wb :

Never again would he fall in love, he swore to himself quietly over a tankard of ale as the smoke swirled in swaths and the noise crashed and broke over the heads of hunched men. Outside, the cars blared their horns in the lonely light of a corner streetlamp.

The city wept for his tragedy, golden streams of tears from a trillion eyes, trickling into the gaols and gutters of the midnight. It sobbed and gasped for air and tore at its hair, black strands trailing into the rising fires that licked at the clouds.

And then the stars sighed, and went to bed early, and the great eyes in their orbits in the heavens saw, and it was good.

And perhaps it was.

- 6 sentence fiction.

bottles paper and air these are the things that consist the universe these are the things that consist the mind of man. These are the directions of the fleeting and the futile which rob the morning air of its freshness and of its wonder. I am streets and tar and cars. I am bundles of neurons misplaced by a friendly deity who (for some reason) needs them back. I wonder who he is, that great incompetent fucker, who by suggesting that he exists suggests that everything has gone horrifically wrong. Nothing has gone wrong. Everything has gone wrong. The black and white of it is really the grey and green of it, for right and wrong are urine and phlegm in the wilderness of the sane. What a wilderness! What animals! what free and flightsome birds that grace the morning with their sharp downstrokes, rebelling against the earth. I would be a bird but for being in love with the dirt. I would be a worm but for being in love with the air. I would be a tree but for being in love with running. I am, I am, I am! But He is not. Let us pray. Dear Lord, you are a nuisance. We'd be so much better off without your constant insisting that things are wrong in a particular way. They are wrong in all the ways there are to be wrong! But You don't see that. We gave you a chance - several. No, but two thousand years was insufficient to learn you. You are incorrigibly petulant. Therefore, after much regret and consideration, we have resolved to eat you. Goodbye. Oblivion is painless. Hello then, New World, Empty Sky, Cloud, Tree, WindowSill, Computer Screen. Hello then. I am your friend as it was in the beginning now and ever shall be world without end. I am Jesus - and here's the secret - I killed God. That was the Good News - that man is now and forever truly free amen. I do hope you appreciate it and if you would stop loving me for awhile and give your brother a smile I'd be truly obliged to not do something horrific because really I'm dead and why don't you all understand that? Why don't you all understand me? I gave my freedom so much so that I died for my fever, my guardian angel, my hallucination, my abdication, my abduction. I was the last of the mad so that mankind can now be sane. That was my gift! You have squandered it. You have lost it among the papers and bottles. I hope you are happy - but I know you aren't.

Fingertips aching

breath

condenses

on the air warmly

visage.

cracked red dried lips

eyes hanging like boulders

over grey canyons

want-

far

where cold

short air

coils

between our toes

want –

lean,

and breathe

and breathe

the blue foreign frost

for in warmth,

for in cold

the great parched floor

of stillness,

the lines fidget

curling their brows

clicking joints

Revolve

great circle –

small circle

the weariness

of wakefulness

it’s all he knows how to do:
    stringing fairy lights above
    the corpse of their relationship.


he has cut up the images of her,
of them, keeping only the pretty bits –
    the comfortable silences on quiet afternoons;
    the dusty photographs of them smiling,
their faces against the sun.


in his world there is no one else.
nothing but a silent loop of tape
    constantly rewinding, playing
    images of empty roads, of entwined fingers;
happiness, contentment –
    whirring and stopping in the dark.


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cross-posted from my writing blog: i just felt like breaking adam's combo. this should bring my total post count up to three! feels good being a contributing member of the community. -ryan

tramping down to the river side

with our frenzied faces each aglow

we sat down there to watch the tide

each hoping that the tide would show,

each hoping that the tide would know

to join us there to play our game;

hoping each that the tide would show

as the sun set with a yellow flame.

keeping our watches synchronized.

huddling up against the snow -

There it is! one watchman cried

Each hoping that the tide would show,

We huddled toe to toe to toe

but breaking on the bank there came

a swelling from the dark below,

but left the river bank the same.

sighing, disappointed-eyed,

we thought that it was time to go

our shivering faces belied

the sweetness of the weather, though –

we’d each hoped that the tide would show.

we walked back slowly, fighting shame

that crept red up our cheeks and brows

and the sun set with a yellow flame.

