"aphotic" poems
each time her bare front
is full with illumination
she is defined by the mystery
of infinite black behind her
and at her most enlightened
is dappled with caters and scars
ensconced in darkness
lined by an aphotic slivered edge
shadow speaks
most deeply
of the ways
in which
she moves
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 7:15 PM UTC
Storms.
I like storms.
Sometimes they start slow
with ominous, cadaverous clouds,
slowly rolling, tumultuous.
A few drops of rain,
frigid and fresh,
speaking in a pattering argot on my roof.
Calm, soft rain.
Rain that lulls me to sleep.
Sometimes they are fast and sweet.
An ephemeral rush of raindrops,
mellow cannonades of thunder,
trees still verdant,
green against gray.
Sometimes they are hot and volatile
with lightning so bright
it hurts my eyes,
thunder that roars
and permeates the quiet.
The wind screams,
rain batters my windows.
These are the nights I do not sleep.
I sit, thrilled,
listening to the primitive barrage,
the aphotic chaos,
remembering that this is how it feels
to be alive.
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 11:09 PM UTC
every monster finds it way to my paintbrush. and paints itself and its story.
monsters write themselves in blue ink, idling aphotic shadows, luring near floors, unable to view themselves as nothing more than weak mindless creatures who yearn to be seen as beautiful and not fearful creatures that hide in dark spaces. They want to be drawn and written about, painted and noted. They want to know if they have some place in the world that fears them.
the voices are faded distorted whispers, glitched between my thoughts and the floorboards
they will not let me sleep until they have their stories told.
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 1:27 PM UTC
There’s a picture perfect
moon in the sky and
all I can think about is
you
(which doesn’t make sense
because the moon in the heavens and
all the stars in the galaxy have
nothing to do with you and I).
I think it’s because it was you who I
told all my secrets to,
you who I confided in—I think it’s because
I trusted you.
Sometimes I look up at the cosmos and
wonder what type of angel she is
and then I wonder if I ever told you
my deep, dark thoughts about
what happened.
I can’t remember.
My mind is as thick and heavy
as my tongue feels—
fog
everywhere and I cannot see
where I am going, much less
where I have come from.
There’s something inside of me that,
like a caged dog, is awaiting to be
unlocked from its restraining bars and
I don’t know where to start talking without
sounding like an absolute madman.
I think that this poem has transformed from
a few lines about you to
a few lines about her and to be honest,
I don’t remember the last time
I wrote about her
(but I guess I should try).
I was a child when I first went to bed
and a teenager as I turned in my sleep—
we could be twins, she and I,
with our closed eyes, and
visions of stars at night and
pale complexions like
the sand on the beach basking
in the glow of the hanging moon.
I wonder if she met Samael.
I wonder if he was nice.
They told me how much I looked like her;
they gushed about how we had the
same personality, same sense of humor,
but I didn’t want to hear a word they said—
I don’t think I could stand to look
myself in the mirror if that were true
because it would be a constant reminder of
her
and I don’t want to be reminded.
I think that we all start off as angels and
that somehow we end up here,
bound down to a life full of interactions
and paths to cross and plans to make;
I think that we all finish as angels and
that somehow we end up there,
no longer a single form and single being,
we become infinite once more.
But then I remember that even Lucifer,
himself, once wore white wings and I think
that sometimes we’re no better than him—
that I’m no better than him.
I hope Raphael can fix us and
I pray that Uriel can set us straight
because in this aphotic world, I want
to be able to see straight down into
into the abyss.
I want to see you through unbiased eyes and
hear you through impartial ears the way
that I used to be able to until that night
outside your house.
I want to tell you all of these things I think
about the two of us—
all these things I think about my
mother
and that night and those days
in which it happened.
