Last night, after I had lain down, I lied.
I sat, saturnine, basking in incandescent rays
Which impinged upon the back of my eyelids
Like the warmth of her smile.
I lay in the miry blankets and in myself,
Allowing the weight of my mind to wisp away
With slender traces of white smoke.
The room dissolved around me with the bar beneath my tongue.
I laughed.
Three years had passed since the last time I was truly happy,
But, still, I laughed. If only for a moment,
I had found a place where quotidian pressures couldn’t follow.
Unfortunately, it was only a moment before a thought occurred:
None of this is real.
Or, perhaps, this was the only part of my life that was real,
That is real.
Maybe the scripted days spent toiling away
Behind the particle-board walls of my cubicle are the dream—
A recurring nightmare.
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 2:45 AM UTC
Each morning as the dew slowly builds up
And gently tumbles down my bedroom window pane,
I wake to find you slipping away. The summer
Shade has robbed your leaves of green,
And I can but watch you wilt and lilt into the grave.
These past two weeks have felt like dreams
That fade in and out of each other during the throes
Of my unending sleep, but I know that this desire
To paint your petals the dark red of your youth
Would only make me mad like the hatter.
Our queen, however, did change her surroundings
As she saw fit, and with, or without, a second thought
She shaped the whole of her kingdom into an arid oasis
Of thought and fancy; a land where lives the Jabberwocky.
So as I dive down this rabbit hole, I do not fear
What I might find below.
Instead I save my anxieties for what is known,
Like that one day you will no longer be my rose,
But a pile of memories about my bed.
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 10:13 AM UTC
An early bloom has split the air
With the subtle scent of azalea
And jessamine, the fragrance
Of a youth lost
Between the vines of honeysuckle
That suffocated the boardwalk.
I remember the night we last
Sat together beneath the summer sky,
And the purple torrents that crept,
Like death, ever closer.
We used to watch them and wonder
If the drops would reach out to kiss
Our troubled heads, or if the wind
Would blow them south to Savannah
Like lost balloons.
And when we walked out
Onto the dock to watch the reds swirl
Just beneath the salt marsh skin,
We saw Hydra rise to the surface
And swallow the day as easily
As time swallows an instant.
But the dark never bothered you-
No, you seemed to prefer it,
At least to the flashes of lightning
That oft slipped between the evening clouds.
But this winter bloom, soon, will fade
Leaving nothing left for May,
And only these memories of life
And love will last.
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 5:19 PM UTC
*Have you seen the flash of green
That sits above the setting sun?
It fades away like every dream
That ends before it has begun.
But every night the sacred light
Returns again to speak to me,
And every night, the sacred light,
Reminds me of how things should be.
We all should laugh, or have a gaff,
At the day and what was done
And every grain of blessed pain
Should fade away with her, the sun.
But as the stars begin to shine
Above the murky atmosphere,
Our thoughts begin to turn to time
And how the end is almost here.
So grab your lass and fill your glass
And drink away the night with her,
If time should pass, as in the past,
At least you’ll spend the last with her.*
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM UTC
Lately, I've noticed how light lingers,
Like sound caught in empty space,
Above the dim horizon long after the sun has set.
And as it dances in the wind with dark clouds that hang
Like morbid thoughts above the Earth,
I can't help but yearn to see my sun again
If only for an instant.
I fear the truth-
That when these last traces of her have faded from the sky
I will be resigned to wander and weather
This, my final winter, without her in the dark.
And should I look up and see the stars,
I may admire their beauty, but I will know it not real.
For they are only shadows of her,
Whose light only reminds me of the love I've lost,
And they could never be enough to illume my life.
So as I sit alone at dusk
And watch the world fade into night,
I wish that I could see my sun,
I wish that I could make things right.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:15 PM UTC
Tired branches of an old oak loom
Like torrential clouds—
Those distal bruises on the peach
Sky of May— above as we
Wait and watch the dust lilt away
In the breeze. I would envy their freedom,
But I see that they are only vassals
Whose lord, the wind, guides them like marionettes.
Stars split about the twigs and leaves
To lick our eyelids.
You hesitated as you asked if I heard them too,
But my ears were filled with Carolina wind.
You knew I had lied before I spoke.
Still, you told me their stories as if they were your own,
Or maybe they are your own.
Now, I slip back to that night for an instant
When I close my eyes beneath the old oak,
Only to open them and find orbital songs
Written in black between the seven sisters.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 12:11 AM UTC
White raveled feathers lie
Scattered about broken wings
Which sweat bluer than blood,
And distal eyes sit low in their sockets
With an air of indifference that I admire.
How can you remain so calm
As the life slips out of your breath?
I expect you don't know,
That nothing can be known,
But as your neck snaps between my fingers,
Like a twig beneath my boot,
I wonder whether it's right-
And what is right?
And do trees grow up or do they run from the sun,
Deep into the ground for fear of smoldering?
I cannot trust what I've been shown,
For my eyes fail,
But I have confidence in the sounds I see painted about me,
A cacophony of blues, greens, and greys,
Every color from Pissarro's palette
Or Picasso's dreams.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 12:05 AM UTC
Wax myrtles slip
Sideways on bodies-
Their brothers,
Buried beneath fresh soil
Of an ancient Earth,
Mixed amongst
The loblolly pines
That caper with the breeze.
* * * *
Sad nights shift
To dreary days
And ashen clouds
Soak in the light
Until they all
Ignite in flames
And lose their strength
Or will to fight.
