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Friday, May 8th, 2009
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3:58 pm - 'El Fenrir', or 'Options'
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In the tired hours of knee-clenched aftershock,
inhaling sleep and sustenance
we could inherit disparity and the motor of the past. (The one that came with instructions, written in the first language of man.) We could spit fears off our tongues
like filth
like flames
like fireworks above your paved over graves. Smoke like, we could keep a log of undertaker's final words
and watch them (crystal, and emptiness) falling upwards into release
benumbed and forgotten. We could choose petrified whirling, emit our own vapor trails. Or We could drape and hide the moment, perfumed and humid. You could turn over, and in the small of your back
I'd count the footprints,
number them,
and whisper forgiveness to fill the cavities. Let my arms hang the curtains.
Whimper, and calling: Let me see your face.
- http://plagues.tumblr.com/
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, January 24th, 2009
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7:59 pm - There's a flask in my pillowcase.
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In the early morning you can wake up before dawn and watch the sun rise through the cracks in old farm houses. If you roll over and wash yourself in the dew it's hard to keep your eyes shut.
One of these days take a walk down a dirt road and see if you know what I'm saying. See if you can guess where the sun's going to appear on the horizon. Watch the treetops; if you can trace the black smoke rising up from the train tracks, watch for the vultures. Watch for the doves. They're the tell.
The dawn has a good poker face, but it's not good enough.
http://plagues.tumblr.com/
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, November 14th, 2008
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3:14 pm
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| Sunday, November 9th, 2008
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2:38 am
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If I could start to see in sounds
I'd know what your war looked like.
I'd buy paints
and show people what music really means.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
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8:03 pm - this happened. really. no, really.
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"Look, I know I can be stupid, and hesitant, and I'm terrible with money, so I'm not saying anything needs to happen right now. Right now I'm in a pretty terrible place, but I think I need you.
I mean, I guess that sounds a little drastic. I like you a lot, and I know I need something. I need someone. You seem like a better 'someone' than just anybody off the street."
"Why me?"
"I don't know really. I mean, if I wanted to be totally honest about it: I don't even know you. If it was easy to pick something about you and name it, then it would be wrong. If it was something so explicit I could just isolate it then I'd just keep you at arms length like everyone else. I'd keep you around for that. It'd be the same as if I sliced off that part of you and kept it in a jar on my nightstand. After I had it down to a singular culture of this-or-that, we'd start having problems tomorrow, or next week. Sometime soon. It's not that easy."
"Well, I'm not pretty-"
"You are though."
"I let you talk, now let me."
I laughed. "Alright."
She started again "I'm not pretty. I'm not that smart - not as smart as you anyway. I'm not good with directions. I have trouble making my car payments every month. I'm not really good with anything in particular; but here I am: 2 AM, missed my bus, no money, I wake up on your shoulder, and you hit me with this?"
"Too much?"
She smiled "Not at all."
And that was that. With no car, a job that didn't give me enough hours, 20$ in my pocket, and a little over six hours before I could try to get us home: my head was finally clear.
I leaned down and kissed her, then handed her my book. "I'm going to get some coffee. You want anything?" She shook her head and her bangs fell over her face. She tucked them behind her ear and smiled at me. "Alright." I turned and walked away from her.
I never saw her again.
- - -
When I got back, she was gone. My book and my sweatshirt - which she'd been wearing - were sitting neatly on top of one another where she should have been. They looked they belonged there. Like they should have been holding a sign with my last name on it, waiting for me to get off a bus.
I felt like I'd just been hit by one.
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
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9:28 pm - In Darkness and Red Light
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I'm not 100% sure I like the fact that I'm participating in a compilation book by a guy who calls himself matty the mick, but I have to have some kind of motivation, and "a deadline" is pretty good motivation, usually.
Anyway, the story is tentatively titled "In Darkness and Red Light" and it's about two people (a male and female) who are probably the last two people in existence. They travel on foot over a place that may or may not be earth 1,000,000,000 years in the future, or 1,000,000,000 in the past. So far it's about two and a half pages long. I had a friend read over part of the first draft, and she said it was like "reading a surrealist painting." I like that.
After I find out if there's any kind of non-disclosure things I have to adhere to, I may or may not post a sample, or the whole thing here.
When/if this sees completion, I'll point anyone who's interested in procuring a hard copy of the book for themselves in the right direction. However this probably won't be for some time.
