the beavers in my mind have erected a dam that keeps the fiction silent as i desperately try to wrangle the words overhead a group of sparrows drops shiny bits of metal pieces of colorful yarn an occasional twig to feed the rumbling hunger of poetry it’s like drowning in a mud puddle after pulling […]
i hear your sound the soft snowfall of your thump woosh as the world falls silent around me i smell your scent of wildflowers kissed by the summer sun even as the world erupts in flames i taste your lips like honeyed wine with hints of autumn rot while the ashes coat my wagging tongue […]
the parisians took to the streets to celebrate the use of the old guillotine wine splashed across the cobblestones an augury to the blood to come they packed the bars awaiting the guest of honor to be paraded to the wood and iron implement of final resting of succinct endings a bucket placed unceremoniously in […]
there is a sine wave that follows the clinical chemical wake of emotional response her deep brown eyes caught mine from across the smoke filled haze of too many drinks too much smoke too little concern i followed that wave unerringly a cartoon dog on the scent of a steak have you ever known your […]
maybe it is the smoke in my lungs the willie album playing low or the deep down soul weary loneliness that tickles my deadened limbs but the world feels off centered just enough that i am having issues telling what is and what is most certainly not real in this prison of mental construction of […]
(un)fettered is one month away, pre-order is live by following the link. Foreword by Patrick C Harrison III. Afterword by Chris Miller. Cover by Don Noble. Edited and formatted by River Dixon. Written by me. I am quite excited about this one. (un)poetic was my search for my voice and a light in the darkness. […]
she stared at me from the eyeholes of a raven’s skull through the beady little eyes of the mice in the walls(and as i fell through the subdermal retractionary physics of a wormhole to the ass end of intergalactic redundance) i could hear her voice in the scratching branches on the frost covered window pane […]
I was outside, thinking maybe I needed to get moving to jumpstart this hazy day. The neighbor was picking up still serviceable butts off the ground as his little shit machine did its job while glaring at me. He smiled and offered me a drag off the crooked Kool 100 someone had wasted half of. […]
i make words into balloon animals cartoonish shapes to entice a reaction. she twists them into the prettiest noose to slip around my fluttering heart. together we will leave a crime scene to baffle to dazzle to ensure we’re never forgotten. what more could a couple of budding sociopaths wish for as the bodies pile […]
ginsberg howled over the greatest minds. being destroyed by the traumas of war in a world where war was something sacred an every couple of decades event where the young were lined up to die in pursuit of some golden ideal of some ignoble truth that was nebulous errant the shimmering glow from marcellus wallace’s […]
a fraction of gossamer memory draped across the ocean to reflect the substandardized ego pulls tightly the spider with swollen abdomen drips venom on the incidental recollection constricting into an atypical trap of grainy black and white images that show a yesterday that never quite occured an occular manifestation of optimal misrembrance drawing the fangs […]
he smiles with teeth like crooked headstones swaying behind her(she is staring at the ground unseeing) the whiff of rot swirls in the wind attracting gnats in a cloud of buzzing theatrics(she is in bed still unable to make herself rise) in a fit of unjust clarity of self clarification calculating infinite lies(the dead all […]
the vulture flies lazily above my head it’s shadow a reflection of happiness in the less than stellar residuals of blank horror. come pick my carcass clean you brazen bastard just know i know you are the epitomy of dream
Lisa Tone’s review of Hunger on the Chisholm Trail The reception has seriously managed to keep blowing me away, even 2 months after release. Lisa is a great reviewer and I am honored she chose to read my little Western Horror. When the self doubt gets too heavy, things like this keep the words flowing. […]
she fluttered her long lashes the motion pulling my gaze from the murky waters instinct has me darting forward before rationality could step to the forefront it wasn’t until the hook pierced my lip i was dragged to gasp in the barren sunshine of her false adoration suffocating in her desperate momentary need in the […]
i had an aunt she lived in a junkyard for a spell i liked walking among the skeletons of automotive decay she always had odd signs on the walls over the toilet read ‘my aim is to keep this bathroom clean, your aim helps’ i can’t recall her voice or the color of her eyes […]