Just please don’t clip my wings.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 11:57 PM UTC
I have drempt:
Lucidly, she dyes the edges clay-colored
Eyeing eye she aligns her body with the North Star
She shivers without notice
Ocher eyes alive
she speaks in new forms of divination
And the weather is in her palm
Trick of light trick of eye
Her sigh awakens 9 Ravens
without thought
She is
Caught in the spider web
Spun
Autumnal ghost
Beneath Harvest moon
swoons at the bark of the dire wolf
Without care
making eye contact
Running fingers through the silver fur
Paying close attention to scars
Letting him drink
From lips of pink
The milk of first-kiss
And leads him home
To a palace of bone
Humming tunes that only dogs know
Her head is light on his chest
She listens to his heart beat
Beating Eagles wing
In time
In rhyme
A tune
Of runes
Smooth Aquarius
Flowing through the toes
Of purple mountains
Spilling waterfalls and
Filling frigid
Black pools rimmed
By moss caked stone
Leaves scarlet, and hay colored
Float aimlessly on the surface of her
Peaked
Ears Stung and bit of wind
She listens whole body tensed
bow string
face Sun stained
ethereal
Enamored
swimming in the aphotic
Lake of his soul
He plays the dulcimer of shadow
Next to fire
& the light of her blossom
exposing
Waterfall
flow
Through snow mountains
Piqued
His attention
When she dances languid
To
Forgetten tunes that only the owl knows
****
she dances star soaked
Scarlet tulips pressed
Fill every page of her mind
Preserved eternal
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 2:22 PM UTC
A subcutaneous doubt musters and you itch
The shore line depression is here without hitch
A sea of harps instigating an emotive atrophy
You discharge and you dive with certain alacrity
There is a boat afloat out in the briny of spite
Oar-less and holey amid the bark and the fight
You plunge and you quaff as you leave quiet behind
A clamber and a climb and inside you will find
Ruckus and roar as you rock with each crash
Thunder and hail as the waves tempestuously lash
Gladden with the grim elation preserves you
Mirthful and drugged whilst the wet pours through
To the most aphotic of waters that drags you deep
The boat now just wood unto rocks in a heap
Too eager to leap and now too weak to swim
A stoical sink under madness to dim
The seashore despair was a lie to itself
The still and the shielded brimming with wealth
Never attempt to weather a storm
Of a storm as endless as that of that storm
A wish that you stayed a want that you listened
You’d still be where her green eyes glistened
Where love and the good is now once tendered
Most is best left as how it’s remembered.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
When she first discovered the last fictitious and missing piece, that absent link that could create
That would fit so very perfectly between her fastidious reality and her dream filled escape
That piece was what filled her with the alluring thoughts of setting the diamond edged blades aside
To let her bloodied and gore encrusted wrist's lay. To finally heal her disfigured and cleaved thighs
To set aside the insomniac coloured nights, filled with a nervous tick called suffering and misery
Bringing dread filled terror for next days coming, day and night it creeps into her lightless sanity
It graced her with the forgotten hope, that daisy chains and blades of grass would keep her honest
Hope she had long abandoned as she hid within the scarred tissue upon her mangled conscience
Telling her that she was now allowed to forget her aphotic and distressing amorphous past
It was filled with many an onus and distrusts that she choked on; from lack of air, her brain begins to crack
Her Mother and her Father thought she was a "lacking" kind child, those that required little needs
It reminded her that she would never again have to repress and crunch down those memories
They rise inside her throat, until she regurgitates them along with what little food she would eat
She sits in her room most nights, crying softly alone and wishing to be as thin as the models on TV
That last puzzle piece was supplying her with a vociferous need to put the bottle of pills down,
Many had slipped their way down her esophagus, from diet to Analgesic's, they ranged wide
They were locked away in her father's medicine cabinet, so of course she was always punctilious
Puts an aspirin in place for the ones she stole, so her parents (Would they care?) were left oblivious
She tried to push that last piece in, shoving it somewhere between a wrong scene of the puzzle
So the piece was soon to be lost, destroyed within the struggle to find the perfect place
As she was losing to and was within her blithering mind, wild and frightened, filled with dismay
She then reverts to the false reality, in which she called her final escape.
