Cannot Rhyme
I am so tired I cannot think.
Pig heads in my dreams, pale and pink.
Cannot sleep but by morn I rise,
For beautiful breakfast under grey-ish skies.
Natural is a word that is not easy to say,
But it’s essential to know if my hair’s that way.
Cannot rhyme, cannot sing, cannot even dance.
Do not understand this flirtatious parlance.
Watched Phoenix rise in the guise of Cash.
Strings a-strummed like the devil’s lash.
Digital strings on numeric wings,
Flings and things on sunlit springs.
Pig Heads
I’m sitting on an overturned bucket and he’s yelling at me. He’s helping me see the world the way it really is. He’s yelling at me and stripping away my youthful illusions to be replaced with a nice contented washed-up life.
Went walking today. Saw nine pigs heads on a table, lined up in a row, neat as can be. Comical, really, with the blood still leaking out of one of them. In the shop beyond two men chat and wield enormous knives. I wave and say hello and he comes over and asks if we want one, goes and gets a bag, we shake our heads, no, no, say byebye and continue to walk. I wanted a stick. No, nine sticks, because it’s a big island and not everyone might run across the godlike rotting presence of only one staked pig head.
A little ktv, two girls dancing. We stick around, watch, a girl pokes her head out and I wave and glance away. When I glance back she’s gone. I’m reminded of how horny and in need of female companionship I am. It doesn’t help that I keep catching girls glancing at me sideways. I’m white in a country where it’s sexy to be white, and I took points out of my flirtation skill during character creation that is just not easy to get back.
We sit on a sluice gate and laugh at the security cameras pointing in off directions. A cop car cruises past, and I think it’s for us.
There are no stars, but we’re never in danger of losing our way.
Thailand
I heard in Thailand you can get goat eggs. I shit you not. Eggs from a fucking goat. The Thai are like that. I’m going, you know. Someone said that they were an exiled Egyptian love-slave who used to be a millionaire queen and they fled to Thailand where they have the secret support of the king there but you know he can’t do anything because the Egyptians are the largest importer of Thai betel-nut themed sex toys, and it would kill the economy to piss them off. But she’s in exile, see, and wants to come to America, home of the brave, land of the free, or is that reversed? And she needs my help to transfer her hoard of diamonds and jewelery into the states via my Paypal account but I have to show up in person so she can make sure I’m trustworthy and also have sex with me. I also have to bring ten thousand Euros because she is no longer a slave and goddammit she can charge whatever she wants but don’t worry she’s not gonna hurt me and take all of it.
I don’t have ten thousand Euros. But I know a guy named Briton, and doesn’t Briton have like ten million Europeans? It’s close, maybe she’ll take it. I hope so, I want the sex and the diamonds, she sent me a picture and she looks a lot like that girl that plays Cleopatra in that movie with Ben Affleck and Roger Harris. Affleck seems pretty dumb, but I think even he would take this chance, once in a lifetime, never look back, gonna live it large, party hard, diamond in a Vietcong mansion with Charlies for servants because hey, I have the fucking diamonds, and I can pay you to do what I want this time. Think it’s funny to explode my car right next to me? Well, this time I have some fucking diamonds. And jewelery.
I have to leave in the morning and I’m not fully packed, I don’t know. Do I bring the black or navy blazer? Did I remember to iron my shirt, de-lint my pants? What would impress an Egyptian love-slave queen? Maybe the black, I’ll bring the black.
I’m going to go and fold the black.
Hanuman
I sit in front of a computer. Type-type-type. I’ve always found it funny to imagine the sound effects for a thing taking on the sound of the word. Always and ever. Type-type-type. Eat-eat-eat. Shit-shit-shit. There is a figurine of Hanuman sitting on my windowsill. Hanuman is a god, but he is a really cool god because he doesn’t realize how strong he is. Most of the time, he’s just like you and me. But if someone reminds him that he has godlike powers all of a sudden he’s stepping over an entire ocean or lifting a hundred thousand water buffalo over his head or defeating a demon army single-handedly. The word MAN is in HANUMAN and I think that’s really indicative of what I’m about to explain. But first I want to say that this might not actually work in Sanskrit or Hindi or whatever the word Hanuman is from. But it works in English so here we go: I think the powers of Hanuman are really the powers of regular old Man. It’s like when an old woman sees her grandchild under a car and lifts it off the ground and then has to go to the hospital for pulled-out tendons even though she didn’t even feel it at the time. Or when somebody told Jesus he was the son of God and all of a sudden he was and turned water into wine, though that might be because he was actually the son of God and special, so I don’t know.
