i am going to use the straight razor today in the pit of despair i didn’t trust myself to hold the keen blade against my scarred skin for fear of going too deep but the electric never really removes the entirety that dwells just at the surface naked to the human eye but still scratches […]
you are confused, possibly bewildered hurt, i am sure if you are reading this then you have pulled the trigger ended whatever charade of a relationship we had found ourselves languishing in i am sure i am devastated but good for you i likely will be in the midst of spitting tear soaked ballads into […]
the sun rose the engine roared the cat yowled i woke the bird sang the neighbor showered the silence settled i lay the plane circled the squirrel scampered the wind blew i listened the couple fought the police came the lights flashed i wrote across the page it appeared the world was the same even […]
hollow bones, hollow bones the waves consume the shore hollow bones hollow bones the dead dream no more scattered soul shattered soul pieces of crystalized hope scattered soul shattered soul swaying from a lovespun rope there are only so many ways you can rationalize away the anguish that pounds at your brain like an angry […]
entwine the stems of roses three a sprig of thyme to tether thee around the hill the clock winds back a golden light beckons once pitch black a boon is granted in the emerald light as voices whisper from shadowed night as your legs quiver like a newborn foal the fae they call for your […]
i don’t know if i lost part of myself or if the parts of myself i tried to give away eventually returned there are so many things i don’t understand that i stare into the abyss screaming for answers that are only swallowed by the darkness from within my photo-negative facade the human x-ray unable […]
it’s one hundred degrees and the power is out the stale air carries the tinge of brimstone satan’s breath carries over the land to hang heavily like the body of the first poet from an old oak tree
is there ever a time when a man can shed his skin awaken to be someone else a new pattern emerging from the flaked off scars a new epidermal epiphany or do we all fall back into the routines that lead us off the cliff on repeat until the final curtain draws to the applause […]
i made myself choke to feel your lips upon mine because i couldn’t tell you how much kissing you would make every bit of my existence worth it. my lips were created for that moment when we fell into each other losing trace of one another as we became something more and found ourselves there
one sock a tab of bubblegum stuck from the hot sidewalk beneath staggered steps the sweat dripping magnifies the cruel glare of the infernal eye in the sky one bloody footprint leading from the scene of the crime the setting where once upon a time died a gurgling death choking on the tears of disenchantment
fifty-seven years ago there was a march that led to a speech that led to a dream look how far we haven’t come since then the news reports interlaced with graphics of graphic brutality fifty-seven years ago which was one hundred years after the war which is no longer considered a dream but a nightmare. […]
through misery through joy the sun truly does rise again to that i say with all due respect and admiration fuck off sun inconsiderate ball of burning plasma with no respect for boundaries no matter how i blackout this room your tendrils reach you cast your judgemental unblinkingly gaze through the hole in the ozone […]
o’er the dreams i dreamt when sleep i slept the tenebrae of loss doth permeate for none call in the night the whooping crane pierced by fangs with venomous drip beseeched by the betterment of mossy regret to perch high upon yon beleaguered soul
the world appeared coated in hoarfrost or so it seemed through tear soaked eyes a glimmering nest of vipers frozen in lapsed adoration
she entered my heart like wind chimes carried on the evening breeze a masterfully subtle coup d’etat that soon my every cell was imprinted with her touch now there is a crater where a pristine chapel with an ornate bell tower once stood the sound of wind chimes still makes my soul ache with loss
calculating the infinity in her gaze using a protractor to measure the acute angle of the angel’s tilted halo as my broken wings sweep through the dust in hopes of finding the missing components to this suicide vest of unsent valentines with cartoon hearts etched in blood
silence is a lost art from a golden age where value was put into the few words spoken over being the loudest one in the room i do both with an expertise that was ingrained from a young age but the magic comes in the quiet time a tree says nothing but when the wind […]
the post office was empty as i trundled my armful of yellow mailers filled with books the lady at the counter smiled announced to her co-workers that this the poet she was talking about i felt my face burning above my mask near enough to steam the condensation in my mustache i had been in […]
if i was dead before you only springing forth to life when you showered your fleeting affections upon me what type of revenant have i become in our love’s passing i would have a funeral but the urge to crawl into the freshly dug pit would be likely more than this simpleton can take even […]
there is a ball of frustration that keeps growing like a new solar system in my guts as each new piece falls off to rot upon the floor i am left seething with this inability to accomplish the most basic of things correctly work is a dead end the words scream for attention that i […]
the bitter sting of her rejection, her silence, her anger the things she promised she wouldn’t do at the beginning but slipped into like comfortable shoes has gone i wasn’t enough, she made that clear, it was the words i now see as honey flavored falsehoods, the promises that stopped meaning anything when the road […]
i imagine it is difficult to tell an angel from a vulture when you are dying a slow death in the desert alone. it is hard enough to tell the helping hands from the lashing strikes when one has been consistent the other seldom seen.
