insomnial hearts of dead end dreamers

i should sleep or at least lay still with my eyes closed as impossibilities flash unbidden fake it until enough time passes to rinse and repeat my way through another day each night i spin myself a sheet cocoon liquefy myself into a dreamslurry of enforced metamorphosis only to struggle free of my bonds somehow […]

rapturous fractals

lost in the fractals sketched in frost down the glass a cataract blinding the all- seeing eye of fate i trace the whorls of lady winter’s delicate fingerprints longing to feel her fingers softly laced with my own as i stare into her lovingly oblivious gaze lost in the rapture etched in frost down my […]

heaven crashes

the clouds hang so low the trees seem to be the only thing keeping the ground from vanishing in the smoky vapor \ heaven is suspended on a block of dry ice the clouds are the manifestation of god’s baleful intent / i am a malcontent rubbing two sticks hoping for a spark a flame […]

baffle

the city bedazzled in ice sits silent the ambient sound has gone missing no cars or planes or sirens or people a lone hollow note rings a low rumble pulses across the electric purple clouds the heater kicks on as the storm begins again the city bathed in frozen silence sits morosely in the merciless […]

frozen vagabonding

standing beneath steel gray skies in the yellowed light shining off the buildings the air is still yet filled with a trillion icy hanging droplets there is calm peacefulness a blanketed serenity laying gently in a glittering crust as i stand vibrating with sparkling light an alien tourist plucking diamonds only for them to melt […]

sleet

thunder calls as the sleet falls a torrent of stinging crystals slicing razors forming mercurial icy shells on the dismal skyline i hear sirens singing warnings in the stillness between showers i press my face to the foggy door lost in the spectacle blurry sleet crashing around me when i pull back a frozen facade […]

turtling

have you ever seen the inside of a turtle’s throat? a nightmare of jagged hooks compressing with each contraction tearing soft flesh to ribbons. curse this abhorrent anxiety swallowed whole by a snapping turtle, alone in this endless night of my own accord. the last words still coalesce a barbwire noose lovingly crafted an exit […]

dallas, on the rocks

the city is paralyzed by an incoming cold promising ice dark and dreary the skies match my demeanor as i shiver in an empty parking lot lost in thought trying now to drift away what will come with the storms a marathon of rolling blackouts as the ice falls exchanging one mobile prison for the […]

sputtering stuttering clusters in fluttered miasmas

connecting dots subverting the transitive properties seeking a solution to the overwhelming sense of my structural stuttering in place as the insular loneliness shelters me ignoring as the universe wobbles with a dystopic curvature putting the things i desire just ahead and around the bend in time dilations coagulating the soaces between as i sputter […]

pearls

i clutch dreams a handful of loose pearls the floor is covered in the perilous lost spectres each step an uncertain risk i stand shaking clutching a handful of dreams flinching as another pops out of my sweaty palm to clink and bounce before chattering into place scattered delusions a floor covered in caltrops soon […]

soup, a side of bitter acknowledgement

the soup is heating up and the rice is cooking as the aroma of fresh baked cookies fills the air a hustling bustle holding down the sadness of dwindling minutes none of us are quite willing to acknowledge as sunday fades gently to dust soon enough reality will rubberband back into unsightly refrains of dismal […]

accepting it is all beyond acceptance

little more than a petulant collection of frankenstein’s creatures cobbled together from the corpses of childhood dreams forced into an unwanted existence by a slurry of chemicals as lightning strikes the collection of misremembered memories floating in a myopic sense of lost wonder scared and alone torn from the comforting dark assaulted by sensory overload […]

another pathetic nothing

grief is an ouroboros all consuming infecting every atom a nuclear barrage of self implosions a crater a toxic cloud hanging heavy hiding a forever altered skyline i cannot see through the curtain of tears as the curtain closes on another daydream delirium i choke on the soot as aspirations smolder on the green wood […]

gold and lavender

bars of golden light diffused through the dirty glass slice through the smoky haze a retention of hope vivisecting a frozen morn the coffee tastes of ash my tongue a terminal for the arcing dissent frying bare nerves bathed in the bars of golden light a cognizant shadow in a fog of swirling caffeinated particulates […]

errant strikes

the afterimage of phantom lightning strikes is etched into every furtive blink as the asphalt erupts around me plasma induced explosions rattle the overpass yet no one else seems affected as i speed by in a ruptured panic dodging errant gigavolt destruction in hurry to get nowhere before the end of everything

