In Response to Your Response

You think you know,
and drive your sharp disappointment
through the narrow tunnel I echoed in,
yet you didn't look around.

Don't bother to ask or understand.
My fear was far away.
All you saw were the numbers, etched in hard ink,
and it was all business.

Just ask, don't accuse
to push my anxiety and fear.
Fear for future, crimes never committed
because they pretended,
but my tears were genuine.

Understand.
That's all I ask
before you act.
I've dealt with ghosts beyond your realm.

Out of fear of your judgement,
scared of your disownment,
anxious from their demands,
I made an equally careless action.

Don't look at your numbers,
look at me and ask.

Capsule

A marble and garden capsule
fills with life and death.
Plantation that will thrive
or be neglected.

Guilt builds with neglect.
I witness fates too soon,
severed from this world:
a fraction of reality.

I could've tried harder,
entering brick and wood,
but I only stared through glass,
seeing fate fall on flora.

Taxing, it is, to keep up.
Routines intertwine,
taking away priorities,
building unnoticed savagery.

...but she stays close,
closest in the world,
closer to my soul,
set on destination and clarity.

Here, inside,
everything dies,
neglect or not.

Skeleton Keys Kept

A porcelain jar of skeleton keys

go to nothing,

lost their use in time.

Dusty jar

cracked

on the dresser.

Reminds of hatred like keys

unlocking nothing of use,

spreading rusty words.

Leaving a taste on tongue

of metallic opposition:

you and your orange ash.

Ignorance keeps old keys

no longer relevant,

but recycled into the dusty jar

cracked

on the dresser.

The rust continues on,

spreads

metallic ignorance

from your mouth

so used to the taste.

The Art Form of Envy

The red sun rakes the grass,

caressing the metal holding the hefty

tabletop desk,

where he vigorously scribbles his visions

on the paper, bowing and stretching

to the breeze,

held down by his left,

pictures etched with his right.

Lead whiskers coordinated on the page,

his hand blends shapes in the page,

morphed from ideas in his mind.

He is occasionally mindful

of the vast meadows

surrounding him,

preserving him and his

flavor of the arts.

Sitting in my small black box,

this pinhole camera reflects

his perfections on the wall

like filming April Fools

onto my forehand.

I try and fail

to imitate his art

like an ape imitating

human lifestyle.

I am trapped

in the zookeeper’s cage.

Of Faith and Fate

I gaze over terra, beyond the boundaries

Of the swaying tree lines and washing winds,

that divide fantasy from reality,

and vigorously choke wicked courage from my lips.

I stand steady on the spilling cliff

of sweltering memories,

screaming death and defiance,

stealing faith with condemning fate,

drifting off the path of elegance and empathy.

I regain footing in free fall,

and gawk at the orange warning and smoke

exploding on the canvas beyond Hemlock and Hickory,

a reminiscence of Renaissance, Raphael, and Athens.

In this deep reminder of responsibility,

I drift on impaired air currents,

reluctantly cradling me above the forest barricades,

and into the portrait of beauty and truth.

I stand steady on the spilling cliff,

and stare sarcastically at destiny and divinity:

Accolade to fear and misfortune.

Exigency of Faith and Fate.

I stand steady, dreaming of intangible portraits

In the blockades of endless space before me.

Inventory of Our Words

They crack the safes

hidden in our portrait of communication.

an  intercourse of social science,

flooding the streets of civilized city structures,

isolating outstretched pastures beyond urban diction.

We paint the portraits

of expressive thinking.

They map the blueprints

for oratorical robbery.

The rural fires of our desires are diminished.

The ashes scraped into our

six foot deep imagination asylums.

They stock coffins of our ideas

and do inventory on our intentions.

The sky box is shrinking slowly.

A blanket is draped over in refusal.

We stand inside

Eyes up

Heads cocked

In awe.

The sun sinks behind the dirt piles

crafted by spade shovels

that tear away at the grey soil,

like the escape artists

that tear away at our grey matter.

Anchoring our escapes,

we stand in the burial grounds of our words.

Night's Turbines

Awake in the presence of Night,

he claims the dreams from me,

and leads me onto my feet.

Noxious whispers clutch my lungs,

and drill madness into my bones.

The mocking shadows hide behind

night’s body, stretching to the yellow walls.

I shoot my arms through Night’s body

and grip the switch of illuminating armor.

The flaring explosion reveals illusions

on walls, portraits of shadows.

Night slithers into the floorboards,

and grinds the turbines of the basement.

Alarmed, I turn

to the looking glass.

Telling tales through my wild eyes.

My scorned memories swimming

in blind sight.

The Lens of Truth tells of Day,

the Achilles legend,

to dispel the Trojan Night,

and calm the Turbines.

And, once again,

Sleep unwinds,

kisses me,

kneeling me before Day.

Frostbite Lobotomy

Doctor Moreau retracts his claws, says,

“You are running out of time,” says,

“Your eyes are falling out,” says,

“Your spirits are escaping your sockets.”

