the old man edges along, his palms crushing the backs of chairs searching for something like home.
i despise him in this moment: i loathe his paunch protruding shamelessly into private spaces, his shoes- lumps of plastic fastened carelessly with velcro.
i sniff arrogantly at this fountain of filth, catching an unmistakable stench: it is death, draped over those shoulders- a ghastly garment leering at all around him.
but
Oct 31, 2015
Oct 31, 2015 at 1:48 AM UTC
A thunderstorm now blossoms, stealing the sheen from a lambent sky.
Selfish clouds harvest light, storing it away for security,
An aetherial currency long-forgotten.
But she remembers, hiding amid grey flannel bedsheets.
She remembers all: the birth of the ground as it fell from the trees,
The death of the moss that hoped for more.
She remembers the haunting shriek of the pterodactyl, circling into Oblivion.
In her room on the moon, with doors of ancient bone and holy song,
Locked away from the great hereafter, she hears the whisper of a promise meant for a whole world and falls asleep.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 9:05 PM UTC
I met a man with a Y for a hand.
Addressed him timidly, "which war?"
An earnest reply: "the second."
He then went on.
His words were water, gently flooding my mind.
'O pliant paper sea, kindly permit those words to flow from me and into Thee!' For I fear I may drown, held under too long by the rapids I have become.
This is my stranger, the moments he shared:
'Father gone, too young to forgive.
The neighbor boy's '41 Buick leaves dust on his new bicycle.
Upon a cinder track, Father's fleeing footsteps spur him on,
For his is a sadness only speed can overcome.
I know not by what good grace he 'scaped savage Okinawa, with her Endless line of bayonets, but I do know this:
That cinder track, in devotion absolute, forgot its form, stretching from an Imperfect oval to a path at once straight and serpentine, leading you from foxhole to foxhole, past ambush and anguish.
No victory lap here; just heavy iron tread snapping shoots of bamboo spread for a finish line.
Silence and silence alone greets him as he collapses post-race, leaving three fingers to Okinawa and departing post-haste.'
I had all but succumbed to his tale, each new sentence a towering breaker Pummeling me into the darkness of my aquatic consciousness.
I reached out, finding a precious grasp extracting me from jealous eddies and Lonely currents.
Though our handshake held seven where ten should rightly go, it was yet more complete than any I have known.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC
I killed an insect once,
Crushed it with a rock.
I had to; its fate was already decided:
This insect had too few legs; they bent away
From its body as it struggled proudly towards
Nothing and indeed found nothing.
Pity took shape and brought an end to its odyssey:
Yielding to the rock, it accepted that it had just come across its noblest hope for a way out.
Fear took hold of me; my own rock was sure to come
Soon enough.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
Fear is youth, youth is perpetual.
Perpetuity is the pleasant melancholy awash on the scarlet portrait hanging in every motel room.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 4:49 PM UTC
Alone wasn't a word until the door was closed; each sound in this place
Spells your doom.
The soul has places to go, you know.
It's feverish to fill, to take the essence of "I" and scatter it every which way.
Once you fall, and you will fall:
O, then see how the soul works!
Your charm is a sea-gooseberry, your love seeps into the fog,
Your smile is now the Sun.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 4:48 PM UTC
A wind chime carefully spreads its stillness over you.
Half-awake, not knowing what sleep is, your mind collapses into the
Mythical canopy of Dream.
You find you are chasing yourself, prodded by hazy remembrance towards Neatly-apportioned morsels of time past.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 4:46 PM UTC
Give me leave to lay my brow, ever burdened with strain and stress,
Upon your pale, pinkish breast.
You, tenderly streaked with wisps of scarlet nimbus,
Are to my heart as a blank page is to my mind; a quiet refuge, never thinking to rebuke,
To whom I do release the torment of my falsely pained soul.
Your gentle features tempt my wandering eye,
Straightening the drifting passage of my heavy feet.
As an itinerant with sudden purpose, my steps become lighter; I urge on my weary limbs.
With such alacrity I pursue your heavenly beauty: eternally sought, for it is eternally distant.
Cut off in my ethereal chase by the limiting margent of a spiteful pond,
I espy that which you, enticing, have kindly led me to.
A pale, lovely form, alone in the company of Nature’s subjects,
With whom I believe I shall spend the final hours of the expiring day,
Noticing my gaze, stands to greet me as you withdraw under night’s comforting sheet.
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 10:30 PM UTC
Night’s cloak envelops me.
I am lowered, thought by thought, hanging
Over the dreadful, terrifying abyss.
There reside the nightmares,
Crouching in the filth and mire.
There is the unyielding horror of
Grotesque, inhuman shapes.
Morphing faces, skin like liquid, shifting,
Growing, all attacking, no escape.
Please help please help please.
I repeat my voiceless supplication.
Voices fill the air, in whom can I put my faith?
No one has truth. How did this happen?
How… how did this happen?
I’m transfixed in an endless moment,
Trapped in the simple,
Terrifying despair of life,
The infinite loop of Time.
The secret is out.
I float above all that is,
Completing the circuit of emptiness.
Weak with knowledge, I am told to let go.
I must: where I am, pain has made its home.
But soft. There is a way, I will be whole, I cannot rest,
I feel the light, it shines over all that I have seen,
Turning monsters to shadows.
Day has come.
Jun 26, 2012
Jun 26, 2012 at 2:58 AM UTC