again

i wrote to you yesterday a message expressing my feelings as the sparrows hopped happily around me i left it unsent an open wound bleeding love into the æther because i knew you wouldn’t care to read it the same as the day before on and on for the last two months i hoped to […]

crimson rorschachs

i didn’t know who i was for so very long because i was always someone different i didn’t know there was something off inside that made me chase clouds always seeking some magic a miracle that could satiate my ever changing desperation it took too long to recognize the pattern the shifts to see normal […]

rainy day blue notes

i have hours between calls sitting in the cold rain in a gravel lot outside the fed ex warehouse somewhere west of 35 a few miles from the next appointment too far from anything except empty parking lots and blustery bouts of rain waiting for the next act to play out in my mind a […]

dreamwhispers (ad nauseam)

reminder my collection of short fiction is available from amazon. an eclectic excursion into emotions and strangeness. besides my poetry collections, this is the truest expression of my fiction so far. eighteen tales in a menagerie of settings, and guaranteed to have one of your new favorites contained within. meet Blobert, an affable glob of […]

the silence of a blackout in wintry denial

the rain began in the middle of the night the power failed soon after as i lay shivering beneath the heavy gray blanket listening to the elegiac sounds of the chimes half muted in the frigid drops while winter sat watching patiently in the gray swirl my mind leapt between conclusions as little flashes of […]

squids? something

i am a squid. an ink black cloud. then poof, gone. i have the heart of an invertebrate and the soul of a mad franciscan friar wailing away in a fibonacci sequence of descending chaos compressed into a bullet shot point blank at the tenuous fabric of creation a despot dreaming of draining the font […]

blue becomes green

i am not adverse to change just petrified of anything different from the status quo i have built my necessary routines upon the rigid rules on which my fractured brains subsides but now the blue has become green and the constant comparisons to days past are a rusty nail jammed deep into my anxiety dipped […]

pop

pop i could feel it pop poppop the edge of the mania warble pop a ripple ran along in a placid distortion yet it filled me with a loathsome anticipation pop poppop pop the drips of moisture in my throbbing skull becoming agitated pop i don’t want to fall i have seen this bottom dwelled […]

the pitter patter of faded dream

we all have that silly little dream that never quite dies even as life proves it will assuredly never be a reality mine has always been to say live from new york it’s saturday night then have a great monologue before introducing the musical act the only change over the decades is which band that […]

eraser

i have sat erasing unwritten poems from my mind tracingtheseimpossibletanglesthrough/a rat’s nest/ofangular sorrowswith(a)rapidlyshrinking pinktrapezoidtryingtosolveintnagibilitythroughstubbornrefusaltoadmitthe/light at the end of the tunnel/isnothingmorethan (a)fuckingtrainbarrelingdownthetrack a shower of inky flecks falls as i scrub the folds of my defective brain a trail of half remembered snippets in a pool of unshed tears /little more than a collection of accumulated […]

pancake delirium

i have been known to seemingly exaggerate from my sphere of hyperbolic ramblings from time to time but one thing i know for sure is where to get the best pancakes in all of texas without question my friends have divined the best practice to lure an anxious fool from his dark and comfy hidden […]

deadlines and open wounds

deadlines are creeping yet i bounce between four stories and think about ten others i will likely never write hoping for a calm in the storm or at least to sit in the eye for a while my emotions are a color wheel constantly spinning and depending on the hue i can write ten thousand […]

aerodynamic dissent

at three o’clock the rumbling of the neighbor’s truck rattled the window and i woke her name on my tongue and an ache in my chest a rather auspicious start to another lonesome weekend but the palpations ease the flow of sorrow in inflection a case of unwanted introspection as moon hangs in fractured repose […]

hot and cold

my lips will keave you singed the fever in one impassioned kiss burns an inferno leaving your lovely shadow burnt into a silhouette projected onto the wall my embrace carries the chill of the grave as your heart fuels the flames while i siphon your very soul with the grace of my silvery talented tongue […]

litterbug

today spun itself into a disturbing dervish of frantic action a ball of manic anxiety shivers arcing against my ribcage the fiction becomes irrelevant concentration a myth skimming eight books for a word to incite creation been so long since i escaped the city i had forgotten the lazy circles of hawks over withered fields […]

