Idols

{Here is my attempt at writing in what was described as Emlyn's "clean poetry". I don't even know what that means, but here's my failed attempt at channeling Emlyn's poetic vibe, anyhow. }

I blame you for the foul weather.

Your departure left

A depression in the air

A hole in the ozone.

Atmospheric disturbances

Create only an outline

Of you

Cut out in the clouds

Filled with empty hopes.

I blame you for the foul weather

But I still revel in the rain.

Your absence is my malady.

The symptoms:

Lack of sleep,

Broken dreams,

I am constantly cold.

The empty space beside me

In the useless queen-size

Absorbs all the warmth.

I toss and turn all night

Churning the sheets

Like icy sea water.

So I smashed your picture today.

The one I've been making

In my mind

For three years.

Our memories,

Those burnished images

Fresh from the furnace

Hardened by the heat of out passion.

Turn up the fire in the kiln

By a notch

And they burst

Brittle

Into sherds of cracked clay.

Take them out too early

And they're still soft and shiny

They look retarded, anyway.

Better to smash everything

And leave archeologists

To sift through our debris

In a thousand years.

Let them wonder, then,

As I do, now:

Why?

shoebox.

I packed you up in a single box, slid you under my bed and made sure that the cat wouldn't get into your remains.

It was all the letters of your name, every instance where I heard the sound of your voice and the few gifts exchanged on holidays or birthdays. At this point I kind of feel sorry for you; you must have a shitload of boxes under *your* bed. I even wrote in your calendar, marked the date of our next anniversary that died the same day we did.

I wonder why people hold onto lost loved ones, like ashes in urns on their mantles, like as though those human cinders would come back together and reshape themselves into a body to hold again...
I doubt that's why people keep them though.
Maybe it's the whole loss thing. I wouldn't know.

All I know is that pictures cannot speak to me, letters cannot comfort me and the smell of your hair lingering in the hat I would lend you cannot hold me.

Now, if only the chapstick you forgot here could kiss me.

Triad

Another night
He met her at a party in July. He was there with his girlfriend, and somehow the three of them ended up in bed together. He woke up slowly the next morning, languidly registering the girl in his arms. His hands travelled slowly across her toned abdomen around her waist inching their way up to her small perfect breasts. Why is she wearing clothes he wondered, remembering their lovemaking of the night before. It was a passing thought however and as she stirred he slipped his fingers beneath her jeans. Small cold hands grabbed his stopping them, suddenly he realized that his girlfriend was asleep on his other side, and this delicious creature he had been feeling up as she slept spooned against him was the girl that had featured prominently in what he then realized with slight disappointment had only been a dream. He rolled over but soon got up to make both his temptress and mistress each breakfast. As they ate he told them about his dream of having sex with both of them, in graphic detail, and the leading role that the girl played. His girlfriend would make him pay later but it was worth the look on the girl’s face. He knew that in some secret part of herself she was flattered. He hugged her goodbye pressing her curves against him and promised her sex if she’d call.

Some nights I love my job
She opened the door soon after he knocked. She had probably been waiting for him. (The women usually were.) Tonight she was a gorgeous white-armed goddess. In a glance he took in the sleeveless black silk dress that softly clung to her curves. Her rich chocolate brown hair was up in a loose twist, with a few escaped tendrils curling about her face. “Come in.” she said somewhat hesitantly and took his coat. Her skin was smooth white porcelain. He reached his hand out and caressed her cheek, wondering at his nerve but gratified at the blush that rose to paint her face. She was wearing unbelievably high stiletto heels and moved with a dancer’s easy grace. He followed her to a large room which served as a bedroom and living room. She settled herself on one side of the leather coach and he sat on the other. He saw that her dress had begun to fall open revealing the edge of a black lace bra. He leaned over and pulled out the tie of her hair so it fell about her shoulders and he caught the scent of peaches. He wondered why this sexy woman needed him. He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off “shhh” she purred “before we go make love I want to ask you one question. What is your favorite book?”
Later lying in sticky sheets panting, after an amazing night of sex he thought to himself; what if I hadn’t lied…
She whispered to him then, so softly he might have imagined it, “Are you glad I called?”

Unexpected
It was odd, how different she looked naked, how unexpected her body was. He hadn’t realized how many layers she wore until he watched her take them off. “You’re staring.” she said matter-of-fact. He turned away abashed. “The bath is ready.” he offered, and she glided by him into the bathroom. He heard her turn off the water and the small splashing sound as she stepped in. “Come keep me company.” she called. So he walked back into the steamy bathroom. Her body was submerged and the piles of bubbles prevented him from seeing past her neck. He could no longer see her protruding bones. “So I’ve lost weight.” she states and he can tell she is proud, proud of her new frail figure, this new fragile shadow of the strong woman she was. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” He decides to be honest “I don’t think you ever needed to lose weight.” She looks at him and shakes her head. “Guys think I am hot now, they look at me, they see me. Though you’d think I’d have been hard to miss before.” She laughs at her own joke. “Guys did notice you before, you just didn’t notice them.” “Well the guys who look at me now make sure they are noticed.” she says with a saucy smile. “And they notice me in a good way.” She adds perhaps still unused to this prospect. “It was in a good way then” I respond, and don’t mention that I was one who saw her that way then.


So these are my three attempts at writing crude and sexual prose, channeling Charles. I could not write one piece of appropriate length, though I thought perhaps with a bit of imagination the first two could be continuations of each other. Regardless, with the three pieces I met the length requirement. Three for threesome, for Garaway's paradigm rule and for three strikes you're out. Hopefully one of them connected.

Broken buses moving way too quickly down a highway of potholes and lost hubcaps

Trying Mike's style.
(This isn't in all seriousness...kind of a tribute to what he read the first time I met him)

GET FIXED QUICKLY
OR DIE IN A FIERY WRECK.

The Bumps in the Bricks

(Hey guys. This is me trying extremely hard to nail Marta's style. I believe I did alright in a few respects, but I have to admit, I think I was challenged mucho! Feedback, yes? Yes.)

My legs led me to an alley way decorated with graffiti of severed heads and illegible tags. Someone wanted to be rebellious, but decided to remain anonymous.
I traced my finger along the lines, stapled into the bricks with black paint. The cold of the night was enough to send me into a wild twitching fit, so wild, it made me drop my bottle of gin.

“Fuck.”
The sound of my voice startled me and I felt like I had to laugh because I was the only one there and it was necessary to appreciate the moment.

The snow-covered ground was difficult to walk on, particularly the ground harbouring ice patches. The wind flipped my coat tails up repeatedly, but I was too distracted by the blood circulating away from my hands, still tracing the black outline of what appeared to be the word “Coleslaw”.

I let my legs lead once again, as they crushed the broken glass of my lost bottle of gin. (No worries, it was almost empty.) They continued to take me through the alley. My hands found refuge in my coat pockets, fingers each wrapped around an object the pocket contained.

My legs ceased all movement. A single thought sliced through me: cigarettes.

