godhead and laid me in dust.
I. She. We. The words fit like hand in glove.
But my dreams were laid low by burning lust.
The maggots come stare at God in a cage,
Parading my verse; like baiting a bear.
Knowing nothing of my pain or my rage
Why should you, reader, even try to care?
Mine is a scenario of much woe:
What if Juliette didn’t love Romeo?
March 1
March of the Zombies
Dull and decrepit.
That is the way I live.
Surrounded by the tombs of genius 2
And prisoner to a braindead horde.
Dreaming of Nabokov
And pining for
Garcia Marquez 3
I peddle the trendiest drivel 4
To Romero’s host.
What happened to the dream?
Why is the night just a purgatory?
Why is it I am the lone man
In the March of the Zombies?
Thirty years and not a single moment
Blessed.
With every tick of the wall clock
Another nail is thrust through my
Wrist. 5
No company to my left.
No comfort to my right.
Only a sea of the soulless.
Will no one come and take me down
From my
Cross?
March 2, 2:43 PM
Note scribbled on a punch-in sheet
My soul, O! my soul. Have we at last reached that Promised Land?
Later that night.
Out of Exile
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
- C. Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
I was a stranger in a wasteland
Parched and needing drink
More direly than the earth
Which cracked and flaked
Like a dead man’s skull in the sun.
No mirages even, to offer
Imaginary respite from my anguish.
And when at last it seemed
My life was spent, the sky opened up
And gave me You.
The heavenly liqueur streamed from
The stars in a flashing torrent.
It seemed a sin to behold but
My spirit grabbed flashes of your
Beauty between the blinks of your gems.
God’s rain resolved itself and collected
In your eyes, O! piercing sapphires!
From the black birds he took feathers
And, with a hand more delicate than he
Ere before used, wove your hair like silk.
From the ocean he appropriated all
The pearls in the world and fashioned
Them soft and perfect. He called it
Your face and saw that it was good. 6
Refreshed and rejuvenated and finally
Alive,
I shouted to any who would hear:
My soul, O! my soul. Have we at long last reached
That Promised land?
March 6
The Scent of an Angel
Leaves a shimmering haze
In the air as she passes.
The shining crystal of her
Glorious person is made all the more
Intoxicating
By the human cockroaches that
Eye her with contention
Murderous Maggots. 7
They want only to bring you
Crashing down and to
Drag your halo through the Mud.
But I won’t let them.
I am stronger than them.
I will protect you from
THEM.
You are Her.
You are She,
The Mother, the mother of
The Superman. 8
Nothing can stop us now.
March 7
A Shining Ship in a Sea of Filth
Cutting the waves with a glittering
Subtle Knife that retains no stains 9
From the sickness it cuts.
For 21 leagues I followed you. 10
A lonely, starving gull
Caught in the same trade wind
As you, glorious vessel. A vessel
I long to fill.
Can you hear me?
Crying out to you?
Turn and see me.
Please.
I Beg You.
To die under the cannonball glare
Of you sea sapphire orbs: That is
To die happy. Filled from
Top to toe with beauty’s shrapnel,
I can plummet from the sky and sink
Down into the dark depths
In peace.
But.
You keep on going.
I’ll turn back and let you sail on.
For now.
March 10
A Foolish Man in the Court of Queen God 11
Today was the greatest day that ever you made.
The day when I spoke to you.
Almost.
I filled my lungs with you.
Your scent ran through my skin
Like heaven fire and left me screaming
In purified agony.
And you turned.
You focused your all seeing eye
On the foolish suppliant that is I.
O! The things I longed to say:
In you I shall find the way the truth and the light
But all I could do was stare.
Like an idiot into an eclipse.
March 20
Longer than Christ Wandering in the Desert 12
And twice as painful is this world
Without you to reprieve my shriveling soul.
Angel of Angels, Blood of the Sacred.
Where
Have
You
Gone
?
March 23
Suppliant at the Gates of Heaven
In the darkness go I
To stand before God.
A window of gold
In a sea of black.
A sea of bile, of shit,
With a single pure, untouched
Island adrift in the center. 13
You must know I’m here
You can feel me.
Feel my soul calling out
To you.
Your silhouette
Framed by glittering glass
Shatters me to my core.
Hours.
There aren’t enough in the night
To contemplate knocking
At your gates.
But I could never be so bold
So brash
So brazen.
One cannot enter paradise uninvited
Heaven must be offered,
Not taken.
April 1
The Rival 14
The blackguard smiles
A mouthful of knives
I can smell his corruption
And can hear all his lies.
Handling you
With such easy grace
The red devil plays
In the shadows of his face.
Innocence is drowned
Love proved a whore
Although I stare
I can’t take anymore.
As he leaves,
A spring in his trod
I’ll make him sorry
He ever fucked my God.
April 10
The Reckoning
“Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is a rule.”
-C. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
O! Day of Judgment
I know now why you are called
Rapture. 15
Sound the trumpets and give word
To the horsemen. The time to ride is
Come.
Floating in mystery and shadows
I bleed through the ether night
Like wounds reopened
At the approach of Richard Gloster.
You may have been able to fool
My precious Anne, but I
With my purifying flames will burn your
Boar from your blood red banner.
Clarence is gone, false fleeting perjured
Clarence, and in his place a stone faced
Avenger that cannot be dissuaded
By any amount of sly speech from
A mouth born with teeth has come. 16
Before was the flood.
Now comes the fire. 17
April 12
Becoming
I’m looking through a glass, darkly,
and the maggots are beginning to
lose definition.
I see them,
They’re just fading away.
Into the nothing that they
deserve.
How could she?