i dreamt of a breast there was nothing sexual about the dream that came as i stirred from my broken slumber the great beast mistakenly rolling over but in the dream the dream in which i dreamt of a breast i was holding her she was pressed tightly against me skin on skin her hair […]
i sat in the car in a parking garage as they took the bull statue off the flat bed a group of workers in orange safety vests watched as the forklift driver slowly set it on the ground the sky was dark above the wind beginning its howls the air conditioner was blowing higher than […]
i want to feel her draped across my chest her scent strong in my head as we lay just basking in each other instead i will stare at the ceiling see how long i can go without breaking down tomato potato
i find that the swirl cone of anxiety mixed with despondency has me feeling like every single thing i do is pointless or destined to fail you don’t know how important the anchor is until you find yourself floating listlessly on the waves with no land in sight
pale purple flowers growing in a field covered in blown about trash there is a lesson there but i can’t find it through the tears
can you hear me? am i doing this right? be silence once for yes twice for no it’s just that i have been dealing with a ton of shit lately some of it wasn’t even my fault who the fuck am i kidding? it is all my fault the straw broke the camel or choked […]
the rains are salt water and i walk around without skin in the downpour i don’t have enough middle fingers to express the agony of this world of lies that sound like joy
when i was a boy filled with grand plans of great adventures before the understanding of how the lessons taught were tinted by the victors how the conquerors were not heroes i wanted to discover new lands with that childlike misunderstanding that already inhabited lands weren’t new just unknown nations across the serpent infested seas […]
woke up to see the sun glaring down at a world frozen in place the birds hung in the sky in static formation like a swarm of gnats a plastic bag gently hovered my first thought a jellyfish in a tank i didn’t dress just stepped out into the scorching day filled with curiosity this […]
she sat on the edge of the couch with tears and snot streaming, inconsolable in her grief damn it if she didn’t find a way to make sorrow look sexy i told you not to fall in love with a poet she collapsed in a heap on the floor, shapely legs and smooth skin he […]
i can turn it on in a second choke down the sadness fake a smile tell a story to curl your toes or make you smile or rub your legs together like a cricket at the sudden dampness but when i finally turn away the smile vanishes like a magician in a plywood cabinet like […]
we are sitting there on a picnic table but we are sitting on top with our feet on the seats close enough that your perfume is tickling my nose while your heat tickles me need you have a cigarette i watch the cherry brighten as you take a long drag the moon reflects your glow […]
i saw her reflection in the waves and filled my pockets with stones to find her i heard her voice in my mind and cracked my skull open to set her free i kissed her lips in that moment i chose her as my salvation i gave myself freely to her and she rejected me […]
i let myself be swept along the currents of this invisible sea never afraid of drowning as the coral of loves gone ashen slice the softer pieces into a slurry that calls the sharks to feast. dragged face down through the desert in her eyes parched from lack of reciprocation longing for my lungs to […]
i find myself consumed by her silence those moments between falling into her thoughtfulness before her sultry voice begins spilling her secrets i find myself starving for both in equal measure bewitching is this witchy woman unafraid to open herself not understanding the allure which in itself is alluring curiouser and curiouser as her silence […]
never so beautiful as the eagle that swoops down to consume my liver each dawn never so poignant as the chains that bind me to this stone made from unreturned affection a modern day prometheus, mute fool with too much emotion not enough sense to cease being if only the eagle would feast upon my […]
i get glimpses of poetry little images that flicker across the inside of my eyelids but by the time i stop to write them down her face has replaced every fractal of thought while i know she doesn’t stop to think of me there is a brief moment that stinks of hope reeks of need […]
The always amazing, Lisa Lee Tone reviewed Cerberus Rising and to say I am blown away would be an understatement. review of Cerberus Rising I was especially happy to see ‘Baptized in Lethe’ mentioned. Of the three of my stories, Lethe was the most honest to who I am as a writer. I worried it […]
i will never ask for more than you are willing to give but i will take every bit of you available to me i am ravenous insatiable hopelessly addicted to you
every trip to midlothian seems the same but degraded slightly the quarries announce your imminent arrival new buildings litter the highway but once you get to the heart of the little city that is when the cardiac disease seems to be slowly eating the town by inches the faces look lined as if the knowledge […]