sleptical

last night i slept for once i was a normal boy capable of stringing together hours of dream and awake to the alarm clock savored the hot coffee and sat as the sun rose lost in my head as the stories tell their secrets sylvia’s words grandiloquently scraping the toxins from my brain in this […]

clamoring for a momentary warmth

a symphony of singing crystals the clatter of skeletal hands clamoring for a momentary warmth the world pauses queues up the next batch of discordant racket the sudden silence lays heavy the stillness pressing down downdowndown one note floating sharp and clear through the emptiness a pinprick of beauty drawing a deep crimson blossom swelling […]

a new post office

the lady at the post office asked if i had a printer i could use to print out the address labels since my handwriting is so atrocious she was more polite about it as she pointed at the jumble hoping i could translate the chicken scratch the lady at the register next to her laughed […]

three acts

i am a bystander the people unseemly collections of dream wispy phantasms swirling in spectral clouds of ambiguous malaise my fingers pass through as the performance plays on an audience of one sitting at the edge of my seat as i imagine what happens next swallowing the longing to be a part of the play […]

saw blades and synergistic bottom lines

i cannot tell if it a motorcycle racing back and forth down the road outside or if it is a gigantic circular saw slowly tearing its way through grand prairie the engine whines reverberating as i brush my teeth rattling the mirror or at least my brain within my cavernous skull as i gargle and […]

lavender blooms on a field of dull gray delusion

the skeletal branches scraping slate gray skies beguiling a faux winter feel as i sip coffee and nurse lavender clusters from the silence of the living room the kids are still asleep as the birds sing triumphant tales of verdant fields a serenading symphony in softly whistled snatches proclaiming the glory of pseudo springtime in […]

one track (pennies)

ever feel one track over for the longest time the tracks ran together but slowly the layers peeled away and now maybe you should have zagged the safe bet was to zig but what if does it keep you up at night that fucking surefire zig you knew deep deep down it screamed a desperate […]

a lunacy of love

there once was a man who loved the moon no that is unfair it belittles his dedication implies he is touched by the spirit of madness not just madly in love for who could possibly love the moon? the coldly aloof spectre hanging demurely in the night the wan relfection with a dark side barely […]

hard night coming down

there is an intrinsic peace found in a hard night coming down a surrealistic exposé on the logic in setting down the phone as the heaviness radiating softly in your skull leads to a unquenchable melancholy a desert of intimacy in stark moonlight coldly reflected ina trillion grains of dreamscatter a tattered tired vagabond snug […]

umbrella

no one spares a thought for the birds umceremoniously pushed from the nest who never figured out how to fly our feet crack the hollow bones as we watch spellbound the sparrows fly and sing an avalanche of writhing pink featherless fear stricken figurative fatalities falling falling falling there is a parable in there probably […]

ftftnr

and so, at last the fool sat strapped to a folding chair with a bouquet of eager balloons tied the back astride his wobbling star speckled chariot holding two bright red flares he wobbles on the gently blowing breeze one last quixotic attempt to mar the ideal of beauty with his posioned pen of vagrant […]

thirsty

i haven’t drank in a long time but i can close my eyes and taste the phantom burn with notes of smoke and pure ambrosia tonight i lay in the darkness a hazy transparency hanging heavily the fire of creation burning wildly in my belly stripped bare beyond nudity a transient state somewhere between implausible […]

photon

the light darted out between the slender trunks lining the small one and a half lane country road aesop rock was rapping about a thousand virtues kicking the same bucket like chinatown turtles and i was one with the cosmos racing like a single photon unerringly straight into the cardiac stutter of a near panic […]

lavender shippers

spent an hour signing books trying to write legibly so the lady at the post office doesn’t have an embolism all while trying to not come off as an asshole to the kind people that wanted a fool’s autograph in a book he scribbled lavender shippers with chicken scratch along the labels familiar anxiety over […]

the hunter

little kitten meowing at my door happily consuming a can of tuna and a bowl of water rubbing up against my bare shins a ferocious little ball of purring already learning to game the system yet despite your independent streak a quick stop for chin scratches after your morning feast before skulking back into the […]

parabolic

if we had some sort of super powered parabolic microphone aimed at the heart of a black hole i imagine it just pulsates bleakly screaming at the emptiness of space maybe that’s just me it’s easy to dissociate when there is no reason not to be uncertain where you are or if you are or […]