The last daring and startling move, the check mate, the final set stage of the play
Where dreams become the reality, and reality becomes the dream
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 9:22 PM UTC
Falling into the sink hole brimmed with pretty flowers,
to distract your naive eyes
from the aphotic subterrane
just past the things that sparkle.
We put pretty bows on vulnerability,
and call it 'love'
pretending that it will chase the monsters away,
when it really just creates them.
I fell into your calloused hands,
yearning for them to cleanse me
of my murky insecurities,
instead they scrutinized my character,
and I saw my confidence leave me
in pretty ribbons of melted gold.
I once saw the sunrise from the back of a Toyota pickup,
by a creek with cold water and sour memories,
but there was more light in my head then,
because that was long before I started to see my father in your scarred face,
and before you asphyxiated both me and my hopes in you.
I swallowed pain and brushed off distress,
through stale promises and pretty jewels.
You told me it's better to let things go,
and I'm still not sure
why I believed in you so ******* much.
You lived by the motto 'no worries'
and so you were reckless,
and stupid,
and all wrong for the girl
who wraps caution tape over every decision she ever makes.
Things fall apart,
and people fall apart,
and ideas of someone that have been built up in your head for five years
can crumble from just one sleep deprived night,
when you 'calmed me down'
the same way my father used to.
And with bitter content,
and finally no more regret,
I hope Hakuna Matata works out for you,
and I hope she never drinks as much of your poison as I did,
because stains on the heart,
do not come out from swallowing bleach.
Jun 10, 2013
Jun 10, 2013 at 1:13 PM UTC
I – the girl you observe
guilty pleasure
marching through molten black
torch ignited
orbiting phantasms in the aphotic
burning within
corruption incinerated upon ingestion
tucked behind your frame
nestling ear
lip grazing canal
zest to soliloquy
vivacious saccharine tone
ruminating in the lilt of your tongue
resting in gum scoop and jawbone (mandible) reserve
adroit pivot
humbled gaze
locked
exteroception engaged
hard swallow
pearls scooped catatonic
atop lingering breast ascension
prudent olfaction volatile
cribriform annihilation
ginger – basil - brine - ruminate
etch of lace
sailplaning flesh topographic
aureate sunlight cresting soma
intoned morning – essence of miasma
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC
Yellow soap for a yellow me.
I don't feel like being pure
means being happy.
- I scrub scarring
with more definition
than a dictionary.
Moldy bread kissing
gravid navel oranges,
in a cherry plastic rib cage.
- Can you find me altruism
hidden in the heart
of ecstasy and rage?
Satellite bobbing above
the air supply,
are you out of reach or am I?
She was taking pictures
of us in the aphotic zone.
Saying, it was the only way
to capture me vulnerable.
Extirpate my species
to save my life.
