Her

Her hair was a whisper under my palm, holding the side of her head, staring into her dark brown eyes.

“What?” she asked, her brow furrowing. I shook my head and muttered nothing, holding her gaze, my glasses off. There is no barrier between our eyes, no degree of separation, my forehead pressed against hers.



z
written Feb 24 2006

Fight Club

His fist crashes into my side, an explosion of pain and breathlessness. An open palm strikes my face, a gunshot on top of a bee sting, more heard than felt. My tongue gnashes out at my teeth, my lips and cheeks already split where his fists have crushed my cheekbones. Who knows how much blood had spilt from my lips since then…

At first I wanted to fight back, more angry at the slaps and insults than hurt by them, but then once the hands closed, that anger turned quickly into helplessness, timidity. I would much rather crawl into a hole and lick my wounds than beat some motherfucker’s head in right now…

I don’t even know who they are, they just jumped out of a van, the kiss of a sap at my head, then darkness. When I woke up I was handcuffed to this chair that rocks back and forth, side to side, underneath me, as the beatings continue. I cant even feel it anymore, just the movement.


z

Horror Movie

His moustaches swing, pendulous and epic, as he runs through the low gurgling water. The water sprays into his eyes as it is kicked up by his knees, pumping almost as high as his chest. Shaking his head to get through the burning, he looks back, over his shoulder, at the stitched-together person chasing him, the strong, powerful hands hold the scissors made for cutting flesh and bone. Or branches from a tree. They suit the purpose for now.


z

Nightmare Cinema

I close my eyes and flip on the nightmare cinema, holding images in my head that speak of tired amalgamated violence. The night things that hold me, caress me, steal away my dreams, replacing them with a cacophony of scenes; cobbled together by a hermit, razor and cigarette, intent on my lack of sleep. Flame licks my thighs, sweat covers my back as the horror is expelled with a shaking seventeen second shudder, 30 FPS, shutter length 2.6 " , dimly lit back alleys…

horror turns to blowjobs; blowjobs and fucking. Serene, gossamer shadows and fake plastic fuckbuddies that hold my senses in a rapt dying amazement. Long blonde hair, handlebars, big silicone buoys that hold no greater fascination to me than a warm wet hole, made to be stretched and held. No love is made here, only fucking. Fucking…

and eating. I had no dinner, nor did I brush my teeth…

Listerine shining in orange dayglo luminescence, burning like so much lye in such a tight wet spot, pain hidden in an aura of burning, a cleansing fire. And water, drowning out liquid pain in an attempt of murder, wrapped in a cushy envelope of safety, warm to the touch, squelching the cold out of my body, like a sponge, but in reverse…

squeezing out the craven images from my bloated mind, perverted by nights of reading pornography and bloodshed. Red stained pillowcases, a scarlet letter, aunt irma, spilling from my nose, branding the comfort or my head with warmth and wetness, the taste of iron, ball of steel in my belly, the tonsils dyed to match my face in the cold left behind as the fabricated air hits my face, the small plastic blades creating temperature from lies…

hot like passion, cold like hate, deference spilling from my lips in a waking moan, disorientation striking the fragile eggshell mind of the dreamer.

Start here and you realize that this is all a dream, a dream that did not happen.

I lie.


z

The Ash

The ash falls away from me in an inhalation. It spirals and falls, dancing merrily between us, caught in the wind, given freedom. It looks like a slow, polluted snowfall, scattered and ignored until I breathe in. once that happens, it pushes away from me, my movements to catch it only pulling them between my fingers, just out of reach, though I could touch it if I wanted to. I can’t hold it, only touch. After that, it leaves. Or I do. The wind pushes it, my breath pushes it. When I breathe in, I hold it in rapt funeral amazement, lingering, waiting, coming closer.

Finally it takes its place on the velvet jacket she is wearing, my velvet jacket, now hers. I shiver in the cold, shiver in my leather coat, smelling of impending death and sweetness. I pinch the ash from the jacket, pulling it from the clinging fabric (it picks and holds things). She makes a questioning sound; I feel it in my chest, feel her jaw graze my collarbone as she lifts her head.

