It

the unmentionable--
Everyone knows the reference
but
no one dares
to specify
the thing

The two letters that taunt
inserting themselves
everywhere
never letting those
who know
forget

Twitch revised

Alrighty, the spacing looks sort of right.
Comment away!

Twitch

I drink
         coffee. Go ahead,
Judge me. I am not a caffeine-a-holic, I am not
sleep-deprived, I am not looking for a
buzz.      But that doesn’t mean I don’t
            crave the jump,
want the energy, but not because I
            need it, I don’t
               need it to
         live, just to
            connect. I just
get it, get into the way the world
flows out of people to make explosions of
life with every foot that steps onto the ground
               faster.
Coffee is the taste of
               knowledge of
all things in one cup, of
         cities breathing and screaming
               buildings living like animals
                     smells that look like your first love
               sounds that are the sense of a tear falling and
         faces that are John and yet Xerxes and Oscar Wilde and they are
all in my coffee.          One
         sip and I cannot
            stop
                  thinking about these things, I
                     cannot help but
      see everything
            at once and by the
               time my
                     coffee is gone,
                        my eyes are
                              open.

No Place to Live

The outsider
roars through the garden,
upending the lives of
the ants, grass, and beetles.
He leaps for the ball and slides through their homes.
They cry out in fear
What will we do
with no place to live?

He comes home to learn
his house is in danger.
The wood is infested
by ravenous termites.
He cries out in fear
What will I do
with no place to live?

I wrote this while I was editing Vanity

House Without a Roof

So I got it a little better. Now the text is all small. I have a monospace version on the post page. I actually kind of like that one better.

Brick by brick the house rose
The mortar was laid with care
Building blocks
s   l  o  w l y    c a me together
Ready for the roof, we
                                        lowered
                                        the final
                                        touch.
But before it reached
the walls
there was a sudden gust of wind and we saw
The mortar hadn't
set
Bricks lay strewn
We, devastated.
Our shelter had collapsed,
Our sole protection from the world.

But we started again,
A new foundation,
brick by brick,
like Sisyphus we worked,
the wind never subsiding,
our task never complete,

Monospaced

Brick by brick the house rose
The mortar was laid with care
Building blocks
s   l  o  w l y    c a me together
Ready for the roof, we
                       lowered
                       the final
                       touch.
But before it reached
the walls
there was a sudden gust of wind and we saw
The mortar hadn't
set
Bricks lay strewn
We, devastated.
Our shelter had collapsed,
Our sole protection from the world.

But we started again,
A new foundation,
brick by brick,
like Sisyphus we worked,
the wind never subsiding,
our task never complete,

Sound

crescendo

i was paralyzed
the sound of the drums and the synthesizers
a slow melody building from the heart of my brain, expanding outward
down the spine, out through the nose and mouth, pressing against my cheeks
that sound
pressing harder and harder on my ears, it surrounded me, pounded me
dumbfounded
i had to close my eyes, as the pressure built
trying to keep it all in
i didn’t want to let go this time
the music was mine and mine alone

silence

waves receded as i exhaled
i cracked my eyes to light rising
over the crowds and buildings and roads that take everyone home again
the morning’s peace disturbed only by shuffling, coughing, an engine rattling on
the muses gone
there were no birds
i lie alone again

still

Turn

When the solid state of
the iron-clad contracts
melts
the pot of gold
into ingots and
wired loops of
communication with the
dead air around us
the only thing left
is hot gas
driving the car
through the turn
of the century.

Conversation

This week our writing activity was the following:
1. Everyone write down 2 characters (like George Bush and the Easter Bunny)
2. Put all the entries in a hat
3. Everyone draw two entries
4. Write a dialog between the characters you drew.