I am saturnine for
the only adoration I accept
is mine.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 12:08 AM UTC
Crimson sunset
Tainted night
Horrific threat
Luring fright
Urgent screams
Mournful cries
Hellish schemes
Eerie lullabies
Shattered hopes
Frightened souls
Vicious ropes
Darkness controls
Ghostly chills
Broken seams
Demonic kills
Satanic dreams
Blackened rivers
Trampled beings
Eternal shivers
Essences fleeing
Cadavers walking
Headless creatures
Skeletons stalking
Infernal features
Ceaseless death
Repulsing view
Reaper’s breath
Long overdue
Satan’s portals
Warping destruction
Shackled mortals
Hell’s introduction
Armageddon near
Looming sorrow
Humanity’s fear
Death of tomorrow
Nov 9, 2010
Nov 9, 2010 at 8:43 AM UTC
an ocean feather snuffs it in an alcove, to my leftjust another pair of lungs to expand and swill the seaand i wave curtly to the ***** on the next corner(nothing to see nothing to see) kindlingher shoulders against the lamp-post shelooks more like an angler than a good timeand paint by number peeling swips, lightning strikesupon her hips and the smoke machine pumps nicotinethrough out my veins, on the verge of somethingepicglitter lines the gutter with a sunless pulse all its ownand concrete currents sweep the ground beneath my feetas i exit the aphotic zone:ale stained blouses and hardened nipplesmake my artist type jealous beneath the soft neonsof the brickyard pizza sign the whirlpool opens with asureness of free beer to soften my mindand i've done this enough for the anxiety to subsideso i kick off these shoes and iDIVEinto a plethora of flannel jacketsand guys named 'steve'
Feb 23, 2010
Feb 23, 2010 at 7:26 AM UTC
I waited while you reached to my aphotic depths,
Felt you caress my heart of hearts with your being,
Even as my breathing came in gasps,
And sweat beads on my collarbone,
My tensed body, quiescent at its core converses of,
My irrevocable, unhinged addiction,
To the way you weave into me,
The fiber of life in intricate patterns,
Beautiful, like you.
It hurts.. ecstatically,
Like my soul in cimmerian delirium,
Trance-like;
When you take my Eldunari,
With you,
When you leave.
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 10:25 AM UTC
*The door appeared ajar,
malignant forces pulling from far.
vehement sin,
Yet i stepped in.
Only to break to shreds,
A journey of Regrets.*
*A voyage that led me somwhere,
my every part was played fair,
Was i stuck in middle of nowhere?
Where sun never rises or sets,
Began 'A journey of Regrets'.*
*Only my skies aren't blue,
reliving in old hell yet so new,
Falling to aphotic depths turned true.
Living in this world so fake,
now my demons are wide awake.*
*Fleeting cynosure could make me confess,
Had i not been in middle of 'Journey of Regrets'.*
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 7:04 AM UTC
near gardens tall and winding,
whilst i savoured aphotic tea.
appeared that harrowing boy,
stygian herald bringing destiny.
inside, aside! i cried, i cried,
but none there heard my call.
my path was laid out, though four-fold
it was, before i fell the fall
then awakened from my forty-winks,
to a realm so alien and queer.
and O! the p-pain of my forearm,
known only by my good man Lear.
understand, under i stood!
beneath the sky of a shadow land.
brobdingnag could not compare,
nor calormen in the sand.
time and a time and a time again,
i periled through this epic place.
met mighty men and kings of old,
and stuck leviathan in 'er face!
o weary soul, tired tired tis true.
yet to the end did i hold fast.
til i'd learn't that humble shall be first,
and the first shall inded be last.
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
When was the last time I wrote something meaningful?
My life has become nothing more than shifting from one
house to another, encompassed by drug taking and a sense
of nothingness. I have become a working class flea, but with enough money
to feign royalty, structure is a distant memory, no longer tangible.
Living in total squalor with no desire to change, a perverse lusting
to continue down this dusty trail of over indulgence and self-deprecating
destruction. I need to get out of this ******* mess, yet at the same time
a sick voice within tells me to stay, so perhaps I will, perhaps I will crash
further into the aphotic world of the people I loath, the people who I despise. But I am not like them. I am different, right? For the moment, my blade has been sharpened enough to slash through the inevitable wrath of unfortunate circumstance, I am still in control, unlike the others - dying in their own self-encompassing shadows of subjugation.
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 3:21 PM UTC
You are light. No, not the warm radiance that comes from the sun, but the soft glow of the moon at night. You are the light that flows from the moon; you are the moon. Much like the sun, you illuminate the canopy that blankets the earth, but you’re different. The blazing giant finds home in its own flare. Its corona provides a safe haven in the aphotic atmosphere of space. Your luster is too weak to do the same for you. Darkness is your home. You were created in a void, but you are light.