“Nothing.” I say. She moves her head back to where it was.


z

Drinking

I throw my head back, feeling the burn that goes with the territory of drinking large amounts of whisky in a single span of drinking. Frat boys and idiots try drinking this way, and usually end up vomiting most of what they take in. the times when that happens, it makes a man want to cry, what with all that whisky going to waste.

I put the bottle down. The warmth spreads from my belly out into my arms, legs, fingers, toes. Heh. Head, shoulders, knees, and toes (knees and toes.).

Sweat drips off the bridge of my nose, spatters on the toe of my shoe. I follow the path it took with my eyes and it takes me a second to realize why I’m sweating.

I shrug my shoulders and pass the bottle from hand to hand as my jacket hits the ground behind me.



z

Fire and Water

Fire crept toward the pool of water, billowing thick black smoke in its wake. The water, calm and serene, remained motionless, unmoved by the sneaking destruction around it. The fire, while destroying everything around the water, will fizzle out once it reaches the water, murdered by its calm, smooth surface, untouched by decimation and the incineration that is taking place behind it, to its sides, and above it.

The water is silent, unmoved by any of it.



z

The Joy of Smoking

The rain beats a rhythm on the street; it makes it difficult to concentrate while walking, the deserted streets echoing the meter of the falling rain at 3.30 am.

I inhale, the taste of smoke thick and heavy in my lungs, the taste of clove on my lips.

I exhale, billowing smoke like an industrial chimney against the grey cityscape in my immediate sight; my boots angle and slide on the slick cobblestone of the alley.

Moving under a roof, I save my precious cancerstick, keeping the fire from being murdered. A gust of cold wind hits me, amplified by its abuse down the walls between these two buildings; as it hits, I shrink into my coat, pushing my hands into my pockets, lowering my head to protect my exposed face.

The ash falls like a smog-filled snow, before hitting the ruts between the stones, getting washed away by the frigid, suicidal rain.


z

Dead Like Me

I didn’t mean to end up dead. I didn’t mean to end up killing for that matter. No one knows that we were run off the road; no one knows that we are dead. Or in Kelly’s case dying.

Goddamn, I shouldn’t have overcorrected; if I hadn’t we would have missed that ditch. I wouldn’t have flipped the car. I wouldn’t have to watch as Kelly was flung through the windshield and onto the cooling desert sands. I wouldn’t have to watch her try to get up, only to have her legs break, snapping out from under her, a toddler pushed over by chopping off its ankles. I wouldn’t have to watch Josh, through the rearview, sitting next to his shattered window, choking on his own life. The last thing I heard, before the darkness, before the cold, was Josh, sputtering sloppily and Kelly half-moaning, half-crying as she kept trying to walk. The screaming is what bothered me the most, before the nothing.

This silence is deafening, a constant rush of, I guess, a lack of sound that fills my head. Or whatever. Its hard to explain to someone who is not dead, but this feeling of nothing, this feeling of cold…this must be death.
No angels.
No devils.
No paradise.
No hell.
Nothing.


z

Cocaine and Hatred

3/2/06
fire licked the edges of his boot before he pulled his leg back. The smell of singed rubber lingered while he chewed the meat. He uncapped his canteen, slurping down the water; squirrel always left an odd aftertaste. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, his 2 months of beard catching the rest of the water.

3/2/06
she moved like some sacrificial lamb on an altar; it was evident she didn’t want to be here. I kept talking about the weather (everyone talks about the weather when lacking a subject) while I watched her. While she was nodding her head and either affirming or denying, her eyes were moving, looking for some way to see what time it was (8.15). She had her legs crossed, her arms folded (on the table?). when she nodded, her blonde hair fell forward in little ringlets, down to her shoulders, only to be brushed back by a hand. The light sweater she had wasn’t buttoned, though it hung about her shoulders as if she were cold or expecting to leave at any moment. Maybe her boyfriend would show up…

3/2/06
I leaned back from the table, pulling and releasing my nostrils as I breathed in through my nose. The cocaine might have been way too much, but I was ready for the rush, the tingling, the crash. I couldn’t feel my nose anymore, but the feeling that it took was then replaced by a tingling in my hands, that would soon spread throughout my body, waking me, killing me.