The characters I drew were The Mighty Thor and President Taft. All I knew about Thor was that he was Norse, the god of the vikings, and much like Zeus otherwise. The only thing I knew about Taft was that he was a fat president with a mustache that got stuck in a tub once. My conversation follows:

Thor: (Booming from heavens) Stop eating, you madman!
Taft: (Twitches mustache) I'm hungry.
Thor: You are fat!
Taft: I am president!
Thor: How do you propose to explore your world...where you exist from MY benevolence?
Taft: I intend to not. I intend to finish my meal.
Thor: You fat wuss!
Taft: Come down here and say that to my face, you arrogant bastard.
Thor: (Appears with a bang across from Taft at his table with lightning bolt in hand, towering over the entire room) YOU FAT WUSS!
Taft: (Blinks. Wipes mouth) Excuse me. (Stands)
Thor: WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!
Taft: I intend to take a bath before my speech.
Thor: HA! ENJOY THAT "SPEECH"! (Disappears with a boom)
Taft: (Thinking) Whatever that meant.
(Later)
Taft: Why can't I get out of this tub?

haiku

the night you left me,

i was looking for your hands

and you refused mine.

Scarlet Road

Ugh, long night... here we go, then.


Scarlet Road

scarlet road,
I walk yr path,
my face the color
of yr concrete.

clean hands crammed
into empty pockets,
the note left
on my desk

placed last night
in dark wire trash bin,
folded neatly
along worn creases,

read, absorbed through
fingertips until
ink conveyed
meaning into

bloodstream.
no need for memento
along crimson course,
just west into blinding sun

and welcome sign,
burned words upon
horizon, simply—
Not Here.

The best of the conversation activity

For this activity everyone wrote one half of a conversation, then paired up with another person and put their two respective halves together. There was no collaboration involved whatsoever: no one had any idea who his partner would be, nor what he had written. These were my favorites (tell me if I got the names wrong):


Click on "Post Page" below to see the rest!

Claire and Josh
A: So, how's life treating you?
B: Well, I never!
A: That's better than me; I had food poisoning over the weekend.
B: What an interesting statement. You know, I've recently traveled to Germany and had the most amazing experience! Amsterdam has the most interesting things for sale in their coffee shops. . .
A: Yeah, well life's a bitch. How was your date last night?
B: Have you ever tried marijuana?
A: That sounds awful.
B: Yes, yes, alright. So, we'll talk about something else. You konw, I once heard that in Bible times, people recreationally smoked opium. Do you think Jesus did?
A: That's why you should always carry safety pins with you.
B: That positively had nothing to do with what I just asked you. You aren't even listening. Well, then, what is it you're trying to say?
A: It never hurts to be prepared!
B: What's that? I thought I heard something about Mary Sue Coleman and Alvin and the Chipmunks, but what were they doing, and why?
A: Well, guess what, my apartment had to be emptied out because we had bedbugs, but you don't see me complaining.
B: Yes, I see your point.
A: Don't worry: it's not your fault.
B: By the way, have you seen my trousers? I can't seem to find them.
A: Well, I should get going. I have to write a paper about Samuel Coleridge!
B: That's AWESOME! Clearly, we're on the same page now.

The Republican and Jessica
A: What do you mean "three times"!?
B: I can't believe, after everything that's happened, that you can just waltz in here and say that.
A: Well, that's not acceptable. I mean, how could you have forgotten? Only to remember now?
B: I didn't meant what I said last night. I was drunk. And possessed. Jerk!
A: Yeah, there was a lot of vodka involved.
B: Same to you.
A: No, I don't want to hear any of your excuses.
B: What's that supposed to mean?
A: All you've ever said to me was a lie. All of it, every whispered nothing, a vicious lie from your uncaring mouth.
B: Oh, oh. I get it now.
A: No, no you don't.
B: You know what this reminds me of? Nevermind, I'll tell you anyway-
A: I think we're done here, there's nothing more to say. You're a heartless bitch.
B: Hippos are the most dangerous animals in the Savannah, they kill more people than lions every year.
A: Well, maybe, but you'll have to prove it.
B: Yeah yeah, I know. But hear me out: everybody's afraid of lions, you know? But who could fear a hippo? People see hippos, they don't think danger, they think dancing in tutus in Fantasia - and then they think "Huh, those are some big teeth" and then they don't think anything at all.
A: No, I don't believe your words. Nothing you've said was true.
B: Wow, didn't expect to hear THAT, I admit. Well played.
A: What do you think I am, crazy?
B: Don't get cocky!

