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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Praying with Clocks

This piece was published at Eunoia Review on May 22, 2011.

Praying with Clocks

The gauze, constricting, shrouds his hands. He would that they would meet, moving beyond the lifeless clasp which whitens the knuckles. No amount of false tears can melt his yearnings to his words, which fall in a litany of useless entreaties. He repeats phrases, runs down lists, enumerates names to eat time away, but the clock ticks baroquely on the inert invocations, as his eyebrow twitches to its every movement. Time progresses, with God but slowly. He sweats with anxiety and steels himself for death whilst his life is robbed. His precious moments simper on, but he is girt only for abasement.

Every day he comes calling. Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you will find. But nothing poured its deluge and smothered the coals of his expectation. Hear my cry, he would call. Are you there? he would ask. He looked on silence as the face of things, and his brow was not crowned with humility and patience. Once he would lose himself in supplication, but now his staticity made devotions of the clock’s ticking. Because he could not move his heart beyond the seemly, its exertions became fixations. His prayers became fuel to enervate the minutes and hours, his anticipation and his hope, wrapped up in numerical values, ceased to function on the human. He was paralytic in his computing, subdividing chunks of time to make faster its passage; varying his perception of the movement and interpretation of segments to augment the impotence of the already unengaging hours.

Something changes, though; the second hand clicks and vibrates as it tries to move forward. He watches as it ticks off second by second without progression. He frowns at the dirty trick but cannot leave; his hour is not at end. With the counting frustrated, he scrabbles for words and praise to lay out in offering. With every hollow crust of a word, the clock fails to record a second. With every extra moment, his indifference turns to ire. The more he babbles in his mind, the faster time does not pass. He contemplates abandoning the whole failed myth of it all, but he knows if he does that now, he will not be able to go back on it later. What can he do? There is no negotiating with a malignant deity demanding devotion.

It is apparent, he reflects, that only an imposition on his will could bind him in such a way. The convergence of events, the intersection of moods and precedents, these show the artfulness that goes beyond natural life. There is an intervention at work on him. He can but tremble, for he knows not the why or the wherefore. Cut off from man, cut out from time, cut away from the world, he imagines this isolated eternity imposed on every second that he has ever lived. Every humiliation, every shameful act, every guilty moment, every wasted evening, every barren, sorrowful ounce of pain he has inflicted or suffered, each one stretching out, echoing through the canyons of reality, unchanging, deepening the scars in his trapped soul, and he, unable to escape, let go or be free, is shaded with regret, becoming its doppelganger and kin. He begs freedom from recurrence.

Earnestly, he cries. Don’t let my days blow through open windows, he says. Don’t let my crooked ways haunt me. Don’t let my unfruitful hours prey at my mind. Don’t let my goodness be squandered and stifled by evil. Don’t let me be a limb lopped off. Don’t burn my fat and consume me for glory. But above all, don’t let my slow heart impede you. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Forgive me. Forgive me.

The second hand ticks once more and moves forward.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Road Kill

This story was published at Pagan Friends on April 30th, 2011.

Road Kill

The lights were crashing by with incredible noise, breaking the water in sheets that spread out like wings. Humphrey emerged from the bushes timidly. He blinked slowly, but did not look both ways. A vicious urge drove him forward. He had to move. East, over the plain, there was somewhere he needed to be. Directed by his instincts, his individuality was obscured. He was now primal matter, invested as a force, soulless and driven.

The deadline drew near, for his destination was time as well as place. He had to go forward despite the danger from the roaring lights. He placed his foot on the unyielding surface. His knees buckled as the ground refused to give way beneath him. Each step felt as if he was kicking up rocks.

A set of lights roared up and over him. The massive bulk behind the glowing eyes became visible like a can rising to the surface of a pool. He tried to pull his head in to protect himself, but he was struck anyway. Violently he was smacked around and thrown aside. His blood oozed everywhere, his limbs splayed and broken. Agony electrified his frame, pulsing in convulsions.

Car after car drove by his shattered body. The lost life at the side of the road meant nothing to any of them, but it meant a great deal to him. As his vitality waned, so did the need that had screamed through his flesh. He was restored to himself; the heavy hand of his ancestry left him to face his death alone.

A Mouse's House and I Hate Italy

These two pieces were published at Danse Macabre du Jour on April 19, 2011.

