the sun pounded down on the city like an iron fist in a velvet glove the sounds of the ice cream truck crawled ever closer as the children scrambled for cash he sits behind the wheel of his mobile freezer with blank anguish drawn in neon across his lined face the heat of the day […]
there are times when i close my eyes let the world fade away that i can hear the crackle of tobacco smell the earthy tones of freshly poured liquor my lips feel the phantom brush of hers my tongue numbed by whiskey my hands on the small of her back wishing to slide along her […]
some days there just isn’t anything but that deep bone tired every thing else is too much i feel like a wrinkled bag blowing in the desert wind between dunes that are interchangeable lost and too god damned tired to do anything but let that fetid air push me wherever it will
the old crow watches patient head cocked the light playing off of it’s ebony feathers in shimmering spectral shades of purple and green there is an understanding in those black orbs an intelligence that is lost in the auspicious unmoving form it speaks volumes in the unnerving silence hinting at a debt owed a life […]
when faced with the unexplainable such as say an unblinking ocular exception or a downfall of blood science is shelved for a case of the old fashioned religious zealotry with good reason it becomes difficult to convey the impact of suddenly discovering everything you thought you knew was miniscule in the face of eternity but […]
all we are is imagination in a meat suit a cluster of nerves that have attached to a mobile body interpreting chemicals and lights into a series of ideas we call reality what is reality to electrical impulses electricity has one desire to go home well my incorporeal mind has determined she is home yet […]
my overwhelming curiosity battles my natural instincts to stay hidden in my cave this has always been the case my best friends knew that I would vanish for weeks at a time to try to get my head straight or ride the wave of inexplicable sorrow the constant struggle of the introverted extrovert today the […]
it began to rain blood just as everyone adjusted to the now flooded city it was first noticed by a woman who was out for a jog in the park a man sat in the warm mist of the beginning of torrential downpours he was as yet unaware as he leaned back to view the […]
the workers stand in front of the microwaves that have been wrapped in caution tape confusion as they hold their cold meals staring with blank faces as the manager explains that it is new policy to prevent people loitering in close proximity the little things that have vanished in the face of essential yet somehow […]
the heavy waxy leaves of the magnolia trees hang low over the empty sidewalks staring out over a city that has been so busy for so long now left quiet only missing the tumbleweed blowing across the dusty streets to finish the ghost town facade a haze of pollen glints in the air like yellow […]
beethoven’s ninth plays softly in the room as the moon sits lazily in the sky outside on one of those in between kind of evenings that melt away into the many unremarkable events broken by a few magical moments that make the slog semi-worth it at times my mind wanders to her chestnut hair that […]
it had been so long since anything had happened everyone seemed to settle under the unsettling eye that watched them no matter how strange things get humanity has an unerring way of just going with it it would seem this wasn’t the end of the end of the world no this was just a gentle […]
the tacit lack of recoil meant the killing blow was not felt as it left tongue to pierce the inner ear of civility the gravity of the situation was not lost in the zero gravity of the vacuous reaches of her needing space
the empty faces half covered with darting fearful glances the walking dead just not quite aware yet roaming the decimated aisles where canned goods once sat he drives down the once busy road seeing the sign that states the next four turns go to the mall but no one is going to the mall just […]
the only girl he ever loved was born with slivers of mirror for teeth when she smiled it cast a blinding glare across faces filled with horrific wonder at the many scattered reflections of the folly of fools in love as the trees turned green and the bombs rained down from the many circling planes […]
dangling the view from the edge of the cliff is divine as fingers scramble to find purchase on the tufts of brown grass a fool’s game feeling the earth give with every frantic grasp to let go to just freefall into the gaping mouth of the abyss below better than dangling at least in midfall […]
the words fell from her lips like icy little blades designed to freeze and flay the very soul i hope you die she immediately wished she could pull them back that she could send her tongue out like a lasso to latch onto them and swallow them to dissolve in the roiling acids that filled […]