Scott and Fiza
A: I am not going to eat any of these cheap hotdogs for dinner again, goddammit. What else we got?
B: Close the door!
A: Yeah, but don't we have more of that pasta salad your mother made us?
B: Well, I didn't think he'd see us. But you never know.
A: So you're saying you ate all of it. By yourself. Great.
B: Nah, I'm not scared of him. Are you?
A: Well, I guess I'll just sit right down and enjoy a nice meal of condiments. Mmmm condiments! Ketchup, mayo, relish - the works.
B: Are we doing the right thing? Don't touch that! Have you lost your mind?
A: Oh, that's real cute. You'd like that wouldn't you? Christ.
B: That's true. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? It's just a little fire.
A: OK, how'd you like to eat a stick of margarine? Enjoy. Yeah, take that.
B: What? I didn't want him to die!
A: I don't know what you're talking about - domestic assault my ass!
B: This is not funny.
A: What!? Are you serious!? OK, OK, go ahead, call the cops - see if I care.
B: Oh my God! Noooo!
A: Now wait. Just wait, let's calm down. Take a deep breath. Nice and easy. . .

Eric and Alex
A: Barry, I told you not to do it. How many times have I told you not to do it?
B: Wanker junk sickness macho explosion!
A: Stop trying to change the subject.
B: No the whipple stayed the night in God's golden frame, all guts no glory!
A: That's no excuse. The VCR was mine and you just felt the need to change it in order to better suit your perversions.
B: Fantastic.
A: It's obvious what you did. You put bunny ears and applied oral glitter to what was previously a work of modern man.
B: A whore is a whore no matter which way you cut it.
A: Barry, just shut up. She doesn't have anything to do with this.
B: Stop. Just stop.
A: Jill is not a whore, no matter how many domestic animals she's slept with.
B: Eloi, eloi, lama subachthani!
A: You and I both know cows don't count. Come on, don't be silly.
B: Yes, Matthew. The best.
A: I really don't care about that. I just want my goddamn VCR back, and the calzones as well.
B: I ain't stole nothing never.
A: Fine, don't invite me to your Karl Marx birthday bash.
B: Yes, I know.
A: I'm hanging up now, and I want to see my stuff on your iceberg outside in two minutes, OK?
B: Love you too, Mommy.

Happy New Year '08!

Happy New Year.
Short and sweet.
A greeting heard but once
a trip enclosing the sun
and grows more
and more meaningful
with the passing ages.
With a kiss and a cheer
don't fear the year, it's here
to bring us 'round.

The revolution has begun.

Vikings vs Indians

Guess who's been bored over break. I culled some sap, fuck that emotional shit. Any comments welcome, of course, especially regarding a title (which I sorely need but cannot think of, as is my wont).
---
I hurt myself yesterday, in the Weald. I spilt my own blood in that place for the first time since a night shortly before your mother was taken, long before you were born. As I fled the red-spattered branch that had cut me I prayed to the gods whom our people once worshiped before they took to worshiping the earth and the wood: to the hanging god, beloved of ravens, to the forgotten god, one-handed, to the blind god, kinslayer, who is closer to me now than to any other.

And the gods heard me as they have heard me all my life, I who am perhaps their last remaining servant. A mighty wind forced aside the grasping branches and cast the wood's veil of leaves into a swirling tempest, and the things in the trees fell silent. The breath of the hanging god drove away the mist that clings ever to that accursed place, and between the waving crowns of the trees I saw that night had fallen and the moon had risen. Its wan light illuminated the only true path remaining in all the Weald, and I followed it – not out to the shore, but in towards the firedale. I ran with the wind at my back, and at last I came to the great ash that is the only one left of its kind on all the island, and I saw that from its bare branches hung husks that had once been men. I climbed into its bole and there I took shelter with the bones of my father.

