The next time you are sitting by a fire
or bundled up against the cold
drink ice water
or take off a layer

one shouldn't feel too comfortable in this world

She sat in a rickety old rocking chair
on the porch of the even older house
looking across the grey lake.
Her nose was red from the cold air.
She rocked, humming a song
generations old
Her voice, husky with age

and she glanced at the
rocking chair adjacent to hers,
empty
the seat worn from constant use.

Looking back out across the lake
she smiled
and wiped a single tear from her ancient cheek.

The lone figure trudged
up the sloping hill,
rolling his shoulders as if
preparing for a punch.
His hair glistened with sweat and grease,
every feature sagged with grief and weariness
he wore a long dark coat,
no shoes.

The wet grass shivered around his feet,
and bowed in wide circles where he
stepped.

The man disappeared over the hill,
the crickets, previously startled into silence,
resumed their drone.
The grass straightened,
and the moon reappeared from behind the clouds.

"Still-born...died during labor"*
He stood on the edge of the roof
of the tall department building.
Despair rang in his chest like an

empty bell. He swayed drunkenly.
"Still-born...died during labor"
His eyes were those of a dead man's,
tears leaking out of the corners.

His feet shuffled towards the edge.
His mouth hung open, his nose was
"Still-born...died during labor"
rubbed raw and covered in dry snot.

He looked down and smiled slightly.
Another half step, and he cast
his eyes upwards at the grey sky
"Still born...died during labor"

and jumped.

The tears collected in the corners of his stormy eyes,
pooling, leaking down the worn crevices of his face
and resting on the bottom of his withered chin
where they slowly dripped onto the moth-
eaten brown suit he wore.
Clutched in his bony fingers was a note, faded and worn
from years of folding and holding and reading.
The spidery scripture was barely legible
and ended in a heart and a simple signature.
It was an apology, for not being able
to be there in the end of it all.

He placed the note under a rock in front of the slab of granite,
and kneeled, muffling his sobs with one hand and clutching
the slab with the other.

How pointless life seems when the one you love is nothing but
bones under 7 feet of earth.

I want to be deliberate
with my eyes
mouth
feet

I want someone to see a solid
person when they see me
and not the uncertain
wavering figure
that I am.

I wasn't afraid of heights anymore.
In fact, they called to me
dared me to fly

and that's where I found myself
crouching beside the ledge of the bridge
crying, wailing, screaming
for no reason at all
scared, so scared but the
height beckoned for me,
opening it's warm arms
like an understanding mother
and enfolding me into them as I flew

His eyes were blood-shot and dull
his hair unwashed
two days worth of ****** hair
framed his jaw,
in his hand was a half empty bottle
of whiskey

the wind howled through the pine
trees outside his dusty window,
barely blocking out the noise
of the highway

he looked at the overflowing trash can
wrinkling his nose distastefully at the smell
and then at the empty bed

closing his eyes, he raised the bottle of whiskey to his lips
and savoured the fire that blossomed in his stomach.
He rose on shaky knees and walked over to the bed,
falling back
and stared vacant-eyed at the patterns in
the cracks of the white plaster ceiling.

I want to grow old with you.
I want to walk into the kitchen and
find you humming over a *** of tea.
I want to see the mischievous twinkle
in your eyes, the lines of aging crinkling the corners.
I want to watch your hair grey.
I want to watch you gazing solemnly gazing into the fire
and you'll look up and see me watching,
and you'll smile.
I want to kiss the backs of your shaking, veined hands.
I want our headstones side by side, with
some sort of love poem on it.

I sat on a half-rotted wooden bench
on the cracked sidewalk
that lined the deserted street.
The only light came from
a slightly bent lamp post
that flickered every now and then.

Faintly, from one of the alleys
drifted a smoker's voice
humming a tune that
lamented loneliness and a hard life.

Leaning back I closed my
eyes and let the voice carry me away,
watching the light flickering every now and then
behind my eyelids.

She watched the rain hit the window and collect in droplets
that slowly made their way down the fogged glass.
Her forehead rested against the car door,
she breathed slowly and deeply,
lulled from the hum of the engine.
Bits of an old rock song drifted softly
from the radio.
A man sat behind the wheel,
her current beau.
He was potbellied and smelt of
cigarettes and stale cheap beer.
He hummed, out of tune to the song.
His hand rested on her thigh,
she sighed and peered past the raindrops
to the brilliant red and white lights flashing by.
Closing her eyes, she imagine herself in the
midst of the whirling colors.
Overwhelmed, drunk, and happy.
She opened her eyes,
looked at the fat driver,
who gave her an ugly grin
and kissed her roughly on the mouth
and patted her cheek.
She stared at the accumulated raindrops,
He rolled down the window and spat,
she stared at the dark sky,
the rock song transitioned into a blues melody.
Her forehead rested once more against the car window,
her eyes unfocused.