“Cigarettes,” I repeated. I fiddled with the lighter in my pocket and patted my chest for the carton. I retrieved the carton from its position as guardian of my left chest plate and removed one from the box. The cigarette stuck to the moisture of my lips as I struck the lighter many times unsuccessfully until the flame was birthed and my smoking could commence. I let the smoke simmer in my mouth for a little while and exhale, until the stick burned to its filter. I continued walking (home, hopefully), the only idea occupying my mind being the identity of “Coleslaw”.

A fair amount of Space

This is done a la style du Audrey. I am not quite sure how accurate I got it.

It seems that I have always walked through these halls, with slow, paced movements. I never took notice of the objects that surround me until now, when none of them holds any importance. I laugh at the irony of me missing this place, a place that inhabited for five years. Five years and not once did I ever enjoy my stay here.

The memories keep playing through my head, all jumbled within each other. I can’t help myself but to take a peek in the teacher’s lounge, I have always wondered what resides beyond that mystical door. I can assure you that it is no Narnia. I leave that corridor, highly disappointed yet still in awe how all these years later, nothing has changed.

I changed from those days long past, yet walking back here seems like a time-warp. The same feelings attack me as they did back then, feelings of care-freeness and freedom. I might not have seen it then, but those were some of the best days that I would ever have. High-school was my peak, and from there I just kept doing the minimal.

So now I stand here, mop in one hand, bucket in another. Starting the first day of the rest of my life, never escaping these four walls.

Unsigned Letter

I am a deeply hurt person,
I pray my pain won't worsen.

Yesterday I walked alone and spoke to a friend of mine,
we spoke at length about the things troubling my mind.
Afterwords I wrote a letter to my estranged self.
I left it unsigned, upon a seldom dusted shelf.

When I find the letter and recall who it is from.
I will know that I once was cracked but never undone.

Something about 3 AM

I present to you: Jordano a la Jessica. There's not very much dialogue, because I don't trust myself to write up to Jordano's freaking awesome dialogue standard. Let me tell you, this was possibly the most difficult thing I've ever written.
I apologise in advance for my massacre of your style, Jordano.

Two nights ago, I couldn’t sleep. I pulled open my bedroom window and managed to wedge myself through the opening, out onto the snow-covered roof. It must’ve been about 3am, and I had expected some stars or at least the occasional plane, but there wasn’t anything in the sky, just the dim haze of light pollution and smog. We moved from the city when I was a kid, but I think it followed us out, or at least the city sky did. There isn’t any flashing signage and the trees have replaced the skyscrapers, but the sky is a city sky, dark and starless.

I stood for a while, and then my legs got tired, so I tried crouching. Crouching made my body a lot less cold, but after a while my thighs were burning and my ankles felt like they would give out any second, so I gave in and half-heartedly brushed myself a clear patch of roof to sit down on.

It’s crazy, how at 3am on a roof, with your ass freezing off and no stars in the sky, all you can think of is how much you want to smoke. It had been a week, at that point, since I’d quit, but I reached back through the window into my room, anyway, and thought, What the fuck. Might as well as I grabbed my pack and my lighter from the windowsill. I’d shoved them there when I decided for the sixteenth time to stop smoking for real this time. My windowsill is pretty accessible, but usually when I’m anywhere near the window, I’m opening it with my mom yelling at the door about how stuffy my room is. It’s her fault, I tell her every time, for owning such a fucking tiny house.

I don’t smoke because it’s an addiction, I think, but because I like it. Elliot calls it the lazy man’s masturbation, because you manage to satisfy a craving and have something between your fingers at the same time, and you don’t really have to work for it. The first time he said that, we all laughed, mostly for the implication about the size of his dick, but now I think we all agree with him to some extent. Dean has some fancy psychology explanation about oral fixation and childhood, but we don’t like it as much. Whatever the reason, smoking is still right on the top of my list of things I like to do. I think, if I were on death row, I’d definitely ask for a last smoke before they injected me or strapped me to an electric chair.

Sometimes I think about that, about what it’d be like to be on death row, knowing that there was no going back, and having your death scheduled. Most people I know are afraid of death because you never know when it’ll hit you, but if you know when you’re going to die, and you have time to sort everything out, say your goodbyes – are you still afraid of death, then?
I asked a girl that once, when we were stuck waiting for one of those night buses in the East End that just never comes.

“I don’t really know,” she said, clicking the bright pink plastic beads of her necklace through her fingers. “What about what comes afterwards? I’d still be afraid of that, I think.”

“Really? Are you religious?”

“Not technically. I mean, my family is – the whole go to church thing, right? My mom’s really into that – but I don’t really think I believe in all of that.”

She had this cute crinkle thing going on between her eyebrows, right underneath those thick bangs that were everywhere last summer. I guess philosophical discussions at bus stops really got to her. The next thing I knew, she’d turned to me – I saw a strip of bluish lace under her cardigan – and said, “The bus won’t come forever, probably. I’ve been here for like an hour already, and it’s missed the last two scheduled runs. There’s a 24-hour Tim Horton’s nearby, do you want to grab a coffee with me and wait out the metro?”

I was thinking of her, two nights ago on the roof. Her name was Patricia or Priscilla or something like that, and she talked more than anybody I’ve ever met. It was too quiet, at 3am, and I guess I just really wanted someone to talk to, so I pretended she was there with me. I almost offered her a cigarette, until I remembered that she didn’t smoke. I just let her talk inside my head instead, trying to think about what she might have said.

I figured she probably would have said it was too cold to talk, which got me thinking again. What if you were lost in the woods with someone, and it started snowing or icing or something, and you had nothing to do, would you still say it was too cold to talk, and just sit there being miserable together? What if you thought you were going to die? Wouldn’t you want to get everything out before you croaked?

I think I think about death too much. But it’s a big hang-up for me, the way we act towards death. I guess that’s why I started thinking of that girl from the bus stop. She thought the same as everyone else I’ve ever met, scared of death for whatever reason, but for all she knew, as she told me over coffee and Boston cream doughnuts, I could’ve been a murdering rapist, and even talking to me could’ve earned her the trip to the afterlife that scared her so much.

A Twofer

I don't believe in backlogs.

PS from WEDNESDAY: I just read Tabia's e-mail through a series of coincidences, because she sent it to my MSN address, which I never, ever use for mail. Sorry. These stay, though. I will have Tabia's style... next week? I guess.


Please comment anyway?

across from the stage and under the trees

I am the only one today

who ran over snow.

The rest took to their sidewalks

as if they were stairs or the

tongues of some cosmic hibernating reptile

tasting the air.

oh, I understand them--

snow so new so lily-white,

breath of virgin lips--

so rather than waiting

I throw myself, pilgrim

whose feet kiss the earth

as he walks.

birdsong

birdsong! cut the summer air.

the wind is a perch that

never ceases to elevate.

like some kind of

glorious abstraction of the earth

the day is suddenly yours--

your beak gold enamelling,

your song a requiem

to oak and leave and

the drowning of our voices.

you summon us to pyres

and rob us of our melancholy--

better to leave! we think

rather than shake the branches

and catch the fluttering feathery heart

with open hands.

no;

if we refuse,

if we are mute

before our gift of glory

to keratin and bone,

it is no coincidence:

it is because we heard you

every time we cleared our throats

and were about to sing.