And that is what I think. The End.
Inquisitor
The Inquisitor stepped out onto the sunlit street. Coals set deep in his head surveyed a ragged and wretched populace. The stream of humanity flowed around him, and where stream met coals his anger steamed.
They fell before him, burning in the cleansing fires of the Lord. A crimson cross quartered his torso. A crimson blade cut the wicked from the world.
There is no life except what I am given by Him.
There is no victory except what I am given by Him.
There is no power except what I am given by Him.
Over and over. There is no desire except what I am given by Him. Again he repeated the words to himself. There is no greatness except what I am given by Him. There is no strength except what I am given by Him.
There is no….
There is no….
No happiness.
No love.
No joy.
Except what I am given by Him.
Dusk Pt One
Once upon a time, in a land of eternal dusk, lived an old man who longed for the night. He lived in a one-room cottage on the banks of a dark lake, and spent his waking hours fishing for the blind fish that swam the depths. One such wakeness, the old man caught the largest fish he had ever seen. He pulled hard and played the water using all the tricks he knew, and finally landed an enormous salmon with crusted milky-white eyes. The salmon spoke to him in the language of the beasts. “If you give me my freedom,” he pleaded, “I shall tell you how to stop the endless twilight, and bring on the true night.” The old man was intrigued, and cut the line that led from the giant salmon.
“Tell me, great grandfather of all fish, the secret you claim to possess.” His voice rang in the still near-darkness.
“When I was newly hatched,” the salmon spoke, “and swimming towards the great sea, I came upon a great heron who lay near death at the edge of the rushing waters. Bold was I, and I approached the air-dweller without fear. It had broken it’s wing, but I was still wary of it’s beak, the great renderer of flesh! But the heron was so close to death that he did not even try to spear me. Instead it spoke to me, and told me of a sight it had witnessed as a child, long before. The heron was flying near the great mountain that rises from the sea, and had seen an unearthly glow from below. Curious, it flew closer, and witnessed a creature, chained and bound, straining against it’s bonds. The creature was neither beast nor man, yet had the appearance of both. It’s face was pulled back in a grisly visage of pain, it’s mouth open and emitting sounds of strain. The heron saw that the creature’s chains into a stone cavern set into the mountain. The creature had strained so hard it had pulled some of the chains loose! The heron swooped in closer for a better look and saw on a chain around the creatures neck a glass vial filled with sand. Just then the creature let out an unearthly cry, and the heron flew away in fright. He returned the next day, but the creature was nowhere to be found. And yet, he thought he could hear the faint sounds of the man-metal echoing from the recesses of the cave.
“Old man, being of clay and water, should you wish to end this accursed half-night, you must do the obvious.”
The old man thanked the great salmon and watched it slip silently into the water.
He entered his cabin and opened a dusty wardrobe. Hanging in the wardrobe was a dark cloth made of shifting shadows, and the inside lining was the silver gleam of the stars. The old man draped it over his body and picked up a staff of gleaming mahogany.
Without a backwards glance, the man walked from his cabin in the direction of the great sea.
Several hours into his journey, the trail had disappeared, and the man lost all sense of where he was. Soon he saw a wolf lying in the shade of a large dead oak. It was alone, without a pack, and did not appear to be injured. The old man approached it and addressed it in it’s own tongue, “Grandfather wolf, I seek a boon. I am on a pilgrimage to unlock to chains of eternal dusk, and seek the sea. Could you show me the way through the trees?”
The wolf looked at the man and stood, it’s tongue lolling out in laughter. “Grandfather of men,” he barked, “My nose can smell a mouse on the banks of the far shore of that sea! My ears can hear the moon in it’s orbit! My feet can carry me faster than than the rain. Tell me why I should aid you.”
The old man said, “Grandfather wolf, my nose is weak with age, for I cannot even smell you where you stand. My ears are dull with misuse, for I cannot even hear the beat of my own heart. But my feet are as swift as the rays of the stars, and so I challenge you to a race. Should I outrun you, you must show me the way to the shore. If I lose, I shall give you my left arm for your meal.”