10/2/06
slow, muted lust-fire, burning into the cold of the night. The wind blows outside, I can hear it shatter against the window; I can hear the bass in the music from the room next door; hear the voices chatter into the parking lot outside. The fire burns hotter, longer, keeping me warm; the fire stops, sputtering out, all the heat dying in a seventeen second shudder. The fire is choked out, drowned, murdered in the prime of its life; wasted and spread around the lusty core of its being.

13/2/06
she held the spoon to her face, taking two quick snorts so she could feel the rush, the dilation of pupils, the way her heart beats faster, like it will burst from her chest.

1/3/06
the electricity hummed quietly beneath me; I could feel the reverberations down my back, my legs. Staring up at the sky, a quiet peace was contained between the two of us. Silence was the answer to an unspoken question that lingered in the space between us. Muted, fiery impatience overtook him at last.
“What are we doing here?!” he shouted.

14/3/06
a millisecond of trauma and then the world ends; a tiny quarter-sized hole just above the bridge of your nose, followed by emptiness; a hollow retreat after an inch of pain.

15/3/06
a razorthin line of life beats beneath the surface of my arm; a coagulant mess of red spiderweb gatherings are visible, too, just below the surface, along the suicide line that beats and throbs with a life of its own.

29/3/06
traincrash of imperium, footfalls of impending pregnant disaster awaiting the silence that preceeds a broken vow, a final swig of intoxicant outside of a solemn promise, rhetorical decisions pledged outside of time.

3/4/06
excess fire leapt out of the sides of the grill as the girl sprayed a torrent of lighter fluid over the mesquite. Rolling up the side of the grill, the fire turning blue at the base, burning green over the mesquite, under the grill as if the grill were made of copper, or the charcoal had trace amounts of it in its veins.

4/5/06
the juices crack and run down his hands as he jumps, cheering the jungle dry cries of the city sprawled out in front of him, calling him as he danced back and forth in exultant, ecstatic adulation of the buses and transport out from his state of consciousness.



z

Reptile-whore

seed from a 1000 lovers drip down
from inside of her
the seed of a 1000 others drip down
from her lips
she has the blood of a
reptile, underneath her skin
oh my beautiful liar
oh my precious whore
my belief, my infection
she is so impure
what the fuck
is “my” problem
that “she” cant
underfuckingstand?!
the reptile-whore is
crawling, crawling
underneath my
skin


z
(1/4/03-2/4/03)

A Night On The Lake of Introspection

We walk to the edge of an unknown and underestimated jewel box
of premature memories.
Stepping off the end, you pull back as the first drops of cold
Cling to your Violet’s Breath toenail polish.
Afraid to give up the comfort of our modesty,
we wait until submerged and then remove our ignorance
pay no attention to the lake bottom.
Times are best when we choose not to worry
about the approaching storm and the
sirens in the distance
just the moonlight and the moonshadows and those
insignificant particles that are too weak to break the
Surface Tension.
We dig our toes deeper into the sand and broken shells
as we try to somehow hold on to the
fingers of the wing that cool the droplets on our
naval and our temples.
Seeking refuge on a sandbar we lie flat.
The only things that rise from the grimy water
are our eyes, our lips
Mirror Images of an image that I’ve seen
for years break as the sand trickles from my
wrinkled fingers.
The water alters our reflection.


z
(3/3/03)