precursor

was being an unwanted pregnancy the precursor to an living an unwanted existence or was it the knowledge of being unwanted that set me on course to question everything i had been taught just barely cognizant enough to forecast self fulfilling prophecies of dire dooms to recognize the recursive shitshow growing into a mutilation of […]

head full of pollen

hope is the tinderawaiting a sparkto light the bonfireof discarded dreamsor so it seemssitting in a parkinglot with nowhere to goand all day to get there patiencehas never beena virtuejust fertileground tosow the seedsof uneasinessas the interminableseconds ceasetheir infernallyarduous flow i havedeconstructedmyself so oftenin this silencealways findingan extra partwhen i finishto toss withthe mounting pileof […]

cursor

there is a subtle beauty in the flashing of the cursor on a blank screen when i need to scream out my anxiety or cry out my love but there is nothing but the staccato beat of the blue line focusing all of this hyperbole into stringently defiled order a brief silence before my thumbs […]

wolves howl in a panicked concerto

the wind is a howling wolf prowling just outside my bedroom window i hear it over the shower in an array of disharmonics sounding the clumsy metal collisions of the wind chimes as they hang horizontally in the wailing gales i stood shaving putting the broken pieces of sleep together to show a full design […]

on death, a litany of love

i have been preoccupied with death lately moreso than normal when the walls are pressing in on me as i lay wide awake after hours feeling too tired to think now all i have is these thoughts ricocheting about my cavernous skull writingwritingwriting using a straw in a futile effort to stay ahead of the […]

studious

you could attach jumper cables to my heart and power a remote village from the anxiety in an acidic halo of near panic whispering softly in willowy undertones under my frantic pulse enslaved by these feverish desires the devil’s heartbeat thunders deeply in my papermache chest i am torn to shreds in the divine chaos […]

the earth crumbles regardless of need

my friend and i were walking through the woods one hot summer day i had just gotten new shoes and as he walked in the creek i stayed ten feet above him going through the trees because i knew what would happen if i got my shoes all muddy i remember exactly when the tree […]

eulogy

a friendaskedme to writean introductionfor his newcollectionof shortfictionand as iscribbled mythoughts onhis writingand on ourfriendshipit beganto feel asif i werewriting hiseulogy insteadof sellingthe readeron his words in my macabremindset ibegan toeulogize myselfa goddamned foolwho gives pastthe point oftotal embarrassmentunrelentingin his pursuitof what doesn’twant anythingto do with himspilling himselfinto the ætherincessantly tothe verge ofbecoming a parodymaking […]

delicate

i despise my delicate nature easily bruised a faint breeze leaves me shattered all i can do is lash out in my petulance airing every ache skinless in the storm of salty tears so filled with the golden glow of untarnished emotion the beauty of which i cannot capture as it seers my insolent tongue […]

coffee stains in the shape of hearts

the mourning routine remains unchanged a pot of adderall to wash down the bitter brown coffee as i read the news of the last evening tapping the same apps hoping for a new spin on the old insanity half an hour pleading with the universe for a deviation off this accursed loneliness as i get […]

stainglass shell

occasionally i find myself on a web sitting quite still as is my peculiar nature feeling the vibrations of alien interpersonal connections run beneath my curiously awkward perch i make myself as small as i can to not disturb the buzzing semivoyeuristic afraid if i become to active a tidal wave of my madness will […]

bells

the bells of the chapel played a happy song and i wished you were there as the melody rang out holding my hand

library without books

the delivery driver got lost an hour past his arrival time i still sit in a lbrary without books wasting my day despite my best attempts to stay busy enough to avoid having to spend any time in my own head the universe itself conspires to bring about my downfall so i sit here watching […]

floating facelessly to abandon

the current of the lazy river pulls my body slowly forward the sunlight filters through the canopy in a display of dancing shadows a secret missive from the trees themselves in coded flashes over my eyelids as i struggle to wake myself before the liquid fills my shriveled lungs well aware in my unconscious state […]

doggedly

i leak emotions into the æther as i drag the razor across my mind unable to let wounds heal when the pain is all i can process as the loss is more pronounced each day i am tired of doggedly putting one foot in front of the other when the only reward is scars in […]

airplanes and chimes

airplanes rumble to break the stillness of the evening the occasional high rev of a motorcycle the faint clang of the wind chimes dances in the darkness where i sit nursing a headache and the insomnial delusion maybe tonight will bring some sleep i wish i were on one of those planes headed anywhere but […]

