daniel-a-russ
American
I'm a poet, writer, and critic living and working out of Flint, Michigan. Whether as a result of the socioeconomic status of my city (read: terrible and depressing) or a result of my obsession with dystopic literature and theme, my work tends to be infused with elements of decay, neglect, and rust - but generally with some sort of sunbeam on the periphery.
Boredom churns broad-in-brain
competing with petty volumes of alcohol
(white Russian, 1, Magic Hat #9, 1)
for dominance of the summer's eve.
Unsure of which would prove the victor,
past-tense, too, filled with unknowing:
thought- and pedaling-process interrupted
by a traitorous bicycle;
a forward-bent-fork;
a fleeing, unbolted forwardwheel.
Fast-pitch forward,
eyes-wide but dead:
quickfall into void.
Then, wide-eyed horror:
awake again
filled with the horrible pain of life again
fueled, amplified tenfold
through the impact of the sidewalk.
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 7:55 AM UTC
Hair explainable, perhaps only attainable,
via jagged electric lines from the sky
yet eyes follow, shimmer greengoldenbrown
with none of storm's lined chaos, no,
but maybe focused-inflicted madness
as
they
settle straight-on, brightened above wide-eyed
smile
-something new, there,
shattered-glass that's mended fast
upturned hopes but sails at half-mast.
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 7:55 AM UTC
She came as does morning
radiant and becoming in introduction
illuminating
flaws, goals, underlying structure
By high noon there was clarity
visions possible only at deep night
stirred into being by her apex.
Dusk, though long of shadow,
held comfort of embrace
of held hands
solidarity of mutual purpose
red-ringed
by veiled anger.
As the night came
she was gone.
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 7:55 AM UTC
Up and over walls and weeds,
ever-towards the tower did we climb
wrapped about with anxiety and anger,
isolated ahead of the herd
alone, we lead,
a mob edging closer
to storm-filled skies.
A bed of rocks, debris of cans,
sky-touch achieved:
we'd been first
to reach the roof.
Lightning storm to the east,
fog to the fore
and soon, somewhere nearby,
a stereo, playing the music of my youth
framing the sound of people laughing,
people drinking
men climbing too high
but mercifully, never falling.
A green gasmask, a black bandanna,
two flashlights and two bodies, pale of skin:
we again set out apart from the mob,
lost ourselves in computer crypts,
lamp graveyards,
uniform-chair depositories,
a ghost-floor filled with superstition and cauldrons.
Varieties of folder,
both manila and hanging,
bound across your back -
you got what you came for.
So did I.
Jul 12, 2010
Jul 12, 2010 at 4:53 PM UTC
Quick little pinprick
barely breaking the skin
small welter of blood
filling in fingerprints.
Once a past shared
fleeting moments among years
erased in lieu of bigger smiles,
more pleasant portraits.
Just a quick little *****
reminding me, despite a
decade of turning away
that once, I faced the flash too.
Jul 8, 2010
Jul 8, 2010 at 11:12 AM UTC
Tapping the vein
at the section of upper and lower arm
striking the needle deep,
jagged and rough,
upon notice that Second
isn't a one-way street anymore.
Must have changed while I was gone.
My Malibu,
swerving viciously to avoid the old Grand-Am
finds its way into the right lane
the only lane
fitting like a glove on the wrong hand.
Ahead, 475 dictates my exit.
A detour, the sign says,
with little ostentation,
even more accuracy.
The highway vomits me away,
chewed and confused,
an exit before my usual.
Though the path ahead
veers straight as a needle,
it's two miles downwind.
Two miles behind.
Great symbolism,
I tell myself,
pressing hard on the accelerator.
Jul 8, 2010
Jul 8, 2010 at 11:12 AM UTC
Furious orange wounds
rimmed in charcoal
betray last night's secret:
died, almost died,
charred in an accidental inferno
due to the lazy application
of a long-standing addiction.
Warm,
paper-burn stink clings
to the heat of an early morning
- July.
The slowly-creeping wet heat
in stark contrast
to the quickflash realization of predawn:
my bed was on fire.
The must never know,
those in the cells opposite -
surely, threats of neglectful destruction
warrant the hasty eviction
of the new tenant.
Thus I,
the wakeful sentinel of 611 Lyon
watching for mattress fire
have overturned the hopefully-cooled burns
and will sleep
to avoid dwelling on thoughts
of bonfires.
Jul 7, 2010
Jul 7, 2010 at 12:39 PM UTC
Surrounded
circle-fashion
by friends long-past
-maybe overdue-
at a glowing table
nestled deep in a white bar.
Frothing like a cauldron,
bubbles and pockets of the past
our past, I guess
erupting over the table
each bursting
upon encountering the *****
of my lack of attention.
I float grimly along
skating hidden incandescent
watching passively as my cloud is drained
upon understanding
that these people,
these friends of old,
notice, understand, and do not care
about my lack of interest.
Jul 6, 2010
Jul 6, 2010 at 8:40 AM UTC
You remember how
all the way there and all the way back all that I wanted
was to stop at Castle Danger?
And how, even though we tried so hard to find it
we simply could not?
The map and the compass pointed us
in the way we should have and did go but
they couldn't find it for us, either,
and I, too stubborn and masculine
and you, too feminine and shy,
couldn't be bothered to ask the path
from people that might have known it.
We never did find out way to Castle Danger,
never really found our way back home,
left maybe a little too much up in
those wastes of oxidized stones, frozen skylines,
we as ragged and destroyed as the ****** and ruined
husks that the wolves left behind.
You've found Castle Danger, now, a newer and better
navigator lead and lit your way, but I -
I'm still on I-61, searching, eyes on the road signs,
trying to find Castle Danger.
Maybe I'll send a postcard if I find it.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 12:28 PM UTC
Behind the window and through the blinds lies a man, who
stands and perches, naught but a silhouette outlined by the
brown, nicotine-stained glow of the sheets-called-curtains.
Anyway, there's a man there, peering into my window as
measures necessary to enable sleep are taken, but he's
not doing anything, I mean - I'm not sure he's even watch-
ing me, but the hour grows late and try as I might, the mind
runs
wild -
drawing demons from crevices and hands of memory
from the bizarre December thunderstorm winds, and
it's always hard but right now becoming impossible
not to draw lines between nonexistent floating points and
shadow the underside of spinning geometrics. I
don't know how people do it, although I imagine
this ******* guy that will not stop looking at me - ab-
solutely, undoubtedly, has some notiong of how to ..
Hey!
Listen!
I shout, but I'm starting to wonder if he's really there at all
or if maybe he's not a pseudo-fucking floating dot-point
construct, designed and developed and implemented by
some crazed group of people to -----------------------------no!
that is unlikely, and probably impossible - really,
I believe that I'm better now and see ent8irely that said
lying-yet-standing isn't a man, no, but that he is
an
illusion!
Looking around at the soft yellow glow from the low-
yield/high-power bulbs as it leaps from sad chair to
stained and scarred electronics and into my
cerebral cortex, the lack of and maybe .. I can
see now a palpable, blood-like desperat-
ion for wont of any sort of human contact - it is
wretching, but ever-present - because, currently, that
cannot
be.
And really is there ever anything nearly as damaging
and damning and, I think I'd argue, driving as the desperate
drive that comes from knowing that what you know is impossible to
rationalize? The terrible tragedy is the way that vile
data manifests itself, corrupting and poisoning pure s
streams, but becoming aware of this wasn't half so bad as
realizing that man you just spent hours learning to hate was
never
there.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 12:27 PM UTC