August 24th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
(Fiction)
He’s got a stern face and it puts me on edge. I fiddle and shift, foot to foot while I wait, waiting for his eyes to move. I’m awkward here, uncomfortable and it’s been raining. I hate that noise - the drips, the drops - hate what it does inside my mind.
“Now we’re going to have to do something about this,” his voice drips too, drops bad news, “this is not an acceptable pattern of behavior.”
I would be fine. I think. I think I could be alright if things would just clear up. It’s my attitude, my sunny disposition, it’s waterlogged and I’m suddenly not quite myself. You see I don’t typically do this, make these kinds of mistakes. I’m a dependable man, generally speaking, task oriented and productive.
“You cannot expect me to overlook this sort of behavior” he’s an ass, “cannot expect the company to be able to turn its head.”
It was innocent. It was nothing. Just a little slip-up, crossed wires call it and I’m suddenly treading water. Water. It’s still falling all over the fucking place. Bathing roof and ground and the back corners of my skull. It’s noise, that’s all. It’s noise and a sledgehammer, a thousand little points of contact along sun-heated tin. One thousand points and I could use one more. Just one, feather-light and like a raindrop. A single, solitary sound to end sound and this moment.
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August 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
(Poetry/Prose)
These are my last days. Lost to time.
To inactivity. To temptation.
Flesh is fading.
Just a start. Aches and pains.
Rising to remind me.
Caesar was mortal, afterall.
For a thousand years he ruled,
Died, ruled.
He knew that the train was going to stop.
That’s reason enough.
Cause to grab. To hold close.
Each important toy.
Nothing is important. Not through the bird’s eye.
Not a thousand years later.
So take. So love.
So long as body draws breath.
So long as the mood keeps you.
So long you might forget.
It is all ending. Someday.
Maybe tomorrow.
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August 12th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
(Poetry/Prose)
Become overcome.
Unwanted, unable,
To handle this,
Latest twist.
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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.
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July 29th, 2008 at 7:33 am
(Poetry/Prose)
Fresh cut grass, hidden.
A moment within the urban sprawl.
A bit of dirt. Dark, flecked patches,
Along the knees of my favorite jeans.
A pristine place, angelic.
Tangles of moss, green.
Swings creak softly. Back and forth,
Each trip marks time passing.
Faded now, sadly.
Long since taken, buried.
Weeds grow with time. Persist,
Wrapped ’round a rusted slide.
The sun sinks atop innocence.
Light touching bits of glass.
Windblown shards broken. Carried,
Sowing the small field.
And in this moment.
This twilight breath.
The scene snags. Caught,
Between memory and the chipped face of a billboard.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
(Scene)
Two men, plus Young Timothy, seated in an office
Dad - Fine, whatever, just level with me
Dr - Well, sir, it isn’t going to be easy. There is a great deal we’re going to have to correct before anything gets fixed, gets put back the way it should be.
Dad - Which would be? Listen, Doc, how much is all of this going to run?
Tim - To run? What does that mean dad?
Dr - It means cost, Timothy, I’m sure your father is wondering what sort of fees and equipment will be involved in fixing your teeth.
Tim - Golly, is it going to be a lot?
Dr - Well sure, there is quite a lot of work you need done young man.
Tim - [sniffle] T…too much?
Dr - Now Timothy, just because it’s a lot doesn’t mean it’s going to be too much. You can’t put a price on a good personal appearance
Dad - Hey, not so fast.
Tim - Dad, please
Dad - Now hold on Timbo, just ease up for a second while I talk a little shop.
Dr - Sir, I don’t exactly understand what you’re getting at.
Dad - I’m just trying to figure this all out. Just trying to put everything together, that alright?
Dr - Well I suppose so.
Dad - For you, Tim, is it ok if dear old Dad takes a second to ask some important questions?
Tim - [sigh] Yes, sir.
Dad - Excellent. So then you, Doc, are trying to tell me that you can’t put a price, blah blah blah, on old Tim’s mouth, which is great, but let’s break that down a little bit.
Tim - Break it down Dad? Can we please not break anything down tonight? You promised…
Read the rest of this entry »
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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.
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June 9th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
(Poetry/Prose)
I spread my arms and walk.
I smile. I nod.
I watch the world float beside me,
Sample this and that,
These things and those and you’d never,
For an instant,
Think to see if I were there.
I could be invisible.
I could close my eyes and slide,
Silently into another world.
I am the ghost, in your life, the heartbeat beside your own.
Each step a whisper, breath your breath.
Warm air on cool glass,
The only signs I am here.
You are open to me.
Unaware.
You are exposed. Your flaws,
Lovely failings, you come short.
I stop to stand behind you,
Wrapped tightly against the world
The chance you might stop to notice.
You came so far to stumble
I stopped so long ago
Beyond notice, my invisibility
In your eyes. Humble.
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May 30th, 2008 at 7:11 am
(Poetry/Prose)
I’m selling the dream of the thing.
Nothing solid, tactile,
Just the music.
The interlude of thought and desire.
‘What if’? ‘If only’?
Coming in all shapes, sizes,
All out back.
Available at a cut rate.
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April 20th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
(Poetry/Prose)
I wake up and it’s like a hundred years have passed.
My eyes struggle to focus,
There’s this nagging pain, lost somewhere at the base of my neck.
I turn and joints creak, my feet slip from the covers and touch carpet.
I rise for the first time immediately regretful, uncomfortable.
I should be somewhere else.
Anywhere but here, really,
Anywhere beyond the sheltered walls and soft comforts of home.
Pleasure is a gift, a reward extended to the worthy.
Still groggy I’ve sense enough to question whether I’ve anything resembling virtue.
Still, I breath through habit, reflex, unable to take the leap and stop.
Unable to close my eyes again, at least until another day is through.
I follow the sun.
That’s honest, right?
It’s ups and downs the measure by which I chart time.
Abiding its cycles I make more sense,
The structure becomes refreshing
After a while.
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