Also, I'd encourage anyone who want's to submit something to this book to do so.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 5th, 2008
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5:09 pm
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Damien Wallock sat alone in his seat, the shadow from his hood covering most of his face. He was silent as he stared down at his jeans, studying the fabric covering his left thigh. Without realizing it he'd started to count the diagonal patterns made by the stitching in his pants. He slouched, gripping his right tricep. His fingers wrapping around his upper arm cupping it tightly. His right leg extended to the seat opposite him and his knee bent just slightly, his left planted firmly in front of him; a ninety degree muscular support. The fabric from his jeans swayed slightly as the train rocked back and forth on the rails.
After one too many tries, Damien gave up his quest to inventory the patterns on his thigh; realizing that the motion of the train, and the small size of the lines made his task impossible. Not to mention the fact that he was currently wearing the jeans, and so the lines wrapped around his leg anyway. He tried to focus on something else to keep his mind from wandering too much. He loosened his fingers and removed his hand from his arm, balling his fist and resting his head on it. He placed his elbow on the window's edge, unifying his movements with the train.
His left arm still ached, but he tried not to think about that. He reconsidered letting his mind wander and decided it would be a good idea. He started to think of the things outside his window: the vague dark, the shadows, the certain trees and gravel on the ground. He thought of the rails, and where they lead back to. He thought of the steel they were made of, of the titanium his bike at home was made of. He thought of people who used bikes because they couldn't afford cars.
He stopped. Checked the time. The digital clock on the wall read 6:05. It's yellow numbers scrolled across slowly, blurring into one another and streaking away from him. He was tired. He felt himself slipping into the train as it slowed to let more people off or on. He'd stopped paying attention to who boarded. The only ones he needed to worry about were a few stops back, nothing to concern himself over any longer.
He slipped a bit more and started to think of the station where he'd last seen Barry and Joanna Reeners, and Carl Malloy. He focused on the area around them, the cement and concrete that made up the platform, the lines and angles supporting the area, the blurred noise that raped the scenery every time a chain of cars would pass through. The screaming and hissing of every mechanism involved, human and otherwise. He felt his body swept along by the howling. His mothers voice ringing in his ears, his mind focused on the sweeping motion of that metal through the air. He suddenly felt pinned down.
He stopped again. Jerked his head forward and tried to catch himself from falling out of his seat. He felt his body again, very real and very weighted. No longer pinned down, but not as free as he'd felt moments before. He checked the clock again. "Six twenty." he read aloud. His voice scraping out of his lungs, tired and low. He thought of his mothers words again as he sat there. Every time his arm ached, a stress or a rest placed itself in his minds ear. Her concern was present in the clack of the train cars as he traveled.
"I don't like those kids."
He coughed, shifted his weight a little, and wiped some sweat off his face with his sleeve. Then he rested his head against his knuckles again, applying pressure to the car's window.
"Damien, are you sure about this?"
He coughed again. He tasted sweet on his tongue, and lifted a few fingers to check for blood. There was none. That moment of fear brought him to a solemn resolution. One that he should not have had to come to through experience, but arrived at none the less. "That's the last time I make plans with heroin addicts." he mumbled as he settled back into his seat, and once again let his mind wander.
---------------------
Connor's done. It's not all typed, it's only a first draft, but he's done.
I'll do something more with him eventually I guess.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, April 21st, 2008
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11:31 am - Preview
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I'm working on a new story, about a man named Connor. I've got the first chapter written. I don't know how long it's going to be, but I'm two paragraphs into the second chapter, and I like where it's going.
Here's some previews:
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. . . The setting sun leaked through the holes in his shower curtain. The light in the bathroom burnt out last week and he wouldn't have the spare cash to get a new bulb for it until the week following this one. If it wasn't for the sun he could just sit there in his heated water and his darkness. If it wasn't for the sun.
Connor stood up after he started to feel the heat in the pipes draining. It was probably about eight o'clock, he guessed. The available water temperature and pressure usually receded around this time. Workers coming home, much like he had an hour ago, wanting their showers, and their solitude, and their heat. Some coming home to their women. Some coming home to their men. Some, like Connor, coming home to the fading sunset through their windows. . .
* * *
. . .For the past year. (Or was it two years? He was never very good with keeping track of time.) Connor only had two women in his life. He had his 75 year old landlady that banged on his door every other Thursday, telling him his rent was late. He would then, every other Thursday, remind her that he gets paid on Fridays and he would have the money for her as soon as he got in the next day. After this ordeal was over, he had Lua.