How could she give herself
to him?
God never makes
a mistake. God never
mistakes.
To err is
human.
But I
can save her.
I can raise the fallen
angel.
I am becoming.
I am becoming
God. 18
April 15
Pluto and Persephone
The plunging dark will lead the way
to a bright future for you, my
Sweet Queen. Cradled in the
intertwining fingers of my power
I am taking you far from the
harsh, searing sunlight to cloak
you in my dark womb of Evernight.
Yes. Sing. Your song burns through my
veins like stallions charging through
a canyon.
Yes. Dance. Seeing you
writhe in that little form overcomes
my body and leaves me stricken
like a joyful victim of a welcome plague. 20
But I must press on.
I must set you back upon your throne. 21
April 20
The Queen of Tears
Do you cry when I’m not there
my sweet?
They aren’t the same tears as when you’re
in my arms.
I hope.
I carry a part of you with me
all day long.
Some of your hair
in my right pocket.
When it all gets to be too much;
When the maggots close in,
I touch it.
And I picture you. On your throne.
My Queen of Tears.
And all is as it should be.
April 21
Why do you turn away
from me? I have given you nothing
but love. My endless love, undying,
unyielding and unbending. But.
you
prefer
FILTH.
Even Christ had to crack the whip
when he drove the wicked from the
temple.
I will storm your temple, and drive
out the wicked. You will be purified,
or die in the process. 22
Later that Night
Maggots at the Gates 23
They’ve come with dogs
They’ve come with guns
The neighbors gawk
And bring their sons
Out to see the arrest
Of the God next door.
Don’t fucking tell me
To get down on the floor.
You don’t know
What kind of power I hold.
And before you presume
To be so bold,
Don’t think you maggots
Have the power to take her
Because I’m gonna send you
To meet your 24
Notes
- This first poem was the last to be added to the manuscript prior to publication and is the only piece that stone has been known to have completed since his incarceration. He demanded that this piece come first to “ruin the expectations” any reader would have. I’m not entirely sure what he meant by this. It might be some veiled reference to how he thinks the general population perceives him. In truth, the sentiment of the general population sees him more as an oddity than an artist.
- This is a reference to the bookstore where Stone worked. He consideres books to be “carefully folded trees” that “caged the beauty” enclosed therein.
- “Dreaming of Nabokov… Garcia Marquez” This reference to two great novelists is at first confusing. Upon interview it became clear that Stone revered these two men because they “understood” him. One’s mind invariably floats to the character Humbert Humbert in Nabokov’s Lolita and Florentino Ariza from Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. Both characters are known for their consuming and destructive passions.
- “Trendiest drivel” The best selling series at Stone’s place of employment was Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight saga.
- “Nail through my wrist” This is the first documented time that Stone refers to himself as a religious figure.
- “God’s rain… it was good” This is the first and most accurate description of Stone’s victim. Ironically, I found during interviews with him, Stone never learned her name.
- Stones misanthropy is characterized by his inability to see other people as equals. He instead views them as a swarm of insects. Originally it appears to be a literary device but somewhere along the line he started to believe it was true.
- Stone often spoke of using Ms. Snow to breed a “master race” of “supermen”. It appears that the Superman Stone speaks of is the one Nietzsche wrote of in his philosophical works.
- “Subtle Knife” An odd reference to the works of Philip Pullman, an English young adult novelist. The knife was a mystical implement that could cut anything, including the barrier between dimensions.
- Security camera footage pulled from this day shows Stone following Snow for twenty one blocks.
- This is the first reference to Ms. Snow being a diety. This seemed to be the center of Stone’s delusion so when she is found to be “impure” it triggers a mental break down of violent proportions.
- After the incident of Stone smelling her hair, as detailed in the poem prior, Ms. Snow stopped going to his bookstore.
- After some time of waiting, Stone used credit card receipts to track down Ms. Snow’s home address. She had been provided housing by the university, as she was there on a hefty scholarship. Stone routinely went to her house at night and stared through her bedroom window, hoping to catch a glimpse of his “beloved”.
- Ms. Snow’s boyfriend is the man referred to in this poem. He is the son of the head of the English department at Jackson City University.
- This poem marks a turning point. Stone begins to see himself as something divine. In this poem his persona seems to be that of an arch angel. Later he will evolve, in his own mind, beyond the ranks of Seraphim to being God himself.
- “Floating in mystery… teeth has come” This section is an extended reference to King Richard III and his brother, Clarence, as outlined in Shakespeare’s plays King Henry IV Part 3 and Richard III. The “wounds reopened” reference pulls on the superstition of that era that wounds of the dead would reopen and bleed afresh in the presence of the person who made them. The Lady Anne reference is to the classic scene where Richard woos Anne over the body of her dead husband, whom Richard killed. Richard’s icon in battle was a boar.
- This couplet is both a biblical reference and a bastardization of James Baldwin’s closing remarks in his work The Fire Next Time.
- The implication is as obvious as it is eerie.
- This was the day Stone kidnapped the young lady. In his mind, he was saving her from the rest of the world.
- The singing and dancing refers to Ms. Snow’s screams and efforts to escape.
- He tied her to a chair in his basement.
- This piece was written after an unsuccessful escape attempt on the part of Ms. Snow. The effort was not in vain, however, as the neighbor’s eight year old witnessed Stone recapturing Ms. Snow and told his parents. The young child most definitely saved Ms. Snow’s life.
- This was written as the JC SWAT team surrounded Stone’s house.
- One can assume that the last word in this poem was going to be “maker”. Stone was apprehended before he could finish the piece and has refused to say what the last word was actually going to be, or even if it was the last word at all.
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