A Victimless Crime

Okay guys, so this is my sad, pathetic attempt at writing like Jess. It does not do her justice at all, but I primarily tried to focus on her use of amazing sensory description and apply it to whatever came to my head. And failed. So this is whatever came to me as I tried to write like Jess.


The grainy, paper-thin walls echo and reverb the self-inflicted stigmata of her ancestor's-past in the room, as she perceives everything as nothing, and nothing as everything.
She has never been as lost within her mind as she had been today, as the solemn dying sun dried up into the nestling horizon, taking it into its arms and putting it to sleep. A baby cradled, only to explode and flourish its auburn knowledge unto the helpless, again and again.

Gwyn remains restless, sitting in a chair, and she could tell by his body language that whatever it was they had was coming to an abrupt end tonight. He sat across from her, shuffling a deck of cards, flipping every single one into another incessantly in order to distract himself from whatever was coming.

Was everyone looking at her, today, or did she just think they were? Through the myriad structure of bustling children, shy school bus drivers and clueless elementary school teachers, she noticed herself in the reflection of a skyscraper building. What finally hit her was more of an astounded gust, a gasping breath, a plea for help. Had she seen the true nature of the soul? Or had she simply lost it in that instant?

It was the implosion of the inner part of her chest that awakened her from this moment, shaking off the bitterness like a furry fly into a window. Had she been so blind as not to see the despondence of her lover? Her stringy hair like dried spaghetti, the wetness grease of a car's engine made her feel intoxicated by her timid nature. She wanted to dig herself underneath.

At times she wondered whether everyone really was looking at her or if it was the illusion of constantly being afraid of herself. That ability to distinguish her mind from reality consumed her, causing sweat to spew from her forehead and shine a light toward the darkness of her lover.

He shuffled the cards and passed the deck to Gwyn in order for her to cut the deck. Vehemently, she grabbed every single card from the deck, save for one, and quietly placed that one card on the top of the deck.

He dealt the cards.

122 A.D.: Fuck

Part 2 of 3

Rated G for graphic sexual content.

It didn’t end so simply. Simple. Nothing ever ends simply. Humans say things – do things – they may or may not regret. Then the repercussions hit, quick, cold, and fate leaves you marching home or lying dead on the battlefield.

The exchange of blows before the battle should have ended in a silent withdrawal of all parties for it to be really forgotten, without consequence. Except words were exchanged; words, those burning bursts of vitriol.

Scabius to Antonine, both facing each other, held back from punching one another by the flexed arms of their men: “Bastard child! You worthless junk. Son of a whore. I fucked your mother once, in some brothel. The cheapest slut in the place. No wonder you’re such a coward. I fucked your mother, you son of a whore!”

Antonine comes flying out of his comrade’s arms and tackles Scabius square in the chest. Recoil: Scabius falls against the moving wall of limbs of the men behind him, and charges back. He punches Antonine on the side of the head, knocks him out cold. There is a sore throbbing on his hand, now, but his chest, oddly, is unscathed.

“Pussy.”

Scabius spits: a long, dark tendril of phlegm lands on the mass of Antonine, sprawled out and moaning in the ground.

“You moan like your mother.”

***

Truth be told, Scabius had in fact fucked Antonine’s mother in a Roman brothel, many years before. Her name was Viola.

Scabius remembered the encounter quite vividly, although perhaps not positively. If Antonine didn’t enjoy the idea of Scabius penetrating his mother, Scabius didn’t recall doing so with much relish either.

Viola had the large, drooping breasts of a woman having been pregnant several times already. Underneath their yellowish skin, a web of varicosed veins spread outward from the big, bumpy nipples, dark as wine. She left her breasts uncovered; let them dangle like full gourds, wrapping only her middle with half-transparent shawl.

Scabius undressed and signaled her to do the same. He then took her from behind, planting his thumbs in the fat dimples on the back of her waist, gazing at the spot on the wall just above her head. Scabius concentrated hard to get his erection going. The memory of a particular young slave-girl – the one to whom he had lost his virginity – never failed to pump some hot blood into his prick.

His penetration produced a wet, squishy sound, but a not too disagreeable feeling. A vagina is a vagina, he thought, no matter how many dicks and infants has passed in an out. His erection hardened to a decent level and he started thrusting harder. There came the rhythmic, fleshy tapping of her jiggling thighs and breasts, and Viola started emitting short, low moans, no doubt faked to signify pleasure.

Scabius panted loudly to drown her sounds, but his heart wasn’t into it. His gaze wandered to the greasy soot on the walls, to the droplets of sweat appearing on the whore’s back and soon streaming down her sides in glistening rivulets. He shifted his knees, missed a beat in his thrusting, and heard her moan so loud and deep it was almost a yawn. His erection dwindled to a half-hearted dilatation, which slipped out of her too easily.

Viola turned around, somewhat surprised, clearly amused. He immediately hated her for it.

“What's wrong, honey?”

Scabius slapped the grin off her face and pressed down on her, fingers planted deeply in her soft, greasy flesh. He wanted to mark her, to make her scream in pain. He thrust his prick back into her, penetrating repetitively. He was looked at her, now. He observed how clenched her teeth were, how his hands were bruising her neck, how her breasts heaved as he pushed down and into her.

He reached his climax fast on this second attempt. Soon he felt the telling tightening in his anus, the hair-raising shiver run up his body. He removed his prick from inside her and released his semen over her face: sticky cum gluing her eyes shut, dribbling on her mouth, glazing her chin.

Scabius didn’t give Viola another glance. He threw a bucketful of water on himself, dressed, and walked out of the room to go pay.

It's the wrong kind of place to be cheating on you (continued)

The first part was posted a few weeks ago but I left it in this post (in italics) in case you hadn't read it.

My eyes are drawn to the walls that I remember being a different colour, the ceiling that used to have painted stars, the desk that did not used to be there, the windows which still look out on the same view, still let in the noises of the street, of the city. I’m brought back to lying here listening to the city and your calm breathing as you slept beside me, and I know I can’t go through with this, not here, not where I have so many memories, not where you are tied in to all of them, not now even though I know you slept with her, and you don’t think it matters. He walks in with a sly seductive smile, and whispers something, it goes by me because I’m caught up in the realisation that this is not going to work, and this won’t bring me release or pleasure or satisfaction, just pain, pain and a sense of self betrayal. I get up, in a single smooth movement, he moves towards me and I gently grab his arms before they can encircle me. No, is all I say, and I’m lucky, lucky because he lets me go, doesn’t push me doesn’t ask for an explanation just lets his arms drop, and loses his smile. He looks at my face intently and I think he’s going to turn away and leave me here alone with my memories and sense of loss. I’ve let his arms go and wrapped my arms tightly around myself, wishing the events that lead me here wouldn’t keep haunting me. I’m once again lost in my thoughts and don’t realise as he steps closer, don’t realise what he’s about to do till he does it.