With you, I feel myself in a different way. I no longer end at my finger tips and dissipate into formlessness, which I fear the most. Instead, I take part in a beautiful continuity as my palms lock into that of yours. It’s as if two galaxies collide and merge like the way waves spill over to the shore. The celestial bodies intertwine and perform a graceful cosmic dance for you and me to gaze upon as we drift slowly into harmlessness.
While we make our way through the infinite sea of stars, we pass the world by. I catch a downpour of pain flood your eyes. Hush now, you. The world doesn’t see the way that I do. The world doesn’t see at all. It can’t. It’s blind. For that very reason, it claims that you are nothing, and you believe it. You give in to the notion that you are not enough. Stop. There is a universe inside your mind, and that makes you something. An endless imagination surrounds you. Stop. Your hands form things out of the darkness, and that makes you enough. The way you press down softly on the black and white keys makes a meteor shower seem like an ordinary happening. Stop. If you think that the world is right, that’s a lie. Believe me. You are a wonderfully painted work of art. Not even Van Gogh could have created such an impression.
Our path soon intersects with the courses of asteroids. The giant space rocks carry clusters of dust along with them. We go straight through the belt and dirt covers your entire face. I stare at you and smile. You smile back. I notice that despite the filth you are still perfect. Perfect regardless of imperfections. Perfect imperfections. You are light, but you were created in emptiness and now live in darkness. You are the moon that glows to illuminate the earth, but your incandescence is too dull to shelter you. You are the galaxy that embraced me, but you were driven away from yourself by the world. Even so, you are perfect. With all the dust that covers you, you are beautiful.
Jun 28, 2016
Jun 28, 2016 at 11:08 AM UTC
His mate snapped a picture.
I posit
He had turned up evidence
For kind sight.
As the young child curled
Index and middle finger into
The Cupped hand of
Slack-jawed wanderer;
Whispering
“The coffin is to remind them of their last end.”
He was astonished
To find the monks never
Spoke, rising at two,
and slept
in their coffins.
How bracing the air was
Down there.
I speculate
He had turned up
Evidence for
Kind sight.
We live from eight inches
Of top soil –
Containing
Earthworms,
Bacteria,
Fungi.
Lillipution lingerings
Cling
Within the gentle folds
Of carrot contorting beneath, with
probing tree roots.
As above –
Grasshopper carapace – hemolymph drunk
Probing dew-imbibed grass blade.
Life goes on,
Rhythmically and quietly
Pulsating
With the warmth of hugs
Humming - chest against chest.
In their coffins
I muse – they listen to the pulsing chamber
Echoing –
Breath drunk - on inhale
Resonating about and within
Wooden niche.
A barrier built between
Ourselves and
The principle of darkness.
The letters
in which we write about the aphotic night
sky need not be black.
