Creepers

Creepers stand silent in white nightdresses. And I have wished for sharks in this lost at sea.

My skin peeled back to bone, are we born like this, forged again in the honesty of dragons?

Life is not a choice. Death is buried with the boxes. I count its intimacy in raindrops.

On days like this I would surrender to the fall of familiar fever. Overrun with shaking, heart racing, sweat dripping.

Even now I taste it on my lips.

Hell is patient. Spike another drink. Deal the drugs of madness.

Creepers stand silent in white nightdresses. And deep underground, a self prescribed king double drums and dreams of quarantine.

 

©2017 jac fosyth

Something close to Bowie

On the 10th of January 2017, Peter took the day off and made a pilgrimage to the little shop in Doncaster. Of course it was a coffee shop now. They were all bloody coffee shops now.

He sat in a high backed armchair by the window holding the cup tight against his mouth until he felt the skin burn away from his lip. It would blister later, but that was okay.

He’d forgotten what it felt like. To choose to hurt that much.

Outside, the northern sunlight had struggled its way through another rainy afternoon. The streets glistened hopefully, and a flurry of tribal shapes moved around the same spectrum that he had once worn. Fashion repeated in cycles, culture dictated boundaries of normality, sexuality searched for another unique identity. The 21st century was obsessed with change, but nothing had really changed at all.

The people at the next table were laughing too loudly. But even the chatter, the steam, the clinking of crockery, couldn’t hide the temperate ghosts of those Saturday afternoons. He’d found Bowie here, all those years ago, tucked under the arm of the only man he’d ever loved.

Peter smiled with the memory. He’d never seen anyone wear black like that, like it was a million different colours. From the shelter of the record racks, he’d allowed the patterns of it to unfold across his skin, a forlorn tragedy of longing that had nowhere to go. The man had glanced over at him as he left the store, and Peter had taken that look and made it last a lifetime.

He’d also bought a copy of Ziggy Stardust.

And now here he was, relishing the pain again. He blew a cobweb of thoughts out across the top of his coffee before biting deep into the burn, pulling the spike down to his chest. Too much time had passed and memory had a way of changing the facts to suit its own agenda.

He closed his eyes and allowed the sun to turn the darkness orange. Wherever that sweet nowhere man was, whatever, whoever he had become, Peter knew that they were feeling the same loss today. Seeking out something close to Bowie in a world forced to live without him.

In a run down record shop all those years ago, nothing had happened. Nothing. In a multiverse of choices, he had chosen nothing. A whole mess of nothing. And that’s what the pilgrimage was about.

Because on that day of nothing, that moment of nothing, all those years ago, the moth in him had flicked through the records, and chosen to buy the wings of a butterfly.

 

 

Lethal Control

Check this post by the brilliant Ash, one of the bloggers whose work constantly pushes me to be a better writer.

Ash N. Finn

Raw panic claws at her throat and throttles her breath at the sight of Michael.

He has stepped forward, an emissary for all of them, ignoring her closed eyelids, her plea to be left alone. The imploring gaze from bulging eyes holding her captive. Dropping his jaw to disclose the pool of spittle forming in his labial cavity.

Don’t. Stop. Breathing.

She hums tonelessly. Hands pressed to her ears. Willing them to block the harsh staccato of his voice from entering her mind.

You’ll kill us all if you do.

But there is no us, Michael, it’s all in my head they say.

Breathe. Do you hear me? Breathe.

Oh my, aren’t you dramatic today, Michael? I am in control the white-robed ones say. I don’t have to listen to you. What is this red liquid running across your cheek? Is this your pathetic attempt at crying? Don’t you know…

View original post 152 more words

#Rule 1

Everyone knew Rule Number 1.

A soft evening light had curled along the back of the sofa. Adam caught at it with his fingers,‘Don’t play the innocent child with me, you know damn well that avoiding the bad things is all we care about.’

‘So why do I still feel like I’m failing some kind of test?’

‘It’s always that way with belief,’ the older man turned away, gathering his things, ‘once you get that, it’s easy.’

‘And you expect me to accept that this life is the culmination of hundreds… no thousands,’ he almost laughed, ‘possibly millions of lives, that I’ve lived before?’

‘Sure, why not.’

‘So it IS some kind of test then?’

Adam knocked the words back with his finger, ‘How many times do I have to say this? One, ten, a thousand… even a million, would make no difference. Each life is a new beginning. The first is always the last, and the last is always the first.’

His companion looked genuinely worried, ‘That’s why there’s no memory?’