He pulls me into him, one hand on my back and the other in my hair as he gently runs his fingers through it. I start crying, a hug when I’m holding back tears always earns that reaction, and I cry into his shoulder. He doesn’t try anything, his other hand staying on my back just holding me to him. I cry because of this too, why I can’t love him, when it is so painfully obvious he is the better choice, he is the one who truly loves me. I cry because he knows me, and would give himself to me and I couldn’t, can’t give myself to him, even now… he just stands there and lets me cry stupidly uselessly mourning the memories and the man who isn’t here with me.

He knows I can’t go on like this, knows as he strokes my hair that it is not enough, that he can’t console my broken heart, can’t mend the extensive damage wrought. He knows what I’ve done, what I’ve tried, to please him, and how I was never enough, how nothing I did was ever enough. He saw as I stretched myself too thin, as I bent over backwards, as I let him break me futilely because nothing I did was ever, could ever be enough. He even knows that now, with the amount I’ve drank, and the amount I’ve cried he could push his luck, and might get lucky, but he won’t. He won’t do anything he knows would hurt me, not if he can help it, won’t do anything to endanger our precarious friendship. He takes me to his place, away from the party, and the debauchery, away from that place filled with memories. Instead of offering me more alcohol he puts on water for tea. I curl upon his couch, cold, and he brings me a blanket from his bed; I cuddle into it and smell him, his safe familiar smell, and I doze. He wakes me up by placing a cup of tea beside me. “Do you want to talk?” he asks. I’m not sure what he expects but I answer with a shake of my head, words feel like too much effort right now.

I look at her, curled up, clutching the cup of tea like a lifesaver…I am so angry, so incredibly angry, seeing her like this so utterly defeated and broken, she didn’t even protest when, coming out from the rain, I peeled off her shirt and pants and gave her a change of clothes. She hadn’t registered the rain as it mingled with the tears that continuously streamed down her face, no longer noticing them. She’s still shivers occasionally and I want to scoop her up in my arms and hold her close to me till her tears subside and the violent shivers stop convulsing her body. Usually I want to do much more than just hold her but tonight I’m just faced with the reality of her fragile frailty, the ease in which some man tore her to pieces. I know somewhere that she is stronger than this that she should be, that the alcohol hasn’t helped her present emotional state, that she’ll be better tomorrow, that she threw a few good punches of her own…I know this, but right now looking at her you wouldn’t know this, and there is a small kernel of doubt buried in the back of my mind, a small niggling voice that is whispering but what if this time is different.

She raises her eyes to me and swallows, no more tears streak down her cheeks and she rubs her eyes. “Stop looking at me like that, like I’m something that can never be fixed, like I’m something pathetic.” She laughs to herself at that, “who am I kidding I am pathetic.” She visibly makes an effort not to start crying again. I have no more self-restraint left, so I sit beside her, pull her into my lap and hold her tightly, she draws a sharp intake of breath when I grab her but doesn’t make a move to free herself, and soon nestles into me. Would that the circumstances that brought us together like this were different. At some point she tries to speak and I push her head back down and hush her, she doesn’t insist on talking, and soon her breathing is deep enough that I begin to suspect she’s asleep. I make a move to either carry her to my bed, or let her lie on the couch but she proves to me she’s awake and earnestly desperately says “don’t leave me, don’t leave me alone.” She holds me, and I stop trying to move. I simply shift, and we both settle a bit more comfortably.

Basket

This morning, a gorgeous summer's day,
Painted a colourful memory soon tinted
By a realization.
Walking in a park on the first day of summer
Always a nice thing to do.
It reminds me of how alive the world is;
How everything breathes.
The common garden.
So many flowers planted,
Roots barely sunken into the dirt,
Yet enough for them to grow
And in a moment of joy
(jealousy?)
I pulled at the common stem of Forget-me-nots
Thus making the roots breathe air.

I thought to myself
"These flowers breathe no more"
I felt the satisfaction of taking life the first day of summer
Because it is mine to live now.

Joe Blob

'what was her name again?' Joe thought. 'Mary, no Margargaret'
"Oh my god yeah Maggie, that feels so god" He said out loud.
"Itsh shnot Maggie itsh Shulie"
"What?"
"Julie" pulling Joe's penis out of her mouth before she said her name.
"Oh I'm sorry"
"It's all good baby" gingerly sliding his cock back into her mouth.
He looked down at the top of her head and noticed that she had brown hair. Not red hair. Her roots were growing back in.
'Forget it man' he scolded himself 'Just enjoy the BJ it is incredible. Stop, stop just enjoy it.'
"whatsh shwrong?" Julie slurred on account of the now flaccid member in her mouth. Panic in her voice, no man had ever gone limp, mid blow job.
'What went wrong? I really like this guy he's funny' she thought.
"You're not a red head."
"what? I can see your roots growing back."
"Ummm ya. So?"
"My add specifically asked for a redhead"
"I'm not following, I figured that my dye job wouldn't matter"
"well Julie, it matters ok, It matters a lot" Joe's voice rising in anger. "You said you were a redhead on the phone"
"Ya? well you said you had an Eight inch cock! guess you forgot to tell me you like to multiply reality!"
"What did you just say bitch?"
"I said you have a tiny dick and I still jammed it in my mouth, but my fucking roots made you lose your pathetic excuse for an erection"
"Get out"
Julie punched Joe it the groin and he bent in half in pain. She grabbed the 45 dollars on the table and walked out of Joe's dirty little 1 1/2 apartment.

Faded

It starts off slow, small increments of self-doubt. Sometimes you just chalk it up a mistake or forgetfulness, other times you make up excuses, one’s that you don’t even believe. Your friends don’t notice anything; they act the same and look the same, except to you they don’t. A veil of sorts seems to have been lifted, leaving only harsh truths. A smile never seems genuine, and a laugh always sounds fake. You start retreating, spending some more time alone, collecting your thoughts, trying to dissuade the skepticism that slowly rises ever more often than before.

Concerned looks don’t faze you; they are ignored mostly for the fact that you never seem to see them. Yet when you do, it’s taken in as pity. Time seems to slow down, as the days grow longer. Soon the weeks feel like years and you are crawling out of your skin, trying to find an escape route. Luck has left you a long time ago, and all the routes are blocked off, your own doing except there is no realization on that front. Calls become frequently ignored and soon enough all together left unanswered. The machine is full of people’s voices, the words hold no meaning and the day seems to pass with a monotone of sounds. At night it always seems to get worse, there is nowhere to go. At least in the day time, when all else fails a run could be possible, keeping the itchy feeling at bay before you claw your skin off. At night, the dark hides things, yet not well enough to persuade you to come out of your hiding. The bed sheets protect you from imaginary evils, while keeping you warm from the cool breeze.

