The ring

The ring, everlasting; sometimes, unbidden, he can feel its annulus metallic chill, the phantom sensation and horripilation of an infinitely symbolic, twisted lemniscate; an unraveling thereof, which is no less forever When möbius memories turn aback, he’ll depress the hoop seeking an idyllic, rockwellian innocence, one that he was never comfortable wearing; a pressing reminder

Swaddle me, Suffer

Swallow me, Sorrow That I may choke on the rotten soil in vivisepulture; fodder for the screwworms, fare for the dermestids, swell the bellies of scavengers with the fattened tormentors, yet spare me the escape of peaceful death Punish me, Misery Bruise and abuse me in my isolated tenebrosity; give no quarter, spare no skin

Mad Kate

A severe widow’s peak favoring aquilinity, nested over a murder of crow’s feet clawing at her eye’s marge, with fresh, lunatically hewn laugh lines creasing her etiolated countenance, these lineaments on her face presaged those on the page; her fingers vomited words in widow speak, while anoesis urged the violence in her closing strokes and

Notorious

Hers was a notorious disease, crippling. The lamb’s slaughter for most, the lion’s share for those whose madness was brought to bear; until they too were brought to slaughter. An existential blemish, she found nary equipoise nor heartsease in her quotidian quiescence. An only child sans a brother’s stillbirth, whom she always supposed was the

Zombie

a destructive maelstrom of sudden revelation, cast her into disarray centrifugal reactions over violent questions of her love, recherché irrational repudiation of secret somethings, a cognitive decomposition taciturn demeanour of nods and nothings, left cause as pretermission confiding in no one, granting no absolution, thus rendered dead inside chaotic incredulity, marked mental devolution, unliving thus

She’ll never know

Wonderstruck, she beheld her kingdom Incomprehensible, the path of her ascendancy In the sempiternal pause of a heartbeat A king’s inscrutable command for his princess, or a father’s incoherent rhapsody for his daughter She’ll never know Her two greatest loves vanquished in a breath, and now she looks out upon the other A commoner, no

Ophilia

Cecilia paused. She could never remember their names. Perhaps she is never told; perhaps she is made to forget. Briefly wondering how many have come and gone, she then decides that names are ultimately inconsequential, before lamenting sotto voce, “What’s in a name…” They are only labels. She’d been given many labels by the therapists,

Ceremony

He hears her before he sees her, garrulously babbling from inside the drive-thru window Poor decisions, or unfortunate circumstances, unceremoniously brought her to their employ; skills lost to anachrony – or having none to speak of – she had no choice, she has to live… He supposes She was macilent, nearly emaciated, with grey cropped

Pretty smiles, pretty walks

When he’s distracted – by a pretty smile or pretty walk – when ego has distracted id, he senses the existential moments Moments when his evanesce into periphery isn’t paramount; he’s inconspicuous in a spotlight, living amongst the living Not a shadowed pock at its center, quaquaversally thrusting hands with fingers of hands in fractal

Welcome mat

Her serrated scissor smile bares auriferous caps and barely concealed rubies on artificially plump lips, as she pours pyrite pleasantries over late night, lamplit sidewalks and creeping, drive-by lechery She’s made threats of paper dolls to ensnare desperate secret keepers into paying for secrets and keeping nothing else, and spit out flurries of giant snowflakes

Nun the wiser

She expected the spider’s web to shimmer, having felt the draft an instant before. Nothing more than a peripheral afterthought, as she prepares her Rosary, in the heat of mid-afternoon. As she prepares to pray for him. Her cell is modestly decorated in passing time and empty space. A single bed, made each morning with

Is another man’s treasure

Slip through the night he must, challenging the darkness in corner and alleyway, twixt apothecary and bakery, ‘tween hovel and cesspit. I must embrace the space where shadows lurk, if I’m to quest successfully this night. …he whispers to himself, knowing his treasure is nigh. He pauses to hearken for a rumble of the dragon

Naked poetry

As I encroached the morning mere, a lonely pock on its pristine shore, I espied a damsel knelt naked at the water’s edge, beneath heaven’s reproach She had yet to notice my presence and I was disinclined to disturb her respite, howbeit I could not avert my marvel She beguiled me with every move, envincing

