wb :

there are many ways
you could do this


reach out a tentacle
suckered with doubts


release pools of
dark-inked missives


school yourself not
to be so clownfish


clam up and refuse
to shell out anything


or decide it's
too fishy and give up


before you finish
counting


the waves in which
you love him

invisible launchpad
to mars; mornings ascending
with the dark skies.
this isn't rocket science,
they commonly teach.
which would've been better;
space-suits, or fire-proof
pinafores? for

gatherings under the
fluorescent lights; final
checks; what's your take-off
strategy? spacing out,
sitting down suddenly, i miss a few
good-luck hugs. but
they forgive me
and my starry nights

what on earth were we
thinking about, taking those
flights? Probably trying
for pegasus not icarus;
going towards winter
not the eternal summer of the
sun. And as we farewell through
static radio waves, floating we
lose all sense of gravity

A quiet, unassuming man, he had no family- that he would speak to me of, at least- no job, for his retirement was a cosy one, no vices that might barter a year of breath for a night of brazenness, not even a hobby peculiar to men built as him- for he was built right between the jolly, redfaced heftiness of a woodcutter, the wiry, bearded strength of a fisherman, or the stately, supple grace of a watchmaker; as he opened the door that morning, he greeted me with a pensive smile, and took my hand with his own, as wrinkled as the book-spines on his shelf, and callused as the logs that made the walls of his cottage in the mountains.

The only luxury he truly seemed to need, I noticed as I entered, was the camera perched snugly atop the sturdiest shelf nailed into wood perhaps older than either of us, surrounded by ancient books and illegible papers, yellowed as the eyes that read them, strewn across the table, and a tea set which he looked at with that indescribable melange of contrition and nostalgia; and as we had tea, he slowly turned his thoughts to laughter, and our first meeting filled many a mountaintop minute with the heartiness of two with much between them yet, inexplicably, more to share.

Then up on last of the rays of the sun climbed the night, and the sky darkened, and the fire now gave us tea, warmth, and light; and I rose, and smiled, but he smiled and said to me- "no, lassie, let me show you something now- my life's work, if you will", and then the door opened- but it was he who was outside, and I was left a- amazed, perhaps- adrift, now that I think of it- but then again, retrospect never made things clearer.

And so it was that on the first night of our meeting, he took my hand again and brought me to the top of his cottage, and the ancient camera, his singular pride, joy, and love, sat upon a tripod on the roof; then he motioned to the city that lay below us, massive and corpulent, red and radiant in its bloatedness, and he sighed and took pictures of the sky, the stars, and the hills; and though he tried his best, the lights of the city always found their glare into the corners of the lens, like- like some mere tourist gazing the camera, oblivious to the wonders that lay behind them, the light glinting of their teeth like it were some trophy of theirs.

"Behold the works of Man, as many as they are terrible", he said to me, and I could only nod mutely as he sighed once more, and started to take down the tripod; but as he fastened the last leg, there rose a terrible silence in the air, tenuous and tenebrous, and suddenly the light of a million homes went out as surely as the fire below his stove; and all of a sudden, the only lights in the sky were a million patters and a waning moon, and the only gleam that the world returned shone off the burnished silver of his camera.

In that moment, his eyes widened as a child's, and he laughed, and cried, and forgot about me, and in the glorious darkness he worked with the fervor of a man who had seen that he had spent the first three years of his life babbling and wetting himself, and that he very well might spend the last three years the same way; the tripod went up, and then the camera, and in those few minutes, a lifetime's dream came true as he photographed the night in all its unsullied glory, the glory of a million stars, the blackness of the sky, and the shadows of the hills upon a sea that whispered on the breeze; and when he had taken the last picture, he merely smiled, recalled that I was there, and took my hand another time- and he said, "please have them developed for me", and coughed his last laugh into the coldness of a night that was the closest he ever felt to warmth.

-~-
Flash fiction in 6 sentences. Inspired by the view from the mountains at Nagasaki.

the constellations of desk-lights
milky way wrappers,
fallen comets,
multiply like
efficient mathematicians
biologists who
have just discovered the secret
to life.
if you were looking
for evidence of the big bang
it is right here
underneath some bars
of galaxy and inertia
too.
tomorrow's asteroid
comes nearer
like the swimmers in
the slow lane
kicking up water
fuelled by chocolate
trying to fit into
orion's belt.

i need to learn
loneliness
picking blueberries
amidst the Isle of
Langerhans;
digesting


them as i go along.
above are cloud-boats,
menancing like
thundergods.
should i make oars
of prickly, dark-


staining bunches
or wait
til the blues
have been
absorbed into the
lapping waves
like friendly rocks

He had told her to wake him in a thousand years or when it was safe, whichever was later, as he closed his eyes and laid on the white sheets on a steel bed in a cocoon of black; perhaps her aural sensor malfunctioned in that instant, or her processing core misinterpreted his intentions, for when he next opened his eyes, it would have been a million years.