The cold bothers you, more so now than before; losing all that weight impacted you without your notice. You don’t realize it, but you became frail looking, as well as sickly. You avoid mirrors; they capture the soul and show you the darker side of humanity. You don’t need a reminder of what lurks inside of you, of what you need to tame. Months pass and still there is no recognition of anything beyond the four walls in which you confide in. Your hair is limp, skin clammy. No one checks on you anymore, no one cares. They all gave up on you, a long time after you gave up on yourself. You mutter incoherent phrases, other than that there would be silence if the noise in your head didn’t drown it out. Soon, nothing escapes your mouth and all your senses start to shut down on you. They are no use; the words in your head have become too loud to bear. You don’t have enough restrain like you used to, so you try to claw them out. Although clawing them makes things worse. The pain is a nice change. It masks the fact that you faded away.

Understood, For a Change

"Can we start again?" she asks, "Go back to the beginning. Before all this shit. Before we realized we hated each other. Start again. Start with 'hello'."



No.
No, we can't.

Oops

Fate met me at the glassed-in menagerie, smiling her slow sweet smile and playing with the fringe of her scarf. “Herbert,” she said to me in a coquettish half-whisper as she stared at the elephants and I stared at her hips, “Herbert, don’t be so awfully lewd.”

I didn’t think to ask how she knew my name, caught as I was by the splendour of organza draping over curves so luscious that a dehydrated man would instantly have been revived simply by looking at them, but I moved closer to her and let my gaze roam where my hands could not. She moved on and I moved with her, through the caged wildness of a scaled-down Africa; by the time we reached the patchwork-furred tiger, I was close enough to hear every catch in her breath.

She was puzzling over Latin names on faded placards when my knee brushed the back of her thigh through the layers of palest pink, her exasperated/desire-filled sigh mixing with the sigh of the fabric as my leg and the breeze pushed it in different directions.

At the giraffe enclosure, where the leaves were so wilted that the long-necked cage-walkers weren’t anywhere near interested, I slipped my hand along her ribbon-covered waist and tried to remember all the sorts of suave and charming things one says to disastrously beautiful women who are playing with scissors.

I met Fate at the glassed-in menagerie, gasping with shock as something exploded in my chest and a piece of fringe fell from her scarf. “Herbert,” she said to me with a dangerously wrinkled, one-eyed leer as she stared at the hyenas and I tried not to look at her sagging hips, “Herbert, don’t be so awfully rude. You’re bleeding on my dress.”

I'm really not sure where this piece wanted to go. Or what it's about. Or if I like it. In other news, I'm trying to get out of the habit of bookending my pieces with the same/similar paragraphs. Step One: admit that you have a problem.

Bird

it was the worst birthday present ever:
a cardinal in a
clear glass box. unless
it was a blackbird or
some sort of baby crow--
you couldn't see it from the
wall of mist its tiny feathery breath
built brick by puffy brick
on the glass.

no card, by the way.
only birdsong at the doorstep
at some godforsaken clocks-must-be-bleary hour
next to the
sound of the emerging dawn.

there were no air holes, but
Bird (his name)
kept living on pockets of nothing
nevertheless,
chirping through the plates
despite the cage.
weird.

though he was kind of pretty in his
own limited way--
the way I heard him try to sing
with the others
when I placed him
by the open window
and the look on his face like
he was made of gold enameling
and loved the world for it

so one day I pulled his liberator
out of my father's old tool kit and
carefully cracked the top.

and there was a rush of
air or death or
something like that
and when he breathed in
the first day of his life
all he could do
was dissolve,
slowly,
particle by particle,
until he was ash
and I buried him
with the rest
under the flowers

A Very Long Interlude

http://www.mediafire.com/?o0rmzkmkrdd
http://www.mediafire.com/?o0rmzkmkrdd
http://www.mediafire.com/?o0rmzkmkrdd
http://www.mediafire.com/?o0rmzkmkrdd
http://www.mediafire.com/?o0rmzkmkrdd
http://www.mediafire.com/?o0rmzkmkrdd
http://www.mediafire.com/?o0rmzkmkrdd

Taking inspiration from Bernard's fantastic song, "Meter" I've decided to post a song of my own. Just simply click the link and the "Download" button on the link and it will download directly onto your itunes or windows media player.
(And I KNOW I'm not the best singer, im just beginning to experiment with song writing a lot more lately).

Lyrics:

I'm gonna rest my head a little bit
on this, pillow over here,
and if I see your face right next to mine
I`ll be sure to say hi

And when the Christians accept everyone
instead of, everyone except,
Oh God, it`ll be the day
that they speak of, in fiction.

I`m gonna drink away my sorrows,
into this, black pit of my mind
and if you`re telling me the honest truth
then I`ll promise to stay kind

And if we ever live to see the day
when the angels fall from the sky
Well if you`re standing right here next to me
then I, I`d be glad to die

Happy and proud
Happy and loud
Unheard and unseen
It`s the same old song
The same old scene
Happy and Free

Because I`m a beggar
I`m a liar
and I`m a thief
stealing hearts since 1993
but I,
Don`t have a clue about,
who I am,
Or who I`m gonna be

...

I guess I`ll just wait and see.

...

I`m gonna` rest my head a little bit
on this pillow over here.

Nihilistic Gimmicking

[So I'm uploading a video with this (which is actually just a sound file of me reading) because this is one of those rare pieces that I think hearing it read out loud will be an all-around benefit, better than simply reading the words themselves. I guess it's kind of a sound poem in that respect. But actually this was inspired by Christian Bök's Eunoia in which he uses only one vowel in his pieces (so whatever consonant he wants, but only using words with A or E or I or O or U). Obviously in my poem I chose to work with I. It's incredibly difficult, but really fun and I think you should all try it at one point! (Next CWC prompt?! :O) Anyway, you should all check out Eunoia and Christian Bök in general because he's an amazing writer and he does a lot of awesome stuff with words. So go!! http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/eunoia/text.html ....but read and listen to my poem first ;)]

Nihilistic Gimmicking

This chill, inky night spills in;
silly silk-skin Kim sips sin
whilst wishing in implicit pins,
sticking limbs with illicit grins –
disciplining with witty wins
till his spinning mind gives in.
Killing simply with blind slits,
right in rigid ribs it fits,
it sits, is indistinctly driving splits
with skill; it instills its blitz
within Sin’s spitting spritz,
dismissing this in which Kim sits.
Kim sits still – wishing Sin its shrill,
windmill thrills, winding windy ills,
bringing frigid filling in Sin’s skill –
singing whist! in timid tips in will
whilst his lips spill indicting trills,
his skin slicing till in Sin fills.

Elle me manque, mais malheureusement, elle ne revient plus

(sorry I'm late. Please comment. something new for me.)

I nurtured your skin and it grew.
You stood so tall on my shoulders,
Watching the parade
Until you asked me to follow one of the floats.
You latched on to my chest and pointed in the direction.
I know you're still young,
But you will let go and
If you believe what I do and
What I teach you,
It will only be for now.