A Mouse's House


Outside, the rollicking pale waste,
Shadings of black and white clouds,
Softly waves over the sky.

The balloon floats, waiting for its fall.
Chiaroscuro textures form gently
Across the smooth curve.

A couch lies, lost, sitting, waiting.
It’s left for taking at no cost,
Perched over the curb until…

Leaping, the cat moves slowly,
As if suspended in time,
Through the vacant glass.

A drip, dripping,
Echoes through the house
Clearly, with resonance.

A breathless impression of sound
Comes heaped in a jacket pile
With stillness from the ears poking out.

That gentle sobbing sigh,
Nearly lost in ambient noise,
Hides, one with rooms and buoys.

All is betrayed from order:
Over, under, wrinkled, torn,
Scattered, barely worn.

Fool! Brushed the drooping curl,
Peaceful in parallel slits,
Now, rhythmic venting winds.

I Hate Italy


I hate Italy; Italy hates me. It’s as if I’m a returning Etruscan King; the land itself rises against me. Heat and humidity are sent to dull my wits as I come to Milan. In Venice, whilst I plot its demise, the ancient winding roads conspire to confound and irritate my companions and I. We are but three wise men following a star to our destination; why are we dealt with so harshly? Is this not the home of the faith? Is every new pilgrimage such a threat? I feel fortunate that I did not leave without some spoil, or else all would be in vain. I gladly walk from this place in my new boots of Spanish (an aesthetic adjustment to the truth, they’re actually Italian) leather.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Who Are the Majority of Scientists?

This piece was originally published at 52/250 on March 14.

Who Are the Majority of Scientists?

The majority of scientists convened a convention to converse. The majority of the majority of scientists attended. The issue discussed was the nature of the authority of the majority of scientists. It seemed imperative to address the increasing number of appeals made in their name.

The room fell silent, as the head scientist emerged in his ceremonial vestments. The spotlight reflected off his starch white lab coat, creating a retinal after-image. He laid out Galileo’s telescope and Marie Curie’s bunsen burner on the podium before him. The room stood in awe and reverence of the Concrete Realities. Then the oath was recited, each member recommitting themselves to seek to discover all that is knowable, to rely only on empirical truth, and to disavow all mystical representations. “There is the fact. On the fact we rely,” they chanted.

The HS spoke over the noise. He introduced the evening’s issue and the prominent related questions: On what level can an appeal to the majority of scientists be considered an evidence of veracity? When should the majority of scientists honour such appeals? How can the majority of scientists reach a consensus on what the majority of scientists believe?

Each question was wrangled back and forth. Learned debate went on for hours, with evidence, charts, diagrams, equations and photographs. After all sides made their case, their was a vote. The majority won.

The outcomes of the convention were published in newspapers worldwide. The average reader asked himself , “Who are the majority of scientists?”

Monday, April 18, 2011

The Man Without a Muse

This piece was originally published at 52/250 on February 21, my daughter's birthday.

The Man Without a Muse

Exiled in Paris, Meriwether Gorse, a romantic vagabond, whose self-importance grossly outweighed his accomplishment, began the theoretical obliteration of the muses. He intended to demonstrate that the forms of creation that they embodied were illusory. There was no Calliope from whose breast he could suckle inspiration; the mysteries hidden in literature and between a woman’s legs did not coincide. The essential difference of function between Meriwether’s movements of creation and that which he rebuked was a question of intaking versus outpouring; that which was freely given over against that which was coaxed out.

As he wrote, the nine grew anxious. They could not afford Meriwether’s attack on the slender threads of devotion they yet had. In a brief, but heated, conclave it was determined that Erato would be sent to distract this man from his work.

When she appeared to him in all her glory, he addressed her with contempt. “I thought one of you might try to interfere.”

“Meriwether Gorse do not speak to me so disdainfully. I am not a mortal to be disregarded, not when I bring pleasures you cannot imagine.”

“Don’t speak to me of your pleasures. I cannot take them; I have found the higher. With one four letter word I can destroy you. The similarity it has to what you offer is merely coincidence. There never have been muses.”

Erato left defeated. Melpomene thought to do better, but it was too late. A thought was born, the knife on which inspirations balance.

The Prophet

This piece was published at Joyful! on February 22nd.