she would bite my bottom lip sometimes midkiss as she came i eventually came to connect the taste of pennies with her clenching craved it long after she became another she that went away unable to cope with a too busy mind i’d cut my lip just a little close my eyes remembering that rapturous […]
she always carried a length of wire when she went out at night the stars in her smile as she clutched at the metal quite tight she turned with a flourish humming a fanfarish-like tune with the wire held just right it appeared she tethered the moon
she dug her toes into the soft soil a dryad in search of her oak tree little did she guess that her satyr was searching for her as well the nymph in shades of blossom danced in the fertile mud of hope swollen bud dripped sweet nectar calling out the passion in his soul oh […]
backed into a corner the coppery taste of blood runs along his tongue his pupils pinpricks his pulse raging in his skull his hands shake as the incongruency of the universe bears down leaving him with no choice so he hunched down into a ball ignored every instinct that had only ever led him into […]
we are all incapable of seeing the hypocrisies we commit but so fast to point them out in another if an ounce of understanding were shared instead of self justification maybe things would flow smoother
the aeroplane spins towards the ocean flames consuming the engines as the wings splinter. there’s an analogy there for the state of the world. but i am sure someone else made the exact same point in a more poignant way. i am just bracing for the inevitable impact.
if a poet retires in the woods and no one is around to hear it is it still inconsequential or does the universe sigh in relief at the sudden serendipitous silence?
rationalizing the unrest while the world erupts feels much the same as standing in front of the cage watching as the lions feast. only the cage is unlocked.
tranquil beauty thrown into the irrational blender of bipolarism lends itself to painting transitional images across the impenetrable depths. it can serve as an eye opening into the deeper meaning of friendship discovering the royal we and acceptance are a diverse set of opposite focused means to an end. as i felt the boot on […]
it lays on the counter feeble gasps mouth moving incompetently as the very air itself is impossible to inhale. two sudden chops take off the head slits the white belly open. practiced motions rip the spine out removing the organs to be discarded on the newspaper laying upon the counter. flayed splayed opened for the […]
pins and needles race down my deadened limbs anxiety acupuncture for the shattered soul massage my temples this temple unholy hell fire rains from the tolling brass bell brain stem haunted by demons named longing desire and remorse work the gordian knot out of past tense muscular dystopia hollow brittle bones echo broken hearted odes […]
in the muddied grays of overcast happenchance above the swirling browns of constant motion there was a vascular precision to the chaos incarnate around me from every possible vantage the far bank was slapped rhythmically while our side made a sucking beneath the docks if i closed my eyes as the deck under my nervous […]
depression feels supercilious yet never once does her breathy whisper seem superfluous. it’s quite the feat.
when you realize the dream is just that no matter how hard you pursue or the amount you want it a lack of ability an overabundance of hope and tenacity mean nothing. you’re the one waiting your turn and no one wants to hear you unless it is to mock what you’ve done before. waking […]
the deck sits high lilting back and forth above the deceptively deep muddy brown water spanish moss hangs in brown clumps down towards the bobbing heads of turtles i seek the tell tale lumpy log like shape of gators lounging among the currents below a boat comes flying towards my perch sending the entire placid […]
High Fever Books review of Hunger on the Chisholm Trail I am not used to this sort of praise, it is hard to accept they are talking about my book. Wow. Dang. Hunger on the Chisholm Trail is available now from Amazon. I’ll most likely be off the grid all weekend, Books on the Bayou […]
as i slit the plastic shell holding the tightly bound mattress into compressed hatred, after maneuvering it onto the frame through no small effort a gasping sound as the infernal contraption of netherfoam hissed in loud breaths to flop to writhe before unrolling itself with a cry to r’yleh beneath the oily brine there is […]
never dreamt of a home a house to store my things a box of possessions possessed by the need to possess. all i need is a roof a charger and a good connection to the aether. the rest is superfluous. i long to paint the sunsets to pretend they are sunrises. lose sense of self […]