The wolf agreed to these terms, and soon the contest was set. The man would clap to start the race, and the first one to outrun the sound of that clap would win. The wolf snarled in anticipation, and the old man clapped. With a streak of fur and fang, the wolf was off, running faster than the wind. He soon left the old man far behind. He ran so fast that the echo of the clap surrounded him on all sides. Faster and faster he went and soon he left the sound behind. Panting, he smiled to himself and leisurely jogged back to where the old man waited. He asked the old man for his prize.
“Brother wolf, your ears are strong and your feet swift. I have no doubt that you seen outran even the faintest echo of the clap that your ears could pick up. But you must understand, my ears are weak. I outran the sound of the clap in the first three steps.” And the old man smiled.
The wolf snarled, but could not find away around what the man had said, and so reluctantly led him through the woods to the shore. Spread out before them was the vast expanse of the sea. The old man walked down to water’s edge, and peered ahead. In the distance, no more than a speck, was the jutting figure of the mountain in the sea.
This ends Part One.
Sensual
When the man gained consciousness, it was not as if waking from a sleep. He had never slept. It was rather a sudden and total awareness come upon him in an instant. He simply was, as if from nothing.
He opened his eyes and for the first time, saw. He knew then that he had eyes, and that there was existence outside of himself. He marveled at and he feared the glory of the light.
A soft breeze teased his skin, and for the first time he felt his body. He knew then that he existed in the world.
Slowly, he curled his right hand. He could feel the crinkle of the skin, the taut pull of tendon, the way little bones pushed against their boundaries.
He took a breath, and felt the rising of his chest, the way his entire body moved, pulling up into his center with his inhale and sinking into the ground each time he let his breath go.
He was too new to feel or think. He simply existed, in each moment as if it were eternity.
The rough scent of earth filled each breath, with the whisper of something finer. He could hear his own breath and the sigh of the wind.
Figuring out his own shape, he tightened and released his muscles one by one, from his scalp down to his toes. Each movement he made, he felt how it affected the whole, how he rose and fell minutely from the hard press of the earth with every subtle motion.
He tightened the muscles in his abdomen, and pulled with his whole body. His torso rose from the ground, and he slumped over his legs. For the first time, he saw his own body. His skin was smooth. As he felt the twitch of muscles he could see the skin slide over them, accommodating their movement.
His was a body of hard curves sheathed in a layer of soft flesh.
He heard an intake of air beside him, different from the sounds of the world’s breath.
He turned his head, and saw another lying beside him.
Her form was different than his. She was softer than he, her form more fluid, her curves more pronounced. His eyes roamed from taut skin of her smooth scalp to the fall of her breasts to the long curves of her legs and the gently wrinkled skin of her ankles.
He found her face with his eyes, followed the lines of her nose and her lips. He looked into her eyes.
He knew then that he did not exist alone in this world, for her eyes looked back into his. He could see her intelligence looking out at him.
She sat, slowly, and he saw the way the skin of her belly wrinkled into little round ridges. Her shoulders curved backward as she used her hands and arms to push herself up, pushing her chest forward and exposing the curves of her neck as she struggled to keep her head upright. Her skin pulsed beneath the skin in her neck, in time to the beat in his own chest. Her mouth opened slightly, lips parted to let air flow. Her eyes remained on his.
As he watched her, he felt his body react. The beat in his chest sped up slightly and he could feel the flush and tightening of muscles throughout his body.
He reached out for her with a single arm, touching her cheek hesitantly. Her eyes widened, and he felt and saw her breath speed up. She tentatively reached up with a hand and clasped the back of his, setting it more firmly against her cheek. Her hand was soft and warm, and he could feel the rhythm of her pulse a counter to his own.
As if drawn together by the force that kept them on the earth, they leaned towards each other until their heads touched. He closed his eyes, and felt her smooth scalp on his as they ran their heads across the other’s, exploring what it was to feel.
He could feel her fingers sliding over his head and face as they leaned against each other. She explored the lines of his cheeks and nose, ran gently across his lips. Where her fingers touched, his skin tingled, shooting sympathetic spasms through his body.
He could feel her breath on the base of his neck, as she rested her head. His hands ran along her back, and he felt the movement of the muscles where he touched. He rested them at last in the small of her back, his movements coming to a slow still.
He was exhausted by the brief movements. His breath calmed. Her breath too calmed against his skin. He could feel her weight against him.
He wrapped her in his arms more fully. It was just a moment before she melted against him, pulling in closer. The two of them sank to the ground, their bodies pressed tight.
His eyes opened briefly and he saw that the light was different then it had been. It was harder to see, and the wind was colder. Her body was pleasantly warm against his.
