Quiet Retreat –

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?” ― John Keats, Letters of John Keats

Forsaken by sanity, forgotten by humanity, she fought just to keep from fighting. Barely one step ahead of the encroaching madness, weary from the race, she laid down her arms. Passive resistance to no avail, giving all to go beyond today but consumed by fear of tomorrow and an unspoken dread of a foreshortened future. Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout her beautiful body hung from a leprosy filled soul. Her mind wasn’t empty but overcrowded with thousands of thoughts every minute, from the mundane to the complex, the raucous sound filled every crack and crevice of brilliance and care. She died long ago, resurrected once, only to be crucified again by the same love that brought her life. This cross she bears through life, stumbling in the crowded streets with the roar of the past and the horror of the future the foreboding songs of the morning. Hear her silent scream, silent lest the world hear the echoes of her demise. In the end, only God knows why she’s alive, why she persists, why living is a threat and death a quiet retreat.

 

First published at Opinions of Eye

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Imminent Mortality –

“I want to tell you what it was really like to think death is imminent, but I can’t. It’s a taste in your mouth. And an emptiness.” – Aaron Huey

 

 

 Sneaking thing this black specter, writhing in my brain,
Coloring my bright light with shades of never

Bringing the death of my flesh

In the missing of your gray eyes, pushing in my stomach,

grabbing solitary and smearing me with earnest

Bringing the death of my heart

Swirling decisions in red clouds, failing in my heart,

a tempting success erased in a hurried smudge

Bringing the death of my work
Jumping off castles of white cliffs,
flapping frantically in the forest of the unknown
Bringing the death of my belief

First published in Opinionsofeye.com

Captured –

I like to include a woman’s perspective on the subject matters addressed in this blog, and in light of this consideration I give you this entry composed by Jennifer Hester and published in the Posse’s Lair, enjoy!

She wrote
not about the color
of his eyes
The weight of his stare
pushed her back
pressing her will
against the sheets
her eyes crushed close
an attempt to
obliterate the heat

She wrote
not about his lips
the way they
pretended
to hold some shy secret
brushing temptation
pulling back evoking her appetite
she believed starvation
would eat her alive

She wrote
not about his lips
the way they
pretended
to hold some shy secret
brushing temptation
pulling back
evoking her appetite
she believed starvation
would eat her alive

She wrote
not about the battles they repeated
with wet skin
fire
fingers clasped and limbs
entwined
Their warrior cries and
hushed urgings
the inevitability of death
a quiet relief that held
only until
war was incited once more

What she did write
the sadness
the annihilation of reason
that completely devoured her head
How unreasonably
her ego
stood down
refusing to protect her
banished to the emotional
unable to
talk herself out of his charms

I suppose this is the reason
she didn’t want to write

*

Also published in Opinionsofeye.com

02142013

Stinger – Fighting doubt

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

Tickle in my brain, flying around in there
Nettle from the wings, wings without air.

Brother to it’s flight, a needle of doubt

The sting will be sure, no way out.

I flinch from the pain, it pierces my defense

Pushing without mercy, sparing no expense

I feel the poison rush, numbing as it goes

Fiercely it corrupts, putting hope in death throes

I shake myself aware, knowing I won’t let go

To pull this ugly thing out, to stop the ebbing flow

Strength from the deep, I brace once more for pain

Doubt resurrects, it’ll keep coming back again.

Also published in Wingposse, September 2012 

02212011

The Dust – Apathy exposes your cracks

“Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can’t make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don’t get back on track somehow, I’m dead, that’s the sense I get. 
There isn’t a single strong emotion inside me.” ― Banana Yoshimoto
 

 

 

You see beauty everywhere, your supposed to be happy. Your not.
You see people laughing, your supposed to be a part. Your not.
You see tears falling, your supposed to feel. Your not.

You see beauty everywhere, your supposed to be happy. Your not.
You see people laughing, your supposed to be a part. Your not.
You see prayers offered, your suppose to do that. Your not.

