August 6th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
(Poetry/Prose, Unfinished)
Love bleeds, soaks through,
Soaked sheets already soiled,
Love’s dirty little baggage,
Buried, born.
Bourne, always just out of site,
Heartbreaks marked ‘what if’,
legendary love, mythic,
Untrue.
Call this love, it’s pretty enough,
Flowered enough,
It sings, say love
When all else seems less.
Seems faded and pale,
Seams frayed, bursting,
Holding nothing back,
Constructed poorly.
Say love when you feel,
When you feel that you know,
Knowing nothing of feeling say love,
Again, love surely drifts.
Love, the forever kind,
Forever kind to the callous, shortsighted,
Never kind enough,
To avoid the eyes-wide dreamer.
Fall in love, quickly
Leaping with both feet,
Knees bent, leaping,
Headlong, out.
Comments
July 11th, 2008 at 11:27 am
(Character Sketch, Unfinished)
Just the intro on a longer piece I’m working on, because I haven’t posted anything since just before the wedding.
Darling didn’t particularly care. The detective looked for work like a man scanned his sink for loose hairs. It was a defect, an ominous sign, his profession necessary as an inevitable series of mistakes. He tied loose ends, tried to at least.
“C’mon God-damnit bar opens at noon!” goes the shakeup, “Christ Tommy, like you don’t know anything.”
“I don’t, shit.” Tommy met indifference, blinking down the barrel of a .45, “like last time, like the time before that.”
Darling should have known better, would have if he bothered to. He knew the tells, the lies, the creases of a forehead. Darling knew calculus, never used it.
“You’re a scumbag Tommy, we both know this” They did, point of fact, “you are therefore fucking privy to a number of things I might find fucking significant.”
It wasn’t a particularly heated exchange. Though their voices were raised, there was little venom. It was rage, to a point, anger and violence, certainly, but only in moderation. They were men going through the motions, doing familiar tasks in familiar ways. Change was pointless, change was hard, better to take a stiff shot to the jaw than worry about where it was all going to end up.
Comments
March 16th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
(Poetry/Prose, Unfinished)
It was the last time. Just now, I think.
Or maybe it’s next time.
That would make this ok.
Unless last time was the last time.
Making this the first time.
Again. That’s probably not ok.
It’s too hard to keep track of.
Honestly, I’d need a chart.
Pages of notes.
Or just one I could use over again.
My situation has not proven fluid.
To this point, at least.
And you’ll still be sitting there.
This is harder for me.
But you knew that.
Comments
March 10th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
(Poetry/Prose, Unfinished)
It’s all coming in waves.
It being confusion,
Mostly.
It being nothing I’ve been able to break down
Or start to comprehend.
It being my plans for tomorrow.
It being failure,
Heavy.
It Being rain poinding hair flat to my forehead
Keeping my eyes closed.
Comments
January 28th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
(Scene, Unfinished)
“Stupid mutt!” the younger man shouted, kicking up a cloud of dust.
“Your dog lose?” Asked an older man, weathered, just passing by.
“Every single time,” the young man shouted, “I train him, I feed him and he repays me by being totally worthless.”
“Sometimes you just lose,” the old man, fingering his ticket, “s’no shame in that.”
“What the fuck does that mean? No shame,” with a sneer, “maybe not for you, but I’m heading somewhere, man. I’m one dog out, one mutt worth half a damn to get my feet moving out of this town.”
“This place,” in more measured tones, “it ain’t so bad really. Once you get used to it, that is.”
“What shit, what a bunch of shit,” the younger man mocking, patience exhausted, “bein’ a failure’ll make a bunch of things suddenly acceptable.”
“Failure, it’s a wonderful thing sometimes,” the older man smiling, a single slip of paper snaking through his fingers, “just don’t forget to settle your bet. And stop gettin’ dirt all over my damn new shoes.”
1 Comment
January 15th, 2008 at 7:31 am
(Poetry/Prose, Unfinished)
It’s in the things I think to say. Half-formed but then forgotten. I smile and the moment passes. Slides right off my face.
I start to think. I stop. I start to think maybe I’m doing all of this the wrong way. There’s no real guidepost. Besides, I’ve always struggled with the unknown.
It’s this beastly thing. Horns, whip-tailed and mean. It’s in my closet, under my bed. It’s moving along under my skin.
So I peel back layers. Persistence is its own reward, it’s torture as well. One pass leaves skin white, flaking. Two draws blood and sooner or later I’m furrowing bone. I’m pulling myself apart. Sinews torn, bone and muscle separated. I’m blood and skin and the rotten inside. I’m a mess. I stain the ground.
I fade. I fall and scratch. Feverish, persistence will kill this boy. Drive and fear and longing and revulsion and I wonder if I can strip it all away fast enough.
I will tear it down. Tear me down. I will burn myself to the ground. Ashen, bloody, pulp.
Comments
January 13th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
(Poetry/Prose, Unfinished)
The myth of change keeps them content. The fools, the short-sighted, the sainted hopeful, each clinging to what could be. Eyes towards the horizon, fixed atop fumbling feet, well worn shoes caked in mud, bathed in filth. The hope of tomorrow has little to do with what might happen, but rather, it rests on the simple principle that tomorrow, at the very least, is not today.
1 Comment
December 30th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
(Unfinished)
Jonah liked to sleep six feet below the surface. This was a personal preference, his stated choice. It was cooler there during the summertime, he felt refreshed by the moisture and shade. Besides, there was little to recommend the world of bees and corrosive rain-fall. Still, from time to time he’d rouse himself; make a point to see the world. It wasn’t something Jonah particularly enjoyed, but the experience kept him grounded.
Abundant space unsettled him the most. He could find no security in the wasteland and so Jonah walked. He walked, expecting boundaries, or an ending, but could find nothing. He walked, pushing grass into the earth, feet dragging. He walked away the skin of his feet, scraping the flesh above his toenails into pulp. He walked, even as the heat burned his skin, even after birds had pecked his clothing into tatters.
It was not like this, six feet below the surface. There he was rooted, found peace. Below the surface Jonah smiled, comforted as warm peat shifted, massaging open sores and growth flourished. Cool mud curled around the base of his neck and sucked him downwards. Strong roots, feeding tendrils of life itself sat snug over either shoulder, making his generational departures nearly impossible.
There was nothing to find outside of his hole. There were only harsh words, fear, masses appalled by his green-gray flesh and mongrel dogs nipping at the folds in his skin. Years asleep had drawn Jonah gaunt, had pulled his skin tight to the bone, but in his travels Jonah had collected welts. Now, as he walked, he did so as a rock, with creases and cracks and bits of moss dangling from each fissure.
Comments