Adam smiled like there was nothing remotely weird about what he was saying, ‘Absolutely. And because there’s no memory, there’s no test. You can’t fail at being you, because you’ve never been ‘You’ before.’

‘Okay…’ the younger man wrapped his mouth awkwardly around the words, ‘but if there’s never been any memory, and there’s never been a ‘Me’ before… not for any of us, then logically, there can be no witnesses either?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Adam absentmindedly checked his phone.

‘So, if there are no witnesses, then how come you know so much about it?’

And a silence, deep and dark, filled the space where forbidden words had been spoken.

EVERYONE knew Rule Number 1.

 

 

 

Weekly Tanka Prompt Challenge – Week 29 Summer & Snow

 

 

in summer starlings

sky-flesh falls, wild with tattoos

but even here, here

on this ground of melted snow

I cannot hide my footprints

 

 

Tanka: 5-7-5-7-7

Summer & Snow prompt from: Ramblings of a writer 

Gunsmoke

 

Truth is a cunning dancer. Smoke over fire, its drums beat out my heart. And I quantify my verdicts with the naivety of their restless pounding. Armageddon was scattered once, dismantled in the bunkers of preparation. I drive this life hard. Peace is not enough, sleep is not enough, death is not enough, for those who chase extinction. The gunman pulls another trigger and a dozen night-birds corrupt with the echoes of my lament, their feathered artillery dragged out across the silence of 3am skies.

And wrapped in the blankets of my insanity, I divide by five and measure their distance in lightning storms.

 

Haiku #751

Sometimes the imagery of a few, simple words can stop you in your tracks. Lovin’ this Haiku by Seth at: adventuresonthecreativeside.

Adventures on the creative side

The ghosts have become 
trapped in windows, disguised
as the blowing wind. 

View original post

Changes to Crone

I remember punk. It came crashing into the music industry like a crusty, cabbage juice dripping garbage truck. My Dad hated it. I loved it. But I was also English, and the levels of spit necessary to maintain a place in the mosh pits was beyond me. So I did the next best thing: I bought a black lipstick, covered myself in belts and buckles, dyed my hair and dreamed of a shirtless Pete Murphy.

I love the writing industry, but it also frustrates the hell out of me. Where is the quest for art in a industry driven by profit? I have turned to Kafka for solace, and so seems I’m seeking out punk again in this quagmire of manufacture.

Which brings me to Crone and the night whisperings of, The Perilous Reading Society. 

A few months ago I had an accidental conversation with the shockingly talented Ash over at Ash N Finn. It put the idea of showcase blog into my mind. A place to promote the fringes of this art, the non conformists, the poets and writers who play around on the edges. With TPRS, you never know what you’re gonna get. It may not be what you want, it may be hard to fathom, it may be exquisitely weird or breathtakingly beautiful, there may even be spit. But as Ash so eloquently said, ‘I always enjoy a bit of perilous reading.’

It’s all a bit scary because Crone has been such a delight. At first I was gonna run it as a sister site, but quickly calculated that I would then need at least 26 hours in a day if I wanted to maintain any degree of human contact (and Vitamin D). Obviously a merger would be a better idea. So Crone will become The Perilous Reading Society over the next few days.

In true punk style, I will keep on blatantly promoting my own stuff, I’ll just promote other work too. It’s nothing new, there are plenty of sites out there doing the same thing. And if it’s a total disaster I’ll revert back to Crone and we can all go down the pub and pretend nothing happened.

I need to step up my game. Damn. I’m scared. Why am I scared? Where did I put those safety pins?

x Jac

 

Weekly Tanka Prompt Challenge – Week 28 Inspire & Growth

You inspire me

with your target driven growth

but I’m not sorry

that the vegan bolognese

won’t wash out of your new shirt

 

Tanka: 5-7-5-7-7

Inspire & Growth prompt from: Ramblings of a writer 

Hivemind

Hivemind crawls. One more outline breaks on the city skyline, and I corrode at the loss of its platinum repose. Was I born to swarm with bees? To cast-out on the profile of ten thousand articulated shadows? I feel the whisper of it on my breath, secret and bewitched. The beast murmurs, primordial with the forgotten substance of this fragrant light. Nails are drawn, torn, across a pale, crystal sky. I long to be taken by the wind. To fall with the stars in gilded horizon. To taste the scent of honey, wild and stolen from the sun. Hivemind crawls. One more outline breaks on the city skyline, and I am bound winter with the torment of these silent hedges.