There’s a dirty kind of feeling,
A deeply driven repulsiveness
That sits somewhere between the throat
And the far back of the brain.
A moment that seems eternal,
Like a punishment for some sin,
Looking inward to an abyss
Of secretly sensitive yearning.
The reflection of something I cannot see
Knaws and separates myself from their company,
Dirty, deep and seemingly forever
Like the immortal voice of an angel that’s ugly.
Allow me to indulge my radient ideation,
A spectacle of bittersweet sunbeams breaking through gray skies,
Eeking their way into my ugliest days
Like transcended smiles projected from the purest celestial lights.
They reach me bedecked in wilting blue flowers,
Exposed to the heavens in a gown of silk white,
Seduced into a dream that lasts for an eternity
Between the fragility of a body and the soft sting of twilight.
It’s wearying to be deranged for the sake of beautiful things,
And as they dull, to come to know, that madness still remains.
A song I knew grew up to be a different kind of tune,
It plays the notes that made me up and broke away from me.
Intoning prose for my own health prolongs the point of breaking,
And sharing them from mind to mind is life that’s worth the saving,
To make a scene of who I’ve been to stimulate your feelings
Is all I need to brighten up this dream I can’t stop dreaming.
Burn me with the autumn leaves, with cardamom and honey,
Leave a house to my mother on the shores of a lake that’s crystal clear and foggy.
Find me there in ashes, free from poverty and wealth,
Dead to all the world, but not dead to herself.
Detatched features,
Faces, fingers, scalps, and skin
By silver knives and blunted hammers
Stripped from many and made whole again.
The Human Ideal and depraved’s obsession,
Perfection in a women’s form,
Assembled with passion, ardor, and precision
From stolen bodily possessions and one pair of volunteered eyes.
Her mother blinded, her father fanatic,
The night dreary when she came alive,
The mind of a girl with the body of an angel,
A gift to the world, the artist’s nightmare and scientist’s prize.
By design, incomparable to any other being,
At sight, overwhelming one’s sensitivities to shape and light,
And having glimsed her, any obscurrance of her face induced pain
In the heart so profound whole crowds were made to cry.
Musicians and poets wrote nothing more but about her,
Some despaired knowing what they could never have or be,
Multitudes gathered daily to witness and adore her,
All the while laying cash and other gifts at her maker’s feet.
The living embodyment of faultless beauty
Drew wealth and satiation into her father’s hands,
Admired by all the world for merely existing,
Her mother, whose eyes she had, became her only friend.
The crowds, left outside constantly yearning,
Grew more restless, depressed, and frenzied every day,
Bewitched every moment she allowed them her presence,
Dead to all pleasure while she was away.
In time, sight alone wasn’t enough to ease their torment,
And an unprecedented emptiness stole their collective minds,
Demands to be loved by the being that was perfect
Grew from callous whispers to a full-blown battle cry,
But the angel, who was a girl, hardly loved a soul,
The consuming gaze of strangers seperated her from all
But the mother, being blind, who saw her without desiring
And the father who idealized her as art’s true and final form.
The final levy broke, and the people flooded their home,
Cornering her in the attic where she’d only recently been born,
The crowd shouted unanimously for the love that they deserved,
With guns, torches, and hungry eyes prepared to take by force.
There is no way to love anyone by choice, the angel knew,
But when so many want your life there’s little you can do,
Ascending down the letter, every voice was silenced,
Scalpel in her hand, she did what was required.
She slid the steel past her cornea and cut the optic nerve,
One after the other and offered them to her observers,
“My mother’s eyes are the only gift I ever truly loved,
Take them and know I’ve given you all I have.”
Torches were dropped, legs fell away as if broken,
A stifled cry echoed loudly and gave way to screams unrestrained,
Many shots were fired into the temples of their holders,
And many more gave in, weeping into the devouring flames.
The house erupted, the blinded angel bleeding, motionless,
Suffocating, sweltering, and without thought of escape.
A pair of arms found her, above them all the most devoted,
The eyeless mother, holding tight as the world fell away.
There was a house in the woods
Bordered by a ring of brambles and thickets
Encircling lush ambrosial gardens
Fed from a narrow cascading stream.
It was concealed by enchantment
From the designs of outside eyes,
Untouched and immoveable,
Unfazed by the works of time.