i spend so much time alone feeling like an outsider in the skin prison that has kept me chained to the soil implanted with every fear doubts sprout with drooping petals that shed as brightly colored tears to the barren earth that pulls gravitational pulses growing stronger as another rotation leads closer to the inevitability […]
she wore a shirt that said eat me, drink me and i was ravenous dying of thirst willing to go down that rabbit hole a tea service for two smiling when she announced it was off with my head told her i loved her she grimaced said that was seven impossible things she’d heard before […]
Hunger on the Chisholm Trail, my first novel has been out for nearly two months now. I’m still sort of incredulous at how well it has been received. You don’t know when you write a story how others will take it. And I was double out of my element writing this. I’d never considered a […]
there is something about a field reclaimed by prairie grass and flowers a supple beauty unseen in the concrete prison of the city a field of mesquite shrub in a a pool of water after the damn near torrential rains that swept across texas like a wailing banshee driving into a little town half way […]
the world doesn’t owe you a thing it gave you a one in a billion chance at life supplies air water bountiful food. is it easy no it shouldn’t be if everything were handed to you would you understand the feeling of accomplishment. when it weighs heavy on me i think of the ones that […]
it’s in my lack of understanding in which i strive to see beyond the reckoning of implicit lies in hopes of uncovering a hint as to the underlying truth. staring so intently at the bark of the tree that it isn’t until the bird has shit on my head i remember to look up. it’s […]
the rains have fallen incessantly over the past four days, the thunder shaking the windows, as forks of lightning stab down at the uncaring ground beneath, a battle with no true victor the trees that line the road have been battered by the winds, the small pinkish blossoms lay scattered in the gutters, left soaked […]
she swore there were maggots burrowed just beneath her skin as she scratched herself raw in the dark of her cluttered home. as i stood in the open doorway shining weak sunlight in i could see them squirming under her parchment like epidermis occasionally peeking out from one of the open sores. it was obvious […]
the rain makes the aching in my shoulder seem to pulsate in spiral agony with the vertical spray against the bedroom window. the world is quiet underneath the buffeting rains still sleeping not tossing and turning trying to find the one position that alleviates the pain.
As I stood there watching them, horror etched onto my face and silence stitched across my tongue, I knew that this was no dream. I do not know how I knew this spectacle unfolding before me was no mere fantasy, more of a vision given for no reason known to me except as willful torture. […]
old spice the white bottle with the ship on it a carton of reds a case of lite every year it was the same he didn’t ask for anything if he wanted it then he got it but every year he smiled hugged me in that back breaking rib creaking embrace of his kissed me […]
some days are meant for lounging among the roots of the great world tree with nothing but thoughts of naps as dandelion fluff circles lazily in the hot summer breeze. other days are like a splinter just under the skin. i’ve had too many of the latter not nearly enough of the former and a […]
i can still recall the feel of the satin lining in the coffin as he lay in a suit and heavy makeup as if asleep i never did figure out if he was at peace or just painted to appear that way to put everyone else as ease in the end it didn’t matter at […]
a swirl of conjoining colors an array of shades of crimson dancing with black. there was nothing in the world in that singular instance but two pairs of eyes locked in misty understanding that forever was no longer an uncertainty but a gift. love struck by the simple snapping together of two seemingly indifferent pieces […]
and the sky opened above great gouts of pitch rained down upon the houses the streets the happy little people in happy little cars on asphalt gashes rendered into the flesh of the earth itself an umbilically umbraged biblical battering to cast the slate as wiped from incidental understanding and the sky opened up above
the ravenous raven aflight on ebony wing to perch precariously upon the shoulder of sweet sorrow the darkness harkens to serene motion in faded sepia languish laid out like a flayed offering to bored gods the waves batter the unseemly seawall in decadent need for sluice to fill the ever empty belly of dreamhate solemnly […]
i am well aware that on a list of dream men to sweep you off your feet carry you away to a land of dreams come true fulfill your wildest fantasies that i am most likely going to fail at every turn but if hearing rambling odes to birds trilling of where they store the […]