Click on "Post Page" below to see the rest!

A hand on my head roused me from the world of sleep to the world of dreams, and upon opening my mind's eyes I saw myself kneeling before our lord (for he is yours as well, though you may not know it), and I kissed his feet until he bid me stand. His likeness has been seared upon my soul, though I gazed upon him for only a moment. His spear is the color of the moon, and his neck is scarred beneath his beard. His left eye shines as red as blood or fire, but his right is empty and dark. On either of his shoulders is perched a raven - they whisper to him, for they know all that passes through the minds of men.

“Look about you, child, and see this land as it was,” he said, and I did. The great ash's boughs were bare no longer, rather they bore leaves and keys in abundance, and the things that hung from them were men once more, their tongues blue and protruding, their eyes pouring blood onto the green earth. I saw my father among them and wept from pride, and my tears too were red. Through the branches of the ash I could see that it was still night and that the moon was high, but this did not give me cause for fear, for there were no other trees within view, no places for devils or false men to hide: the ash stood in the center of a great clearing, as it had during the childhood of my father's father.

“Meager grows my might, for men give themselves to me no more,” said the hanging god, and his voice was the rustling of the men among the branches. “He whom the false men call the father of the deep wood has tainted the air, and she whom they call the mother of the deep earth has spoilt the water. I cannot fight them any longer, not without blood freely-given: my tongue is stiff and my eye grows dim - I am as blind as my son now, or soon shall I be.” I responded with meaningless words, I shall not write them here.

“Your folk withers and diminishes as does mine. As your wife was taken, so was mine. Your son has forgotten my name as surely as he has yours. Your kith and kin have cast you out for serving me, and for that their doom is to become as the false men are. But they were my children once, and for that I cannot forsake them. Write to your son, and tell him the truth of what you have done. Perhaps he will believe you, and perhaps they will believe him – perhaps enough to once more spill willingly their life's blood at my feet.” At this I glimpsed his teeth, though he did not smile, and they were were red and sharp. “Trust the letter to my wife's father – still is he strong and hale, for the false men do not sail the seas.”

And thus do I write now: that you might know the history of our folk, that you might spread the word of the true gods. And also that you might know why I have wrought what I have, I whose hands run red with blood. That as well.


The gods have made the following known to me:
Our folk once lived in a land far to the north, where we were more numerous than the trunks of the trees in the deep wood (and perhaps moreso than the things that flit between those trees on nights when the moon is full, though that is not for men to know). It was cold there, and that is perhaps why we set out southwards as we did, in craft whose making has since been lost to us. In those lands our faith was strong, and our gods were the masters of Sea and Sky and Weald. And such was it when we first came to these wooded shores: we hewed the trees for our ships and our fires, and hung the devils we found among them from the ashes, and we bent the earth to our service with plows and horses. The false men rose up against us from deep within the wood, but we crushed them and devoured their flesh and cracked their bones between our teeth, and none of us worshiped their gods.

But there is an evil in this earth that we did not perceive. As the soil that we had wrested from the trees' grasp soured and turned to dust we were forced ever inland, away from the smell of salt and the crash of waves, out of the reach of the ships that in those days still came southwards. It was then that the Weald began to come to life. Or perhaps it did not so much come to life as awaken from an ages-long slumber, roused by the ringing of axes along its fringes, by the spilt blood of false men in its streams, by the tramping of boots in its deep places where before all had gone unshod.