“Don’t let us go,” my eyes screech.

“You have no say,” the doctor responds,

“Your ears have developed cochmognitis.”

I don’t understand.

I ask. He responds.

“Your ears wake no frozen rivers.” says,

“No tinny frequencies

can unfasten the waters.”

Make sense, please.

I ask.

His napalm laugh echoes

the genocide pheromones.

It rattles my icy tunnels.

“The ones arched over your rivers.”

He saw my thoughts. Damn it.

They project in my frigid caverns,

like the Iceland mines.

I reach up, daintily caress

the icicles, for fear of shattering,

exploding ideas, like nuclear apples,

tempting no one, with dry, burnt

taste.

He says,

“I will preserve your mind

in the cryostasis masquerade.”

Perjury.

The good doctor’s eyes heighten,

“Your burdens are erased,” says,

as he extends his fangs

for the feast.

Toxic Time Machine

In this barren and hazy asylum,

Of reveries and anxious ruin,

I enter this toxic time machine,

Never knowing where the next trip will lead me,

Senses numb as the motions blur.

Now in the clutches of

the intoxication

spooling

into my steps

In the confusion, she senses

my discomfort and

leads me

away

to the waiting

room irony

synchronized to the dissolution

of her disjointed words

The broken machine to

never shuttle back;

The gears of life

Grind away, wear down

As my heart becomes exhaustive and sluggish,

This dysfunctional time machine

misses its stop by a few milliseconds,

And I lust more for the high of wasted time.

Checkmate

Compressed under violet, grey, and black sky,

I stand atop this solitary stone fortress

that grips to the mountain.

The peak emerges slightly above

the lively, biting shadows,

shaped into mechanical fog covering,

filling the invisible base of the alp

and billowing like binding claws stretched

around the rest of the world.

Beneath my feet, a chess board resides.

The dancing torch flames perform

their ritual on the squares

of  crimson and dead black.

I stand as a lone king

facing an absent enemy.

I chance the frontlines for ghosts

of the yet-to-be.

No brothers in arms take their places.

They, too, are phantoms feeding fear.

My turn is yet to come,

in this specter massacre reflected

only by scaling shadows named for Mt. Iago,

warping earth and ash as it rises.

I make my first move,

and my last,

as the mountain collapses,

darkness clawing me

into

eternity.

From a Personal Portfolio

Well, again I'm rebooting another blog (and for another surprise, a third is on the way). This time, I decided to use this platform to post some of my personal work through the years.

A majority of it will be a mix of content from my college days and new content that I've been working on as a hobby. While some will get posted on here, the stronger entries will instead be entered into various contests and publications, which is another thing I'm getting back into doing.

Glimpse of the original portfolio. I've come a long way since then.

Basically, I'm sitting on a giant pile of writing over the course of the last five years. Some of it is short fiction while others are works of poetry. I've also worked on several feature articles for a now defunct news source that I'll probably publish on here at some point. Oh, and there are a few short screenplays that I'll probably convert to short fiction (for any easier read). Basically, I'll have something new to post every week.

What's the point of this? Like I said, I'm sitting on a lot of content. I figured it would be a good way to get it out there rather than hoarding it on my computer for the next ten years. I'm not getting any younger, so I need to be more proactive with my writing and what I really want to do with it.

First ever blog/self-publication, circa 2011

The few things that I have published in the past have somehow garnered certain attention. "The Waiting Room", which was written as a social commentary essay/script/short story (it has gone through every format imaginable), was requested at one point to be turned into a stage performance by a student at a university in Australia. I still get emails sometimes requesting the original "full version", which I unfortunately lost after several drafts and rewrites (I'll find it someday).

It just feels so good to know that people are reading and appreciating a true passion of mine, and I'm very thankful to anyone who took the time to read my content.

I may not always have the best stories or the most concise writing. I know I have flaws in my writing and I'm constantly working to improve myself. I believe this will also be a reason to keep working at what I enjoy doing.

Feel free to drop me a line with any suggestions, constructive criticism, etc. I want to remain interactive with this community, no matter how big or small it may be. Because I truly appreciate each individual that would take the time to read my work. You are my motivation to continue on with what really interests me. You and my crazy ideas.

Thank you. Seriously, you guys are great.

The Dead, In Union

Shovels high, shovels low,

Shovels high, shovels low.

Spotlight shines down below,

The tombstone, Jon Doe.

Never lie, never lie,

The shovels

high.

Reveries and fog,

earth and metal claws.

Secrets never show,

in Union, the graveyard

on a

hill.

Never show, never show,

the shovels

low.

A mechanical motion

that chews away.

in One,

in Two,

in Three...

They drip in sweat, fear,

feed the dirt, worms.

the Four,

the Five,

the Six.

Rotted wood exposed,

a heave and a pry

reveals the product,

the vessel, Paradise.

A channel opens,

speaks of life,

breathes the Carrier:

An exhale

of secrets and demons,

of amnesia

eternal,

and artificial

purpose.