-----------------------------------------

a ballade i had to do for my class. I know it's missing the 4-line envoi at the end, but

1) i ran out of rhymes

2) i don't really know any princes

and 3) stop oppressing my art with your rules

college morning college coffee

college hangover

and there's the umbaqanqa on the speakers,

beats pushed like a street vendor

hawking coke and hash,

and there's a torrential sadness,

'as if I didn't know my own bed.'

my friends are asleep and entangled.

I put my legs up against the wall,

wishing them conjoined dreams and

conjoined happiness, looking out,

at the rain

Then I start to pick up the pieces

of last night. I rearrange covers

and blankets, then shirts and drunken

kisses, hands held irresponsibly and

shirts and socks.

candy wrappers. orange juice -

I find a headache beneath a pillow

have you considered prophylaxis, sir?

take two for toothaches and hangovers

four for guilt and six for misadventure.

dustbin.

bottles and sheets.

So the morning starts to roll downhill

I file the night between the anthology of Renaissance music

and the book of essays, hoping it'll be mistaken

for study. That's a lie -

I lie back, watching the rain again

as snores are lost within the drums

as they reach the shutters,

mingling with the traffic and the morning.

Every college student knows

that last night was the end of days;

that this morning is a hazy afterlife.

as far as possible
should be made on a sunshiny day
be careful of them.
they're sweet, but burn easily.
tend to get jammed
and land the maker
in all sorts of sticky
situations with bees, especially
if you involve honey


but the best thing is
that they can be flipped
without ripping the fabric
of anything. also
they are the anti-thesis
of undulating
so you don't need to
run up hills
to go blackberry picking.


don't go bananas
making them; no need
to batter yourself
if you don't get
the proportions right.
it's rare to get
the sunny
side up first time
around

you sat there like an unmoveable brick
wall; you who used to be
such a brick


this decision is final and concrete. No
amount of termite infestation
can crumble it.


the gardeners seem intent on weeding out
deep-rooted fate; decomposing leaves,
thorns in spades


but they leave the strawberry memories;
the seeing red, capped with green.
so amongst the refuse,


i keep the turf wars, entangled vines, and
ungerminated seeds. after the rain,
surely someone


will need this place to plant stalks
again

all plants grow up. unlike
human beings. be they tomatoes,
grapes, or plums, water them
for peace, or the shoots will
anarchy. even so

it sucks to be a plant. you can't
run from invaders, or dance
can't sing in the rain,
zap leeches or jump.
foxes have a tendancy

towards jealousy. but at least
they can eat grapes and
comment on them negatively
all the fruit can do is
telepathy
sourness so they'll flee

Another day, another story.
She tilts her head at her pet dory-
"What happens now, my drop of glory?

What bubbles in your damp history?"
It gulped. She frowned; "You blasted Tory-
another day, another story,

Your fishy life is old and hoary-
And when your time finds Purgatory,
What happens then, my drop of glory?"

It turned its back, the Monsignore,
And took of kelp its inventory.
Another day, another story;

She went to bed and woke up sorry-
Her fish had died, consumed with worry.
That happened to her drop of glory;

She plunged on downward, twenty-storey,
And ended on the concrete, gory.
Another day, another story-
Thus happened then, her drop of glory.

-~-

Surprisingly existentialist, given the silly mood I was in when I wrote this.

Don't turn from the hues in the sky-
Let its darkly purpling iridescence
compose
into a liquid glow
that distracts your eye

From ricochets of lovers' feet,
clock-work crescendos down the boulevard.

You will catch their mingling melodies
of rose wine? candle light? dinners
along the Champs Elysees
As they sweep past you,
and slot themselves places
methodically,
guided by the bored hand
of some somnolent Cupid.

But wait until the light has cleared-
Tune into turgid indigo skyscape
Then slowly stroll away
solitary
from the vacuumed vestige
of the melting sun.