You see tears falling, your supposed to feel. Your not.
You see life passing, your supposed to do something. Your not.

And worst of all, you just don’t care. I mean you really, really, don’t care. About anything.

It’s death you feel in every little crack of your soul.

Like dust collecting, this death accumulates in the small areas of your life.

But wait you walking dead! Be encouraged!

There’s life again, a spring cleaning as it were, rising from the dust of death in your life.

You must quiet yourself and stop running to the next thing that will numb you.

You must quiet yourself and wait to hear the voice of your maker calling after you.

You must quiet yourself and pray to the one who has the love that will make you whole.

I’ve felt the death that living life can bring, and I’ve felt the arms of my Father,

Those arms have made me strong enough to live and be safe from the dust.

 

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

01082011

Permutations

“The life of the dead is set in the memory of the living.” ― Cicero, Philippics

taliesyne

There’s something hidden, a suffocated wish tucked away in a forgotten cobwebbed corner. The gray green tints of death work their magic in transforming the wonder to a wasted sticky mess that’s never the same. A smell of the once alive, again persuades the living. We’re fatefully committed to the peer pressure of dead things and that without prejudice. A moment that died many years ago…it lives still, kept alive by the artificial respirator of my mind.  It then remains that the only way to kill it, is to kill me. Damn the longevity of dead dreams! Of dead love! May death release me from their vice, and if they were to live on, this will be the hell of the underworld.

Also published in Wingposse

02192014

Disease

“I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness – a real thorough-going illness.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground 

“Despair filled his skull even more tightly than his own brain. All around him cars filled with normal people perfectly unaware of the disease turning Perry’s body inside out. Fucking normal people.” ― Scott Sigler, Infected   

He folded his arms, tightly, like a knot by a five-year-old, and scratching an unconscious itch, wondered at the bloody drop rolling down his aging skin. Wiping it away, he couldn’t help but taste the irony of death. The tics and eccentric behaviors that manifested since the incident made him an odd sort. It wasn’t his fault, he was told about the consequences of playing with the dark. The dark, always forbidding, forever in tales of lore and fables of heroes and damsels, wasn’t he warned? He wanted to see what was hidden, what moved and was caught out of the corner of his eye, begging an explanation. The blackness held an allure, pushing him into a sort of night that comes on those depressed and abused, and holds them, protecting and discouraging at the same time. On that night, he witnessed what others only pretended to know. 

Praying to the powers that kept life and death apart, he fell forward into the darkness, wholly accepting whatever lived there. As he strained to see, he knew that his senses were his friends, and not the eyes that betrayed him. The shadows boiled and rolled, threatening, yet, comforting. Things calling him, bringing whispers and tickles on the back of his neck. The holy house stood confident at the beginning, though the shadows within betrayed that camouflage. Some shadows were darker than others, malevolent and unforgiving. These fear provoking shades are the ones he desired, the dangerous, the despised, and angry forgotten ones, forgotten by fear and ignorance, chased away, but only in their minds, they drew his curiosity. As one gathered itself from the rolling chaos, it writhed up from the depths and called his name, not his given name, but a name he never knew, a name that reminded him of fairy tales and legends. This began his love affair with the dark and conceiving a hatred for the cursed disease called life. Others longed to live, but he, only to die. Life offered no solace, no hope, but the great emptiness of death, there a lover waited that never left and forever hissed the affection that only cold embraces can show.

Mortal Dance – Engage the Pack

“What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in poor dumb beasts. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.” – Mario Puzo

itsraininguniverse

As I listen, my music carrying me away, I feel death circling. A thousand shards of ice sharp pain brings me its gifts of gray emotion. Inevitably sunrise comes, in spite of my night loving wishes. A blank stare possesses my eyes, and life leaves. Can I be dead and alive at the same time? Is this what’s wrong? Am I trying to move rigor mortised limbs? If feelings are dead, is the blood running warm and blue any life at all? It’s like nothing matters when you look over that edge. I want to peek, to glimpse at what’s beyond. Is this what predators sense? That I flirt with death and sleep restlessly for want of it? They surround my camp with fire lit eyes. I see them jumping, ducking in and out of the light, playing with me, afraid to rush in too quick. One tugs at me, yanking my leg to see if I move. I gasp, pushing away the comfort of mortality to engage the pack. It’s the fight that brings me back to life. Until then there’s no reason, but when the enemies come, that, that is why I live, only to fight. Men have ruined everything else in my life but this I control. When it’s time, I will bring death to myself, no one else will take that privilege.

