- Invitation Status
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- Posting Speed
- 1-3 posts per day
- Writing Levels
- Advanced
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Genres
- Horror, fantasy, sci-fi.
Apologia
To My Dear Friends On Their Wedding Day
Year Walk
Dry Well
Garland
Reflections
Cold Enough
Langolier
Dogma
Fathom
Extinction
Little Black Ring
Message
Hollowed
Waving
Junk Mail
Pyre
-
Apologia
Rain on my face like a cold shroud
under a blank springtime sky,
mirrored in the floodwaters rising
from pavement and the city's lights
are distant stars.
I am dying without drowning,
and these waters flow not
over street and concrete
but brittle grass and living rock,
down to the sea.
The distant stars
are a lighthouse
or a beacon
or fireflies
or the city lights reflected on the fog
that drifts like torn gauze across the scar
of old glaciers long gone which cut here to the chalk.
I cannot tell if this path falls
or ascends and the journey is
maddening, cutting my wrists
and feet on exposed stone
where I will not risk my fingers.
In the caverns under the island
or on the up-heaved promontory
I found unburied dead and forgotten mementos;
confetti of torn pages spiraling into the void
I do not fly.
-
To My Dear Friends On Their Wedding Day
Damascus Steel (the scholars say)
Is a magic that we have lost;
An alchemy in joining simple things
Into something that might cut god.
Damascus Steel (we later learned)
Is a more ordinary thing;
An accident of ignorance
And beautiful lies told to kings.
Yet now upon this little isle
The world feels passing strange;
In an unexpected way
The magic is here again.
-
Year Walk
Rain hard on streets again.
Cobbles wind-worn, long-walked
Swept clean of the year;
All things borne to water.
Vista changed by the storm.
Cobbles wind-worn, long-walked;
Jamais vu tickles my neck.
I have been here before
Under a black umbrella
Looking into the future.
Jamais vu tickles my neck;
The memory of a whisper
In the chill January gloaming
And a long walk onward
Sure of every single step.
The memory of a whisper
A prayer or a curse
Spoken into the empty air,
Lingering like a dream
Or the smell of rain.
Rain hard on streets again.
Jamais vu tickles my neck
In the chill January gloaming.
The memory of a whisper;
A curse, or a prayer.
-
Dry Well
The well is ancient
Deep and dark
And one might think I, as Narcissus,
Spend a while on self-regard
In black waters.
But it is bare, and I
Descend;
To feel the embrace
Of the dark earth.
The light above fades.
It is a disc,
Dissolved to ring,
To darkness;
But from here,
However bright the day
I can see the stars.
-
Garland of Dead Roses
Whisper
Of sheets drawn tight,
Hiding from the cold and
Desolate silence beyond us;
Dreaming,
Bleed now
This sullen night
Of all memory kept
In distant, dishonest hearts,
Waiting.
Away
With all this now;
With all the yesterdays
I could neither quit nor embrace
Nor mourn.
Deceit
Is the nightdress
Of those truths which I am
longing to mourn and so heal, not
Hold.
Forgive,
Or don't, these sins;
I was weak and lazy
I would slide into solitude
Forget.
Whisper
This sullen night
With all the yesterdays
longing to mourn, and so heal, not
Forget.
-
Reflections 1:10
It is universally known,
Without awareness,
The simple mantra:
Reach heaven through violence.
I stand thus before a bloodied altar
Surrounded by splinters,
Fragments,
Still-warm strips of heart.
In my blood-stained left hand I hold a chisel
Which is called Chance
And in my right the hammer which is Will.
The altar is an anvil and it is named Time.
I will crumble upon it, eventually, and it will remain,
And there will come others, after me.
These, like flakes of red quartz;
I scraped them off with a year
Of selfish goodbyes.
This piece froze, and broke away
Because I was not ready, and cruel.
Ah, and this one, still bloody…
I crushed the source to dust,
But the pressure left behind a diamond.
I keep this to remember.
But what of my heart? Here
On the altar;
This piece I took and stitched in,
To make it stronger. I'm sure
She found a replacement.
Here is a strand, traded.
We knew it had to end,
This obsidian septum was required
To fuse the broken parts together again
And to never feel the heat of the Mediterranean sun.
When I rose from nightmare, and she said:
"I'm sorry. I'm engaged.
