Getting Nowhere

Insanity, this manic key

to damning possibilities,

the storm before a calm

embrace, displacing

and defacing me.

Imagination-killing spree;

ingest an hour’s rest

before investing every

inch of me

      to best

a blank computer screen.

And lo, do I succeed?

Fuck no, but that’s the way

destruction goes, when words

forget their flow,

      effete,

like old, depleted seas.

But suddenly, a spark

ignites ungodly

tides of genesis-light,

a pyre, bright, it smites

my indecisive tendencies.

I feel the turn at hand,

and if I’m any man

      of value,

I’ll be Hercules,

unleashing multitudes

in spiritual liberty.

That’s when I’ll see

the end and every row,

      I sow,

will find its flow,

insanity can go to hell

and finally leave me be.

And when I’m

bullshit-free, you’ll know

the Starry Skies, I see,

and when you close your eyes,

my undisguised

designs will set you free.

Two Sentence Tuesday #43

           Everyone remembers the night the skies burned. How often do you see threads of tangerine flame winding through obsidian clouds? 

Two Sentence Tuesday #38

            Ava had opened her heart to the taint of dark magic and, with it, had lain waste to everything she was. Shivering, she wiped away the heaviest tears she had ever shed before leaving the wreckage of her past to smolder into ashes. 

Two Sentence Tuesday #23

            He investigated the charred and gutted remains of the old schoolhouse, where a teacher and her eight students had long ago perished in a mysterious inferno. As he stopped to change the battery in his camera, the stillness was broken by the echoes of the teacher imparting her final lesson to the class.

Two Sentence Tuesday #10

As the mysterious spacecraft descended through the clouds, wide rays of light projected from a device on its aft hull that closely resembled a thick black television antenna. Everything touched by the beam’s glow was instantly swallowed in a flood of barbarous green flames.

Oneiromancy

Oneiromancy (The Surprise Party)

February’s final days had diminished

And I dreamt apocalyptic dreams

Of hellfire threads weaving infernal

Tapestries throughout perpetually

Unbroken raven-hued clouds.

I wandered without the slightest

Breath of hope as the ground shook

And snuffed away beneath my wary feet,

Cascading into the molten abyss,

From where all life began,

And closing the circle.

Around me, crowds of broken people

Despaired at the unforeseen end;

The lunatics ran rampant through

Arkham,

While the children curled up

On the streets in the pouring rain

And wept for Neverland… forever lost.

Then there I was, awash in shame,

Staring down at bloodied, bone-bare

Knuckles… my badge of rejected honor

After a moment of weakness,

And wondering if we

Deserved this horror in obsidian and fire…

Did we reap what we had sown?

And yet… as flesh melted from my limbs,

The sun broke on a raw

February morning and I found myself

Not standing at the end of all things,

But walking a continuing, sign-less journey

To the middle…

…happy birthday to me.

Drink Responsibly

Drink Responsibly

One day, while I stayed in Havana,

Met a saucy young flirt, name of Hannah,

Played some strange drinking games,

Near a hot, open flame,

And accidently lit the cabana.