122 A.D.: Flesh

A corpse: tattered flesh; dead, discarded – just a broken piece of human meat lying there in the mashed, half-frozen mud. The rags that cover it are stained and caked in what could be blood or ruddy water. Or both. There is little left of the face; just a pale strip of skin, smashed in between clots of wet, dark hair and a deep gash eaten by gore beneath the chin.

Nothing moves, now. After the clamor of the battle and the smell of death, the wet, panting bodies of those left alive turned their backs and walked away, victorious and wretched. In the night the armors of the dead were ripped off their bodies and taken away. Now these corpses are strewn on the field in the cold morning – like broken dolls – sleeping on pillows of raw earth, in crimson puddles of human fluids, shed or spewed.

Suddenly, a big, black bird soars down and lands on the corpse’s bloated chest. It pecks at the hardened flesh exposed at the neck for a while, tearing away frozen reddish-brown flecks. Unsatisfied, it claws its way closer to the face, tiny talons leaving broken scratches in the waxy skin, and starts to stab the corpse's head with renewed vigor. The bird wants to pluck out an eyeball and eat it.

***

Thirty-six hours before, this corpse is a living, breathing human being – though not much less ugly than the corpse he will become. He sits in a darkened corner of the tent, looking about coldly. His face, burnished and weatherworn by days spent outside, is slashed from the upper lip to his cheek by a terrible, pale scar, which gives his mouth a constant sneer. His name is Scabius. He is half-revered and half-hated among the men of the legion, and feared by all of them.

The tent is mostly quiet, with groups of two or three men drinking and talking in hushed tones. Then, Antonine enters the tent with some other men. They are drunk, and loud, and expect to get louder and drunker still. They sit at a table in the center of the tent and laugh and shout. There will be a battle tomorrow, and the men are scared out of their wits – you have to deal with it one way or another.

Scabius is annoyed by the rambunctious group, and does not conceal it. After a particularly bawdy joke, which climaxes in much bellowing laughter, thigh-slapping, and vulgar hand motions, Scabius has had enough. He yells; a frightful, blood-freezing groan – like that of some famished, half-crazed animal – and sends a goblet shattering on the ground.

“What’s wrong with you, Scabius?” Antonin asks. “You can join us here, if you want – if you improve your mood that is. Is that what’s troubling you?”

“That is not what troubles me.” Scabius stares at Antonine, eyes locked on his, a glacial stare – the stare of a madman; of a murder. “What troubles me is that there will be a battle tomorrow, and all you do is drink, and laugh like stupid swine, dishonoring your duty, and preparing yourself to be unfit to fight tomorrow. If you wish to be butchered like a pig, so be it, but I will not be dishonored on the battlefield because of you!”

“Scabius, we have come here to relax before the battle and talk of things other than death. I would never dishonor my duty or my legion. If we bother you here in your meditations, so be it, we will leave and let you ponder on dark things while we enjoy ourselves while we can!”

And so Antonine gets up, urging his men to do the same, and prepares himself to leave without more trouble. But Scabius will not have this. Anger flashes in his mind, his heartbeat pulses loudly in his ears, a deafening rage takes hold of him.

“How dare you turn your back on me!”

Kicking aside table, chair, and restraint, he approaches Antonine from the back and strikes him hard with his fist on the nape of the neck.

A fight eruptes, of course. Nothing abnormal before a big battle, just a drunken bar brawl. The palpable tension needs to escape somehow, and everyone joins in. Whoever hears the low-pitched grunts and thick sounds of fist and flesh comes thrashing into the tent to send and receive a blow or two.

It could have been just that: a harmless, almost friendly fight, ending with the men bruised but relaxed, sent to bed cold-headed before the big day ahead. But it did not end so simply.

Alliterated love

Singing secret songs,
dancing down dark
roads running racing
wet wild wonderful
evenings enjoying each-other,
messy mornings melt-into
weeks without work
desperate desire drinking
lust, love, leaving

left lady, last
night, not nice
can't cry, cursing,
raging restlessly repeating
over over over.

I Can't Charge For A Kiss

We rest our new love on an old bed, bodies pressed close, hands on hearts, toes tickling. We are hopelessly cheesy, but no one ever said cheesy wasn't heartfelt.
"What is this?" you ask me softly, tracing my collarbone with one, two, three, two fingers. "This thing between us?"
"Love?" I ask, and the word seems to change everything, freshen the calm in the room, tint it yellow for some reason. Yellow. Yellow like the walls in your kitchen when you brew hot coffee, waiting ever so impatiently against the counter. Or red, crimson being the first shade the darkness behind my closed eyes turned when we first kissed, as though your lips were somehow slowly both killing and rebuilding me. Yes, perhaps what we have, how I feel, is red.
But there is also blue. Blue like the sky outside the circle window in your room, so bright and young, full of hope and sometimes, insane and inane as it sounds, so very blue it makes me turn away. There is purple, dark purple, the colour of your sheets, and they way they slid off, curled around and framed you the night we first made love and you were gift wrapped and perfect and put together in all the best ways.
Perhaps what we have, how I feel, is al these colours.
Swirls of melted ice cream, an exploded kaleidoscope, the finale of the fireworks brigade. Yes, you have exploded my life against the night sky and I see every colour in creation in this indigo space between us.

Attempt number 18

"Thank goodness it's a familiar face?"

"Familiar? I'm your brother, Sherlock!"

"Precisely."

"Why didn't you come this morning? You were expected."

"I haven't left this room in three weeks. Why would I come down just to entertain those slobs?"

"Because those slobs are our cousins and because those slobs have money which belongs to us."

"I'd think, Mycroft, that you have enough charm to hoodwink them without my help."

"It's a matter of time."

"When do they go away?"

"A fortnight."

"Well, in that case, I'd rather you come back in a week and I'll help you then."

"You know I'm not leaving this room without you."

"Better make yourself at home then."

"I'm already in my own home!"

"I suppose that's true."

"Come, they arn't going to bite you."

"I wouldn't put it past them... Alright I'll come down. But, only because you are my brother and I love you like a sister. Now please give me the privacy to get properly dressed. You wouldn't want me to come don't dressed like this would you?"

"You arn't even dressed! Just hurry up."

Mycroft left his brother's room and closed the door behind him. He heard tippy-toeing and reached for the handle, but it was too late. He heard the door lock. He whispered to himself.

"For fuck's sake."

"You'll have to try again tomorrow!"

Assume

“When,” she wondered, when their breathing had calmed down and the sheets no longer clung with uncomfortable dampness to their entangled bodies, “did you decide this?”

It was, as usual, a continuation of a conversation that had been interrupted by a flurry of heated kisses and frantic movements. She could never recall when they’d formed this habit of bookending pleasure with business, and she couldn’t imagine how life would be if they couldn’t return to being their normal, sedate selves as soon as their appetites were sated. She privately compared it to a luncheon meeting she had once had, where the duck had been so exquisite that they had had to postpone negotiations until the coffee had been poured, and was secretly pleased that they managed to be so efficient, so wonderfully effective at managing their time together.