The Waiting Vengeance

“Some justice, though did not deal with kindheartedness or good feeling toward others. No, justice had a darker side, a gray area where it mingled alongside vengeance, and only the wise and pure of heart were able to tell the two apart. That kind of justice was swift. It was only called upon after mercy and morals fail. It was the darkest form of goodness known to anyone, even the gods, and required only the strongest, most daring men to bring about.” ― Evan Meekins, The Black Banner

theextravagantbum

The problem is when I’m hurt, especially publicly hurt, there is pressure, both inside and out to exact revenge and “take care of your business”, and generally, the quicker, the better. To the regular guy, this is real, but to those whose mental condition, or whose social position, puts them at more precarious odds with vengeance, it is crucial to examine the actions considered before acting them out. It is expected by both violent subcultures and societal inputs, movies and books, that with great aggression and extreme guile a man should strike back at that evil which caused the hurt. To not strike back causes a loss of credibility within those cultures as well as a strike against the ego. The names that are given to those who do not strike back with the same or more violence than what is done to them, are not pleasant nor easy to bear. But wait! There is an element in warfare that waiting is part of the plan. It indicates wisdom and provides opportunity for an element of surprise to those who refuse to be provoked by the poking and prodding of careless violent predators. If I am easily provoked, then I am easily controlled. To ruin me only requires irritation, and the rest I’ll do on my own. There is a time and a place, to hold back a temper, put that gun down, knowing that the triggers of violence are controlled by the one waiting. More can be served by waiting and letting the violators of my life turn on themselves than by acting on an out of control violent spree that may end up hurting people other than the intended perpetrator(s), and may hurt the vigilante by the confinement of jail, institutions, or death, or the burden of never being able to speak of that which is done. There is a better way than to be violent immediately. Know myself, then my enemy. Hold my peace, the opportunity will come. When my defense is sure, then my victory is absolute.

Death Of Our Seed – Death throes of love

“The flowers anew, returning seasons bring! 

But beauty faded has no second spring.”
– Ambrose Philips

“Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.” – Kahlil Gibran

Image Credit: altitudinarian

I wander, looking, not feeling. Experiencing but remembering nothing. The taste is gone, bland are the fire scorched courses of your love. I wander around the echoing rooms of passions castle, like a spider hunting in the sedentary atmosphere, catching my supply and watching the inactivity with many points of view. My meandering desire leads me to other lands; stepping on the thorns of my morality, my feet are hesitant to find the new, knowing it violates the old. Satisfaction, though fleeting, is found in errant trysts. Excuses are easy to make when I am dilapidated; rotten and broken like the old planks in the floor. Shoving the rusted door of our haven, the hinges squeal in loud eery cries, giving up their life in broken protest; they can no longer bear the lack of attention. Revelations are born in tense moments, your eyes meet mine and the truth wants to be spoken, yet remains hidden; these are haunting times. Lovers find it hard to pull the trap door on the hangman’s rig; to see their intimacy in death throes, struggling at the end of the rope of boredom. The sun rises, a strong wind blows, a storm is coming; it hits hard and washes away the mementos of years, bringing relief. Nature does what I loath to do, destroying the useless and dangling appendages of a dead love, giving birth to hope on the dry and barren paths. In this newness I linger, amazed at what comes from the death of love; like the death of a seed, it breaks the hardened ground with fingers of new passion, restoring my faith and blinding me again with lust unconfined and unexplored.

Also published in Broowaha Citizen Magazine