pandora sat quietly staring at the clay vessel in front of her in her solitary room at the foot of mount olympus she never asked to be given breath by the gods to find herself plucked from the sea foam and clay a world of wonders greeted her outside yet she was obsessed with the […]
he dashes through the floating cherry blossoms as they dance on the light breeze through the evening air the moon hangs fat and bright above as the silent strikes like a cobra in the tall grass lash out in rapid succession the trilling of the heron sings in the darkness beyond the flickering light of […]
the sands seem sinuous as the sunlight stabs unsightly daggers into the eyes of all who are stricken by the unfiltered photons when i was a kid i liked to study snakes the sidewinder with the strange way it slithers across the stinging sands was always my favorite simply because of the oddness of it […]
the rollercoaster seems to be one straight plummet into the bowels of candy coated nightmares in a cistern of excrement splattered reenactments of soap opera starlets and genocidal dictators playing polo on the dessicated corpse of summer’s last good bye. i am listlessly searching for an exit from this long corridor my mind insists is […]
i used to just dream about simple things like watching the sunset over the water of an ocean i have never seen in a land i didn’t know existed now i find myself wondering what it would feel like to wrap my arms around you to smell your perfume as my lips gently kiss your […]
the days when depression grips tightly in that lovers embrace of tragedy beguiling the effervescent waves of wildflowers and pomegranate daydreaming when she clutches the back of your neck with sharp talons breaking flesh in crescent moon shaped reminders of how there is so very little that remains in this world that can match her […]
his father’s name was sam a poor dirt farmer from a long line of dirt farmers he grew up watching as his father get older as the world spun around them without notice he dreamt of more than stinging grit in the wind bill collectors and sore muscles he would travel the world see the […]
it is an eldritch algorithm that insinuates itself deeply into the undercurrent of insidiously frenzied need to pull the gasping mouths beneath the surface of the toxic pools of self asserted necessity gently entwined into the harsh light that shines upon the ever growing cracks in the facade of ritualistic joy we live love and […]
The wind was fire on his skin, pouring salt across open wounds. The sun sent blinding forks of lightning through his skull. Blood welled on the stones as he pounded his fists fervently while howling agony at the heavens. The gods ignored his screams today. Just as they did every other day. This was his […]
the rough pencil lines bring the words to life as they spill across the page like graphite rivulets of hot blood let loose from the series of worms that writhe just beneath the skin under the harsh light of summer’s fury pounding the cracked earth an encapsulation of the intent given form from the nebulous […]
when she spoke it was like a radio tuned to static her eyes flickered as if she tried to tune to a frequency decipherable to the strange creatures braying before her she had a pretty smile that sparkled in her eyes when the weight of the world was turned towards another poor soul to sputter […]
at the laundromat during the plague the normally indifferent faces left as eyes floating in an indistinct void over paper masks as the dirt of the week is slowly spun from the soiled cloths that somehow keep this emperor roaming the hallways of his own mind in glorious nude misunderstatement of the differences between viral […]
she was a psychic using the future as a blade to carefully slice apart the present tense muscles of past indiscretions indiscriminately being forgotten intimately being dismantled this mantle of soothe sayer waving her hands over a crystal ball to see the spirits of the living dead all while holding the future like a blade […]
maybe every wish has been over a meteor falling from grace and never the shooting star i had hoped for maybe every prayer was uttered in the wrong language to be picked up by the holy antennae of the gods every dream was just a regurgitation of the days events mangled and made palatable by […]
when the pain gets to be too much the anxiety whispers the depression pressures until my inner organs turn to diamond i retreat into my shell feeling less like a hermit crab than a snail as the world speeds past yet i cannot seem to get my bearings the spiral of my mobile command center […]
he lives by the airport he likes the noise having grown up by the train tracks making a gentle rumble was more comforting than distracting some days he would sit constipated by the words that taunted his every day with their incessant murmuring then running away on those days he would sit at the window […]