The Ghost Song

gently they stir, gently rise
the dead are newborn awakening
w/ ravaged limbs and wet souls
gently they sigh in rapt funeral amazement
who called these dead to dance?
was it the young woman? learning to play the ghost song on her baby grand?
was it the wilderness children?
or was it the wilderness, children?
was it the Ghost God himself, stuttering, cheering, chatting blindly?
i called you up to anoint the earth…
i called you up to sadness falling like burned skin…
i called you to wish you well,
to glory in self like a vein monster, I mean vain.
And now i call on you to pray…


z
(24/2/03)

One Bright Sunny Day In The Land of Kalamazoo

The man awoke before dawn, pulling his clothes on in an alcoholic fog. He got up and he walked down the hall to get the gun. He picked up the gun and he held it to his temple.

(click).

He put a round in and he spun the chambers.

(swish).

He held it to his head.

(click).

He thought long and hard before he got up. He put down the gun and shaved off 3 days worth of stubble. He went back to the bedroom and picked the gun back up.

(snap).

Out comes the bullet, next in line to kill, next in line to die. Bang.


z
(16/2/03)

Danse Noctourne

The scalpel cuts the hope,
merriment burns away.
The dangers of being caught
w/ an illicit lover, burning
in the mindseye, like a
sacrificial cow burning on a
golden altar to some
pagan god. Dance the
Danse Noctourne, and dance
your fears away.


z
(10th grade)

Journal

1/2/03
forced thoughts and religion crowd
the fragile eggshell mind of
a child, pushing and breaking
the gentle thoughts of freedom

3/2/03
the Killer pulled the bong from the cold,
dead hands of the Victim; taking a
pull, he throws his head back and gazes
into infinity’s dark secrets

11/2/03
YOU ARE ALL TERMINALLY ILL!!

17/2/03
bondage dreams
severing, lying in the
infinite maze,
leather shining in the oubliette.
don’t forget me when you’re
in the death zone,
don’t forget me when the
whip breaks your skin.

1/3/03
something like indifference
is in my breath today—
the trees were redheaded today,
red like carrion,
sky the color of a longdead hand
until some gold medallion of a sun appeared
and melted on my windowsill


z
(10th grade. journal entries from creative writing that caught my eye)

Moonchild

2/2/03
the Moonchild reached into the void
of the Innocent and spread it across the
world, giving some innocence to experience
and experience to the damned

4/2/03
look into the eyes of a million twisted souls on a twisted spire, reaching for the heavens for a kind word, a forgiving glance from the Moonchild, her fairies healing imps of hell, turning them from damnation to salvation

The Moonchild throws back her immortal head, pulling back from a celestial bong, the smoke of the Gods. She closes her eyes, and drifts into eternity, the smoke carrying her to the edges of mortality, toeing the line between life and immortality, a taste of death.

5/2/03
the feathered shaman dances his lament to the Moonchild, begging for her approval of actions foregone and forgotten. The shaman begs for protection from the wolfchildren and the Snake, their fake faces hunger for his flesh, his heart.


z
(from 10th grade. my english teacher let me indulge myself in creating this "mythic" figure, a god-like figure, and all that became of it was references to other things i wrote and it pretty much deadended. anyways, shes a godlike figure, immortal or whatever, and i like the stuff i wrote because it let me create my own sort of cosmology that built on stuff that i wrote.

30/1/03

A spider in an old man’s beard is like a child, lost in a crowd of a million sparks/needles the oars on the boat, rode as if trying to escape from some cruel game of Chinese water torture, nothing was the same now that it was gone, the wino took to coma like a soothsayer pulls lies/deception from his twisted evil mouth, the dice rolled out of the cup toward her, like flies to honey, a child in need, like a wasp, twisted in pain from a spent sting, rising nausea in a belly like muscles stretched taut over bone, as if I should wake before I die, I give my soul to take to me


z
(journal entry, auto-writing)

Two

She could see any depth of the ocean in his eyes
or the last fading colors in the feathered September sky.
Those colors were the world to her.