Everybody looks beautiful in the light of a bar,
It softens features;
smears lips,
blurs noses,
clouds eyes.

On a not so crowded street
with people milling about or standing around drinking coffee,
someone brings out a mandolin
and starts to play a cheery Irish tune.
Strangers turn their heads, some smile
and then a fiddle joins,
suddenly a guitar jumps in.
People bob their heads,
and some of the braver ones begin to dance.
Pretty soon the street is full of
tapping feet, laughing faces, and clapping hands.
The song ends
and the strangers part as friends.

Every now and then, usually around noon, I hear a small crunching sound in my couch.
Whenever this happens, I am always in the kitchen.
I live alone.

Your blue lips are tempting, inviting.
Your eyes, pecked clean, hold mine.
Bruised wrists attached to grey hands, groping
for my pink ones.

Running, I've woken now
in the middle of some forest void.

Surf lulling me to sleep,
taunting, teasing threats
of European myth sprinkling
magic into the sleeping eyes of children.

Forgotten dreams
dreamless sleep

I can feel him
shake the bed
turn on the closet light
go outside
he is not there.

Fidgeting fingers,
goosebumps,
rapid heartbeat,

Classical denouement.

"doll face and a dance"
that was his way of describing her.
All the other inmates have heard his tale,
the ******,
the doomed love story.
They murmured about the "poor chap",
finding his beloved like that.
They stayed clear of him.

The man and the goat
were both slaughtered the same,
cut from throat to gut,
guts hanging,
blood pooling.
It was a cry to the gods.
A last resort.

The drunk man held his head in agony,
crouched next to his truck
the screaming filled every inch of his body,
the sobs, the moans of the mother
cradling her dead child, her only child.
Oh God, he just wanted it to stop.

a hopeless romantic's tears,
worthless in the world of stern faces
and college degrees.

hooded eyes
framed sparsely
sagging chin
waggling jowls

you are old

She stepped through the sand
tall sea grass grazed her pale legs
moonlight illuminated her white face
her blue eyes, the color of
a lake frozen over
her hair, black and dead
the sea called to her
it beckoned with rolling thunder
and jagged electricity
her toes reached the water
the ocean reared excitedly
goosebumps rose on every inch of her skin
raindrops bounced off the water
the water, now up to her knees
climbing higher, eager, by the inch
with every step she took
until it engulfed her entire body
cold, deep and black
it forced its way into her lungs
she smiled and the current
rocked her like a humming mother
until she felt herself fade away
until she was gone.
the ocean gently laid the body
on the beach
her dead eyes stared into
the starry night
the gentle smile forever played
on her pale lips

He lived on a great arm
stretching out-- curling inwards, as if flexing.
On the tip of the arm
where the hand should be
but isn't
sits a run down shack
paint gone-- gray as the sky.

He was the spawn of drunkards
who drowned in their ecstasy
leaving oyster boy alone
but he liked it that way.

So he lived the life of a hermit
and died
alone
pearless.

I sometimes wonder
what it'd be like to go into
the ocean, and never come back.
To swim out and sink
and let your lungs fill
while your body convulsively
fights in a desperate attempt for air.
To feel yourself slowly slip away
and become part of the black cold salt water
bobbing with the current
decaying
little fish nipping my toes
but I'd be gone.

In the shadows of the rotting gas station,
he sits on an old wooden bench,
staring out at the desolate town.
Lines of extreme age criss-cross his face
but when he turns his head
they're gone,
dismissed as shadows.

His eyes,
eyes of a crow,
black and beady.

And when he turns his head
and locks his cruel eyes with yours--

One day, a long time ago
my father sat me upon his lap
and told me a story.
"A story of our people,
the first people",
he had said,
"Before man came to this world
we flew with the birds,
we slept beside the bears,
we sung along with the wolves,
we mourned our dead
with the whales,

and then man came,
arising from the shadows like demons,

they plundered,
fires raged, they killed,
brought disease,

so we left.

The trees no longer wink as you walk by,
they stand, tall and proud,
silent as a stone.
You cannot shake hands with a dog,
or a bear, they've become wary,
untrusting.


Man now sing alone,
they mourn alone,
they eat alone,
they've forgotten how to fly.

They write stories of us, little one,
some true, some myth.
They yearn for something beyond what they've got,
what they've caused.

but we can never go back,
they have enclosed themselves inside walls
of rock, leaving imagination for
the children."
And with that, my father shook his head,
smiling sadly.

He stood on the edge of the cliff
dressed in his black clerics
a single yellow rose, pinned to his shirt
the breeze from the sea lifted his brown and grey curls
he was smiling.

7 balloons of different colors
danced around his head, taunting
veins bulged in his hand
from where he clenched the plastic strings

slowly, one by one, he let each ballon go
black, green, red, orange, white race towards the sky
the rest follow

The priest dropped to his knees
face upturned
watching each balloon
disappear
into the clouds.