it seemed to rain everyday for a month the entire time the dull gray skies seemed a reflection of my soul now the sun shines through the crystal blue and in this naked exposure i find myself longing for the rains i am as tumultuous as those thunderheads that hung morosely over the uncaring concrete […]
he stares out the window at the birds flying free swooping merrily through the bright azure skies a chubby squirrel stares at him with its head cocked possibly wondering why the hairless is trapped in a box the conference call had been going for roughly two hours longer than was positively possibly necessary yet no […]
i have a diabetic sweet tooth craving everything that will only lead to my undoing i have a blind spot for trouble that leads to stumbling in the darkness for the edge of the cliff i have a an inconvenient grasp on the truth when it points towards fallacies that seem ideal i have a […]
the low bassline rumbles across the floor to find purchase in my now tapping toes the guitar kicks in as the cymbals shiver with vibration she sits on couch with her legs demurely crossed ignoring the fact that sunlight streams across her erect nipples as she pretends to read all pretense lost as she sets […]
her pomegranate stained lips leave a trail of bloody kisses down the rigidity of all i try to suppress the world is silent except for her breathing a symphonic array from her lungs combined with my need to launch the entire room into chaos of action as my hands play down her bare legs still […]
i worry about my state of mind sometimes when emotions are too confusing obtuse there is no added anxiety because the tank had been topped off years before i mean i always knew i was broken in some ways but the cracks got wider as i got older the world kept spinning spinning spinning spinning […]
the words escape me trapped in a whirlwind of my own butter discontented sighs to traipse across the room a will o’wisp of bad intentions irresponsible irreprehensible irreparable an abomination an abdominal snow man a flaky crust of subservitude to a cause and affectionately spooked recurring theme i don’t know what’s happening but i don’t […]
sometimes the clearest way to see the future is to longingly gaze into the past sometimes to see the past clearly you must be faced with an epic doom to shake the cobwebs of sentimentality sometimes anything you do is just going to make things worse or worse than that anything you do makes nothing […]
it is rather exhausting this ever present feeling of dread something is wrong even if you have to manufacture it but nothing except mind rending terror can sate this abyss of shuddering anxiety under the scrutinizing gaze of absolute disinterest
the man on the moon which has already been decided to either exist or not doesn’t ever do anything on saturdays today is saturday he is going to spend the day in bed with a good book maybe some cocoa not fretting over the end of the world especially not when it is so far […]
there is a river that runs far underground that has never seen the light of day fed by one underground aquifer to travel through a honeycomb of caverns and spill into another pale creatures uncatalogued by ever inquisitive scientists live and die in this unlit land it is mindless in its flow in the molecular […]
tomorrow is the vernal equinox as the sun passes the celestial equator to the northern hemisphere far below the two hemispheres of the self isolated brain begin the slow divergence into two autonomously functioning sickly gray matter simulated masses realms of total fear when fitzgerald or heminway were isolated during the spanish flu they guzzled […]
Hello dear readers So the world is in a panic and everyone is being told to stay indoors. Myself and the wonderful people at Potter’s Grove Press know that can be long hours of staring at the walls. Why not read my first poetry collection to wile away the time? For free! That’s right. Until […]
i feel like one of the last icebergs floating in the warm waters of mental breaking slowly shrinking into the abyss of ever drowning this is home this is heaven this is hell this is home this is here this is now this is the end of the beginning the begining of the end don’t […]
the empty highways of a city on lockdown afraid of everything it feels like a holiday except for us poor bastards headed to work
mostly everyone in the company i work for is working from home. they can do everything over the web. then there is us techs. we read the emails warning that it is for the best if everyone avoids everyone else for the next few weeks. as we, the lesser than, get sent out, much like […]
the most complex things are made up of the most simple things at the center of the core. yet sometimes the most simple things are overly convoluted by an inability to separate the two. as the basic human needs cannot be met without complex human interactions in the modern age. we barter our trades as […]