The gambler

Gimme your damn wallet Said the middle-aged pyknic, in a slow and deep cadence. A clearly edacious black man, with an air of dumbfounded innocence. His pinguid complexion bled rancid stains beneath rolls and rotund. While a mayfly’s attention echoed in his cleanly shaven dome. Gimme your damn wallet A macilent, black youth wearing a

Tant mieux

She stitches her lips with little white lies Then tastes wet iron, as the silvered needles sway like windchimes Beneath her noisome, tarnished words Harboring an appetency for secrets and deceit Her euphonious whiplash would beguile callers with playful dispraisals from sanguine smiles Then she’d lie awake in her chamber, counting the bruises; accompanied only

Abrupt

Her evanescent sanity An abruption of the psyche, hovered overhead Dispersed in the brume of reality’s abyss Maddening madnesses corralling sadnesses As she surreptitiously clawed at her arm A misstep bound to betoken suspicious eyes They can’t discover, they can’t suspect Lest her arms be girded and out of reach She knew the game, she

Astonish

*a fly lands on frog’s head* Astonished by the daring impertinence of the fly, the frog had little choice but to question him why Why did you rest on my little green head? You know it’s my nature to eat you instead I’ve nothing to live for in life anyway, so i thought I’d just

Elaborate

“Good morning, honey…” He was awakened by her quick good morning kiss Just before receiving a second, from the hastily opened curtains Both of them beamed, though he couldn’t divine which was brighter But it seems they each were happy he was there, which always puzzled him She stood briefly in front of the window,

Bestow

Thank you for the smile, can you tell me where you got it? Oh, it’s yours? No wonder you give it so freely; it’s beautiful. What a fortunate twist of fate, that you were bestowed such a gift. Many are not so lucky, that is to include me. Most are merely masks; insincere attempts for

Company

The inkwell tumbles over welkin and wit; her seething susurrations invite slumberous disregard The puissant voluptuary, the sadist, the con, swallows me with magmatic lips, melting resolve and self-control Fervid angst transudes through saucers into lacustrine stains and chilling horripilation; restrained by fists of silk and ichor ropes She chases me through my tenebrous id,

The fart catcher

Lightning split the sky over a secluded, Philadelphia country road. Autumnal sycamores and ironwoods embraced the winding route. Swollen with deep oranges and dirty yellows, they burst into glossy, earthen watercolors with each strobe of the darkness. A midnight blue, 1922 Ford Model T sits almost motionless under the driving rain. In the middle of

Deplete

He couldn’t help but watch them They weren’t trying to hide He could even hear them In pieces, anyway, on the corner The twenty-somethings The woman was beautiful Although, not in the raw, carefree, subtle, palm tree way Hers was a manufactured beauty A skyscraper, an architectural wonder reflecting a brilliant sun But not the

Signs

The incessant clank of the street sign was agitating She needed to think It was dusk, and the unpredictable breeze with the anticrepuscular rays, provided an epiphanic backdrop Standing barefoot and out of breath, she grasped the annoying post for balance Her torn skirt fluttered in the evening zephyr, before adhering again to her sweat-streaked

Froth

She just wanted to dance Even without music, she’d lose herself in the motion and emotion Her dancing was the music, her body the instrument And there was only one job for her in this anachronistic, one road, wasteland Dancing for men Men with wives who couldn’t do better Men trying to recapture verility or

Luminescent

There she lies, my beautiful wife Or should I say, beautiful mom? I guess we should get used to hearing that She’s glowing, luminescent perfection It was an exquisite day to be out exploring with her A sentiment that must have been shared by everyone, as it was a hustling street, on a bustling beat

Haul

he sat in darkness, his darkness warmed by the seductive dancing of firelight, as its fingers caress his rufescent cheeks a trace of cognac coalesced in the corner of his glass, pulling itself toward the diminishing flames that reflect upon its crystalline surface mesmerized, he watches his long journey unfold in the fireplace, absorbed in