His eyes closed again, and for the first time, he slept.
Inspired by this photo (nsfw).
Church Bells
The church bells were ringing. The sound was doleful. It echoed through the great halls from the tower high above, grey stone funneling the sound into the ears of the faithful. Heavy tapestries hung, scenes of heart-wrenching martyrdom. Poignant, pivotal moments in Church history etched in gold and cloth by the clever hands of man.
Men in humble robes walked the halls, hooded and silent. Their eyes were downcast, their steps steady, as they walked circumambulations around the central hall.
In this place of worship, shadows lurked in the hearts of men.
A perversion of the desires of God, born of suppression.
Fearful confessions and guilty consciousnesses led to penances of pain. Blood ran free as water, the crucification of the Christ played out in endless repetition. The pain was the reminder of the sacrifice, the pain was the heart of worship.
Christ carved in stone adorned the north wall of the central hall. The Lord’s arms were spread in surrender, his face turned to the side, so that he might not see evil before his end. Thorns from his crown sent trails of marble blood cascading down his face: noble waterfalls frozen in time. The cross behind him was cast in iron and leafed with gold. There was no expense spared for the four-armed throne of Christ.
An altar before the Lord carried holy remnants of sages long dead for wisdom, bread and wine for flesh, engraved symbols of the High Church for spirit.
The bells were ringing.
Remember
Remember me.
Dawn came, and I had not come. I can only imagine your fear when I never came. I hope you did not weep, that you did not hurt. I never wanted to hurt you. Know that I love you, and that I fought with every ounce of my being to make it to your arms.
There were three of them. Three is an efficient number. I know that’s why they chose it–I might have taken one with me if I was lucky. If I was trained, maybe two. But no one has ever beaten three.
I nearly killed the third one before he broke me.
I don’t wish to use my last words to describe the violence that befell me–but I want you to know that I fought. I fought to be with you. I fought with all my heart.
Remember me.
There is a part of me that knows that this letter will never be delivered. Whatever promises made to me will never be kept. But I write anyway, because if I did not there would never be any chance of you knowing. I have to hold on to this hope.
On our third anniversary I gave you a rose. Do you remember? An actual flower. I paid a fortune for it, but it did not matter. I gave you what was in my heart–a living thing. Next to a child, it was the greatest gift I could think of. If I could have given you a daughter, I would have. That crime, though, would have spelled your death.
Perhaps this pain is my retribution, perhaps they are right and my desires were evil. Perhaps to think the thoughts I did brought this upon me. Perhaps.
But I don’t believe it. Not for a moment.
Don’t give up our faith, love. Don’t you dare let fear from this day dictate your life! Remember our passion, remember our hopes. Remember that we were joined as one, and that nothing, not even death, can separate us now.
Remember me and I will have died happy, your name on my lips.
Remember me, and live with the secret in your heart.
Remember what it is to love.
Yours, forever and always.
Cosmos
One begins at the beginning.
Timeless, waves of passionate glory radiating from a single point. Light and matter and the dark antithesis of each, locked by forces beyond our comprehension, shaped and formed into a semblance of balance.
One ends at the end.
Darkness and light, still there, but dimmer, the both in their own ways. All has been neutralized. All is no more. Whatever joys once existed are gone, forever.
One starts the story at a point of monumental change.
Before the end, after the beginning.
Nothing is as it seems, in this light.
Whatever strangeness exists, exists for no other reason than that it was meant to be.
A beam, a stream, a living ray of brightness, birthed from a bright star. Our main act and our hero.
It runs and skips, an arrow of motion, straight ahead, unless pulled from side to side by the embrace of distant relatives.
It is complete with its purpose.
It is aware of darkness ahead, growing darkness, obliterating any stars. As it gets closer, it perceives an odd malevolence, heretofore unknown in its short life. The malevolence as much as the darkness, presses in, covers its brightness, lessens its joy, quenches its hope.
It is the anti-life, the anti-light, the darkness made solid in the spaces between the stars.
It is devil and it is demon, it is the great star-dimmer.
The light can think, it can perceive, it is self-aware. It knows enough to know that at this time, it wished it were none of the three.
In the span of a millionth of a second from the point the light perceived, it ran headlong into that darkness.
There was no sound, no light, no displacement of any kind.
Where the light once was, it was no more. Where the darkness was, it was no more.
An eye for an eye makes the universe blind.