it was day three of the plague enforced spring break the children with dirty faces and runny noses walked along the empty streets in desperate need for milk and toilet paper the parents sat alone in the dark staring at their phones as another and then another store was ransacked trash swirled in the empty […]
there was man with the face of a rodent not the actual face of a rodent but similar features to a rodent the mannerisms as well he pushed an ice cream cart up and down the street in the sweltering heat of the summer his nose twitching as he sang nonsense and the little bell […]
now let’s pretend there is a man on the moon yes a man on the moon a moon made out of green cheese why not and if there were a man on the moon and for the sake of arguing there is and he lives in a crater on the dark side of the moon […]
if a man cries in the forest alone under the baleful glare of the eye of an unfathomable creature manifested in the center of an unworldly spiralling storm does he make a noise does the sudden inexplicable knowledge that there is something more something larger than the menial life spent in mind numbing labor that […]
there is something magical in an overcast day where the sun stares down with a corona of malaise through the misty skies when the words flow like sweet nectar across the honeyed sick of anxiety and woes a time of insipid prose that coats the inside of the manic skull while tapping out meteoric metaphors […]
the thirteen hooded figures choked out the chanting through blood flecked vocal cords from the cave overlooking the now flooded town exhaustion should have pulled each to their knees the painful rasping of their voices should have given out but as surely as a tortoise can fly or a tennis ball can feel freedom or […]
sometimes i am thinking so far into the future the present is a blur of external stimuli i tune out sometimes i get so transfixed on the problems of today i forget that the future holds promises as yet unfurled mostly i want to crawl into bed and sleep for roughly a decade wake up […]
she shuddered in her blanket coccon not unlike the butterfly earlier but she was not trying to break free no she was burrowing further in as the waves crashed against the buildings around her like rolling thunder down the litter strewn streets she found herself falling deeper and deeper into the spiralling malaise that threatened […]
with the constant state of panic sweeping the globe it feels odd not being the only one with crippling anxiety hiding at home but at least for most everyone else it is a temporary thing to me it is the same as breathing this hidden away half baked poet become prototype for sheer terror
the sun and the cracked ground are the same hazy shade of yellowish brown she stands in the sweltering heat wrapped from head to toe walking down tight rows she plucks the vivid purple flowers with tossing them into the ever filling basket the wind is a blast furnace pressing the loose fabrics tightly against […]
i spent the morning smashing all of the clocks in the house my pastime is staring into time past so keeping an up to date registry on the time i will not consider until it is long over seems prudent i keep the brass gears in a dish trying to fathom the secreta to putting […]
there was a shifting a low howl that registered just under hearing just above recognition then a sudden surge as the absent minded water came rushing back with a longing for the shore so abrupt it crashed over the sea wall through the crowded streets leaving nothing but rubble in it’s frantic need to return […]
she settled on me when she decided that the car wreck that was her life could use another tragedy to spice things up she settled on me like the tons of snow from an avalanche launched down the side of the mountain after an errant sneeze she settled on the repetition of anger and lust […]
I was writing a summation about my take on the state of the world. Then after reading it realized it was more the plot to a horror novel. Then after that realization hit, I deleted it and wanted to curl up in bed for the next decade or two. Once the lines have blurred enough […]
he had spent so long faking his life when the doctor told him he was dying it was a relief all those years of pretending to be someone he was not liking people he could not stand doing things he hated but in that one instance he realized that even if his entire life was […]
close your eyes little one forget the misery that slides across your heart she wore a ribbon in her hair that wiggled through the air like a snake with her every step across the field, her smile threatened to break her face in half, her eyes glittering little stars of the purest blue, taking in […]
the sun came out today but as it shines down on the land i find myself not in the mood for sunshine or bird song the highways are filled to bursting with carbon copy cutouts of the same basic body style in angry lines with metal cups of coffee clenched in manicured fingers like a […]