Paths at first seemed to shift about, it was said, and slowly to disappear entirely, guttering like so many candles in the gloom. The boughs of the trees grew thicker, until they blotted out the sun's gaze and cast all beneath them into unbroken shadow. A gleaming mist clung to the earth, and a man could see his own reflection in it if he looked deep enough, and men's voices seemed to carry strangely through it, at times ringing clear from the branches though the speaker was nowhere in view, but at others stifled so that a man could scarcely make out the speech of a companion. And there were things in that mist, things that hungered for blood as our gods do. I do not believe anyone living has seen them but from the corners of the eyes, black and silver shapes clambering through the branches at the edges of sight, so silent that one was never certain that the sounds that they made were not instead made by the trees. But all this you know, for that is how the Weald has been all your life, and all mine.

Slowly men began to vanish, and the wood began to grow, until it stood once more between us and the sea. And at some point the false men began to take our women and our children.


I should write of the false men, I think, for I do not know if you have any knowledge of them: the days in which they fought us openly are long past, and even in my childhood there were some who claimed that they had never lived but in our minds. I know this to be untrue, as does any man who walks the Weald keeping an eye open to signs of their passing – to the bones of their kills, to the holes left behind by their arrows, to the pits where they burn sacrifices of roe and boar to their father and mother. It is my belief that they have lived on this island since the beginning, for they fear the sea and will not approach it for any reason: they eat neither fish nor salt, as the lay of their fires would have it. Their villages are in the deepest parts of the wood (though I have never seen them I know this must be so, for I have trod every arrowshot of this island save those), close to the places where their gods are strongest. Perhaps those same gods shaped them from clay and vines in the bough-shadows of that fell place, as ours shaped us from iron and ice beneath the branches of the first ash.

I saw one, once. I was alone in the Weald, I do not know why (this having been before I slew the woman who said she was your mother), and from the corner of my eye I saw something that I had never before seen in the mist: something real, not devil nor my own likeness, cast back at me, twisted beyond recall. I spun to face it, knowing as I did that it was foolish to do so, and I saw before me something that looked very much like a man, yet different: it had the shape of a man, with the proper count of limbs and features of the face, but its flesh was the hue of blood fresh-spilt, and it had no beard, and feathers sprouted from its hair, and it was unclothed. Its eyes were dark and full of anger, and it was only then that I realized that in its hands was a bow with arrow nocked. The forgotten god saved me then, for as I made to leap to the side my foot caught on a root, and I fell forward into an apparition of the mist that vanished at my touch. The arrow, which came from my left, but grazed the skin of my outstretched arm, and I drew my father's ax and spun to face whence it had come. The false man snarled from rage and hate, but seeing the cold iron in my hand gave it pause, I think – pause enough for it to note the blood trickling down my arm. With one last glance, perhaps of triumph but perhaps also of terror, it fled into the roiling mist, its unshod feet making no sound on the holy path.

It was only then that I myself took heed of my wound, which though little more than a scratch had begun to bleed mightily and to steam in the cold that had suddenly gripped that place. I ran, and the mist surged about me, though it was no longer pale but black with the shadows of the things within it, leaping and chittering and crying like cats or newborn babes. I did not dare look to either side, for fear that I would see clearly those things that had been so long hidden from my sight, but from the corners of my eyes I could glimpse them whirling around me, flitting from tree to tree and from branch to branch. My blood did not fall straight to the ground but rather towards the mist, though there was no wind, and occasionally I could feel their caress as I ran through the shadows, and it was the icy touch of madness.

Until finally I stumbled into the light of the sun, glinting off the sea like molten iron in a forge, and I fell to the ground and kissed it and wept. I do not know why, but I believe that when my lips touched the earth was when the false man whose arrow had cut me took your mother.


I did not realize she had been taken, of course, until you had already been born. I feel certain that this will not puzzle you, but at the same time I fear that it may, and so I will lay out here what you doubtless already know: that when the false men take a child he vanishes without a trace, but when they take a woman grown they leave something behind in her stead, some artifice of earth and wood imbued with life by the breath of their fell goddess, to live on as wife and mother for so long as the ruse rest hidden from mind.


