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 […]
the full gray arteries eventually spill themselves out into the openness of texas after so long snaking through the filth of dallas to the west running over the waves of the hubbard reservoir as if snatched from the lone star transplanted elsewhere the red clay tiles on false pink stucco signals the cabana impossibilities of […]
does the water running from the tap to fall insolently into the unglass of petroleum flavored plastic ever yearn for the freedom of it’s ancestors does it relish the breaking of the shore in tiny nibbles to return all to the bottom of the seas that once were inseparable from those above and below is […]
the rain slapped at the concrete as the sluice runs down the side of the overflowing gutter to crash down over the entrance to the causeway the coffee pot trilled out to the new day of fresh caffeinated sludge to coat the tongue from the bitter taste of memory all along the railing outside the […]
i found myself hopping, curiously like a magpie on sticklike legs the angular prism of thought; catching the errant rays of burnt umber in the collander like diffusion of confused post adolescent squallor. the stream filled the soft dusk with cacophonic distillations that swam across the vast emptiness between reckonings with a heavenly keen not […]
there were these faint amber pulses that seemed to flicker at the very edge of the very edge of the very edge of my vision whenever she came into the room. like the iridescent trail of glitter a cartoon fairy leaves behind her as she darts directly into the face of a villain. they sent […]
she looked haggard hard worn given up of pretense settled into who she had been molded into by external pressures she didn’t care what you thought didn’t need your opinion sure as shit didn’t ask for your help thank you very much i liked her for the very earthen quality of simplicity and expectation she […]
she says the lack of polish the pitted veneer of the regurgitated nonsense i spill is infuriating to the image of poetry she demands with flowery utterances piss poor forced vernacular to appeal to the pretty people that stand in fields of ochre reading pedantic rhymes to one another in a bland facsimile of poetic […]
she painted her disdain like frida kahlo sketching in pursuit of identity in the traditional colors of indecisive need i was her canvas to cut carve reshape then splatter with blood bile spit and pure desperation in huddled need magnified she wrote her dissertation along my ribs with hammer and stake like oppenheimer having shaking […]
do you remember staring at the stars that night lying on the hood of the car, still warm as the chill air surrounded us watching our breath blow clouds into the sky orion’s belt seemed cocked at a funny angle and we laughed that could have been around his feet as lupus and lepus pranced […]
neither of us were fully awake yet as we sat sipping coffee watching the sun lazily make it’s way up in the east she looked at me with a gleam over her steaming cup with an unspoken question of why we left the cocoon she groaned and stretched with a sinuous grace that made the […]
i just stood next to the fence smoking the days last cigarette as the neighbor dog threw itself at the fence’s backside snarling slobbering the affront of this bald stranger daring to encroach the sacred territory the acrid smoke in the already fucking hot air the constant creak of the fence boards as the idiot […]
i don’t set out to write scene when i set out to write a poem, i don’t fret about syntax or word choice or really much of anything i let my finger trail in the waters around me picking up whatever fragments the song chooses to sing in hushed tones sometimes that is all it […]
she saw the white picket fence as another set of bars but she played along for the sake of appearances long sleeves to cover scars self perceived flaws cracked while desperately trying to stay unbroken she is the brightest soul that blinds you with a single smile. she doesn’t see it that way. he sees […]
the basket rocked in her hands as she made her way through the all too quiet darkened forest a howl in the distance set the silken hairs on her ivory neck to standing her heart began to thump within the woolen red hood as she thought of grandma waiting at home for the meal she […]
as i pulled the ripcord watched my carefully packed clothing fly into the air around my flailing form it was only the lack of oxygen that killed the laughter bubbling in madness out of my raw throat i may leave an ugly corpse but the crater will be one people will talk about for years […]
i was naught but a moth seeking the light only to find myself ensnared in her web the more i struggled against the bonds that held me the tighter they wrapped themselves soon all that was left of the me that had once flown so freely through the warm summer air was a dessicated shell […]
i have never surfed never balanced on the crest of a wave as it threatened to fold over swallowing me in the endless brine but i have skated the edge of a total breakdown as the world crumbled beneath my motionless feet requiring deft motion to slam shut the door to demons cackling in the […]
she trickled little anise flavored kisses across the pallid skin of eternity with the unrestrained sexual force of a hurricane damaging all who dare cross her path. she is a behemoth of mottled rage beneath an exterior of divine beauty. as easy to love as an umber sunset as impossible to hold as the gale […]
the rustle of fabric alerted me to the fact that i was not alone the figure blended into the shadows as if stitched together by the same diaphonous darkness a low chuckle wheezed from my liquid-filled lungs as the knowledge of whom my visitor was dawned across the haze of fever thanatos, i murmured he […]
he sets aside an hour every afternoon for arts and crafts. quiet time to create. pensively gluing macaroni noodles to the construction paper in seemingly random places until the scene he sees comes to life. once he knocked over the plastic vial of glitter sending tiny pieces of silver and green like an avalanche across […]
i may never paint a scene like vincent but i can most certainly understand his mindstate. i may never write as well as edgar but i will always be able to feel his pain. the more i dive into the lives of the greatest the more i find hairline fractures that trace the agony within […]