from the ground level the city was filthy with trash blowing across oil soaked streets a fetid stench of rot mixed with human waste slight higher at a distance it was a glowing series of monolithic concrete and glass with bright neon lights from the vantage of space it was a conglomeration of flickering lights […]
she lay curled up in her bed in a blanket fort solidified by an abyss of sadness permeating her mind unaware of the panic stricken world outside she fell deeper and deeper into the her own misery when she glanced out her window and saw the eye of impending doom she sighed it was as […]
it was under that withering gaze it seemed all of the residents around the world took a collective moment to stare in absolute panic at the unblinking orb almost as if it was the first end of the world any of them had ever experienced it wasn’t not by a long stretch but it was […]
and then it stopped it in this instance meaning of course everything the storm kept swirling as the world froze and in the center of the storm above the tortoise the woman the blind man the butterfly (rest in peace) the ball in the muck the thirteen an eye opened up it was the colour […]
the winds screech the banshee wail of impending doom the tempest writhing in cumulus tentacles across the emerald sky a milk crate precariously perched upon an old lawn table with one short leg rattles closed to the edge with subtle shifting plasticmania a new gust batters the teetering table to thrust it skyward the least […]
there is this feeling as i try and process the latest collection of bukowski poems of heart rending sorrow that one day the ever slimming pile of (un)released poetry will be the last anguish it feels like he typed each on my aorta tangled my consciousness in the simplicity of words flowing in that broken […]
the cocoon hung fat on the sagging branch a slight wriggling barely perceptible at first then the struggle intensifies the branch bobs under the shifting weight minutes pass a halflifetime trapped in constraint slowly frantically it begins to burst free by nanometers squirming through the lazarus exaltation or (re)birth a brightly colored burst in the […]
the sea loving kisses the shore with gentle lips flashes of light far out over the blue gray waves then with a loud sucking sound the water is simply gone fish dance in suffocating motion on the newly revealed sand the lighthouse suddenly land locked in the vanishing tides the light keeper stares out with […]
thirteen robed figures stand motionless in the mouth of the cave torch flames dance casting shadows to blend with the darkness in the bellowing stone mouth tectonically formed with no rhyme nor reason on the face of the mountain lightning arcs through the ominous black skies at high noon a tome fashioned from stretched human […]
the bells toll from the musty tower in the center of town the brass behemoths sending a resounding wave of dischordiant warning echoing through the empty streets a small child lays huddled beneath his bed shaking in fear as the alarms clang in a thunderous chorus the congregation gathers in the marble ossuary of accumulated […]
the way the leaves blow across the forest floor in a dazzling display of non-sequitur free dance a bear cub plays in the blowing detritus of summer’s sweet kiss good night a subtle shift in the ground alerts mother bear something is amiss then the land shakes a violent upheaval in the midst of a […]
there was a seashell on the shelf long forgotten was the sea there was a post card from far away that had become domesticated over time there was a wind that blew through that had once tangled the snowy mountaintops and danced along the waves there was a tortoise a woman a blind man and […]
the sunshine feels oily across the surface retention of the razorblade soul the venom laden fangs of the serpent sink deeply into the vestiges of random insight the scentless stench of brash indifference flickers like gems scattered across the smallpox blankets carelessly given as gifts from nature herself to the bipedal infection slowly killing the […]
when he was young just a small boy he saw lightning crash to the ground mere feet from where he stood in awe it hummed crackling with lavender arcs of molten sky he could describe it with the same intensity a father could recollect the face of his baby upon first glance years later if […]
she sat on the shell of an extraordinarily large tortoise suspended high above the city the people smaller than ants beneath her proved to be the source of much laughter she daydreamed of the simple lives of those so blissfully ignorant to her plight above the tortoise cared little for the world below and less […]
he didn’t bound out of bed exuberant with the sounding alarm soothed by the chorus of birds trilling the glory of the morning sun ready to face the new day he rolled painfully to the edge of the matress let himself drop to the floor with gravity doing the bulk of the heavy lifting scowling […]