Lua had been living with Connor since he'd found her in the back alley behind the building he lived in. When they met she was digging through the trash looking for something to eat. He took her inside, fed her, let her use the washroom at her leisure (and his request) and realized instantly that he liked her quite a bit. Lua had long, jet black hair. The kind that's rare to have naturally these days because of all those crazy people with the dye jobs and cuts and whatever else might have gotten popular in the past year or so. She had no holes in her head that would not have been there naturally, and was about as clean as could be expected. After their first meeting she was considerably cleaner on a regular basis. Her eyes would glitter when you looked into them. They were bright blue and no matter how you stared into them, it was the same as looking into a cut diamond with a light shining through it. . .
--------------------------
That's actually a lot more than I had intended to show, but I'm having trouble finding spots to cut it off. There are parts that I think are way better than this too, but I'm trying to save those for later.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, April 19th, 2008
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4:11 pm - Reconditioned
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A haze fell over him.
His mind felt like it was on the brink of relapse.
Teetering between the point of forgetting old rules and beginning to be reconditioned.
current music: Capital
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
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5:38 pm - Tenatively titled Coffee Monologue 2
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03-31-08
( 8:07 Am )
( 9:35 Am )
( 1:00 PM )
( 1:25 PM )
( 4:28 PM )
( 5:20 PM )
( 6:10 PM )
Do not be afraid of noise.
It is a sword, a shield, to be used and protected.
To reject it is to accept an open invitation to the grave.
If you fear noise
this is the only place you will find real silence.
This is the only place you will be happy.
-----------------
Audio coming later?
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, March 30th, 2008
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4:22 pm - Watching the sky. draft 1
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On top of this building, it was easier to see. Everything could look just how I want it to. It could be dusk, and everything have a reddish glow, or maybe it's just after sunrise, when things look their freshest. There could be a big crowd gathered because of a car crash a hundred feet away, or it could be the dead of night, and not a soul for miles. Any way I wanted it.
All the same I knew I should open my eyes. When I did, I laughed.
In my concentrating on the possibilities, I never noticed the rain.
I was soaked, and the sky full of rolling black clouds. I reveled in the grey of the sky, and the road, and the sidewalk. "Better than I could have imagined it" I said to myself, happy to be alive at this exact moment.
I watched the sky for a few minutes. I laughed at the drops, and felt inspired by their persistence.
I looked out on the scene, and after a few minutes of appreciating the uniformity of man and nature painting this picture all one color for me, I jumped.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
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9:22 pm - The Dust Horse
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This house is like an forgotten disease. A tumor that I'd extracted with an old rusty pair of pliers and a six week old shaving razor. Being back in it is strange, and any new attempts to breathe life into it are being met with the most surprising resistance. The only thing I can really do to stave it off is retreat to what little space I've got, and attempt to streamline there. I've got Achilles playing on the stereo, that keeps most of the other inhabitants away, save for them coming in from time to time to tell me that they need more firewood. I scratch their back, and they attempt to break my spirits.
The record just ended, I like to let it run for a bit and use the *thud* *thud* *thud* as a sort of list. For every bass movement that comes from the album not restarting, I think of what I've accomplished. Of course I'm the only person who enjoys this, and so halfway through my tally I am interrupted, and have to act like I was just about to flip the record over. Instead of seeming like I'm using it to preserve my intimacy with the dust and stains that I'm working on removing.
Again, the record finishes, and to avoid redundancy I change it. I don't have many heavy records right now, so I've got to choose carefully. 'Witness' should work though. I walk out into the kitchen to brew another pot of insomnia. It's going to be a long night, but after I'm done I should be able to wake up okay tomorrow. I should be able to climb out of bed instead of having a wall of resistance and thinking well I'll just get up in 5 minutes and then pass out for another 2 hours. Resting in a the waste.
I stop the record to go outside and burn some of the papers that have been strangling my bookshelves and dresser drawers. When I come back inside I smell like chemical smoke. My dad alerts me of this by making a comment about attracting women, as I unload the heat source I've trekked in from outside. Man, you must be beating the women off with a stick. You smell like that all the time? I have nothing better to do than ignore him. Let him continue watching television and thinking he's clever. I'd grown tired of his humor about the same time that I got interested in female anatomy. Now he's just another thing I have to deal with when I visit. Almost like a hospice, I come around at those times of year when it's socially unacceptable for me to be alone.
When the runts tire on command, the spinning stops. I've got 4 cups in me and a few extra pens.