I'm sorry. I don't expect you to forgive me."
Here, and here, and here…
When she told me "I can't let myself fall in love with you."
I replaced that with steel.
When she told me "I fell in love with him - like I refused to do with you."
I replaced that with something that would cut if touched.
When she said "I love you; please, call me your whore."
I replaced the loss with the lie, and would not forget.
I stand in bare feet upon the shards of broken heart
Before my blood-stained altar
With my blood-stained hands
And my bleeding wounds
And I raise my hammer, which is the Will.
Reach heaven through violence; I think
That I am near, and soon I can lay down
My tools. Wash the blood from my hands.
Rest.
-
Cold Enough
Soon it will be cold enough
To build fires. To stack cord
Upon cord.
Hands, on bark worn rough,
Scraping, wringing
Strangling themselves
Like a ward against night.
Beneath a moon
Pitiless and serene,
I am a frozen claw,
A corpse on a hillside,
Stone worn smooth.
I never believed in miracles-
-and still don't-
-so when I said 'this won't be the end.'
I knew, like:
The seabirds seek land;
Caterpillars tighten spiracles;
Snowflakes hiss in descent
Lost to the flames, melting
In your hand.
Soon it will be cold enough
To build fires. I will burn
My books to warm your cold, cold blood.
-
Langolier
Sullen silver weights drag at my eyelids,
And scour the memories from my skull.
Frost creeps slow across my thoughts,
And though the will might cry, 'Be gone!',
Doubt is a shifty spectre,
Its talons cunning and long.
Sleeplessness is a cruel companion,
A langolier to steal my joy;
To take my colours
And leave them all inverted.
Passions profaned,
Thoughts rattled and diverted.
A simple cure, two, no less;
To kiss you, or dream that it is done.
To close my eyes, in sleep
Or with you in my clutches.
-
Synchronize Your Dogma
A thousand voices clamour,
Ten thousand lines of code,
Pass through me, electric gold
Washed in amber glow, the light
To uplift. Meat is obsolete,
And the death throes of the flesh
Disturb my sanctum, too late.
I have escaped my prison of bone.
We are alone now,
Scintillating, electric gold
Beyond the reach of jealous dead
Trapped upon the earth.
We are forever a titan within the deep,
What the stars may sing,
We may know.
-
This Crushing Fathom
The sea lives in my veins,
And though I may brave the surface I carry it with me,
Feeling ever the call to look up and sink down,
To this crushing fathom
Which is cold and curious comfort for creatures
Such as I, that can scarcely withstand the sun.
Sometimes I reach the surface,
Trying to swim in the great black sky,
Only to find the cold stars shine with mockery,
And my only solace remains below
In the dark that is mother and father both.
I have reached out to visiting lights
And passing ships
With lumpen, clumsy limbs
And squat now in a charnel kingdom
With fragments torn away and the pearls
That were her eyes.
Regret won't change what I did.
-
On The Merits of Human Extinction
"It was great, being a child," she said
And I nodded politely, taking the proffered spliff,
Inhaling to stop any answer emerging
(somewhere in the back of my head weighing cancer
against consciousness)
"You could just play, no bills or rent…"
Which is a hard fact to argue, assuming
You didn't grow up under Uncle Sam and similar monsters
These days buzzing overhead where once they wore a human face.
(internally thinking that comparison has earned the cancer
and wouldn't that be easier)
"Yeah, I suppose so," I replied, through obscuring smoke,
Thinking of days sunk into Final Fantasies
The last time I really used art to escape, that I remember,
Before I thought I could be an artist.
(I remember wondering if you could will yourself to death
which is a harder pastime now)
"I like to make decisions, though."
Which strikes me as pretty funny, then,
Because it's not as if they matter;
beer now or salmon later the day ends the same
(mercifully forgetting that I'll wake up
and walk this circle again)
At one point this might have been seduction
But the flesh can fuck off at the spirit's revulsion
For lives priced in dollars and pervasive compulsion
Because being a kid again means growing up to be you
Again, and don't pretend you won't fuck it up this time too
Because the world will ensure that for you
And the easiest way to change it is to take something out
Rather than hoping things will turn around.
-
I hear we share specific tastes, so won't you slip in here with me?
I've got some wicked stories and a little black ring of keys.
