Status Updates From Where Decay Sleeps

It's okay. The poetry isn't necessarily for me. A couple of lovely pieces but overall find the way it's been set out by the author kind of cringe and self-indulgent.
I had expected it to be a careful selection of poetry which spawned the themes named to distinguish sections of the book, but it seems that the author decided on section headers and wrote poems to fit.

Claudine 5/5. The pain of seeing an angelic lover leave you. Very Gothic prose, very sad.
Aftermath 5/5. Someone grieving their departed love one and wishing they were back. The saddest one so far.
Whispers of Autumn 4/5. A Gothic stroll through nature, missing a loved one. Quite nice.
Lost and Found 4/5. Chasing after the wraith of phantom of a loved one. Both grisly yet also touchingly sad.

Shadow 4/5. Not sure what entity was described, but still creepy.
The Faceless Man 5/5. A terrifying take on the terror of mental illness personified. Very sad.
Hikikomori 5/5. An unsettling view of an introvert's life. Can relate.
Beatrice and Bluebeard 3/5. Hopeful take on the tale. Nice
Decay, the Stalker 3/5. Pretty depressing.
Covid-19 Delirium 1/5. I hate anything about Covid.
The Night Fisherman 4/5. Grisly.

The Thing on the Subway 5/5. A Lovecraftian subway experience. Really creepy
Zombies @ the Arches 2/5. Two girls encounter zombies at a rave party. Not much to react to.
Monster Tinder 5/5. My favorite. Plays with the women attracted to monstrous men trope
Summoning Baba Yaga 4/5. Kid tries to get a selfie with the titular hag witch. Very 80s horror.
Computer Love 3/5. Not sure what happened here, but creepy

Thus ends Pallor Mortus (Birth) and begins Algor Mortis (Digital Disruptions)

I am very impressed with Cheung's imagery and prose thus far. Only one poem was really very weak, but this seems pretty good so far.

Read "Concoction" Apparently, the previous mother is back, but her baby is sadly gone. She sees her baby in her dreams and tries through occult means to make another, but it tragically fails. So much deliver in such short of a time

4/5 stars.

Read "Ghost Bridges" Although I knew this dealt with the Chinese practice of ghost marriages, I had to admit that I was rather confused as to what was going on until I looked up ghost marriages.

I realized that I was reading an account of grave robbers stealing corpses, selling parts of the bodies, and celebrating. The revelation is shocking, but not much else besides the prose reaches out.

2/5 stars

Read "Corpses Bloom" Possibly the most beautiful and Gothic description of the dead rising from their graves. Sweet and serves its purpose proper.

4/5 stars.

Read "Creature" The mother from "In Utero" marvels, with macabre aesthetics, over her baby. There is almost a Lovecraftian tone to the description of the baby's suckling and babbling.

The language is still beautiful, and I understand what Anna Cheung is doing here, but it feels a bit overwrought. 3/5 stars

Read "In Utero" A poem that graphically depicts pregnancy from the gestation of the child to birth. The language is beautiful if not grotesque. The baby is described monstrously until finally the baby suckles the mother's breast.

4/5 stars for this one.