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 10:40 AM UTC
In the beginning
There was no form
No light, no image you could see
Just a vast, empty void
A darkness filled, abyss
This immense, aphotic sea
Then from the depths, a crack appeared
And light came bursting thru
The sun explodes, its streaming rays
To warm our earth anew
Awakens all, these wondrous gifts
Existing on our planet
Just like I, aroused in you
The need, to read this Sonnet
BOEMS BY JA 268
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 10:11 AM UTC
Burning midnight oil
commit to memory
Moonlight half spilled over
pages of your favorite read
Quartz vibrations
& Bones bleached
An owls cry echoes
over ritualistic ceremonies
Dancing round the fire
consecrated solemnity
Incantations shouted
in aphotic melodies.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 1:16 AM UTC
*in the house of poems
there are no words
only sheaths of rapture
color and puzzle cutouts
on an empty table
mute
composed of shadow thin
aching smoke ghosts
desires
aphotic and tender
twisting souls in labyrinths lurid
*** shake sweet inky *******
that turn earth
to pleasure domes
and shadows
like cimmerian children
in harsh judgment
******* on
purple night shade candies
burning incense and black candles
uncrossing energies foreboding
while subterranean crystals
refract burnished glows
pulsing blood diamonds
in sacred heart manias
throb with warm breathy kisses
on plates of ash
engulfing
a terrace of pink flickering tongues
drooling and biting
that turn mere pleasure
into inflammations of ecstasy
oozing creme de menthe saliva
where souls levitate and flutter
on bilious stained beds
copulating
being impregnated with verse
smelling of warm **** cauldron
fetuses curl
in their little crib's
and bubble tapioca lyric wrangles
afterbirths purged
poems emerge
like sand bars and palm tree islands
from
sopping woven tunnels
and
caress upturned poetic posteriors
dancing in glitter frilly word tutus
while torrid confessions
dreaded breakdowns
and resurrections
dress themselves in garments
of language re-pleat
quickened by eloquence
in the house of poems*
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 3:04 PM UTC
in the aphotic
soft ***** hair touches my cheek
tracing thigh inlet with my nose
I draw my hand up the back of your inner calf
listlessly charged
my finger edge turns to pad
fingerprint friction ablaze against your chassis
puckering in want
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 8:42 PM UTC
Catch you
my breath,
shambolic hope,
flustered thought.
Take you:
glimmer kissed tear,
aphotic state,
penny drop.
Hold you
my ridicule,
cowardness,
dreary repetitive wish.
Their weight devours me so.
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 8:06 PM UTC
Maybe you shouldn't
You might be no good.
The runs you use
Arid drags through the dead dry woods.
One day you could be great
A Marrash of My Computer.
But right now your just a union.
A shredded rubber melded with a rusty, obliterated grate
Chalky granular air spoiling my stare
Art.
Diamonds are forever banished
And that aphotic space gets smaller
And the rough gets rougher
And the facets lose face.
No blogs will bulge grace.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 6:30 PM UTC
Far, far away
Deep in the woods
Filled with thick trees and tall grass
Lived a man named ‘Saga’
Short and stout
Noisy and loud
He lived alone
Screaming at the air, talking to the rain
Saga lived in a cave
Posing to be brave But, afraid of the loneliness How naïve!
Living in the wild
Far away from his tribe
Alone through the woods he steered
Saga was afeard
He missed his wife
His old, happy life
And cursed the dusk
When he lost his way, following the musk
He cursed his daughter, Hilde
Deeming her the reason he was lost in wild ‘Why did you have to be so obstinate?’
‘Spoilt as hell, brat, ****** arrogant”
Mumbling under his breath
He was lost in his wrath
Crossing the same eerie desire trail
With misty fog and traces of hail
“What a horrifying path to take
Death be waiting for all treading this way”
Shivering and afeard
He walked rapidly till that path disappeared
Days passed and nights went by
He lay on the grass
Watching the drifting sky
Change its color from blue to brass
The trees rustled and wind blew
As the storm brewed
Sky thundered, rivers creaked
Saga listened to the forest screak.
“Hellish! I am lost in these labyrinthine woods
With cimmerian paths and Styngian brooks”
He started towards his aphotic cave
“Someone come for me and save!”
The forest grew murkier and dark Deafening sounds of storm, hark!
A whip just cracked
Echoing the sound of a thousand claps.
Saga fastened his pace
In terror and haste
Mud laved his feet
As if mocking Saga’s hysterical retreat.
“Oh! Get out of my way you muck”
As he fell on his face – Shmck!
Thud! flumb! squelch! splosh! deign!
He flushed through the water of rain.
For hours he struggled against the gush
Louder and louder grew brus
With each passing minute, the storm soared
The forest rumbled and sky roared.
Saga brawled and bawled
As if trying to silence the stormy howl.
Alas! all his attempts failed
Unconscious soon, he sailed
Where to? He would never know
For the forest had already beseeched his breath
Saga swam through the wild flow
Into the comfortable arms of Death.
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 6:59 AM UTC