. . .and shut down.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, March 21st, 2008
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1:34 pm - With little information about Freud
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"I think I read somewhere that Freud was the one who said telephones symbolize desire." Adam said, staring blankly into his drink. "They represent longing better than any other physical manifestation. Think about any movie you've ever watched," he looked up across the table to Don "especially ones from like, the 40's and 50's. A dark street, it's raining, and there's some dude standing in a trenchcoat and a fedora trying to call his woman from a payphone."
Don nodded. Listening silently.
"What's even better" Adam continued "is when the connection breaks - you know, from lightning or whatever - or he can't get through because the line's busy, or dead, or something. Then he's got no choice but to go out in the rain and visit her at her place. It's the ultimate display of the weakness in the human condition." Adam sat back, feeling smug. After a moment, Don spoke.
"What about windows?"
"Huh?" Adam grunted, wondering what the hell windows had anything to do with anything.
"Windows. Did Freud ever say anything about windows?"
"Oh, I dunno. I never studied the guy or anything. I just read that somewhere. Probably one of those newspaper articles where the writer starts out with something unrelated to their real topic, and tries to tie them together in some abstract way. You know, makes 'em seem clever."
"I guess"
"Anyway, why'd you ask about windows?"
"Oh I dunno. They just make more sense in my mind." Don explained "It's more timeless. People have always had windows, they didn't always have telephones."
"Well, before telephones it was letters."
"Yeah, but still. Using your logic, how many of those movies you were talking about had scenes where there was some girl lookin' out a window, probably with violins or a piano playing in the background. The camera slowly zooms in on her looking out the window, then past her to just the view outside the window. After that it snaps to whatever she's supposed to be thinking about. Her kids, or someplace far away, or that dude at the payphone."
Adam nodded. "Alright, I see what you mean"
"Plus - again, using your logic - think about a phone booth. It's made of glass, and there's some metal around the edges to hold it together. When you stand inside it it's a giant 4-way window.
"Windows can also be kind of vain."
"How so?"
"Well, they reflect. Not like a mirror, but partially."
". . . Your point being?"
"Telephones can't connect to themselves. If you try to make them, you get a busy signal. There is no possible singular-mode for a phone. Excluding cell phones and nonsense that we've got today. A window can keep you occupied with yourself if you let it."
"Ok"
"Plus" Adam continued "A window can act as a barrier. It allows you to think safely, inside this bubble. Like saying I'm-different-from-what's-opposite-me."
"Well, I mostly meant open windows." Don said, attempting to defend his point.
"Then that's a whole different ball game. Literally." Adam smiled. "You're not talking about a window, you're talking about a hole."
"Right, but I hardly think a hole symbolizes desire."
"I'm pretty sure Freud would disagree with you there man" Adam laughed.
"Well, if you took it in the perverse sense, then yeah."
"Man, this is Freud we're talking about here. Everything with him was about that shit"
"Yeah, but I meant like, dropping something you don't want down a hole to get rid of it" Don stated, attempting to correct his point.
"Latent desires manifesting, repression of urges. I'm telling you, this guy covered everything."
"I thought you didn't study him?" Don inquired, feeling like he'd brought a cinder block to a shooting gallery.
"Well, I did a little reading after hearing that quote. Just a few periodicals and shit though, it's not like I wrote my doctorate thesis on the guy.
"Right." Don paused "I thought modern psychologists have been finding recently that Freud was a crackpot though?"
"I don't know anything about that man. I just thought the phone thing was interesting."
"Yeah, it was something I saw on the news the other day."
"Ah. Right, well man" Adam said, standing up "I gotta run. I've got a job interview in 15 minutes. See ya around." He put on his coat. "You and Liz coming over to watch the game tonight?"
"Yeah man. Laura and I will be over around 5, 5:30"
Adam, feeling like a fool, lit a cigar he'd been keeping in his pocket. "Right, sorry man. Laura. Got it. Ok, see ya." He walked away, puffing.
"HEY!" Don shouted after him "I told you to stop smoking those damn things."
Adam turned around. "Calm down dude, it's just a cigar."
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I'm not experimenting with formatting or anything, it's just livejournal isn't very good with indentation. Whenever I add extra spaces at the beginning of sentences, they don't show up in the post. This is just easier on the eyes.
This is also the product of more coffee.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, March 20th, 2008
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2:43 pm - Tenatively titled Coffee Monologue 1
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| Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
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10:56 pm
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I've got a kind of long thing that I'm gonna be recording and putting up for download tomorrow.
