for my grandfather

~


Where have I put my memories?
The same place as my dentures?
Where have I put the keys
To those dusty little drawers?

What is the time, familiar face?
I know you; or knew you. Didn’t I?
What year is it, friend or stranger?
Didn’t I use to be a dancer?

Where are the scattered brain cells
My body has forgotten?
Why is my mind locked out of my head?
Is it lost or simply dead?

Each day feels old and used before
Like long, recycled stories.
Where did I put my dentures?
The same place as my memories?



~

Trial By Fire

I have been cleansed by pain

And I refuse to abstain

from the pleasures that drive

me to stick with this life.

Those who tell me to bend

will have their pride to defend

I have been tried by fire

And I'm as strong as they stand.

random poetry. (or maybe not so random....but i don't feel like telling this story just now)

~

Death, In Alphabetical Order

Who doesn't secretly love to see children perishing in various horrific and occasionally impossible ways? Ever wished your brat cousin would swallow some tacks? (Or felt tempted to slip some in his milk?) How about an obsessive-compulsive desire to list the random murders you see in the news in alphabetical order?

Well, now you can have all that - and in lovely illustrations too. After all, delicate stomachs like mine can't handle the actual gore of death in photographic glory. But it does enjoy the same thing depicted in finely crafted ink.

. . .

I'm just kidding. I don't feel the fancy to murder kids - except for a special few - and have certainly never slipped thumbtacks into someone's drink. (I only go as far as spiking the Christmas punch.) But whatever your tastes, The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey is a masterful piece of work.

Do read the whole thing if you have a few minutes. I've also included my favourite bits below.

In those skeletal sunken eyes is all the reason you will need to love this.

She actually covered quite a lot of ground there. At least it wasn't an easy surrender.

I don't know how the fuck you die from ennui. But the thought is faintly amusing.

If that dark frozen little figure does not give you awesome chills, you are dead inside.

Alone. Cornered. Robbed of all hope. A shitload of man-eating mice. And a load of shit in your pants.

By the way, may I recommend listening to Akira Yamaoka's Silent Hill soundtrack while you're reading the whole thing. Specifically, Claw Finger and Fear Of The Dark.

Enjoy.

~ ~ ~ ~

Fear the little children, for the most evil of men and women were children once too.

Serpent 13:13

An Apocalypse Theory of Love

you will never know the scenes in which i leaned over your desk and whispered lust into your ear. you will never see the words i erased from my machine as i left you one more time. 

but you could have

if the world existed for you and i.

* * *

IMAGINE
the end, in ashen-faced clarity
The world in dust at our feet
So we would be free to
Finally live it

The sunlight cuts neon gaps in the Venetian blinds. It is dark where he sits, though, and he is ever nestled in a thundercloud. I feel his heat. I watch his hands simmer in stillness.

Weary,
Secrets spill amidst the gunfire
We hide, closer than rules allow
We touch, united by the terror
Of being human

The whiteness of the walls deaden sensation, but not feeling. I warm my hands in coffee-steam. Soon, evening will settle into restless night. You walk past for the third time but it feels like the first.


Dust
Settles on the sunset
High up in a tower, we wait
Holding on for need of comfort
As the skies turn nuclear red


There is another dimension between the patchwork of incidental closeness and almost-coincidence. A love that lies in wait amidst the clacking of keyboards, waiting for the world to fall so that truth can finally be told.


Inevitable.
What triumph be your accidental kiss
What victory is this war-torn attraction?
Your hand in mine, at the edge
of the universe.