(un)fettered pre-order is live!!!!! My second collection of poetry is up for pre-order now. I am very excited about this, as it is a showcase of where my writing has gone. And it is a chonky collection, 300 pages of slivers of emotion. After a year of pandemics and first novels, consider it a treat […]
i may be the villain in your tale but my story sees it from the opposite end sort of like how marilyn choked to death on pills after she had already been long dead it’s all about how you spin the story putting whomever you prefer as the victim letting yourself play white hat so […]
her anger was embers my reaction an inclination to pour accelerant across the floor of our house of cards let natural tendencies take care of the rest. her passion was an inferno my reaction was to smother the oxygen from the bedroom leaving nothing to fend off the encroaching ice age. ours was a shameless […]
the grass beneath my feet seemed to wither to fade from verdant life to brown nothingness of dust to blow about as if the bankrupt nature of my very soul was leeching the very essence of existence from the sphere beneath and she sat there in her loveliest dress watching the ravens with an abstraction […]
it was that flying dream again not the falling not yet just soaring right over the lapping waves the storms off in the distance weightless painless thoughtless the wind wrapped around me like a funeral shroud a teeter a totter as physics begin to take hold but i choose to forget the thereafter lying awake […]
her smile managed to invert light an anti-chromatic spectrum of imaginary hues a hint enough to quench the superheated center of his indomitable will to cave in
it appeared one of two conditions had been met upon his possibly once striking visage either a swarm of bird sized mosquitoes drained him into the perfect recreation of a human raisin or this man was potentially seven thousand years old he smelled of talcum powder old spice and aggravated rot in a hunched over […]
every poem is a tiny cut while a novel is full organ removal both an offering from the fool to the universe neither enough to justify the pain. slicing chunks of reticent flesh to grill in front of curious onlookers looking for the next big thing. keep walking. nothing of substance to be here.
fold me into an aeroplane launch me across the sun dappled waves to soar face first into the rubble of formerly civilized vistas. make me into a crane with elegant wings to settle on the shelf with the dusty remnants of all the dreams left to decay as life makes another crater in the place […]
they called it a tragedy called a lot of things throughout history tragedies tragic events that have befallen innocent souls. the issue is that to call something tragic means there is something more to this eternal cycle of atrophy than living to die. clawing the uncaring soil in hopes of leaving a mark on a […]
he woke up with a headache as the rains fell outside he realized there was no point in the day nor most of the others as well so he readjusted the pillows scratched himself then went back to sleep. there is always tomorrow. most likely.
an ember slowly turns to ash as it rides the thermals to land casually in the corner of an unsuspecting eye. through teary discombobulation the dissolution of reality becomes less hypothetical fully embracing the disaffected disinterest of atrocious dystrophy. but sometimes a good cry is all that spans the void of suffering.
Excellent Review for Hunger on Goodreads And this one I was floored with these great reviews today and yesterday. The nerves of having my first novel come out have been playing hell on my mind. I have no issues with poetry, flashes that come and go. But hoping to convince someone I can make you […]
there was an air of situational racism nondenominational fascism free range sexism topped off with cheerful alcoholism it was just where we grew up. right from wrong was smudged into a gray area. some most escaped with scars a fluency in innuendo with a smidgeon of hateful terms in a hidden locked away part of […]
i wonder aloud to myself as i add items to a wish list that will never be fulfilled where do all the dreams wishes hopes that are ignored go to die do they just become calcified bits that cling to the soul weighing it down until the slowly sinking shade becomes so encumbered that hell […]
and out on the white topped waves the sail boat sailed as it was born to do. she could be lying on a fancy bed in a ritzy hotel but she had chose lying on piss soaked newspaper on a cigarette burnt carpet in a run down apartment in any city in any state excepting […]
her tears were like acid on my heart leaving etchings of longing that scarred the inner ventricle of daydream. the rapture of her gaze left lines of burning devotion down my spine as the evolution of her seeming revolution hammered nails through the phantasmal miasma of everyday lies.
can the coroner tell the spot of impact that sent ripples along the supposedly solid core making hairline cracks that raced along the obsidian cage painstakingly crafted to keep the beasts at bay? or will it be chalked up to just another case of broken hearted despair? does it matter? in the grand scheme of […]
i don’t recall transforming changing becoming something less than. yet here i sit broken a flesh bag filled with crystalline emotions left in fractured shards that slowly saw through the bands of atrophied muscle to spill onto the overcast sidewalk of the same nightmare hell as always. the acrimonious harmony of wheezing for death or […]
i will never make truly beautiful art women won’t sigh their hearts won’t skip a beat their breath catch in their throats at my words i’ll never be matisse rembrandt whitman braugtigan neruda or bukowski my name will never be uttered in hushed tones but still i write destined to be forgotten van gogh’s other […]
there is an absurdist beauty in a funeral during a pandemic. the grieving forced to maintain six feet of sorrow betwixt the maximum ten allowed to silently watch the box get lowered. even the clouds above seem disinclined to break the new norms. the world now has a tinge of a meth smile as everything […]
never have what is needed never get what is wanted. the invisible man with the empty account a blank slate no name no recognition. if it were not for the overwhelming sense of loneliness filling the hollow desperation. i would be as devoid of will as i am of talent. another arm of the abyss […]
Mike's Manic Word Depot 