a silhouette in the tree sits staring into the lone lit window a shadow among the dappled branches swaying gently in the early morning breeze. she undresses slowly in the full length mirror watching the reflection running hands slowly down the supple flesh a lesson on self love desire happily given. the silent watcher cares […]
i just don’t know anymore but every moment feels like i know less have you ever had a headache last nine years dreamt of getting sideswiped so someone else would pay the tab of fixing the things wrong with you stared inwardly into the unblinking emptiness that fills your pathetic meanderings and just wondered why? […]
her kiss lingered upon my parched lips like a sisyphean flashback to a time when hope wasn’t just another four letter dagger between the third and fourth ribs when love wasn’t a synonym for a shortness of breath as blood fills vacuous innocence if only i had the foresight to blind myself as she walked […]
unvisible to any spectrum except one of spectral delights candy coated horror with gore filled pinatas hanging noisily in the haunted forest of childhood whimsy the reticence of those that despoil upon entering the magma core of ethereal agonies they sing a nonsense muttering of sinful dissonance to shatter the stalagmite of unshed tears that […]
she asked me for a picture to prove i was who i said i was so i sent her x-rays of the skeletal deficiency that creaks inside the flesh of tender lies she said i was beautiful stripped bare of gradual atrophy laid out in calcified remnants of pre-evolutionary denials a missing link between the […]
the bird screams in ignoble disregard for the inherent bullshit that coats the earth in sticky pockets of filth it doesn’t preen it’s feathers just bellows to the void as it grows in dimension until it eventually encompasses all i get it little one i’ve just lost my ability to scream along with your dulcet […]
Good Shameless Self Promotion Sunday, dear readers, I hope the day finds you well. Feel free to leave a link in the comments if you have a collection or book to shill. My western horror novel, Hunger on the Chisholm Trail, has been out a month and a half and the reviews have been pouring […]
so hyperfocused yet the edges blur until the definitive answer is to question imperial evidence without a hint as to the meaning of circumstantial suspecting the essential vitamins and nutrients until all becomes the same bland fibrous blend forcing the tongue to retreat in shame yet the truth is as simple as licking nine volt […]
drops of blood in the clear glass of water cloudy swirls your fingerprints greasy reminders along every surface of my soul unpoetic unapologetic odes of once nevermore ash and dust little gray snowflakes caught upon the tongue all that remains cardiac discontent water turned scarlet ebbs and flows small tendrils still clear this open wound […]
i had mud on my face ashes on my jeans tears in my eyes blisters on my palms from gripping tight to moral insecurity as i buried my heroes in the cold high ground. climbing out from the footsteps of giants is a great way to work your core decimating values in the rains of […]
she inoculated my blank slate against ever pursuing one half as perfect unable to muster the necessary chemicals to ever give a fraction of my dream to another in any way but temporary her every kiss erased the memory of any that came before tainted the ideal of any to come after leaving my mouth […]
the sun was yellow; like the lemons on the tree; like her hair whipping in the breeze; like the finch on the branch, singing an insipid song of hope the grass was brown; like the barren earth beneath; like the rough scaled bark of the tree; like the squirrel chittering, at the bereftness of will […]
there was this woman i dated once upon a time a real wild one that could drink ten men under the table she was something to look at with a foul mouth and big blue eyes that could should lightning bolts while she smiled every time we went out together it was a night of […]
he stood grinning like a goddamned fool bareass pointed towards the open door all while he pissed into the fan. the sorry son of a bitch would either be a statistic or president. i just sat with my hand over my wineglass feeling the mist across my leathery cheeks. god help us all.
her eyes rewrote the meaning of forever. her disdain rewrote the definition of pain.
that goddamned werewolf has been shitting in the petunias again. with silver the price of gold and my plasma flakier than a call girl’s panties at the end of shift, i may as well burn the whole fucking place to the ground.
there are times when the words come in short bursts the inside of my head is covered with lipstick kisses over cancerous growths. as painted by jackson pollock with hunter’s shotgun. a roadside attraction filled with pt barnum’s scraps. times like this i miss drinking.