I returned to the village the next day (having slept along the shore so that my wound might heal) to learn that my wife had also gone missing the same day as I, but that she had been found hale and well along the fringes of the Weald, claiming only to have gone to pick berries. And for many moons I did not suspect anything to be amiss, not between the time of your quickening and the time of your birth, nor between the time of your birth and the time you saw her last. And perhaps I never would have, had the gods not intervened.

The starved god came to me in a dream the night before I slew her. I could see him, as I still can, though even in the dream my eyes were tightly shut. He is bald and toothless, his eyes are rheumy and without sight, and his limbs are as those of a child. His stomach is taut and distended. He crawled towards me, and though I knew fear I could neither move my limbs nor raise my voice. He sat upon my chest, and his weight, little more than that of a fawn though it was, bound me as surely as irons. He reached for my throat then, but halted and instead brought his gaping, drool-slick mouth to my ear, and his voice was terrible like the first wind of winter.

“Your wife is dead by your sin,” was all that he said. And I awoke, and knew it to be true.


The next day I looked upon her with new eyes, and followed her in secret as she went to the fringes of the forest and dug a pit where she burnt a rabbit and buried it that none might find it. I knew then that she had been taken long before, and I cursed her, as I have cursed so many others since, and seized her by the neck. Her movements were slow and clumsy, and she smelled not of flesh but of wood and leaves. I slew her with my ax, the first sacrifice to the hanging god by any among us since the day that ax's last wielder climbed the ash. But not the last, ere our folk worship the old gods once more, ere my work be at long last through.


I do not know why, but I feel I must tell you that her blood was as red as my own. That is all that is left for me to write. I shall cast this bark to the drowned god, and trust that by his mercy it find its way to you.

Happy holidays, folks!

Hope you're enjoying your break :)

False Asian Oracles

I never used to understand the saying, “don’t let the bed-bugs bite.” That was before I had any of the damned things. It started with my addiction to false Asian oracles. My friend David told me one night at a Chinese restaurant that fortune cookies are always better in bed. The only thing I got out of the suggestion is crumbs all over my sheets. Then the bugs came. I’m pretty sure they were drawn to the fortune-cookie crumbs, or maybe they were Confucius’s form of revenge for my ignoring his advice too many times. Now I have trouble sleeping at night for worry that the damned bugs might crawl some place they don’t belong. Next time I see David I assure you I’ll be giving him a fortune cookie in a place it doesn’t belong. I still haven’t kicked my addiction, but now I take them only in restaurants or at the kitchen table. My latest fortune: “Your heart will always make itself known through your words.” The last of my lucky numbers is 42, so I’m trying to figure out how this fortune is connected to the ultimate answer of life.

Sunny Side Up

edited 11/29

In a separate reality, you didn't leave me for her

and we wake up in the same bed

and i'll make eggs the way you like them

(sunny side up)

we'll laugh

over petty fights

(for we'll always make up)

over tired arguments

(when you tell me I'm always right)

over former lovers.

In the mornings, when i wake up

with the lingering sense of stillness

the apparent void of you

I think of this parallel universe

where we are so, so happy

like we always were.

And this is how

I stopped crying

over the constant reminder of your perfume,

and her sunny little smile.

untitled

in a separate reality, you didn't leave me for her

and we wake up in the same bed

and i'll make eggs the way you like them

(sunny side up)

we'll laugh

over unsung fights

over tired arguments

over former lovers.

In the mornings, when i wake up

with the lingering sense of stillness

the apparent void of you

i think of this parallel universe

and we are so, so happy

like we always were.

And this is how
I don't cry over us anymore.

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

1) i need a title.

2) I don't like the last two lines but that is the basic idea of this whole poem.

3) should i add more details?

4) what do u guys think?

Thanks!

To my beloved son:

This story's very, very much unfinished. I'll update it as I make progress. Any comments welcome! I'm especially interested in if you think the first two paragraphs are necessary.
---
Too long has it been since I saw you last, my beloved son. Perhaps you no longer remember my name, though you must remember my face, and the feeling of my arms around you near the fire, and the sound of my voice. I write you now by the grace of the old gods, who watch over us still (though you know them not), and I write you for this cause: I would not die with the lies of the elders of our folk still in your ears. I am no traitor, no murderer. It is they who have betrayed our people, they who have driven us into the depths of black madness. If you trust nothing more of this letter, trust this at least: it was not I who killed your mother, though it was I who slit her throat.