They lie alone
In sheets of wind
On beds of air
And thoughts,
And, patiently,
They wait to end
Their lives
And be forgotten.
* * * *
Long after,
We sit and wonder
Whether palatial skies
Will fall like rain
Away from us,
Torrents of dreams
Abandoned
For to sleep.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:54 PM UTC
*To whom it may concern,
I am alone. Although it may never quite seem that way, both night and day I am confined to solitude. These past six years hitherto have been filled with nothing more than the fictional characters in my texts and the short pleasantries granted in passing by dismal men, women, and even children that occupy my days. Each morning, as the dawn breaks, I wake up disgusted with myself in that same manner which sundry men and women have. It is not the loneliness, however, that disgusts me. No, I do believe I have grown quite fond of the residual silence. Instead, I believe it to be the dull monotony of my routine that has left me truly disturbed. The days have begun to fade in with each other, along with the nights---especially the nights. I cannot say, for instance, whether or not it was last evening or that of a day three months afore that I was seated at my desk, much like I am now, finishing the latest draft of a poem in my journal. Nor could I tell you the present date, although the heat of the day, still trapped in the rafters, is so persistent that I am obliged to say it must be one of those blue summer nights when children run, squealing, through the streets, like plump pigs to the trough. I have become somewhat of a hermit, secluded in my small, run-down apartment above my bodega. My mind has grown as wild as the violet petunias, bridging the gap over the narrow, brick walk which separates my garden--- as the myriad of dandelions that have invaded the surrounding lawn.
Throughout the day I work the till in my shop, observing the assorted physiognomies that populate the three small isles. As they walk up and down, deciding what they most desire, I, too, contemplate to myself, deciding the few whom I might admire should I get the chance. I often attempt to strike up conversations with my customers, much to their dismay. I comment on the weather, the soccer scores from a recent game, or perhaps a story from the local section of the Post & Courier, only to receive terse responses and short payments. However, I never let these failed attempts at congenial conversation discourage me. Day after day, I persist.
The nights are easier. Although I do not attend the boisterous bars spread out amongst the small restaurants and boutiques that line the narrow city streets as I once did, I often drink. Seated alone, armed with a liter of Ri, two glasses, one with small cubes of ice and one without, and a pen; I waste my nights scribbling down nearly every thought that leaps into my inebriated mind. My prose has yet to show any real promise, but my thirst to transcend from this pathetic, pseudo-intellectual literature student struggling with his thesis into something more drives me to ignore those basic desires, defined by Maslow as needs; venturing out and exploring the community that I inhabit or talking to another person as a friend. So I sit, night after night, at the foot of this large bay window, looking out onto the tired faces of the busy street below. I sit, night after night, tracing the streaks of red light from the tails of passing cars, imprinted in the backs of my eyelids like sand-spurs stuck in a heel.
I can recall a time when my flat was not the dank, dimly lit hole in the wall that it has become today. A time, not too distant, when the rich chestnut floorboards glistened beneath the fluorescent pendant lights, when champagne dripped like rain from the white coffers in the blue ceiling, and music shook the walls and rattled the windows. Men and women alike would wander through the rooms, inoculated by my counterfeit Monet's and their glasses of box wine. When not entertaining, I wrote. At long length I sat beneath my window, proliferating prose or critiquing a classmate's from workshop, but those days have passed. The floors no longer shine; instead they lay suffocating under piles of fetid clothes. The halls no longer echo with the rhythmic chorus of an acoustic guitar or the symphonies of men and women's laughter; the lights are burnt out, the paint is peeling off the walls, and the homages are concealed beneath vast fields of mildew and mold. Puddles of whiskey sit unattended on the granite countertops around the bottoms of corks for weeks, allowing the strong scent to foster and waft freely through the air ducts into the store below. The dilapidation that ensued after I stopped receiving visitors was not just of the home, however. Worse yet was the steady rot of my own mind. Although I have often been referred to as "a bit eccentric," and often times folks would inquire if I had, "a ***** loose in [my] noggin," I have only recently begun to find myself walking about the neighborhood garden in the small hours of the morning more than occasionally. Further still, it is only recently that I cannot remember how, or when, I came to be where I am. Whenever I do happen to roam the night, it appears as if I do it unbeknownst to myself, throughout the throes of my sleep. Similarly, I have only just begun to notice that, often times while I attempt to write, I sit, talking feverishly---yelling at an empty bottle, until I find another to quench my thirst. Luckily, there is always another bottle.
Needless to say, these past few years have left me very tired, and, after much consideration, I have decided that it would be best if I were to "shuffle off this mortal coil." However, much like Hamlet himself, I could never bring myself to act upon the feeling. Though I often wonder about what awaits me after my last breath warms the winter of this world, the coward that I have become is in no hurry to find out. Alors, I am left with one option: leave. Though I am not yet brave enough to slip into that, the deepest of sleeps, I have gathered courage enough to walk throughout the day.
Charon Solus*
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:36 PM UTC
A light flashes behind my eyes, and shadows,
Which only I can feel, are cast before they vanish
Without fear, but still I fear for them⎯I fear for
Light that eats away at night skies
As the hidden moon smiles.
Before the clouds part, his heart is heard
Breaking beneath the beaten pavement
That lines your garden. Salt marsh mallows
Can taste the blood and dip low to lick
The soil, but their September shades fade from pink.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:27 PM UTC