her memory rewrote my past while her hunger rewrote my dna
under the stars in front of the fancy houses of the rich long fallen asleep on mattresses stuffed with money i had your perfume in my nostrils the strands of your hair wrapped tight around my fingers your lips pressed hard filled with desire as our tongues did an intricate dance of need in a […]
with deadened digits of inarticulate aspiration threatening to scrawl an ode to the winsome smell of decay floating on the breezes of yesterday’s lovely memory rose petals lay piled across the broken mattress of matrimonial dissent to putrefy amongst the bloated black flies that swarm across silken lies sworn under the deadlight of sorrowful reminisce
we met under the cover of night under the covers of desire under the understanding that what was uncovered could never be covered again she gave willingly of the flesh but i sought the rotten core inside of bruised ill intentions of battered hearts of self facing hate we smashed the facades of intermingled dismay […]
i lit my next cigarette off of the dying butt of my last every one is the last one i tell the ladies whereing too much made up i chase my shadow in a loop a gerbil on a wheel about to be stuffed into the ass end of a bitterly dejected universe it’s just […]
my bed is set on an inward spiral so every side is the wrong one woke up with a case of the burn the entire globe to cinders woke up with a blaze of agony lancing across acrimonious reality woke up with a headache a lighter and a case of molotovs dizzy from the infernal […]
when she smiled at me across the too long couch i cannot help but wonder at the subtle differences between need, desire and obsession she is a summer storm that runs across my every thought, my every dream, my every waking moment of exquisite shattered loneliness she reassembles me, only to break me apart in […]
they planted their rifles into the virgin soil; letting bullet trees sprout to rain death from the canopy of iridescent reverie behold the instance of secular grandeur; befallen from the heavenly bosom of dismay tinted lenses; begat by shameful pride far from fatalistic whims; cast aside by the fervent failings to drift as leaves upon […]
me on Deadmans Tome In case you missed it, here is my hour or so talking about my books, my friends, tigers and Cerberus. I am not as dour as my poetry might suggest. as always, thank you dear readers for your support. it is humbling to find one’s tribe after so long alone. hugs […]
the Fool is going to be on Deadmans Tome this evening at 9:30 CST. gonna talk about Hunger on the Chisholm Trail, cancel culture on social media and why the left is just as rabid as the right and insane. I always have fun talking with Jesse, so I expect nothing less this evening. Deadmans […]
they pile on more and more then wonder why the bones snap from the weight while they sit on ivory thrones watching as the kingdom burns. it isn’t an uprising it is finally taking more than any one broken spirit can handle. i don’t drink much but a molotov sounds like it would hit the […]
it was a simple case of cause and affection, disaffecting the causal state of emotive nuance, wrangling all of the detritus that swims in the deep end of post evolutionary lacking. allegedly. the idea being that i willingly gave up a tail retractable claws spikey growths along the spine for nothing more than egregious soft […]
the first thing i noticed as i got out of the car was the unusual crackle of broken glass under foot then the flapping caution tape all around me alerted me that unusual was more usual than expected as i saw all the broken windows dotting the landscape of downtown. one day will people understand […]
i just needed five minutes to stop running to stop being chased a soft chair a cup of coffee free internet the basic necessities as promised by the constitution most likely as i collapse on the chair waiting for the bean slinger to milk those browned berries for maximum caffeinated returns i notice the slack […]
she grabbed my wrists turned my palms up towards the ceiling i didn’t struggle didn’t see the point she ran her pointer finger down the creases over callus while muttering to herself i held in the sigh of dismissal not wanting to break the spell of her delicate fingers brushing little arcs of electricity on […]
in my scientific endeavors to help propel mankind into the 20th century (look around and really tell yourself this is the 21st, i will wait) i have discovered a new sixth state of matter a shade off of antimatter yet flavored with the same essential spices and oils to give it a flavor that has […]
in my dismay with heavy handed strokes i have painted the veil of misery in anthropomorphic shades of unsubstantiated morose to drip down the heavens forming a hard candy shell along the sedimentary cracks of belief. with steady hands on shaking ground a hypoglycemic merry go round a carousel of mixed metaphors in languid repose […]