“I don’t really know – recently, I suppose. Since we last spoke.” His lazy reply resonated through his barrel chest to the curves and swirls of her inner ear, making her whole head buzz as he spoke, a delicious headache.

She nodded, trusting him to feel the movement and take it as an understanding. Surely they knew each other well enough physically, she remonstrated the inner control freak telling her to make things clear, that he was able to know what she meant when she did a certain thing.

Aloud: “And you’re certain about it?” as she traced the scant black curls beneath her cheek with a delicately manicured finger.

“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.”

It bothered her, that he wouldn’t discuss with her ideas not yet fully formed, and she told him so as she rearranged herself to look into his slate-grey eyes. An old argument. She knew his response would be a reluctant protest against the notion, or he would simply draw her down and kiss her, causing another sizeable break in the conversation.

“It bothers me,” he shot back, gentle hands on her back belying the harshness of his tone, “that you can pick up conversations right where they left off, as if all of this was just an interruption.”

when I arrive,

I will remember none of this voyage:
no great skies trying to be continents,
no immemorial patience of these wings
or curving graceful eggshell of the fuselage--
no joy at the lifting of
these unexpected ribs.
Only uncomfortable, eternal armchairs
and the smiles of automatons.

(Because what else is travel than
the displacement of biology
from our own unbroken minds?
the nervous nerveless yearning
that pulls our bodies from the void
until our souls emerge:
unchanged and yet
to our eyes
brand new.)

Seven Minutes to Midnight

[Didn't have a proper title, but it was better than "Untitled" - so yes. Time of post (according to my clock) to the rescue for lack of imagination!]



“What do you want from me?” she asked.

“I think you know,” he answered.

She hung her legs over the side of the chair and regarded him through the cigarette smoke she blew deliberately slow from out between her lips. “I think you give me too much credit,” she told him bluntly, swinging her foot. “I’m not that smart.”

He stood in crumpled awkwardness in her doorframe, not really outside her apartment, not really inside. His fingers traced the outline of his bowler hat, rubbing the felt down to bare the brittle plastic.

“I give you just enough credit…” He cleared his throat. “I give you just enough, and I make it so you can understand.”

She inhaled a long and cherry red drag, tapping out the cigarette’s ashy end in her tray. “I think you like watching me struggle,” she said. “I think you like watching me struggle, and I think you get off on your little mind games.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Oh no?” She got up from her chair, pulling her legs around in perfect ballet grace, facing him. “Look at you. Standing like some innocent love-struck loser, fiddling with your hat. As if you were a fucking nineteenth century gentleman. You like to screw with my mind and make it so I can’t even look at you without thinking you’re someone else completely.”

He looked down at his hat, blushed, folded his arms. His hat hid behind his body, but she could tell he was still patting the felt in nervous compulsion. He always was.

In a sudden flare of uncharacteristic rage, her fingers itched with a desire to destroy his faux-gentleman demeanor, bring him down to her level for a change. She jumped out of her seat and sprang across the room at him. He yelped and covered his face, but she didn’t hit him – only grabbed the hat. He cowered beside her and she rolled her eyes, pushed him away from her against the doorframe. He fell in an overdramatic fetal ball onto the floor.

“For God’s sake, I have bigger balls than you,” she growled as she flipped out two lighters from her pocket and lit them both at the same time with one thumb.

The over-synthesized glue holding the felt caught fire instantly, lighting up the hat like a fireball. She dropped it on the floor and watched in semi-satisfaction as he shouted gutturally, dancing around the burning bowler hat as if he were a troglodyte discovering fire for the first time.

When smoke filled the room and the apartment’s water sprinklers went off, she smiled. Turning away from him, she sat back down in her chair and stuck her soggy cigarette back between her lips.

The Wanderer: lines 85-111

{Sorry I'm late for posting. I've been having an extremely hectic week. I haven't even had time to write anything new so here's the translation I did for my Old English class last semester.}

God, thus, devastated this world

And made idle the ancient halls

Built by giants in days of yore.

The revelries of old are no more.

The elder ponders deeply

With wise thought on this dark life.

He remembers battles, long ago,

The clashing of many armies,

And speaks these words:

Where now the horse and rider?

What has become of the treasure-giver

And the seats of banquets?

Where are the joys of the hall?

Alas for the bright cup!

Alas for the warrior in glistening mail!

Alas for the king’s golden splendor!

How that time has passed away!

As if the light had never been,

It is dark, now,

Night has fallen.

In the beloved army’s wake

A mighty wall has risen,

Like an immense stone serpent.

The multitudes have been driven away

By the spear-wielding warriors,

Their weapons, greedy for slaughter,

And their glorious destiny.

Storms strike these stony cliffs

Falling frost encloses the earth

In the tumult of winter.

Then, darkness comes.

The night-shadow deepens

And the North sends

A fierce hailstorm.

Strife breeds among the men.

Earth’s kingdom is

Full of hardship, now.

Destiny’s events have changed the

World under the heavens.

Here is the fleeting treasure,

Here is the long-lost friend.

Here is the forgotten man

And the kinsman of old.

The world’s foundation is made vain.

Thus spoke the wise man

Within his mind

As he sat apart

At the counsel of men.

5am Again

The edge of heaven
comes crashing down
the window panes
torn off the homes
the barriers
have been broken through
the bastard sons
the father's truths

The loneliness
the handsome devil
the window panes
torn through the roof
to a brand new world
defined by thought
a price to pay
in essence,
to be sought

Attempting to be a stranger
among a flock of sheep
but when the herd remains monotone
it isn't much of a leap
When the sheppard in rags
seems to be wise and prestigious
he's probably off
doing something "religious"

The God clean shaven
from beard and all
a concept withdrawn
without any proof at all
And so the windows
come crashing down
shattered and reflecting
nothing other
than the edge of heaven.

I Know You're Upset

(Hello, HeartRapists. This is from way back when I first started writing. It's one of my oldest. It is also one of my favorites. I hope it becomes one of yours, too.

- Mike.)
(PS. I posted a newer one on my blog http://iamabearonaboat.blogspot.com/
it's called I NeveLeft My Seat. Enjoy that one, too.)

It's unfair to think that
If I fold up your heart
It'll fit into my pocket
So I think you should keep it on you tonight
Besides, you look so good with it on your sleeve.

It's also unfair to think that if I didn't touch you tonight,
That things would be better, that the space would
Miraculously put me in my place
But I'm too stubborn for that to work
At least for now

If I go drinking with the boys,
Please don't sulk or get mad at me for too long
I just don't enjoy it when you tell me that I don't get it
So I go do something I understand

And I know that when I come home,
I'll crawl into bed
And kiss your cheek,
While you pretend to sleep
Hoping to work it out in the morning
Knowing that forgiveness is the last sheep to jump the fence

I take you for granted and I try my best not to

(Please) Just take my hand when I reach out for yours.

Day Fail (Post fail, as well, but not if you don't read my blog)

What the title means to say is:
This is not posted on the right day, nor is it 'original' original.
But you wouldn't know the latter if you don't follow my blog.
In any case, it's edited.