But before I tell you of our folk, and of our gods, and of your mother's death, I must tell you of how it has come to pass that you are reading my words now for the first time in all these long years, how it has come to pass that I now have the courage that I had lacked for so long.

Click on "Post Page" below to see the rest!
I hurt myself yesterday, in the Weald. I drew blood in that place for the first time since a night long before your mother was taken, long before you were born. As I fled the now-red leaf that had cut me I prayed to the gods whom our people once worshiped, before they were fooled by the false men: to the hanging god, beloved of ravens, to the blind god, kinslayer, to the forgotten god, one-handed, who is closer to me now than to any other.

And the gods heard me as they have heard me all my life, I who am perhaps their last remaining servant. A mighty wind forced aside the grasping branches and cast the wood's veil of leaves into a swirling tempest (but none touched my flesh). The breath of the hanging god drove away the mist that clings ever to that accursed place, and between the waving crowns of the trees I saw that night had fallen and the moon had risen. A thunderbolt lanced the heavens and illuminated the only path remaining in all the Weald, and I followed it – it lead not out to the shore, but in towards the firedale. I ran with the wind at my back, and at last I came to the great oak that is the only one left of its kind on all the island, and I saw that from its bare branches hung things that had once been men. I climbed into its bole and there I took shelter with the bones of my father.

A hand on my head roused me from the world of sleep to the world of dreams. I bowed before our lord (for he is yours as well, no matter what the elders have told you), and kissed his feet until he bid me stand. His spear is the color of the moon, and his neck is scarred beneath his beard. His left eye blazes red, but his right is dark. On either of his shoulders is perched a raven - they whisper to him, for they know all that passes through the minds of men.

“Look about you, child,” he said, and I did. The great oak's boughs were bare no longer, rather they bore leaves and acorns in abundance, and the things that hung from them were men once more, their tongues blue and protruding, their eyes weeping blood onto the green earth. I saw my father among them, and I wept with pride. Through the branches of the oak I could see that it was still night and that the moon was high, but this did not give me cause for fear, for there were no other trees within view: the oak stood in the center of a great clearing, as it had during the childhood of my father's father.

“Meager grows my might, for men give themselves to me no more,” said the hanging god, and his voice was the rustling of the branches. “Nevermore shall I breathe air untainted by the father of the deep wood. Nevermore shall I drink water unspoilt by the mother of the deep earth. My tongue is stiff, I sing the songs of the skies no more. My eye grows dim - I am as blind as my son now, or soon shall I be.” I responded, but my words were meaningless, so I shall not write them here.

“Your folk withers and diminishes as does mine. As your wife was taken, so was mine. As I have forgotten my son's name, so has your son yours, and so have your people mine. They have cast you out for serving me, and for that their doom is to become as the false men are. But they were my children once, and for that I cannot forsake them. Write to your son, and tell him the truth. Perhaps he will believe you, and perhaps they will believe him. Trust the letter to my brother, who is still strong and hale - the false men do not navigate the seas.”

Sidewalk Hooker

*edit Nov 13*


Every night, she stands on the corner of fourth and nothing
Waiting for a car to stop.
When one does, she hikes her bag higher up one shoulder
Drops the sleeve off the other
And walks,
With false nonchalance of the soul.
She leans down, low enough to tempt
High enough to withhold.
Carnation-red stained lips mouth the same words,
Every night
Coffee-stained teeth smile the same smile.
She never really smiles.
Prices and services are bandied about,
But she gets her way in the end
Because desperation is a good incentive.
Money comes in every night because
Her service isn’t really that expensive -
Her dignity may be cheap
But her rent simply isn’t.