And on the glossy street where the breezes played
Their melodies tied together, laughing at the day
They found the door

She said we’ll make the journey together
We are one

The whole world was raining, the music, disappeared
and they clasped their hands together and bound their fear
running through the night

And the lands left frozen, confined
Trapped between the ticks of time
Beginning to come alive

And he said we’ll make the journey together
We are one

And they said as one, they’d never touch the ground
And they said that there was so much more around
Til that wilting season when his eyes closed forever
feathers, falling, to the ground

She walked down the glossy street where breezes,
they now lay
Where they once had laughed at the day
Before they knew their wings would be pruned

She said “We are one, we still are you know,”
But she watched as the last winds began to blow
through shadows
There were Two


z
(from 2002-3/10th grade. meshing of surrealism, Romanticism, random stuff i liked at the time, still do...i like this piece)

Lamentation

lament for my cock
sore and crucified
i seek to know you.
acquiring soulful wisdom,
you can open walls of mystery
stripshow.

how to acquire death in the morning show.
tv death which the child absorbs
deathwell mystery which makes me write,
slow train, the death of my cock gives life.
forgive the old poor people who gave us entry
taught us god in child’s prayer in the night.

guitar player
ancient wise satyr,
sing your oath to my cock.
caress its lament,
stiffen and guide us, we frozen,
lost cells,
the knowledge of cancer
to speak to the heart
and give the great gift:

WORDS POWER TRANCE

this stable friend and the beasts of his zoo
wild-haired chicks
women, flowery in their summit,
monsters of skin
each color connects
to create the boat
which rocks the race
could any hell be more terrible
than now
and real?

I PRESSED HER THIGH, AND DEATH SMILED

death, old friend
death and my cock are the world
i can forgive my injuries in the
name of:

WISDOM LUXURY ROMANCE

sentence upon sentence
words are healing lament
for the death of my cock’s spirit
has no meaning in the soft fire
words got me the wound and will get me well
if you believe it.

all join now and lament for the death of my cock
a tongue of knowledge in the feathered night.
boys get crazy in the head and suffer,
i sacrifice my cock on the altar of science.



z
(also from 2002-3/10th grade. written in lieu of a paper on beat writers.)

Ride The Snake

I.
I have seen the red (gold) eyes of the Viper!
I have seen the ivory fangs, as long as tusks,
dripping with their venom, deadly as a
thousand thousand lines of cocaine.
I have seen his children, the wolf-masked
man-wolves of dawn, leering faces and
poisoned smiles with words as deceptive
as a mewling lion. I have also seen
their childlike masks of baby powder
white faces. They hunger, for blood,
for vengeance wrought, for Me!
I have seen the Lady of Hope also, though.
I have seen her ivory skin, flawless as
diamonds, and twice as smooth. She wears
a gold/silver set of plate and carries
a spear as long as a tree. She wears
no helm, her hair an endless wave of
fire, rippling, coursing down her back,
like a heart of a mountain. She is
my only protection from the snake,
a warrior/maiden, sent for the snake,
for his black heart. Her steed
has silvery shoes, and fire
flaming from his nostrils, salamandastrian. Her
spear is platinum-gold, the
blade rent from the white-hot
fires of a smith’s forge.

II.
The firegold caverns of the
Viper are burning, burning
with desire for the Guardian’s
pure heart, for her steed’s
head on a pole. His wolf-masked
children thirst for her blood,
her soul, her life. The children
pull on their masks, their
blood-soaked furs for hunting.
their six-fingered hands, calloused
from deaths, their masks’ teeth
dulled grey from the lives
taken from others, souls ripped
from body. The cavern glows a
red-gold colour, for it needs the
soul of the Guardian, to feed,
to make complete its collection.
The ashen white trees of the
lake, quake in fear of the
Snake, the Viper swirling,
moving, undulating, the muscles
firm and taut, pulling the
Viper along. And he is long,
7 miles, and he’s headed for
the lake, his place of rest.