i thought to stand in the hot water of the shower listening to the song it played off the bathtub in a symphony of disharmonic malaise the smell of the soap reawoke those memories that i have tried to smash deep down into the lockbox at the foot of my brain i was at the […]
we were once two tent stakes driven individually yet united in purpose now the canvas flaps limply in the breeze ensnared in the branches of the old oak and i am alone buried to my neck with a frayed loop of rope to remind me of what was
I. his fingers bleed from clenching the quill tightly in his hamfists; gelatinous eyes peering over the piles of crumpled pages; a cloud of stench hangs over his hungover countenance; a pool of inks catches the reflected candlelight he dies this evening II. the clock on the wall judges all that dare step foot in […]
no matter the length of time i have spent covered in sweat striking hammer to chisel to the undefined block in hopes of the coveted you springing forth fully nude to ease the hunger burning in my belly clumsy hands lead to an avalanche of dust that sticks to my damp skin sparks erupt with […]
it is with a solemn and profound sadness i have to admit i derive no pleasure from this existence not that it matters i will still continue the same rigormorale write the same drivel and press forward
she had a pendant that read ‘believe’ dangling between her breasts i watched it dance as she laughed at whatever nonsensical blathering i tried to convey. i have never been a religious man but the way that word called to me between the heaving smooth brown skin brought a bit of the believer out in […]
she said my eyes were sad peaking over the mask like two whirlpools that pulled at her heartstrings she asked if i needed a hug i did but my aversion to people to the world to everything feeling like saltwater poured on my naked frame covered by a thousand papercuts of dismissed need i am […]
i feel dehydrated drained emptied of all but the need to frantically spill verse across the opiate colored skies. nothing left but to die ugly and leave a trail of tear soaked odes to promises that were only meant to be broken.
some days the melancholia is rusted iron chains threaded through every corridor of my mind’s cathedral the picturesque glass detailing the arabesque landscape an afterimage of hell overlaid across the idyllic images of smiling faces holding hands a bitter hint at hope in decline as the world crumbles around them i lay on my back […]
at this point short of a time machine or full frontal lobotomy this is the new state of normal i have been soldering components but leaving out resistors because i have given up completely the room smells of disinfectant with an underlying scent of sadness the ice pick sits in isopropyl as i steel my […]
I the moon hangs pregnant like a pause in conversation in which the wrong thing is said at too loud a.volume he was the king of doing that it didn’t help he was usually the loudest any way i watched him the world taking on an eerie slowed down pitch we were outside telling lies […]
i think had she known the task the burden the tireless need that comes with loving one as broken as i she would have been deterred it isn’t as if i didn’t warn her my poetry alone should have been dissuasive enough yet she cracked down on the hollow tooth let the cyanide flood into […]
she moved with sublime grace across the shattered glass that sliced effortlessly through her thin slippers as she spun through the desolation of beauty in decline. i longed to take her under my broken wings to nurse her back into a state of less broken to nurture the sheer magnificence she exudes like beads of […]
he was a loathsome prince of inequity a relic of better times one with sunkissed promises that glimmered like diamonds of dew hanging fat upon the new buds of tomorrow’s strangled misery
can they acupuncture my brain derail this miserable train of thought detail this tale of loss reveil my mind in fog resale my broken heart can they pierce my brain to the core of who i am restructure the list of failings into modern art redraw the blinds to shutter the light that was only […]
i linger in your fiberglass impression ignoring the itch as i nestle in the last bits of you that still stab my ventricles with loss i linger because if i stop dust myself off accept you’re gone i don’t know if i will ever pick the shards of myself back up i linger in the […]
dreams don’t come true after they rot turn to glitterdust nothingness they are gathered by the twitching legs of dirty cockroaches that live in the walls behind the drywall there are millions of eggs waiting to hatch to roll in the remnants of the things you wanted most in all the world dreams are only […]
i long to make love to you to be enveloped in you as we writhe moving as one abstract moment frozen in biochemical frenzy i want to see your soul flash as you explode in orgasmic waves i want to cup your breast nuzzle up and sleep all night long with your smell your taste […]
one of these nights i will go to sleep without whispering my love to you in hopes it finds your deafened ears tonight is not that night
