A Half Lit Memory

Under the arcing arm of the Milky Way
Knee high swaying sage grass all around
A rippling pale ocean as far as the eye can see

Upon this stage when the moon and stars are just right
Love's long past memories materialize for one night

To twist and turn within one's arms and the breeze
A dance never forgotten
Steps that come naturally
Whatever the half formed spirit decrees

And it always ends the same
With a final almost felt touch of wispy fingers to cheek

Oh you, who is made of stardust

Blowups Happen

I looked at you
With my xenon bulbed flexible long eye
Spinning your parts past my view
First the top half
Then the bottom

Looking for all your flaws
Any erosion of your character
Cracks in your persona
Distortion of your world view

But I found none
Despite my best efforts
And I gave you a pass
Sending you along for a try out

Where you came apart
Spreading your parts in a fiery display
Frightening onlookers
A living nightmare in day

Now once again you lay before me
But this time in an autopsy situation
Where I get to try to find the flaw I missed
The little thing I should have caught
To prevent your self conflagration

A Day In The Life of a Choose Your Own Adventureman

Five AM finds me rolling out of bed

Shaking my brain awake

Everything a blurry fury

Until I find my glasses

Six AM finds me showered dressed and fed

Walking into the morning dark

Still wearing a carpet of stars overhead

To the twenty one year old car that is my everyday ride

Later I could legally take it out for a beer

Seven AM finds me falling into a wormhole
Which had suddenly appeared right where the old Bear Track Inn used to be
Swallowing my car and myself
All travelling at a sane 57 miles per hour

There was no way to mark time after that
For after crashing nose first into a copse of maple trees
My iPhone was cracked wide open
Sputtering sparks upon my old car seats
Setting them ablaze
With such speed that I barely escaped with my shoulder bag
Full of many useless items and papers

The more useful things it held were numbered three:
My lunch
My Leatherman
My extendable mirror

But I hadn't even inventoried the bag as of yet
Having just tumbled from the burning compact car
And flopping flat upon my back in a nearby clearing
Staring straight up at the sky
Which contained the aforementioned wormhole's South exit end

At least that's what I called it
As it was the end that I had popped out of
Like shit from the South end of a North bound chicken

I can't guess with any accuracy how long I stared up at the wormhole
It was full of stars
Twisting and turning along with clouds and curds and whey
Along with a million other things I had no hint of a name for
Their appearance being so alien to me

Presently I realized I was getting a headache from the chemical smoke
Which was still coming off of the remains of my car
So I rolled to my side and slowly gained my feet

Turning in a slow circle
Seeing mostly dense forest all around me
I realized that I was standing on a sort of path

Maybe it was just what I'd call a deer track
Or it could be a lightly traveled footpath

In one direction it appeared to head towards more open ground in the distance

In the other
It quickly disappeared into a foreboding dimly lit forest thicket

~If you choose to go towards the open ground, go to page 77~

~If the foreboding thicket seems like a better choice, run to page 89~

Long New Old & Gone

Everything was new
The concrete was smooth and white
Glass so clear it was almost not there
Metal polished to a mirror sheen
Reflecting the sun in a blinding gleam
Cutting through the eye in a flash and bang
Time almost standing still
A Polaroid of perfection
With some Sharpie notation

Until one day everything was old
With cracks in the cement swelling in green eruptions
Windows smudged and dirty with "Wash Me" instructions
Corrosion pockmarking the alloys
Flaking apart with intergranular tendencies
Just as surely as with a deftly placed wedge by a woodsman
Time is still frozen but has clearly progressed
The instant photo of the day hanging yellowed from a tack
Marked in black writing of days long past

Then everything was gone
Dirt and grasslands drifted over man made rock
New crystal silicate joining the natural sands
Iron oxides and aluminum hydroxide blowing in the winds
Salting the soils of faraway lands
Poisoning and coloring the ground
Time is meaningless with none left to count it
A piece of film left sticking from the earth
A haunting unidentified image of a now fantasy ghost

Small Love Great Love

Witness the love of Great and Small

Small loves Great

Great loves Small

What do you see in me?

Small asked of Great

I see everything I do not in myself

Great declared in earnest

Truly though

The truth of the matter for Great

Was that he had never had a choice

For loving Small was his fate

Programming Reality

No time like the present

To send this one home

His voice is untuned and cracking

Standing up there all alone

Is this reality or fantasy?

It's so hard to tell these days

Trying to win prize or contract

By singing 

By dancing

Or a million other ways

The best is when they get mad or cry

As the crowds enthusiasm swells then wanes

Earning their five minutes of fame

Far easier than painting a bunch of soup cans

In the end our attention moves on

To the next ugly person with a lovely voice

Holding our collective breath for the next big thing

As if we really have a choice

New thing new thing

Shiny like a penny

Leap into my eye

Fill up my ear

Razzle me

Dazzle me

Please bring a tear

Cæcus Concisor

I see the woodcut so clearly
Traced by my fingers in the darkness
Relation to the woodblock just so
Gravers chisel cutting the lines
That are so vibrant in my mind

Sunlight unseen upon my face
Warming the skin and bringing a smile
As my hands continue their work
Inversing the image in second nature
Scribing and cutting now almost done

Blowing the wood chips away with one breath
I drag my fingertips across the block
Seeing the image in it's reversed entirety
Not my best work but certainly not my worst
This simple advertisement for the local tannery

Nothing left now but to ink it up and do the sample
To be handed off to my secretary for a visual inspection
Black ink rolled on smooth and thin
I press it to the thick paper and hold it up
Hanging now before my sightless eyes

Only seen as through a glass darkly