This thing that happens
before runner beans;
a disobedient scarlet
searches for a way out
choked in black flies
and the tragedy of bees
and everything focused
on metamorphosis
like this orchid tenderness
was the caterpillar part–
a small beauty, lost
in a larger reckoning
and they are still,
not flowers
when they fade
the way that roses do
The stag and the worm
and the tenderness of decay
the audacity of wasps
and the perseverance of grass
the hunger of wild things
and the defiance of dirt
the granite bones
and the anarchy of nightfall
the silence of birds
and the rhythm of rain
and the infinite solitude of poetry
Orchestral madness and magic from the one and only, Phil H.
She pulled the curtain back, watched him as he walked away. Slowly. So slowly in the fog. What a wonderful man.
The fog. Everywhere. Always. She’d given up blaming the staff for smearing her glasses. That was the look of it. Vaseline. On the lens of her life. He’d said it was the medication. That was when his sadness came. Kind. Sad. Strong. Enough to carry the sadness. And so kind. Had she said that? They said he’d visited before, but…The fog…
She glimpsed her finger. The curtain. How the white bloomed in the fog when the lights were up. He’d held her fingers. Four. Her thumb dropped away. The dead sister she’d joked. He hadn’t laughed. Why not? What did he know the fog kept away? He knew her fingers…
Fine fingers. Long. He’d known a violinist with fine, long fingers. She had the fingers of an artist, he’d…
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The first thing that impressed people about Bastian Celeste was that he could speak two dozen languages. What they didn’t notice in all their admiring was that language was about control, and Bastian had an intent so complicated even he was unsure of how far down he’d crawled.
He flicked a glance at the pinnacle of youth sprawled out across his sofa. He was one of those kids who saw being under 25 as permission to rule the world. Every damn thing about him screamed – This is how you were once. Before you wasted your way through the magic lantern of frustrations. Bastian couldn’t be doing with it. He picked up his phone, scrolling through a series of imaginary texts, ‘If you’re going to waste my time, you should leave now.’
The young man didn’t even bother to look up.
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yeah, I heard.’
The words came at him in slow motion artillery. What a fucking joke, like there had ever been anything to hear or not hear. Bastian smiled sweetly, but along the horizon the sun ripped up all the colours that weren’t red.
It was never really his fault, not when it came to it. It was more the familiarity of their arrogance that let them down. They always thought he was checking for texts because that’s what they did. Like the world was made in their image.
‘You know, most people are afraid of madness, because it has a fire in it they think they can’t predict. They forget that sanity comes in many …flavours.’ Bastian inhaled the word, gathering up the sickness in measured and treasured, ‘Have you ever put a jar over a wasp and watched it die trying to get out?’
The locking mechanisms were virtually silent. Bastian synced a satisfying clicking sound through the internal speakers. Fear was in the details.
He smiled again. Frankly, this was the best part. The bit when they realised who he was. And there was always enough victory in that moment to light a bonfire.
©2017 Jac Forsyth
Image courtesy of flickr.com
Part 1 – I’ll slip into something more comfortable
Part 2 – Just depends what sort of mood I’m in.
Part 3 – It’s not like we stood in line fore this
Part 4 – That first cut is always so damn sweet
Part 5 – After 9 days I let my mind run free
Maybe I’ll never post anything again so I can keep this at the top of my page. Crow, you kill me.
hope is the thing with feathers
despair is the thing with scales
i am the watermelon man
reduced to a slick white rind
my seeds swallowed on accident
or spit into the street
for angels to pick and peck at
eli, eli, i’ve been thinking
some days the color leaches
out of everything
some days the everything
tastes of pine resin
and trail dust
eli, eli
if you swallow a watermelon seed
one will grow in your belly
and then what will you do
always feed them to the angels
with the oil slicks around their necks
rainbow nooses
i’ve been thinking
——
It’s still National Poetry Writing Month!
Day 13
Check out these sites:
‘A month worth of laundry and a month worth of bus ride.’ Dang. Check out this beauty of words by the superb, ankandas.
Lot of things don’t make any sense,
my sitting on the incinerating surface of the Venus and listening to this somnolent melody coming out of nowhere.
But it’s moulded with moroseness there,
bzzz…bzzz…bzzz…bzzz
Raping every fossils of this creation.
Numbness has it’s peculiar language to convey the turmoils within.
I wonder what if, of all people i could ever attain that,
my brain cells know about the guns and the tranquility after every bullets.
Am I too vulnerable to do anything or even to think anything?
I guess everyone is or isn’t.
A month worth of laundry and a month worth of bus ride,
living race only got these to dance through this aesthetic circus.
Indifferent city smoking away the scrumptious craps, honey like violence…and smitten hallucinations.
Thank you very much for this starless spell.
Sandcastles and sanctuary. Delicious and thought provoking prose from the always glorious Orchid’s Lantern. Soulful Sunday methinks.
The beach. Where water meets earth. It is damp, flat, open here. There are steep, grassy cliffs leading back up to civilization. I think I’m supposed to feel something in this place: happiness, excitement, or humbleness towards our great planet. I think creativity is supposed to bloom here, born of a new found appreciation of the small things and just being. Of smelling the ocean air, of feeling the sand between my toes. But the truth is, I don’t feel any of that. Instead of beauty I think of soliloquies, Stephen Dedalus and sulking. I feel uncomfortable; my mind awash with greyness and a longing to be Somewhere Else.
I look along the coast to the bustling amusement arcades and eateries. That isn’t the Somewhere either. I’m starting to think the Somewhere doesn’t actually exist.
Children play happily on the beach. They don’t mind the cold wind that tangles their…
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Sometimes something is so beautifully crafted that you can’t let go of it. A poignant and wildly beautiful piece by the gloriously talented, John Potts.
Snap on your dark poetry feels.
When I was fourteen, I saw an angel. It was likely 8 feet tall. And looking at it was like looking at the sun.
I wake at 2.30am. Someone is shaking me, asking me about canons. I don’t remember. ‘What would it be like, to meet an angel?’ they say. Their voice jumps in soundbites.
‘Hell, that would be a wondrous thing,’ I breathe words into darkness, but all those years ago I just ran. All the way back across the fields without stopping. And I slammed the backdoor so hard the windows in the front room rattled. Even Mam looked at me long enough to ask if I was okay.
I said, ‘Yeah, just been runnin.’ Feels like I’ve been running ever since. I never said anything about the angel.
The voice calls again, dead leaves on the wind, ‘Hush little one, remember the canons.’ But when I think about anything, all I remember is the last time I thought about it.
I search through an anatomy of corrupted files. Looking for answers when the damn truth was lost in the first telling. When I was fourteen, I saw an angel. And everything since then has been a lie.
Canons shake me awake again, I don’t even know I’m sleeping.
© 2017 jac forsyth
