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The unusual story of the Book of Counted Sorrows began in Koontz novels with small pieces of verse, usually printed at the beginning of the story and frequently at chapters or other divisions. These poem fragments were credited to a "book" that did not yet exist. Meanwhile, many a fan desperately searched for a text years away from publication. Then in 2001, an e-book gathered these poems: at last the coveted Book of Counted Sorrows. It is still available for download at very reasonable prices from many major online booksellers. These are but a few examples.
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All rights remain with the author and original publisher of the works.
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Title:
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The Bad Place
Cold Fire
Dark Rivers of
the Heart
Darkfall
Dragon Tears
False Memory
Fear Nothing
Hideaway
Intensity
The Mask
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Verse:
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"Every eye sees its own special vision;
every ear hears a most different song.
In each man's troubled heart, an incision
would reveal a unique, shameful wrong."
"Stranger fiends hide here in human guise
then reside in the valleys of Hell.
But goodness, kindness and love arise
in the heart of the poor beast as well."
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"Nowhere can a secret keep
always secret, dark and deep,
half so well as in the past
buried deep to last, to last."
"Keep it in your own dark heart,
otherwise the rumors start."
"After many years have buried
secrets over which you worried,
no confidant can then betray
all the words you didn't say."
"Only then can you exhume
secrets safe within the tomb
of memory, of memory,
within the tomb of memory."
"In the real world
as in dreams,
nothing is quite
what it seems."
"Vibrations in a wire.
Ice crystals
in a beating heart.
Cold fire."
"A mind's frigidity:
frozen steel,
dark rage, morbidity.
Cold fire."
"Defense against
a cruel life
death and strife:
Cold fire."
"Life without meaning
cannot be borne.
We find a mission
to which we're sworn
-- or answer the call
of Death's dark horn.
Without a gleaning
of purpose in life,
we have no vision,
we live in strife,
-- or let blood fall
on a suicide knife."
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"All of us are travelers lost,
our tickets arranged at a cost
unknown but beyond our means.
This odd itinerary of scenes
-- enigmatic, strange, unreal --
leaves us unsure how to feel.
No postmortem journey is rife
with more mystery than life."
"Tremulous kneins of destiny
flutter so ethereally
around me -- but then I feel
its embrace is that of steel."
"On the road that I have taken,
one day, walking, I awaken,
amazed to see where I have come,
where I'm going, where I'm from."
"This is not the path I thought.
This is not the place I sought.
This is not the dream I bought,
just a fever of fate I've caught."
"I'll change my highways in a while,
at the crossroads, one more mile.
My path is lit by my own fire.
I'm going only where I desire."
"On the road that I have taken,
one day, walking, I awaken.
One day, walking, I awaken,
On the road that I have taken."
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"Holy men tell us life is a mystery.
They embrace that concept happily.
But some mysteries bite and bark
and come to get you in the dark."
"A rain of shadows, a storm, a squall!
Daylight retreats; night swallows all.
If good is bright, if evil is gloom,
high evil walls the world entombs.
Now comes the end, the drear, Darkfall."
"Darkness devours every shining day.
Darkness demands and always has its way.
Darkness listens, watches, waits.
Darkness claims the day and celebrates.
Sometimes in silence darkness comes.
Sometimes with gleeful banging of drums."
"We can embrace love; it's not too late.
Why do we sleep, instead, with hate?
Belief requires no suspension
to see that Hell is our invention.
We make Hell real, we stoke its fires.
And in its flames out hope expires.
Heaven, too, is merely our creation.
We can grant ourselves our own salvation.
All that's required is imagination."
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"Rush headlong and hard at life
Or just sit at home and wait.
All things good and all the wrong
Will come right to you: it's fate."
"Hear the music, dance if you can.
Dress in rags or wear your jewels.
Drink your choice, nurse your fear
In this old honkytonk of fools."
"Living in the modern age,
death for virtue is the wage.
So it seems in darker hours.
Evil wins, kindness cowers."
"Ruled by violence and vice
we all stand upon thin ice.
Are we brave or are we mice,
here upon such thin, thin ice?"
"Dare we linger, dare we skate?
Dare we laugh or celebrate,
knowing we may strain the ice?
Preserve the ice at any price?"
"When tempest tossed,
embrace chaos."
"Faraway in China,
the people sometimes say,
life is often bitter
and all too seldom gray.
Bitter as dragon tears,
great cascades of sorrow
flood down all the years,
drowning our tomorrows."
"Faraway in China,
the people always say,
life is sometimes joyous
if all too often gray.
Although life is seasoned
with bitter dragon tears,
seasoning is just a spice
within our brew of years.
Bad times are only rice,
tears are one more flavor,
that gives us sustenance
sometimes we can savor."
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Whiskers of the cat,
webbed toes on my swimming dog:
God is in the details.
In the real world
as in dreams,
nothing is quite
what it seems."
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"We have weight to carry
a distance we must go.
We have a weight to carry,
a destination we can't know.
We have a weight to carry
and can out it down nowhere.
We are the weight to carry
from there to here to there."
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"In the fields of life, a harvest
sometimes comes far out of season,
when we thought the earth was old
and could see no earthly reason
to rise for work at break of dawn,
and put our muscles to the test.
With winter here and autumn gone,
it just seems best to rest, to rest.
But under winter fields so cold,
wait the dormant seeds of season
unborn, and so the heart does hold
hope that heals all bitter lesions.
In the fields of life, a harvest."
"Life is a gift that must be given back
and joy should arise from its possession.
It's too damned short, and that's a fact.
Hard to accept, this earthly procession
is final darkness is a journey done,
circled completed. work of art sublime,
a sweet melodic rhyme, a battle won."
"Death is no fearsome mystery.
He is well known to thee and me.
He hath no secrets he can keep
to trouble any good man's sleep."
"Turn not thy face from Death away.
Care not he takes our breath away.
Fear him not, he's not thy master,
rushing at thee faster, faster.
Not thy master but servant to
the Maker of Thee, what or Who
created Death, created thee
-- and is the only mystery."
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"Hope is the destination that we seek.
Love is the road that leads to hope.
Courage is the motor that drives us.
we travel out of darkness into faith."
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"Evil is the faceless stranger,
living in a distant neighborhood.
Evil has a wholesome, hometown face,
with merry eyes and an open smile.
Evil walks among us wearing a mask
which looks like all our faces."
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