this story’s foundation is based in reality – sadly, my mother’s childhood – to this day, she still sometimes screams in her sleep
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Tag Archives: nightmares
installation 2
harvest moon secrets
The Dipping Bread (new vamp flash)
counting horses
latent images
You press my eyelashes to my face, so I can sleep
You understand how latent images frighten me
Linger-ers of things no longer here
Specters of visions previously forgotten
My REM world has no room for ghosts,
when my daily world explodes with spiriting insanity
The floating muses who once fed me fire are burning away my soul
Half the time, I want to die
The other half, I need you
You hum my favorite song to me, even though you think a tune from,
Mr. Magoo’s: A Christmas Carol, is ridiculous
“…millions of grains of sand on the shore, why such a lonely beach…”
Taunting demons keep the headless roosters raving in my head
I badly need your sweet notes, like cotton clouds, to muffle these assaults
There is an empty slope on your side of the mattress
I smell your assuring body in the pillows–
beautiful lips in the sheets
Your undisturbed water glass has collected my tears
Singing silence, is a sound worse than death
Death, is a sound the earth hums when her children return home
I’ve sliced off my eyelashes
Shoved broken toothpicks against my sockets
Stare at the television without blinking
Click the remote
Latent creatures slither into my eyes
Crawl up the sides of my brain–
rip at the cracks of my skull
They whisper horrid things to the better part of me
I will dance with demons
I will romance angels
I will scream at the Holy Spirit
I will allow all manner of vindictive specter–
every hellacious image of the night to dwell within my soul
I will not desist until you rest beside me again
I am not supposed to be here without you
jeremiad
it’s unsettled, this thing in our chest
delicate as the velvet underside of lamb’s ear
bellwether of change
preparing to die
in the dark
in the cold
as winter shoves her fingers down its sleepy throat
dormant into the dirt
winter steals beyond the plant
she will claim our hearts with frigid hands
I am sorry I have no answers
experienced in living
neophyte in death
parse these words gently
it’s unsettled this thing in our chest
delicate as the velvet underside of lamb’s ear
I do apologize for this lamentation
this jeremiad from dust
to dust
oatmeal walls
sketched last year-no one died for the writing of this piece-all is well
the explorers
why do we search for things we cannot find
do we need what we do not have
crave something we should not lack
as for me
my life is full
packed with faces
dreams escape in curves and pencils
nightmares pour into warm merlot
always warm
no cold going down my throat
even on scalding days
why do we search for things we cannot find
am I a coward
are you
not measuring true
cheating on the particulars
how long must she
moan
about this and that and them and him
always unclear
with clarity of purpose
why do we search for things we cannot find
what made them sail outward and away
venture into the vastness of the intimidating sea
a blank globe
seeking
needing what they did not have
craving something they did not lack
but wanting all the same
this guy is mixed in media done last year
torture
My imagination often tortures me. Does yours get the better of you? When I was ten, The Blob (trivia-Steve McQueen’s first leading role), gave me the night sweats for an entire year and I wouldn’t venture near anything resembling a vent. Next it was Goya who tormented me with his painting, Saturn Devouring His Son. A father eating a child does things to a twelve-year-old’s mind. For quite some time, I stayed away from utensils and my dad. Even a can of peas and carrots had its way with me. A reoccurring nightmare at age fourteen–cubed carrots screaming as they were mercilessly squashed by brutal farmers wielding cast iron shovels, while the opportunistic peas rolled away to safety.
Today, (as I sit in my sub studio watching leggy spiders flutter by like creeping creative angels) imagination helps sometimes but not always. Brain shit rattles around like the crap I might throw up in my attic or shove into some dark basement corner. Emptying mind bins of mildewed magazines that smell worse than the son’s wrestling singlet after a dual meet is futile. Piles accumulate with no end in sight. Most of this junk is unusable and will be thrown onto a flimsy folding table for a grand going-out-of-business sale. This is my writing process. This is my art process. This is what I do. Peas rolling away to safety. When fingers get boxed-in, ideas flatten beneath cast iron shovels.
There is also something else my imagination does. This is the worst part of all. It self-inflicts pain whenever I mind-travel to places I should never go with people I should never go with. Sometimes, I disregard my sadistic demons to ride bareback on the gorgeous, powerful Percherons there. Magnificent beasts that galloped off Bonheur’s painting, The Horse Fair. Year by year, my dark matter loosens a bit more. Nights now mimic spaceflight. I survive by staying awake. If I don’t sleep while dreaming, I can’t get into any trouble. When I misbehave, the spiders stop hanging with me. They always know my truth. And without these creeping creative angles, my imagination might just get too strong a foothold. If this happens, I’ll never be able to find my way back. The spiders know one more lousy truth about me. My sense of direction absolutely sucks.
hall monister
what are you
you share things you’ll never say
you say things you’ll never do
you are a writer
you covet the people behind the lies
your hungry lips crave their nourishing minds
you are a reader
thoughts shove down your fingers like garbage disposals
you sadly acknowledge huge amounts of crap
you are a writer
you bulldoze the landfill to uncover their trash
you desire arousal sleeping in their dreams
you are a reader
you beg dark thoughts to channel sensual tongues
you choke wordless nightmares to asphyxiation
you are a writer
you fearlessly divulge intimate details
without pause, you breathlessly seek their approval
you are a –
what are you
do you have a choice
skeleton stallion
sketched this guy last year while on a school subbing lunch break