The only constants in this world are
the sun, the moon, and the sea

The sun always rises,
warms the chilled, damp air in
the early mornings,
Lightens the sky,
Rays burn skin
and dry the earth.

The sun follows the moon in an infinite chase through
the sky.

The moon is
the silent, forlorn sister.
She comes out timidly,
when you sleep.
She cools, soothes,
and is always, shining gently
through trees.

The moon urges the sea to push and pull
ebb and surge

The sea houses life,
it is a playground for all
at the bright blue surface
and a mystery deep down
in the dark.

It was after dinner
so he picked up his guitar
and strummed a few chords
a G, a C, an A
and he hummed along
his voice deep and dark
and raspy
the firelight illuminated his face
in some places and
formed shadows in others
his strums picked up rhythm
and pretty soon he was singing
a song on death
and selling your soul to the devil
at the crossroads
the song ended with a final
strum on the ancient guitar
his eyes, closed
reliving memories from long ago

He joined in the slow progressive line
towards the looming grey, square building ahead.
Every single body in the line wore a suit and tie,
black on white, not a wrinkle in sight
their distinctive features began to melt off,
noses, freckles, moles, color,
until their faces were smooth and blank.
Their thoughts soon joined into a
monotonous hum,
their feet mechanically
moved their bodies towards hell.

The child stood at the edge of the world,
where the sea falls, with an eternal roar,
to the depths of hell.

He stood there for many years,
staring into the oblivion,
and one day he abruptly turned,
nodded once, twice
and walked back an old man.

When they asked him, what he found,
the old man answered, in a voice
cracked with age and misuse,
"I have seen Him, I have seen God"
and tears fell from his withered face
onto the ground and they asked him
why and the old man, who watched
the ocean fall to hell and the mists rise
to the heavens answered
"He is a corpse".

In the midst of a
misty gray afternoon
stood a tall man
black hat
long coat
He was alone.

Hands cupped a spark of fire,
parted in a cloud
of smoke
a slow drag
exhalation

He looked familiar

His eyes were blood-shot and dull
his hair unwashed
two days worth of ****** hair
framed his jaw,
in his hand was a half empty bottle
of whiskey

the wind howled through the pine
trees outside his dusty window,
barely blocking out the noise
of the highway

he looked at the overflowing trash can
wrinkling his nose distastefully at the smell
and then at the empty bed

closing his eyes, he raised the bottle of whiskey to his lips
and savoured the fire that blossomed in his stomach.
He rose on shaky knees and walked over to the bed,
falling back
and stared vacant-eyed at the patterns in
the cracks of the white plaster ceiling.

A little cabin,
on the side of a large mountain,
gray fog in the mornings,
brilliant sunsets in the evenings,
a clear gurgling stream,
a fruitful garden,
roaring fire,
red orange glow,
novels piled to the ceiling,
little trails,
fireflies's comforting glow,
scent of basil in the walls,
clear air,
morning birds,
dusk bull frogs,
blankets piled high.

You know that pain
that seems to come from
deep in your bones,
among the marrow,
sending hairline cracks that splinter
and break open along your limbs?
The pain that knots your stomach
and glistens as sweat on the palms of your hands?
It digs through your skin
and breaks through
blistering and
festering.
But it's in your head.
You don't cry out, scream,
you just go about your day.

"I'm okay."

The thought of becoming stardust
when you die
is a reassuring one.
Being strewn across millions of
light years seems exciting.
Witnessing stars being born,
planets forming life,
stars collapsing in on themselves
and becoming black holes.
It's appealing compared to
going to a gloomy underworld,
or worrying about a punishing hell,
who deserves to burn and who will become angels.
It wouldn't matter,
you'd be apart of the growing universe.

Eh, who needs em?
A thought, and then a whisper of a thought quickly brushed away
Maybe I do
Or at least a warm body

Cold empty beds
Reality


**** it, who needs em?

You do not know it yet,
everything seems normal now.
You catch a glimpse of
a familiar dark figure in the distance.
A sense of something not quite right.

You shrug it off,
go about your life,
slightly on edge.

Then one day,
a normal day,
you will see him,

He is there,
watching,
you do not see him,
but, oh, does he see you.

You twist and turn,
you scream and cry,
you are desperate.
He laughs.

You are his toy,
you find what he wants you to find.
You see what he wants you to see.

Once he is done with you,
he will move on,
your mind will be shattered.
So, watch out.
Be prepared.

It's quite literally an escape.
A flickering red EXIT sign above a chipped
old doorway that leads from an unwanted
world into a new one.
That world could be anywhere from
the beautiful Appalachian mountains
to a completely different planet.
The future or the past.
It doesn't matter.