The Prophet

He was known only as the prophet from the moment he entered our land until he left it. He arrived wearing long, filthy rags, barefoot, and holding a wooden staff. The dust from countless miles caked his garb, and his legs were black with dirt. His skin was as brown as a nut shell, his dark hair fell down his back in a tangled mess. He had the eye of wisdom and the aura of the divine. It is not known who first called him the prophet, but the title became him. Yet, he spoke not of things that are to come or of things hidden, but he only claimed that that which is not is. His claims were backed with power.

The day he first arrived word came to us in the heart of the village that a man had been seen just over the ridge heading this way. His description aroused our superstitions, our fears, and our excitement. The morning meal had just finished and the whole village was full of hustle and bustle as people prepared to go out to the fields. It seemed at first as if the news barely made a ripple, but the village did not empty out as usual. Everyone was taking longer than needed on the most mundane tasks, and no matter the task, a moment or two was found every few seconds to look out towards the ridge. As time passed, the pretense of work disappeared, all the menial chores were finished, and the men and women openly waited, looking out towards the ridge. We stood there in the arid air of late summer, the harsh glances of sun-beaten brows guardedly anticipating the advent of this strange wayfarer. The dust on the ridge whipped up in the wind, and the blue sky stood empty behind it.

After some moments a shift was sensed through the crowd; the dust settled on the ridge top, and a black shape started to define itself against the blue sky. The whole village began to seep forward to meet the newcomer, but as the gap closed between us, we saw that this man was not robed in the strange garments of an itinerant mystic but in the woven shawl of our own people. We recognized the stride of the miller‘s son, Keren, a sober youth. Once nearer, he called out to us, “The stranger met up with the shepherds, they’ve taken him to Abiezer’s hut.” This caused a fuss . The village stirred up into a commotion, questions and exclamations being pronounced left and right. Finally, one of the elders, Shem Tov, stepped forward. Raising his arms in a dignified manner, he shouted over the crowd, “Be silent!”

He turned to Keren, “Did you see the man?”

“Not close-up,” answered Keren.

“What did he want?” someone shouted.

“Why has he gone to the home that fool? He’ll find only that hell has sent its servants here, too,” someone else put in.

“Please, please,” Shem Tov called out, “if Keren did not have a chance to see the man close up, he surely would not have been able to speak with him. Now, there is much work to be done today. We have wasted enough time on this matter already. We will surely see this man in our village come nightfall.”

With that statement we returned to our respective tasks, yet the day did not pass into night without incident, as Shem Tov thought. A couple hours into our work, a rumour came to our ears that something miraculous had happened at Abiezer’s hut. The madman, they said, who spoke only nonsense and spat on holy truth was healed. He acted now as any man of subdued and sensible spirit. Moreover, he was going to the temple to make veneration for this gracious healing. Immediately all work stopped. No man or woman was able to resist the calling that beckoned them to witness these unforeseeable happenings.

We came back to the village and saw Abiezer walking down from the ridge, some shepherds in his wake. He walked with the confidence and assurance. To his right stalked the unreadable migrant. His face was set like stone, and his eyes glinted with detachment and disinterest. It was impossible to say who filled us with more awe, Abiezer, whose eyes glinted with a light of humane intelligence never before seen, or the prophet, whose very demeanour was rank with otherworldliness. As Abiezer came forward into the village the way before him was made clear; the villagers gave him, and that prophet, a wide berth. Abiezer arrived in front of the temple and halted. The elders were assembled before him.

“I present myself now,” he began, “as the custom demands, to show that I have become clean. I humbly ask, therefore, that my name be reentered into the temple register.”

Shem Tov stepped forward as speaker for the elders. “There will be some questions as to the nature of your miraculous healing before we can grant your request. Would the man who caused this healing come before me?”

The prophet came and stood right in front of Shem Tov, towering over him. He held out his staff at arms length and rested it in the dirt, saying, “I am he.”

“Very well,” Shem Tov peered suspiciously into the prophet’s eyes, “By what magic have you done this? On what authority do you pervert and subvert the laws of nature?”

“My power is grounded in and comes from the authority of God. By His faith was this man healed, and by His grace I was chosen, though unworthy, to be the vehicle for this declaration of His glory. God has done this among you, and you must ask yourselves why? Know that the Kingdom of God is near. Let each look into his own heart and see if he has cause to tremble. Only your sins will keep you from the holy presence.”

The crowd began to shuffle and shift with discomfort, but Shem Tov was unabashed. “What sins do you mean?” There was overt hostility in his voice. “We are a faithful, law-abiding community, not some brood of vipers that you may spit at with venomous speeches.”

