It’s not they crying that hurts most
The flowing waters cleanse as they sting
It’s when you’re beyond crying
The rivers dammed up and dry
That the blade cuts deepest between ribs
Not just for myself, a selfish hoarded pain
But for those who I don’t know how to salve
Who live and die despite all my efforts
To care is to open your shirt and beckon
For the knife to glide in, sever, keen
Yet the stone cannot choose to feel
Just as I cannot choose to ignore
January 27, 2016
From “Beyond Crying” by Digby Connyer
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January 14, 2016
From “The Spark” by Pat Kersh
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January 5, 2016
From “Ode to a Warrior” by Tiera Arrowood
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December 12, 2015
From “A Small, Nameless Death” by Boyd Taper
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Forbidden connections
Always asymetical but
Always changing sides
We know not what to
Call them, names fail
We know not how to
Mourn them, for they
Never really existed
All we know is that
A something occurred
A brief spark, light
Brighter than suns
If only for moments
And now it is no more
November 25, 2015
From “Tipsy Ode to the Daily Vacation” by S. William Leoni
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We are the dead salesmen of this world
But that does not mean that we are without
Our various and sundry pleasuures
Every evening a vacation destination
Every vacation a far better one
Than any family truckster could bear
When you go to your Acapulcos and Cancuns
Does everyone know your name, your drink
Our vacations, nightly, are all music
Our vacations, nightly, are all merriment
A live band in our ears, vivid and raw
Cigarette smoke in our nostrils, burning
Our favorite drink in our throat, burning
You go ahead and scrimp and save
Fret and worry about Europe or Asia
Cruises and getaways with wife and kids
Our vacations are every night
And we never remember them
Because they’re always the same
Inspired by the song ‘Willie Lomans’ by Hiroki Kikuta, released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
November 21, 2015
From “Close Encounter of the Loving Kind” by Maria I. George
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: alien, brass, fiction, homage, jazz, poetry, story |Leave a Comment
Though it was inconcievably alien
A being from so far outside us
As to be all but indecipherable
She raised it, loved it as her own
So when the time came to leave
It spoke to her without words
Predicting the world’s fiery end
At its own inscrutible hands
But promising to its “mother”
A few minutes’ warning before
And a final song of blowing brass
The music she had always loved
Announcing the end of the world
As recomense for a kindness
Neither could ever understand
Inspired by the song ‘2nd variety’ by Hiroki Kikuta, released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
October 29, 2015
From “The Thinning of the Veil” by Leith G. Vinnin
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The veil is thinner this month
Shades of the departed dance
The was and the never-were laugh
Strange noises against dark velvet
The veil is thinner this month
Not because of the spirits
Not because of the moon
Not because of the spheres
The veil is thinner this month
Because people believe it is so
The veil is their perception
And it thins when they will it
October 26, 2015
From “Leaf of Hearts” by Leesa Hoffart
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October 24, 2015
From “The Minuteman” by Tim Neuman
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October 23, 2015
From “The Haunting of Hillary Hauser” by Anonymous
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When I saw the home
In an old and worn-out book
It led me to a dead end
In the town of Shady Nook
My blog was brimming over
With debunked haunting tales
I expected nothing scarier
Than a few pale windy wails
My heart did not start pounding
When the walls were closing in
Or when a voice rebuked me
For an old and festering sin
I didn’t quail or quiver
When my nose began to bleed
Even as my eardrums rang
With unearthly roars to heed
There was no thought of fleeing
When palm-shaped bruises on my chest
Appeared as all around me
Ashen urns howled from their rest
I calmly kept my head on
Even when the doors were barred
I didn’t curl up shivering
When the grounds ate up my car
Chased up by blood-red mists
Leaping from the tower high
I woke up in a hospital
Being told I’d nearly died
It was then house did break me
When a detective at my bed
Said it was torn down years ago
Where had I been, instead?
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 