All too quickly passed the first fourteen years, but while the people had long since forgotten the old days of hunting and warring, their governments had not; and so it went that while children played in pristine virtual-reality beaches and their parents enjoyed every conceivable pleasure in the synsation chambers, their leaders rose and fell like the tides of a time when the moon still possessed most of its mass, and their factories sowed the seeds of things only he would come to know of, and only for an instant.

As his shell hummed and whispered, forgotten in the basement of a home ruined by time, his family's rusted bones adorning the stainless pipes, the day arrived where man, blind with pleasure and deaf with ignorance, chose his future for himself, and picked the road paved with thorns leading to perdition; in the wake of the first bombardments, nobody was left standing who remembered who fired first, and as man strode the lands of his dominion and left the smell of regret lingering in the wake of victory, the pride of Mankind was torn as the hair from the few who survived as they beat their chests and wailed in torment.

Then it came that countless years later, as a village was digging for a well in the desert wastes of what remained of Southeast Asia, they struck a coat of ebony that even their strongest warrior could not break though he shattered his prized stone axe, and the medicine woman declared it the Devil and unbuddhist, but the elders called it a relic sent by the gods Elohim and Vishnu, and the tribe venerated the sarcophagus as readily as they held in awe the bones of their ancestors; and as they searched the world and grew stronger, they found more of the sacred relics, and they founded the first of the last civilizations of Man in the wake of what few remembered as the Flood.

One day, in the heat of winter, an archaeologist wiped the sweat off his forehead and adjusted his lead suit, and shouted for his assistants to come, and, awestruck, mouths agape, hearts pounding with sheer incomprehensibility, they beheld the zenith of all the works of Man, and they worshipped it, and they brought it to the Sister City at the other end of the world, declaring it a prize as worthy as the Cocoon of the Maker; the last elder knew what it was, and shouted and coughed his blood up in the comfort of his hospital bed, but the doctor simply shook his head and gave him an injection to put him to his last fitful sleep, and drove his nurses in his car to witness the unveiling of the priceless artifact with markings only two men alive knew how to read, both of whom were asleep, and both of whom never would witness the awakening of the relic whose title its makers bestowed upon it was World-Killer.

And then in the rain of dust and echoes he woke, and he kissed the vacuum, and it took him into its embrace; and that was the end of things for the race of men.

-~-

Flash fiction in 6 sentences, idea stolen from ZH.

I was walking down the road
and didn't hear a sound
til I passed a construction site -
jackhammer going in the middle of the night

I didn't think it much
to tell the truth I couldn't
but i left with the feeling that
i'd seen something I shouldn't.

It was not the noise that moved me
though I felt that unearthly sound
but my heart did jump sideways
when it came to me through the ground

Hide away! Hide away!
it seemed to say
the dust is flying in the middle of the night
hiding in the ashes of a construction site.

I don't know what it was I felt
or indeed what it meant
it was not the dream of things to come
or worries hiding in the cement

I'd moved too far away to hear
by the time I reached home
but I couldn't sleep for that jackhammer
just wouldn't leave me alone

How lonely you must be!
A sound without a sight!
left in the dark by no-one
Jackhammer going in the middle of the night

How lonely you must be!
A sound without a sight!
left in the dark by no-one
in the ashes of a construction site.

It came to me but years from then-
I left my life behind that day
and though I cannot recall how or when -
that unearthly noise will always stay.

this will be
a piece of cake
i guarantee


some eggs
in your face,
lots of buttering-up

i will be
sugar-sweet;
jam compliments


into every
other sentence.
add spice


to your life?
as it heats up
in the oven


i realise i've
forgotten if
i put in a leavening agent

"God help me now", he murmured in his sleep;
The roiling sheets, they swelled and crested high
As livid shades within the mirror's scry
And smoky lines upon his skin to creep;
The pattered rain, the ghost of morning's night,
The darkness fidgets, tremors in its heart
Which echo rustlings of the nether art
That brought to knees the Highest Lord of sight.
Unwilling to behold, enwrapped in haze,
The time forgot, the passing just as fleet-
Equations, vectors, furrows on his brow,
He dreamt of sun unbridled in its blaze,
He traced infinites on the careless sheets
And murmured in his sleep, "God help me now".