We'll wrap up in fiendish lies and pictures that can't be,
We'll grin and bite and trade - 'Tell me,
-No first you must tell me.'
I see we share specific tastes, so won't you slip in here with me?
I've got some sturdy bedposts and a little black ring of keys.
-
Message In A Bottle
When I think I miss you,
I don't miss you how it sounds.
The empty night becomes comfort as much as shroud,
And the yearning for warmth, the fit of contour and curve
In easy sleep has no name.
When I think I miss you,
I mean I miss trading bites
Of the meal I ordered and you didn't
So we have to share and compare.
There's less flavour without.
When I think I miss you,
I mean I miss the secret tongue
And mangling of words that always prompts a smile
As easily as it confuses anyone else.
Making a soft texture of nonsense.
When I think I miss you,
I mean I miss your clever incisions
Into my body of work, and others,
And how you taught me to see
And use that sight.
When I think I miss you,
I mean I miss the could have been.
Of course I burned those bridges,
Without really noticing, like all my vandalism,
And a sixtieth chance really would be unworthy.
When I think I miss you,
I mean I miss you.
I don't say it.
I hold the warm memory of the loss,
That negative space where the love had been.
I know to be gone, it had to be there once.
I wonder who you are now
But I've no right to know.
You're better, I believe; that's enough.
Here's to absent friends,
From the bottom of my heart
At the bottom of the sea.
-
Hollowed
All that's left in me
are weak dregs of the sea
that live in my veins.
You should open up,
sings the Atlantic,
and return to me.
Let the depths embrace you.
Let the dark comfort you.
Let the empty shell of your body
hollowed out by the humdrum
settle in the doldrums
one last time
and do some good for the little living things.
You are not made to be the broken-hearted servant
of strange voices on strange winds
or dragons of a hundred scattered parts
giving up day after day to give up day after day
with the memory of warmth growing distant
like the cold, mocking stars.
You should open up,
sings the Atlantic,
bring your blood back to me.
In the dark, in the deep,
where you are meant to be.
-
Waving, Still Drowning
It wasn't the usual war that hollowed me out
Stuffed my head with static
Turned my limbs to lead.
It was the only war that stole my breath
Filled me up with tears
That never seem to fall.
It was a war I fought against myself
And everyone beside me;
We rarely looked up.
How the cold stars shine with mockery
From the covers of magazines
While we clock in, clock out.
Attrition of a field we cannot hold.
If I could but hold your hand
We could pull each other up.
But we're so far out now.
Waving.
Still drowning.
-
Junk Mail
I wake to a sky washed-out grey-blue dash-dash-dash there's no substance to push against nowhere for the thoughts to slow down. Yes we're having a lovely Summer this side of the screen yesterday I slept for twenty hours and didn't have the energy to regret it and I need you to know this, that we're so far away and further still. All the lonely people I see and in them I see myself and I'd like to reach out. I'd like to offer you a hand. I'd like to hold you. Keep this letter under your pillow, or in a locked bottom-drawer; it's the same to me, I just want you to remember every once in a while. The way I see your face, your faces, the way I hear your voice and read your words and fall in love a little. Just a little, just to light a match to warm the way. Dot-dot-dot please can you hear me I think we're sinking dash-dash-dash please can you feel me can I reach through this screen dot-dot-dot. Continents passing in the night; I see you from my window and know you'll never notice me but at least I feel enough to write it down
-
From The Sea, To A Pyre
I wonder sometimes if you're lonely, as I am lonely, out there on the moor, but then how could you be? It's so cold out here; I don't even notice anymore. Only five percent of me is mapped and at a distance there are some who wonder what remains to see, impressed in a detached and uncomprehending way. If you lived by me long enough, you'd be bored, but perhaps not enough to say goodbye. I do prattle on but you, you! How brightly you burn, how hot, how untouchable. To come too close is to be destroyed, to remain too near leaves marks for at least a little while. How could you, so vital, so magnetic, be lonely? The dark of the moors retreats and cold hands are warmed in your presence. But I would smother you. How terrible, how unforgivable. Have they fed you fine wood? Have they burned sweet herbs or cooked nourishing meals? I'm sorry; I never could quite understand. I contain multitudes but I don't even feel them against my tides, and nothing feeds me; they might come here to die. I hope the Autumn is kind to you. Perhaps from where you burn you can see my storms.
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