the city is overcast it smells like wet dog and burning rubber as the meth addicts walk along the small strips between the buildings searching for something in the brown grass the man shakes screams into the quiet morning with something just left of mindless rage as he kicks tufts of dead sod into the […]
i was sitting on the bench the same bench i always find myself sitting on when the sleep won’t come but the tired lays across my lap like a fuzzy blanket there was a star twinkling above that seems to pulse and blink along with the pieces of coherence that sifted through the collander of […]
the lines of filth run down the inside of the glass to pool on the threadbare carpet in viscous sodden rorschach images of corose beetles eating the flesh clean off the skeleton of hope left discarded with the rest of the good feelings thjs vacuum sealed planet of piss poor expectations launched into the void […]
every smile validates the cold frost that dapples the windows leading to the soulbarren desert of just desserts from whence the tawdry expectation of inexplicable palpation seeks home in biting whorls of detrimental defiance the time clock validates the grand entrance into the vestibules of night
like a ken doll melting in the sun he sat waiting for his flight back to texas poignantly staring at the pacific ocean pointedly ignoring the laughter he ventures into the sky the lone nude traveler waits. the statistic revile leads to an extra day the basic human need to force the universe into the […]
she said to me you’re gonna regret this in the morning i kept my mouth shut as i was already regretting it at that exact moment but it didn’t really matter as i am an insomniac so morning never quite comes she asked me causally how do you sleep at night knowing all of the […]
he sees stories in every new vista yet only has so much time to scribble them it doesn’t matter though as no one seems to ever read the things he spills across the page yet on he writes imagining he is leaving a legacy to be found one day long after he has died
there are things that i wish i remember but i couldn’t say exactly what i will just have to settle for the smell of flowers that occasionally taunts my shredded mind it could be worse sometimes things are forgotten sometimes they claw your brain i will take the subtle hints over the vacuous spaces that […]
the wind howls down through the empty streets whipping up the trash of another failed attempt at civilized domination gone the way of the dinosaurs into the land of tar soaked bones lost to the annals of history a lone silhouette stands in the tower at the center of the fallen bricks that once made […]
she stared at herself in the mirror not recognizing the lined face that looked back dusk had fallen over her afternoon beauty leaving shadows playing where smooth perfection had once ruled it had been so easy a smile opened doors a shake of the hips dropped jaws to the floor a general change pulled the […]
she was made of calcified dream left to rot beneath the soggy mud of hope unfulfilled a skeleton of whimsical desires stripped bare with organs of failed potential slowly reverting back to the basic elemental dysfunction the chaos will strangled by the roots of hypertension rotting in the spatial insecurities of lazy misanthropic reality her […]
almost made it the whole day without more of my intimate whining in shaky metaphor ignored the words in a petulant attempt to prove my superiority yet here we sit in a bare bones diatribe against the goddamned never ending hollow ache that is more a part of me while my mind is more apart […]
one strand of gossamer spider web gently hovering over the sidewalk a shimmering thread dancing on the wind the only thing missing was a rusted hook to draw me in the spectacle of a lure glinting to pull me down down down beneath the placid surface of the sea
there are days where the need to crawl deeper inward to force the entirety of my wayward third eye to ignore the world of rabid regurgitation is the only emotion to pierce the veil of my insipid ignorance today is one of those the only comforting thought is to lock myself in the bare comfort […]
sometimes i feel self awareness so intimately like sandpaper across bare skin but with the small in scope veneer of the velveteen depression that seeps over everything an ashen maple syrup that leaves everything wanting so the irony of my profession being fixing things as a semi-autonomous flesh bag filled with the shattered stained glass […]
it has been seventeen years since you left sixteen birthdays with the candles left unextinguished the world has never been the same frankly neither have i they say it gets easier but so far the closer your birthday gets the worse i feel the sense of missing you just grows more fierce i love you […]
i like chilly rainy nights for some reason the words like to play on the falling drops there is a song if you listen closely between the inevitable spatters a symphony with impossible notes nestled within a place of comfort sanctuary in the sullen drizzle a place for monsters to dance between the drops.
Mike's Manic Word Depot 