You told me once
you would hand me your heart,
lay it on a platter-
(for daws to peck at) but
all you gave me was a
silvered shape of stone-cold
steel.


You eyed me curiously
as I cupped that metal mass;
wincing as each beat
(surreptitiously systolic)
bit into my skin,
fettering your heart
with ribbons


of blood.
you lifted my hand
and pressed it to my chest,
(red-ribbed, battering mess
of lived lies
and dying promises);
it tears through flesh
and leaves me staring
at where my heart
once was-


But for all my
pouring passions,
hue incarnadine,
your heartless heart is
insensate,
no more flesh than
mine.


You smiled at my new heart,
now yours, consumed,
satiated, satisfied;
your heart bleeds in me
but I am
impervious to thee.

the rise and fall
of flour; spilt milk
in a quarter of an hour

make sure you
don't burn out

but as it peels apart
the sink fills up


with hot soup,
though i see no fire.


fine accompaniment for the cold
shoulder of lamb


should i grill it, or
is it just small


fry? gingerly seasoned;
fingers burnt -


this is not just a stupid
root (purple in the face,


stubborn layers) so
why does it make me cry


into my hands


____________________
note: is just basically collection of lame puns, i blame this on all the cooking i've been doing reccently haha. do let me know if it's too obscure, have had to explain it to everyone i've showed it to thus far.

It's a night and day affair
and both ways it's the same
for two weeks now we're playing
this nameless, ancient game

and now you're eating at my mind
like a two week mold
left out in the cold to grow
and I hope that I return in kind
or i'll be growing old
left out when the cold wind blows

and I feel it in my stomach
every time you call my phone
and I feel it in my liver
saying I don't want to be alone

but loneliness is all it is
like a sunflower by the hour
grows toward the sun
my love grows like a weed
and lower my standards grow
the longer since it's begun.

So dance for me, sunflower girl
and I will shine for you
high love is lost on such as us
but i'll love you til' the morning dew.

A step out of arrival
and a foreign English’s eclecticness explodes in my face
like the spray of confetti at
a party of middle-aged women in pink tights.
This morning’s babble should please me more
but I now deem it unhappy variant—
though telling of home,
familiarity smacks like the mismatched attire of
a hawker whose tone demands patronage
to justify her lost sleep.


This is my country.
Open arms decked high with
consumer commerciality,
her once warm embrace now
exudes indifferent materiality as the cold
adorning charm she loops around my neck;
I hesitate
(but as the crowd presses closer,
and the scent of physicality
engulfs me in a swirl of designer perfume)
I join them, and let the mob
sweep me towards the
shopping districts.
In the background, music blares
from a store window and they chant,

“Welcome home.”

Let this be the last summation
of our moments snatched
in between movements of crowds—
Wide-eyed interludes,
the low cascading of your voice
and your accidental touch
sends undercurrents through my skin.


Now, you sidestep me with your gaze—
there is time for one last laugh and you are buoyed
away by the tide of faces;
Like pebbles, they wash unspoken hope
from the sands of my heart


but leave your memory
accreted on its plains.
Day breaks on the horizon,
and you have forgotten
what I must forget.

-~-

Do forgive the triple kill, it is rather sudden.

-~-

They go to see a play of hopes and fears;
Expecting blood and death and tragedy,
They want to break their hearts and shed their tears.
But though the theatre still stands on the lee,
It shows no tragedy nor comedy-
The stage is spartan, and there is one light,
And figures in a symphony of white.

At first, accountants gave their wary leers,
But soon it proved to be a hit-to-be
And cleared up all they still had in arrear.
The older patrons muttered, left it be,
But newer ones were all amused to see
Avant-garde things, and took some strange delight
At figures in a symphony of white.

And though nobody understands, they fear
For some strange reason, trembling eerily
To watch those faceless forms in pale appear
And then dissolve, some others turn to flee,
While more yet rise and cavort endlessly;
Nobody thought to ask of the playwright
Why figures in a symphony of white-

And he alone is certain, he is clear:
It is a joke too plain for eyes to see,
It is a play for audiences to steer;
The subject, Man! The actors, you and me!
The time is now, the plot is life! And we
Are they! But no-one yet has guessed it right:
Who figures in that symphony of white?