Abiezer looked at Shem Tov pleadingly. “Please, Shem Tov, do not speak in such a manner. This man is my benefactor. He deserves honour.”

Shem Tov looked with disgust at Abiezer. “My honour is reserved for the lord of Heaven. Here, we follow the word of God, not that of filthy pilgrims.”

“You may follow the word,” the prophet shook his head, “but you know nothing of it’s spirit.” The crowd exploded with mixtures of shock and outrage, and Shem Tov looked around in horror. “How dare you? I see now, you are a sorcerer, a worker of evil magicks. Be gone both of you.”

“But my petition?” cried Abiezer.

“You have no petition. We want nothing to do with you;” Shem Tov waved them away rudely, “you are both malefactors.”

“Be wary, man,” said the prophet, “God does not look kindly on those who lead his children astray.”

“This is not God for whom you speak; it is an agent of chaos. You twist truth to your own ends.”

“It is God for whom I speak!” the prophet screamed.

“Then show us,” Ravit, a farmer’s wife, yelled from the crowd, “my daughter is ill, cure her, prophet. Show us that God has anointed you.” We began to shout our assent for her proposal.

“You fools,” the prophet cast down his head, “God does not work at your whims, but for your needs.”

Shem Tov began to chuckle. “You have been trapped by this simple woman’s question. Why would God not want to heal her daughter? Why him,” he gestured toward Abiezer, “and not her? This is not justice, it is not love, and it is not fair. Now we see that you truly are from the devil himself. You have come to divide us and to spread doubt with your sorcery.”

The prophet looked around at all of us. There was a sadness in his eye, a resignation. “I see that this gift is wasted on you. You see power and think only of what you have to gain, not of what you have to learn. You see God and think not of how you can serve, but of how He can. Yes, this is a wicked and sinful generation.” He walked to the edge of the crowd, shook the dust off his feet, and said, “I leave you now. May God have mercy on your souls.”

Abiezer ran to the edge of the crowd, then he turned around. He looked at all of us hesitantly, “I was born here. My fathers have lived here for thirteen generations. I was your brother. And now you send me away because I have been blessed. You ridicule me that my life has improved. I pity you. I have found a higher calling, but where does that leave you? Farewell.” With that Abiezer ran up the ridge after the prophet. They were never seen or heard from again.

Many said that we were well to be rid of them, that they had done nothing but disrupt the peace and harmony of our lives. Indeed, all are thankful publicly for the failure of the prophet’s attempts to tip our lives into an abyss of hysteria where God was unfair, unreliable, and unjust; and where His power was thrown about like some indiscriminate force of nature. “God has his realm and we have ours, let’s keep the two separate.” the argument goes, “What good is a God who does not follow the laws he laid down.” Some of us, however, are in doubt. When we do have misgivings, we look out to the ridge, with the sun hanging over it, and we wonder. In the back of our minds we worry that God really did come knocking and that we refused him.

The Message Falls Flat

This piece was published at 52/250 on February 15.

The Message Falls Flat

“It was an amusing sign, but what did he want?” Gerald asked. Everard looked back at the man clothed in dirt with distaste. The grime-arousing man began to chortle, his teeth waggling like alabaster seen through a river’s flow of urine. “They don’t know what he wants. Har-ha-hech!” He waddled up to Everard and Gerald as they turned to face him. Everard’s eyes, uncertain, flitted towards Gerald whose face was like a dark continent unwilling to yield its secrets. The man of sallow cheeks, screaming as if his fingernails were being removed whole, flung slather, “I want a God to redeem me, huh?” Gerald’s face began to emerge like the Sun from behind a cloud, “Then you would hear of our Lord Jesus.” Now, the man squealed, “Shut up!” Timid Everard backed a step away, too scared to run or to stay. “I don’t want to hear of that pissant. Just give me something to lave my aching, give me something to soothe my parched throat. Don’t pinch your pennies too tightly. I’m a beggar, but I’m a man, too. Allow me the decency to escape, even temporarily, from all this.” He waved a dismissive hand, speaking with an addict’s blunt honesty. Everard spoke up hastily, “We can’t help you with that, sir. Gerald, let’s go.” He grabbed Gerald, pulling him away. Gerald’s face collapsed inward like the rippling of a pool in reverse and he murmured to himself as they left, “I’m a beggar, but I’m a man, too.”