i have found myself at the bottle of rum when i haven’t seen the bottle of anything but olive oil or water in many moons but this is the first day alone without work or the kids to distract me from that you shaped hole that seems the whole of my emptiness and the world […]
the goddamned lump the ball of grief the flood held back by the little boy’s finger stuck in the dike the tulips soon to be submerged all i can do is choke it back down into the pit of waivering need that makes up ninety-nine percent of my mass
the age of beauty in urban decay is failing as we watch the sullen collapse of suburban mimicry the well planned even rows of monopoly houses set in sigils to call forth the elder ones that slumber aeons deep beneath the empty malls tumbleweed laden parking lots of cracked asphalt in front of closed down […]
those bastardly irongripped fingers that grasp my tongue rendering me incapable of speech rise up from the freshly interred soil in the latest in a long line of attempts at what the chemicals decree devoir le plus important chips away the marble edifice where hope once thrived and all i wish to do is scream […]
maybe the key to figuring out the absurdity of existence is not to zig when it zags but to fall into the gradient of madness we are taught to avoid as innocent idiots to revel in the pitfalls like a fork in the cheek of fate as we creep along the spiderweb woven into the […]
etched upon the faceless face of death are the last spit words of every poet doomed in shackles of disparate need left wanting even in their foulest endings
we are the dreams the dreamers dream upon sipping the wines of yon regret a bourdeaux chablis christened with angel’s tears.
the edge of longing laps the soul, the crane cries out in the dark, eyes like broken pottery beckon alone among the whistling reeds, she exudes panoramic indecency, in shades of emerald malaise reaching up towards the sky, a drip of crimson stains the moon, as viridescent globules blossom she is gone, the wind whispers […]
she wore a cloak of finest spun night the cosmos reflected on her breasts through the clinging infinite darkness how i longed to trace her erect nipples with rough fingertips use teeth pinch lick squeeze every bit of her milky way until my fingers found the wetness at the center of her universal desire explore […]
if beauty were perfectly transcribed from ideal into the soul of one person ms plath was this personification but to balance the wonder she could pull from the aether there must be a profound sadness to keep the scales afloat it is in the heart of this sorrow that ms plath did the unthinkable it […]
the worst part of deep depression is the images it compels every smile every moment every memory is so clear it cuts with razor edges fruitful and futile in the same jagged instant forcing the blood to mix with the ink as the quill carves through the page to slice directly into the fragmentary soul […]
he sits fork scraping pushing his dinner around the plate unable to will the fork to lift unable to taste the meal songs play softly but they are a chorus of discordant buzzing a book lays untouched the words simply swim on the page he tell himself he has to keep moving or he will […]
they comes in swarms with their beady eyes the need palpable dripping off them filling the room with stenchfog i see them for what they are though they wear the right clothes or buy the right perfume or put on make up whatever they read real people do but they are facsimiles cardboard masks that […]
in the darkest night their hieratic spirits envelope me in a cocoon of devilish intent through the halls i scream hunched over a quasimodo for modern times frankenstein’s monster let loose on a global stage a one man pandemic of lucid nightmares bedazzled with stardust fucktassels applied tightly waiting for my fifteen minutes of shameless […]
i have an innate love for words because as silly or obscure there is always one perfect word for a moment i try to collect them store them away use them incorrectly on purpose or through staggering ignorance i will never say when the right word hits at the right time it is like a […]
tu ne trouveras jamais celui qui t’aime moitié moins que moi mais tu es toujours m’a jeté bonne chance en quoi que ce soit tu choisis fuir a l’avenir
turned down two one way streets the wrong way had a moving truck nearly crush me against the wall of the parking garage another almost hit me on the highway the sign on the front desk of my mind says out for terminal dissonance too tired to function unable to sleep the near victim of […]
i am near insufferable mostly lost in the images that flow through my mind even when not writing i am writing along the silent screen in my mind it isn’t that i put the words first it is that it takes being shaken to snap from their call i hide i am quiet i am […]
love is like a penny it costs more to stamp than it ever will be returned on investment or maybe it is just mine that was turned green from disuse tossed aside for a shiny nickel left on the train tracks to be flattened
in a fit of rage and hurt she chopped down every rose bush in the garden then cursed the view that remained instead of replanting she boarded up the home running away to find the next serene spot to begin the cycle anew.