Oh please. I'm very busy, don't waste my time.
Who're you trying to fool here anyway?
You say we learn from from your mistakes, as though an untoucheable calm rushes over us after the storm and gusts the clouds away. You say we better ourselves by learning from love.
Pish. Pish, I say. And ridiculous.
Love is ridiculous. It's overrated and underrated and all in all, far too present in our lives, in our words and thoughts and dreams. All of it is rated when in fact it shouldn't be at all. Happiness and all those warm feelings that come along with love. All they manage to do is mess with your head and all you can feel is warmth. And all you can think about are butterflies and how great the sun feels on your cheeks, how discreetly that water trickles past, how soft the breeze has always blown but only been appreciated until now.
Love makes you nothing but weak. and dependant. and blind.
You can't write when you're in love. You think you can because you think you can do anything. That's your first mistake. And when you're a writer, it is the only one that counts: You can't do anything. You're high, my friend. High on this happiness, high on the attention and giddiness.

But you can't skip on clouds any more than I can.

And you definitely cannot write better than I can. You think you can but you can't. In fact, you're a horrible, horrible writer. Your now cliche words, once poetic and meaningful, bursting with wit and dripping with charm, fall just as flat as you've convinced yourself you'll never be again. And your writing is, just like that, horrible. And disappointing. And unoriginal. And bland. And you're weak. You're just weak.

There's a reason the tragedies are Shakespeare's bests.
We don't actually want Ophelia to live.
Not really.
Everytime we read it, watch it, perform it,
we all, collectively, kill her.

Unwelcome

Tired of holding
This fucking
Torch for you
Who can’t view
Me in the light
That I see so bright
Around you
You can’t do
Wrong in my eyes
That can’t lie
And not reveal
Exactly what I feel
Every fucking time
An imagined crime
Against my fragile heart
And it tears me apart
Breaking at my seams
Laughing at my stupid dreams
I thought it was hidden
That no one could see in
And know what I hoped
What a joke
Now laughter is ringing
In my ears, like the singing
Of a dirge, unmistakable funeral march
Fantastical procession under that last arch
But I can’t give you up, can’t rid you from
The space in my mind you occupy unwelcome
(You’re unwelcome, and I’m not thankful)



So I'm not sure how I feel about this poem; I wanted to try something a bit different, not sure about the result. Comments, Criticisms, Thoughts and Suggestions are appreciated.

Engineer

Demigod of the workshop - son of flame, daughter of iron, Hephaestus' child - you ponder weighty matters, clasping saw and drill and fragile copper wire in fingers stained with blood from glass shards or metal splinters impregnating your flesh, skin marked beneath it all with burns from too-hot tools and under-calculated friction.

Demigod of the workshop, my world will see your slender arms, your fingers, pencil suited, climbing haphazardly over each other as if dying to escape; my world will see your thick-framed glasses and ill-fitting shirt, your sunless smile, and not know, not care that it is you who makes our city run, our fires warm, our lives complete.

I've been hanging out with the robotics club for the past few days. They. Uhm. They get to you, after a while. I think my days as a Snobby Arts Kid who Only Secretly Likes Science are over.
I don't know if the paragraphs are two different pieces, so I don't know if they fit together particularly well. But I wanted to say both, perhaps at the price of some level of elegance or artistry.

An amalgam.

(burn me into heaven til
I'm only ash on ground
sweep me through the courtyards that
my soul had never found

listen to the wind until
I'm wild and done and free
hold aloft those knotted arms
no more to capture me
sing alone a funeral dirge
--o be my mourning dove
and leave me to the skies of love.)

and

(but oh, the sheer joy of it !
when he
left the hollow ear of the dining room
abandoned the spirits clutching and
seizing at the windowpanes--
walked
out
and when knees
came to the ground
let his lips frost with snow and
drank and
drank and
drank)

The Underground Man (Crash and Burn) Part II

The number one risk of being a metro-driver is a sad and pathetic one, I guess you can say. When some sad mother fuckers decide that there isn’t anymore to live for, and rather than ending life alone, they decide to end it with hundreds of people right above them.

Metro suicides have been on the rise in the past decade and in a way, I guess you can understand why. Why die alone when all your life has been spent alone? Wouldn't you rather burn out? Problem is, though, that metro suicides (or “tire-tracks” as we call it in the business) severely interfere with the routine of getting people to places on time. Routine and principle has no need for these exaggerated emotions of death, these uproars of hate.

I never understood this need for death until this past week. My fourth and final week driving metro trains around began today, and it’s as if my outlook has just completely changed. Maybe it's the lack of sleep or lack of anything really... emotion, fear, love... I feel like everything is starting to move backwards instead of forward, like these fucking trains gotta’ get the fuck off these tracks.

Co-workers have also began to look at me funny. The bloodshot eyes due to the lack of sleep, the constant drinking of "Irish" coffee and the rare occasion of unplugging my iPod headphones. The feelings that shaving and grooming is unnecessary; I think it’s been four days since my last shower. And I couldn’t give a fuck.

I avoid eye contact with co-workers and make my way into the driver’s seat of my cart.

Like I was saying though, this fascination with death that never struck me as important finally began to. What was the point of life with the known-fact of death? Was there really a point to anything? It's like being a Gold Fish; everyone is told that they're golden and unique, but really, we're all just drowning over a prolonged period of time while the stars watch.

I began to think these strange things and weird poetry that never mattered to me before grabbed me by the neck and dragged me in. Like in Dante’s Inferno, the tablet written on the gates of hell, “Through me is the way into the woeful city; through me is the way into eternal woe; through me is the way among the lost people. Justice moved my lofty maker: the divine Power, the supreme Wisdom and the primal Love made me. Before me were no things created, unless eternal, and I eternal last. Leave every hope, ye who enter!”

All this weird shit began getting to my head and I began to realize their significance to those with purpose. With ideals. But I had none of that, I had schedules and times to worry about. None of this eternal art garbage.

But the tension pulls, and then I finally feel like I have reached insanity of the mind in its depth dimension. I feel claws and daggers tearing at me and I can’t help but imagine the gates of hell as I watch the shadows enter and leave behind me.

As I approach the nearly empty McGill metro station and slow down, I notice two young people, a man and a woman both wearing fashionable 'chic' clothing and waving at each other from the distance of the tracks. Their love being separated from opposite ends of the tracks and such and such. Fuck, they could be just friends. But not in my head. They’ve fucked a dozen times at least and he’s beginning to get bored of it by the pathetic limp of his waving hand. It makes me sick.

The shadow gets on my metro.

He is probably the only one on here.

I drive slowly thinking carefully.

I have no reason for this thought. There is no reason for this besides watching the world crash and burn; the world at my fingertips. This is insanity and I can’t do this.

There is no way.

No way at all.

Yet, I do it.

And so as we reached “Place Des Arts” station, the train track twisted to the right coming up right before it, this being the time to toggle the controller right to follow the aligned tracks and the glowing sign above me which told me to do so.

And I toggle left.

The whole world at my finger tips, crashing and burning.