Friday, March 18, 2011

Too Tired to Live, Too Hard to be Dead and Lone Dog

These poems were published in the February 2011 issue of Yes, Poetry.

Too Tired to Live, Too Hard to be Dead


I have seen the men in their big stone buildings, black suits, and ties
The creases in my pants mark me stuck in line
Now I’m smoking a pack a day and thinking about running away
Don’t want to think about hair so long, beard well trimmed, or my body thinned
I haven’t eaten a proper meal to feed the meat beneath my skin

Firemen are autocrats too paranoid of their concubine
I hold so much fire it’s time I started spewing smoke,
Maybe next I’ll be snorting coke
I’m just a pidgeon pecking the ground grabbing anything that can be found
I want to hear a warmer sound

It was a plaid shirt and a paisley tie that made me feel alright that time

My mind is taken up with dollar signs and cents and dimes,
Perhaps I’m too in touch with the times
I have to last three months, three years, but I can’t bear the fare
When I spend a year of time waiting just to die
My little sister will come and see me completely unrecognised

Everything is gnarly here: the trees, the benches, and the beer
We’re all just paying out of habit,
And exhorting for a change
It all seems the same,
Same, same, same old thing
All these thoughts already thought, time to blow them away;
In the end I’m only left with the words that I can say

Our loves always end up breaking down between the light and lines of our palms
It’s so fucking cool to be two:
You’re compact and have nothing to do,
Everyone’s looking out for you,
You bounce more than run, it’s sweet
I’m sweating with all of this envy

Don’t want to be a king or priest?
You better lose your strut
But I need a sword and hat because Versailles is where it’s at
All roads lead to Rome, but it’s fearsome and hostile;
It ain’t home
I wish I had been turned away, then it wouldn’t be because of my say
I don’t care enough to share, don’t care enough to horde
Would I be as lost were I a lord?


I tried to take it all at once and was humbled when I met a dunce
I had this goal in my mind, but by the time I was ready to go
I didn’t need it anymore
They never tell the doubt and thought of the intermediary from this to that
I miss having ideas and being able to sit at any time and bring them to fruition

How could anyone say, “What I’m doing is too important for you.”
The leaves on the ground are orange and on the trees they’re green
It’s all in the air I breathe, the water I drink, and the food I eat
I just can’t find a comfortable seat
I don’t want to be an artist because there’s no such thing,
Just makers and providers of aesthetic tinkerings

There’s my freedom flying away with the strength I cannot find
I’m just trying to write down the pessimism in my head
Too tired to live, too hard to be dead

Lone Dog

In silent streets the lone dog prowls, runaway from the hand that feeds; is he thinking now he’s free? Hat and shoes and coat in brown, the trials of life crease the leather and his frown. His walking long will bring the dawn, but, light and dark, he’s like the shark that’s found no scent to push him on. Wandering, steel-stoned, unified by meat and bone but conflict replete within the soul, he wants to be a wolf so bad: purpose, prey, and pack to have; but he’s just a dog.

In spring he sings of hope, in autumn a mournful tune. Could he love a woman as much as John loved June? His heart bursts for doubling, but everyone says that it’s too soon; he should sow seeds first, beneath the moon. That long, lonesome howl is all the crop he’s got. Does anyone ever listen when the full sky is twisting? He’ll probably be here till the mourning for the day he dies. Only then will his howl be praised, as it’s eulogised.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Choices

Choices was published at Vox Poetica on January 24, 2011.

Choices

Should I begin with recrimination or justification?
It was grandiose,
all that we did.
Remarkable marks we made,
and now, in confessional,
I cannot choose which foot to place forward.
Do I wish all following to come after my right or my left?
Yet, is not every delay just building a future following indecision?
Is that the future I want, built on my own timidity?
It's unbearable that there is
this great blank unknown of things to come
that is shaped in ways we know not
by every choice minute or great.
It is the greater choices that are easier,
for their impact is more predictable,
though less profound.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Haikus I and IV

So, I just discovered that a magazine that I never heard back from had decided to publish two poems of mine. The Magazine is World Haiku Review and I was published there in August of 2009.

I

The cat moves slowly
Suspended in time leaping
Through the vacant glass

IV

Single tree freezing
Shorter than friend now lamppost
Comfortless lighting