he was a leprechaun who lost it all when the magic died out in the world leaving him with no end of the rainbow to find his lost pot of gold so he peddled snake oil cures claiming miracles were possible knowing damned well there was no easy solution to losing it all they found […]
when i am alone and i am so very alone right now i just let the words spill when i had her i was content to let them slide over her smile like a life preserver when i do not i toss them by the bucketful at the world in attempt to tread water some […]
if i could draw the images i see so clearly i would never write another line i wouldn’t have to open myself to the torrent of words wouldn’t have to be beaten mercilessly one moment gently held the next i would scratch the pencil against the page to convey the infinite sorrow inherent in every […]
nous étions deux comètes c’est venu dans les orbites de l’autre pendant trop peu de temps quand pour toujours aurait été seulement la moitié assez (we were two comets that came into each other’s orbits for too short a time when forever would have been only half enough)
he sits astride his roan the desert sands dance in the ever blowing wind metal tipped lance pointed towards the heavens themselves as if to strike the heart of god seated upon her golden throne of judgement. blackened craters dot the land with cracked spirals of glass from the bolts sent from on high as […]
grand prairie is burning thick gouts of noxious black smoke hanging over all like a funeral shroud sirens sing in the distance as i watch the plumes hungrily climb hints of the fire shine in the man-made overcast tragedy a reflection of my mind given form the land suffers the same ignoble fate as the […]
black coffee matches the thoughts swirling within my head the bitter acidity travels down my blood lined esophagus where it sits with all the bile soaked regrets the sun is too goddamned bright the air too thick with lackadaisical memories but even though her name is still branded on my flesh the skin is healing […]
in order to rise again the phoenix must let itself be consumed by fire every pinion must fully return to ash the hollow bones pop crumble in upon themselves as the flames lick the now bare skin as i lay in this bed blowing flakes of what i once was into a cyclonic tempest of […]
the world is coated in an absolute silence no planes or cars or chatter just the whump whump of the ceiling fan steadily keeping the time as if this is still dream cradling my mind in an alien surrealism a bird let’s out a sharp cry reality rubber bands backs into the humming cacophony i […]
i haven’t really slept for days not for lack of trying not for lack of need but the mind was racing like a stock car driver in the thrall of a mighty deathwish or like a brokenhearted poet. as i lay reading apparently it caught up to me my left eye tender from where the […]
it is beautiful outside and i miss you so fucking much it hurts the you sized hole in my heart is what will finally break me completely.
and Sage Francis sings “i am no destination, i am just a journey, so don’t go settling on me love, no, don’t go settling on me” from a distance the words mislead from the heartbroken fool making him seem like something more than a pit stop on the way to true love upon closer inspection […]
a sparrow standing in the middle of the road plucking at the worms washed out by the rains unnoticing or uncaring of the danger from the vehicles going too fast i see the fat worm it is trying to work into its beak the truck barrelling towards it i press the horn in frantic bursts […]
pt 1 in the before the new normal silence was punctuated by brief moments of adoration the hushed tones were more dramatic in the lack of sound that permeated my globe pt 2 in the after there is a sense of waiting of constant checking of worry that the messages were still coming yet the […]
new blinds in the bedroom after so long with a blacked out room letting in the sunlight across my shadowed den of inexplicable loss. i cleared off the shelves once stacked three deep with hard covered tomes in an effort to divest myself of material possessions in the false hope of home in another land. […]
my passport arrived today just a month after i applied it was a surprise to show my willingness to prove myself to her the surprise was meant for me as she had already given up on me. too little too late for there to be an us just a passport to nowhere population me.
her nose breaks the surface of the clouds displacing the hanging fluff of mist to coalesce upon her higher and higher she rose the sun playing against the side of heck in a dazzling array of colors her eyes gleamed like gemstones as she soared in a playful swoop tagging every cumulus in sight feathery […]
when i was a child that still clung to the notion that life was an adventure filled with excitement fraught with peril and in the end the hero found true love i imagined a great brass diving bell that would take me fathoms below the surface where i would walk along the ocean bottom in […]
he is a competitive eater traveling the country completing challenges for free shirts free meals and an odd sort of fame the steady progression from fit to fat as the videos play on show a compulsion becoming a precipitous decline yet i cannot stop watching as he fills the void with eight pound platters and […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 