2023, a fool’s perspective

Christine Morgan’s blog put up the first new reviews of the year, and she had kind words for my latest collection of short fiction, dreamwhispers . the response has been a much appreciated confirmation there is room for odd speculative fiction that eschews the trends. last year River asked me if i wanted to write […]

brittery

the birds are excitedly singing this morning a high pitched squall in layered discordant notes fingernails down a chalkboard as everything feels brittle to a sleep addled fool the rumble of circling planes halts the choir of fluffy little former dinosaurs with hollow bones flitting about on the porch railing as they taunt me while […]

circular incisions

the words were intangible today i cast my net and came back with nothing except these circular incisions and this manic malaise this is when the stories reveal themselves when writing becomes nigh herculean yet my obsessive demands that every single day i write because legacies do not build themselves and i have been okay […]

coffee scented pollution

a quiet clatterof coffee percolatingsoft bird songunder yellowtinted blue skiesa semipermanentbank of pollutionrefracting thenascent sunlightover a sleepy citya kaleidoscope oflatent poisons inslow suffocationas the first weekof the fresh calendarfades into the past i sitcalm and thoroughlyunpreparedto meet the daya bipplar bardfluctuatingto and frowith no controlover the oscillationin chemical delugethe carcinogenichazel dispersion ina funeral shroudof anxiety

thick with smoke

the air is thick with smoke my head still vibrates from the firetruck that idled just outside my window i was jittery all day as the mania replaced the anxiety the pendulous swing taking me from the sky is falling into individual atoms pulsing in a chaotic array i am moving at the speed of […]

something about mines or acceptance

i don’t know if it is a result of my childhood or just a gift from low self esteem but my willingness to accept fault for other’s actions is a crippling effect of what i assume is a matyr complex i let people treat me like shit and joyfully stay where i am not wanted […]

control

the problem with a need for total control over every situation is it leads to a false sense of being the only one whose opinion matters when things deviate from the expected it has a tendency to make those suddenly in chaos shut down i have ny own terminal tendencies as i leave everything to […]

bubblewrap

the kids are about to leave and all three of us vibrate with anxiety as the bubble the last week and a half sheltering us from the real world quivers as the thin semipermeable membrane is at the verge of popping they return to school and the stress of rubberbanding back to reality i lose […]

coit and campbell

the turn signalat campbellgoing to coitis liekly theshortest lightin the metroplexfor such a busyintersectiona brief interchangeleading to carssitting throughfive changes ofgreen to redbefore being lessthan halfwaythrough to seeit shift to yellowonce more strandingangry faces forthe next cycle i osscilate atthe same frequencymy patiencegrown as swiftas this malevolentgatekeeper holdingthe throngs ofimpatient drivershostage as theystare at theseven […]

the frustration of the lost

it becomes impossible to give when it is clear you have no inherent value when every word is dissected reconfigured and made into a weapon but you wield nothing and all the cuts are self inflicted when you beg for the only thing that can fix things just to realize you’re the only one trying […]

susurrous syncopation

a subtle symphony of discordant supplication a diaphonous susurrous of sullen surrender serenaded in the pleading beat of cardiac palpations guiding the starlight in shimmering waves of trepidation to wash away the clamoring sway of sweet dreams with the frantically swishing staccato of sorrowful soulshatter suturing trembling lips to cease the flow of insipid sighs […]

something about loss

life is a solitary endeavor broken briefly by occasional intersections crashing into another becoming something more before fading dreamembers dying in the long nights alone i watch a traffic cop in the middle of the street limiting my interactions for fear of causing an accident and stopping the flow of traffic in all directions part […]

jug of milk

my irrational sentimentality keeps me hanging out where i am clearly unwanted a jug of milk curdled in the back of the fridge that needs to be thrown out but there is alaways a reason to put it off until tomorrow overstaying my welcome like a splinter barely noticed until the full infection sets in […]

gray stalks

i walk each morning through this garden of withered grayed stalks a wintry reminder death must come before rebirth and we are dying with each painful breath stuck in this false spring where the birds sing of green knowing another cold snap is surely coming but i see the facade with forced open eyes and […]

a rippling blip

the idea of sleeping in the embrace of the undulating dreamless abyss only to be ripped free and forced into a new squalling infant form to relearn what it is to suffer through life once more terrifies me a perpetual cycle of reincarnation bound to this mortal coil with no chance of escape spun out […]