The next night she’s there again
In a red leather skirt
And torn stockings
Her taffy-pulled legs seem to stretch out forever,
Caramel candy polluted with bourbon.
Sharp collarbones glare in the neon-lights.
Her head is down and her hair, coloured and re-coloured so much that she doesn’t know whether it was blond to begin with, black to end with, corrupted to brown all along the way,
her hair cascades down one side of her face.

Later that night when she plays her soundtrack of shrieks and moans
Depending on the part she has to play
It’ll be too dark for the man to see what she tries to hide
When he pulls aside the curtain of hair he won’t see the swollen scars
All he’ll see is gleaming breasts and dark nipples and more
Female flesh that he can control because he paid for it.
He won’t see her face.
When he goes home, he’ll see his wife’s face
And he’ll smile when he sees her smile at the carnations he brought her because carnations are her favourite flowers.
And he’ll forget the sidewalk hooker with the beautiful body and the scarred face.

Group writing activity from November the eighth

Oh, the joys of the everyone writes one sentence and then passes it along group activity.

My grandfather was a smelly, foul-humored Irishman. When he died I inherited none of his wealth, but only a peculiar locked box. It was about five inches long, carved from what looked like a fossilized potato, and I could only imagine what was inside. I decided it was a box best opened a good distance between meals, so as not to ruin one completely. After a lunch of ham-and-garganzola sandwiches, I went to my room and set the box in my lap, my fingers poised on the tarnished latch. I opened the box, and the familiar Irish smell of o'erwhelming filth rose to my nostrils - I staggered under its influence, and also out of surprise. Inside, I found a little man covered entirely in red, downy hair. Inside the box was the rarest of all Lucky Charms: the beige trapezoid. Immediately, I was overcome with ecstasy and I headed down to the pub, images of celebratory bottles dancing in my head. I was half the way to the pub when I felt movement in my pocket. The beige trapezoid flew out of my pocket and into a nearby horse, transforming it into the bloody unicorn of my dreams, fell and terrible against the autumn sky.

Fall's Pretenses

11/07 version:

The air is getting chilly now.
It was such a sudden shift
to winter this year.
But the sun insists on shining
everyday
as if Nature refuses to admit
that it's cold,
that soon the ground will be covered in white,
trapping us indoors
with electric heat and lights.

I'm looking forward
to spring, though.
It comes with rain, yes,
but the showers foreshadow
the warmth of summer.

I decided I didn't like most of the changes I made.
Older versions on post page

11/04 version:

The air is getting chilly now.
It was such a sudden shift
to winter this year.
But the sun insists on shining
everyday
as if Nature refuses to admit
that it's cold,
that soon the ground will be covered in white,
trapping us indoors
with electric heat and lights.
Venturing outside is a chore.
Layer upon layer of wool and cotton
stiffen my limbs and I cannot bend over to tie my shoe.

I'm looking forward
to spring, though.
It comes with rain, yes,
but the showers foreshadow
the freeness of summer,
when the frisbee zips overhead
and I leap to fetch it,
when the world's day is longer than mine
and the sun brightens the room,
warming the air inside and out.


11/2 version:

The air is getting chilly now.
It was such a sudden shift to winter this year.
But the sun insists on shining everyday
as if Nature refuses to admit that it's cold
and that soon the ground will be covered in white
and we'll be stuck indoors
with electric heat and lights.
I'm looking forward to spring, though.
It comes with rain, yes,
but the showers foreshadow
the warmth of summer.


Original version:

The air is getting chilly, now.
It was such a sudden shift to winter this year.
But the sun insists on shining everyday
Like Nature refuses to admit that it's cold
That soon the ground will be covered in white
And we'll be stuck indoors
With electric heat and lights.
I'm looking forward to spring, though.
It comes with rain, yes,
But the showers foreshadow
The warmth of summer.


Ahhh! Last minute blog post before the deadline! :-[ This is what happens when good poems fall out of your head the day before submissions are due... Let me know what I need to do to make it acceptable.