Also probably booking a 4th of july show. I'll post info about that too when I have it.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, March 9th, 2008
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2:50 pm - Relief
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we wait in white noise
we abate rail car tension
we move in unison
we shout flash-bulb syllables
we work in disguise
we suppress diplomacy for the truth
we mock "early to bed" blinders
we exhume passion for one less night alone
we breathe the dust off and exhale familiarity
we filter thoughts with gravel tones
we praise the water dripping from the ceiling
we concede the failures of yesterday
we press complacency until we break
we hide here
we pass the torch along, carrying the fire
we harness our burdens to use like lifelines
we listen when spoken to
we hold on to every word
we use them to our advantage
we belong in the process
we find ourselves alive
we sing songs in lower case
we sweat in verse
we bleed in harmony
we live in chorus
we die outside
little by little
like everyone else.
current music: Descendents - Thank you
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, March 3rd, 2008
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3:10 am - Beginning of a short story
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Staring out the window on the way over here, I started thinking about those new ad's that Charlie had told me about. The ones that run together to make a moving picture when you pass them real fast. Like on T.V. I wanted to ask him about them again, but this time I was alone. "This is an amazing time to be alive, you know? The guy who thought of that must be a real innovator, and after this there's only going to be more like him. People are constantly re-thinking the every day, the mundane. The human capacity for innovation is astounding." he always spoke that way.
Charlie was always on top of things like that too. He listened to talk radio and read magazines a lot in his apartment. He could always get the jump on you in a conversation.
I didn't want to put it like that. It's too early to be joking about it - even if it was accidental. . .
Charlie killed himself last week. He jumped out of his appartment window, down 3 stories, and landed face first on the sidewalk.
I know people say things like "Well at least it was a painless death" to try and comfort family and friends, but I don't think that's really the right way to think about it. As a matter of fact, I think they're lying to themselves. It must have been one hell of a release for him, and I'm sure the immediate exclamation point that was Charlie's blood stained remains was a painless one, but if he was lead to an end like this where did the pain start? What continued it?
Charlie was never the morbid type. I would know, we'd been best friends for almost 10 years. He never liked to talk about death, he hated the thought of not being alive to see what was going on. He vested more interest in life than the rest of the people on his floor put towards figuring out who was masturbating in the community showers every day. (It was clogging the drains!)
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, February 7th, 2008
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10:33 pm - Disagreement
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I kept the flashlight pointed just where you told me
and I kept staring into the jet-black pipes.
It cut down to where I almost lost my sight
in the dive-bomb tubes
sputtering against the 2am-freeway silence.
Against the skyscraper fog
repeating
twinkling on the pavement.
An ignitionless conversation,
swerving and turning down back-roads
and leaving us arguing over the left turn we made
back at the constant disappointment
that comes with morning-radio.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
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11:16 pm - Bloodspitting
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I drop a dead man's stare under suspicion
and wait for the echo. . .
I wait for the thud of dead weight
kissing the cold floor goodnight.
Digging myself to sleep with
a lullaby comprised of shovel-scrapes
and the filth under my fingernails,
I sift my motivation from
the walls in these tunnels.
The cracks in the 8-by-10's
and the veins in your arms
are twins separated at birth.
The ore of your iris
and the dark of your pupil
match the shade of the dirt slung
over my shoulder.
And the cave-in spills off of your lips.
It's on these black-lung nights that I can hear their
song. The shrill sounding off against all of
my wrong turns and second guesses.
Bouncing between "What-could-possibly-go-right?"s
and muffled coughs to rattle the lungs.
Hands thrust into a coat pocket, racing
the eyes to the floor. A wasted effort.
. . .As it lands I realize rock bottom has looked
like a good place to call home for some time now.
This will be sumitted to a poetry reading along with 4 other works.
I'd like everyone's opinion, does it feel together?
When I read over it, I feel like it seems scattered, but that might just be me looking at it from the wrong end.
-Thanks.
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(10 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, January 18th, 2008
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5:41 pm - The sound of sirens in the distance
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When I wanted to get caught I walked
the streets on the rough side of town.
The downhill slope. In a crowd of
vicious faces I saw a fading shadow
begging for matches to strike up
conversation. My failings forgotten
behind a veil of small talk and smoke;
I felt gunmetal grey turning to an
embers glow behind hour barred hands.
A smile ticking off the minutes.
In the end you were just composing through the movements. Another missed
chance. Another broken string, tuned to the sound of sirens in the distance.
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(comment on this)
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