There, knowledge distilled to one question,
That of pleasure between souls,
The unfurling of tangled psyches
Like fine beaded twine softly pulled.
It was home to several dozen
Who stole away from haunted homes,
Caught lost inside the darkest forest
And running from the world.
In place of statuses and structures,
There are faces always warm to you
And hearts always open
Never asking for or taking dues.
Nothing you thought you were
Or what others did to hurt you
Need go unspoken or lamented,
There’s time to attend your wounds,
And ambitions have all died
As did the barriers between minds.
The house that’s in the woods
Holds space for passions to spring alive.
Magic black and silver Cadillacs
Carry us effortlessly out of the city
In singing groups of five and six
Towards the field of endless sunset.
Barefooted, we saunter the soft grass,
As cool as the humid air that’s ambling
Through the bushes of lavender, sage, and chamomile
Surrounding the bonfires and fountains in odd corners.
The fires are hazy but bright,
And the waters seem to play a melody.
Keeping our eyes open causes the faintest strain
That intoxicates us evenly through every moment.
The crowds continue gathering
And soon the fairies are hovering between us,
Fluttering and dancing in silent revelry
To the beat of wings, water, and flame.
Wherever you move it stays the same
But the faces and voices endlessly change.
Every action you make costs nothing to take
And each weightless breath draws you in further.
There’s a time but no age,
No history and no needs,
It opens up only a sconed
And invites us to escape eternity.
To me, sad fantasy
Feels better than almost anything.
I’m aware, sensitive,
Permeated by waves of mood.
Everything else
Is a distraction of hope.
Even the desires
That I pine for could do no more
Than teardrop chords
Dancing prettily down your face.
Most of us
Want affection in safe hands.
So do I,
But, they just never feel safe enough.
I’m most alright
When I’m thoughtful and alone,
And never more alive
Than listening to you sing sad songs.
Stillness and restraint,
A body bound in ruffled sheets.
Living, but sedate,
Concerned only with its dreams.
Needful little wishes,
Faintly nibbling at perfection
For unresolved conflicts
Shrouding comfort in their impression.
Disassociate the brain,
In separation from the ache
Of toil’s jagged teeth
Dragging steadily while awake.
Restore and repair
The imbalances in the night.
Feeling and fantasy
Flowing inward, mind alight.
Purest completion,
Sheltered from the pangs of life.
Inverted creation,
Eyeless sockets stealing sight.
DrearyAnn dressed her thoughts
In renaissance corsets and faux leather boots.
So much the better to envelop displeasure
And dissatisfaction from critical abuse.
Daydreamed hours drifted on vainly,
Vaguely insane, with morbid visions juxtaposed
More vivid and vibrant than others imagined,
So blatantly tragic in sadness predisposed.
Dreaming of dreaming of such things
As the darkest of a single dream ever saw.
Laced with lavish desires entwined
With desperate needs towering overall.
Draped in dreary phantasms galore,
Alone and on her back reposed,
Around her and over passer-bys step,
Unknowing or caring what fantasies formed below.
“Whoever do you want to be?”
The astringent mirror asks of me.
“Does the image your perceive
Contest the one that you believe?”
Of course, I cannot help agree
That what it sees is not all it seems.
Staring into my gleaming eyes
To glean from them what fears I hide,
And yet I know what I would find
If I looked straight through my mind.
I’m not what I believe or see ,
The mirror reveals and deceives
As what constructs identity
Is not imposed by vanity;
But, then again, it still is me,
As much as I am physically.
Pale and pallid, tired eyes,
And other feelings I despise.
“Why do you not answer me?
Who is it you want to be?”
I burrow through my troubled mind,
But nothing there solidifies.
I know I don’t want stubborn lies
But what I want, I can’t describe.
“I guess I just want to be me,
But I don’t know who I should be.”
The mirror replied,
“You’re lying.”
And I replied,
“Shut up.”
A world to be happy in,
To be lost in,
Just to rest again
Without this stress,
This uncertainty,
This anxiety,
Taken hold of me
Having hurt.
Show me mountains,
Show me fountains,
The sublimest
Of their kind.
Let me stay there,
Waste away there,
I shouldn’t dare
But I would
To sleep forever
In beauty’s tether,
A watcher weathered
Down to rocks.
Poems and Short Stories 