Into Arcadia

By Jay Nuwald

Into Arcadia is Jay Nuwald's first complete collection of poetry, featuring a selection of gothic poems that reflect on life, death, the state of the world, and more. Inside, you'll find 42 poems from the dark mind of Nuwald, including:

Trekking Through Eden
The New Medieval
Columbidae I + II
Sketches of an American Mall
Reversal of Fates, and more

Completed in three sections through the months of October and November 2021, Into Arcadia represents a reaction to a grieving, transforming world. Recounting old memories and predicting future ones, Into Arcadia is a shocking debut collection for lovers of confessional, postmodern, and horror poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jay Nuwald
• Release date: Dec 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005950422

Jay Nuwald

Jay Nuwald is a queer author and poet from the Pacific Northwest. He enjoys gothic fiction, horror, and things that unsettle people. He also loves good pho, old movies, hiking the coast, camping in the woods, and time spent with his cat.

Book preview

PART ONE | Golgotha

noun

a hill near Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified; Calvary.

a place of suffering or sacrifice.

a place of burial.¹

Ready the Orchestra

Enter the Conductor, stage left.

He takes five paces

Then pauses a beat--

He looks out to where his audience

Should be, their memories fading

With the passage of time.

But his is fine, he's sharp,

He knows this dance to the step,

And takes a few more toward

A box, a little box,

An old orange crate where his

Perch once stood. He looks up

Through the ceiling to the

Dimming stars above.

Here and there,

Down and back,

Over his shoulders

He looks; no one.

He is truly alone here.

It is even too early for

The barn swallows to

Fly, to hunt for their

Hatchlings, still resting

Fresh in the rafters.

The conductor taps the invisible stand

And draws his players’ attention.

One by one they appear before him,

Filling the stage all across.

His fingers catch their blank gazes,

Their figures blurred by the dark,

And finally they are ready to play:

He points upward, scans ahead, then

One two three the first movement

Starts in bomb-cratered silence.

The Body of Christ as Scraps of Food

They left the carpenter to

Die up there, His body

Rotting in the sun.

At first, the flies stayed clear

Of His face, mindful the

Salt of his tears.

But as the day lingered,

He decayed and nature

Made its return.

The Apostles would later

Refuse to write of the

Lord’s earthly demise.

The image of Christ

Falling to the dogs

Frightened them all.

His flesh, so torn by them,

So desired by man, would haunt

Their dreams for years.

Little Hell in the Garden of Earthly Delights

I.

Death came swiftly to the Pope,

greeting him, an old friend,

as he slept.

The shock hit Rome, having

just buried another pontiff, and

having hardly known this one.

John Pius I lay silent in a

Vatican