as the nation burns in protest to an ever increasing set of of what is tinder to the sparks of orwellian dystopia and the old wounds that are never allowed to heal in the face of systemic racism and abuse become cyclic as if by rote and planning while no one is looking is when […]
in an impossibility of insomniac disbelief the thoughts rage as they tend to do stirred up as the reality of the situation lands belly up in front of my very own deceiving eyes no one respects a doddering fool that plies a dead trade nor wish to speak with an insignificant poet placed between those […]
they chase their tails like mongrels in the tepid day while i sit sipping whiskey waiting for it all to end. this grotesquerie nothing but the flaccid afterbirth of another fetid wish abandoned in the sewer drain of tomorrow’s lost desires. can you see me? or have i fallen from grace to plummet headlong through […]
she called it an indian moon that giant orange orb staring balefully down at us in the too bright night as the world seemed soft around us i learned later it was called a harvest moon which always happily reminded me of neil young’s heart of gold and her long brown hair there was magic […]
it will always be the way that curtain swayed on the spring afternoon as she left that breaks me down into my elemental sorrow her scent wafting towards me in a final kiss goodbye as the lace danced in the wake of the slamming door that signalled an ending there are days i sit sipping […]
the steady trickle since old mother reagan falsified a war on drugs while taking the news out of reporting now we need not question what is real or false in every facet of our stream how dare they point out the lies how dare they correct the ones that deem themselves above petty inconvenience such […]
the optometrist asked me to read the lines of random letters in progressively smaller fonts until i fell inside myself looking at the random scars and open wounds in search of sense she found my myopic internal view of the cavernous hell that resides within my mental landscape is twenty-twenty while my ability to see […]
learning to be satisfied is a foreign concept to me. the turbulent seas keep life exciting even if for all the wrong reasons. i sometimes wonder if it weren’t for the constant feeling of sinking beneath the surface the oceans themselves gently waterboarding the will to live, what would i do in the calm waters […]
it begins with the quill the pen the pencil the hammering keys the plastic board the tapping screen no it begins with a whimsy a sharp pain a barely held sob a ray of sun a biting wind anxiety depression love hate awe splendor all i know is it begins then it grabs ahold of […]
just wasting your time in these circular discussions of pre-revolutionary war statuettes of dominatrix spinning about among the branches of the canopy that shields us from the blank stare of god herself rationality is fleeting like pre-orgasm promises whispered in the sweaty sheets of adolescent radiance in shades of need begone begone frail vixen with […]
cool as a cucumber or cool as a corpse the level of frigidity rivals that of antarctic revulsion the blackened skin brittle flakes left like gretel’s trail of breadcrumbs through the glacier of redundancy an indifference or insignificance left to infiltrate the fragility in the wake of buffeting sorrows last respite
Hunger review This is a humbling and wonderful review of my debut novel, Hunger on the Chisholm Trail. I’m not used to or prepared for receiving praise as a rule. This made me ecstatic. I am not a typical writer on the best of days. When I was approached for this series, my first panicked […]
he was the humdrum king of the dingerdoo nation. filled with thumbs, whose faces were a whirl of fleshy whorls. he smashed the bits of half baked notary notions into the batter of battered remains with insolent insignificance baked into cakes. scattered matters of gumdrop fools with insulin memories of chocolate streams. the fallen marshmallow […]
i live in a constant state of waiting for the other shoe to drop. actualizing every possible way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. a self fulfilling prophecy based on the recurrent data of an entire life spent in a crater as the bombs fall around me. of huddling next to a lightning […]
a mud puddle soaked through my favorite sneakers, the world weary glances from all of the tweakers, small plastic baggies loaded with a variety of pills, this realm is a hell filled with peril and chills all of the people with masks covering faces, six feet apart in all of the public places, there is […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 