III.
The men, coloured riders, rode out
at dawn, adjusting their multicoloured
cloaks, meant to confuse the Viper’s
Children, to help the Guardian. Their
weapons scream, shriek for wolf-masked
blood, the spears, with their long
arms, reaching for the Heavens, the
spiny arm holding a silvered blade,
sharpened to perfection. The cloaks
bejeweled with studs, shining,
made to catch the greedy, lustful,
desirous eyes. The wardrums
beat their steady, droning
bellow, the horns trumpeting
the cry of the Guardian.
She straps on her
sword, readies her mount,
readies her spear like
a lance. She rides out at dawn.

IV.
Noontime hunt, round the
murky lake, searching for
the dead in the quagmire.
distraught villagers cry, cry
for the help of the Guardian,
one strong enough, for
the defeat of the Snake.
The villagers cry, as the
Snake’s wolf-masked children
destroy the peaceful vale,
kill their women and children.
When she arrives, there
is nothing left but burning
rubble. She stops, prays for
the safe delivery of these
dead, for their afterlife.

V.
The Snake undulates,
moving everforward for
the lake. His children steal
quick rides on his back
Ride the Snake!
Ride the Snake!
He is old, and his
skin is cold, Ride the Snake!
His eyes flick, a beguiling
set of rubies, cold and
hard. He continues on his way, to the Ancient
Lake, his children crawling
among and over him, like
so many maggots on a
piece of meat.

VI.
The Two arrive. The lake’s
muddy waters call for the
Viper, calling him back home
to die. The Viper, unwittingly,
calls for the Guardian, her
claim to fame. The wolfmen
are slain by the Coloured
Riders, heartlessly. The Guardian,
she charges, readying her
lance-spear. With a quick
charge (thrust) she takes
his “black” heart. The Snake,
dead already, groans as he
is a few thrusts from home,
spent, not yet fulfilled. The
Guardian has purchased
her so sought after fame
but, what
Price did she pay?


z
(from 2002/10th grade...)

Crossroad

The train pulled out of the station, leaving me behind as I slugged the rest of the whisky back, picking up my bag in one hand and the guitar case in the other. Walking out, off of the platform, down the steps to the small dirt road that ran alongside the train tracks before diverging from it and forking off from the rails.

z

Arson

Fire ran up the side of the building, washing over the cheap linoleum siding, turning the solid face into a melted, runny shell of its former self. The gas can hit the ground next to his feet as he dropped it for the bottle of beer that had been lying on its side, waiting for his leech-kiss.

The smoke came, billowing away from him, almost as if avoiding his presence, as if the smoke were waiting to be freed and he might somehow be another captor, imprisoning it in another fake plastic shell of safety and security. In a few minutes the people inside would begin to bang on the boarded and locked doors and windows.

z

Grave

The dirt fell from his hands as he walked from the grave, the tears caked with it around the corners of his eyes. The night air around him felt cool and harmless, a separate entity wrapped in its own mystery. At the edges of his eyes, darkness pooled out from his vision, gathered underneath the trees put there for the shade from the sun in day or from the moon in darkness.

The sudden chill that ran through his body could be attributed to the breeze rolling in off of the sea. Maybe it was the lack of appropriate clothing. Maybe it was the fact that he just awoke in front of a grave, his face caked with tears and dirt, gently clinging from his cheeks. He didn’t know where he was from or where he was going. More importantly he didn’t know where he had been prior to his rude awakening, nor what he had been through to have woken up next to a grave. Despite not knowing his roots, he supposed that not everyone just woke up next to a grave.

Walking through the line of trees, he looked about at the signs, directing him towards the exits. He hoped he had found the correct signs. He supposed that he should follow the signs, rather than contrarily ignoring certain ones. Or he could skip to the end and find out what happened. Where was the fun in that though?

After all, it’s not every day, he supposed, that one wakes up next to a grave, with no recollection of how they got there, where they had been, or what prompted that particular site of awakening. Might as well have as much intrigue as possible. If things got too out of hand, he could always skip ahead later…


z