The Wildflower Diaries.

Cows lull in the winter months.
The barn door bangs open, shut.
Open, shut. Winter winds move
And darkness comes weaving on a bicycle,
The stars blot my hands.

The sky is torn with bleeding fingers.
Scarecrows dot the fields like wildflowers.
Old hope fades.
My old lover says I am fading, fading.

There is death everywhere,
Even the flies feel it. They don’t like it.

Shush, says the wind. Shush.
Mandolins play on broken wings.
I am never home anymore.
I still pay the rent.
The garbage still gets taken out.
Someone tells me to hurry, hurry,
The night leaves me.

Sounds come broken through radios.
Dirt is scattered across freeways,
Highways I have never been. I am quiet.
In my mind. My husband screams at me from
The bathroom, saying we need more toothpaste.

The wind asks for quiet conversation. The clock is
A witch with no hands. I have not gotten over my own death;
My own light is quiet within me. I told you I am no one,
You never answered my voicemails.

We are done. The toast is done.

Think About It.

Tomorrow will be another day.
The sun will rise and set; the weather will be cold and rainy;
and the dog will bark, lonely, on the street. Tomorrow will be
another day. Tomorrow, my grandmother will still have cancer;
tomorrow, I will get myself lost in a bookstore somewhere, far out
north, where the wind weeps in the trees and the shadows fold
like golden wings. My mind is folded. I am jaded. I am happy
with the way things are; I am happy being me. I am happy falling,
being the loner, the drifter, the McDonald's cashier. I drift alone
in a hot air balloon, reaching on a tethered line. I am nothing. I am
me. I am worry.

Light From the Lamp Post.

I don't know how to stop it.
Don't know how to stop the snow from falling
in late October, when you and I are outside,
kissing, hands entwined, looking at the lamp post,
thinking of what the world was like before lamp posts,
before buildings, before God.

A dog walks passed us-woof! woof!-a man with a stroller
lumbers by, whistling under his breath, or maybe
saying something about the young and the restless.
I don't know how to stop it.

Don't know how to keep
the cold from entering me, from becoming a part of me,
the darkness snakes around me, up my legs and spine.

What Animals Know.

The fox is the one who bothers me-no, maybe it is the wolf, or the owl,
or the doe, who stares at me with wide wild eyes from a bush.

The deer emerges from the woods every morning before I go to school,
at my house in Flushing, on the road that curves like a wide v.

The fox lives in its den. The water runs in its brook. Clouds scuttle
across the sky; my father breaks his new boat. Here, I sit on the porch,

leafing through dumb magazines, words crawling across my hair. Sunlight
is broken. Everything is broken.

The fox is the one who bothers me. He is the one who makes me frustrated,
like I have to paint some giant painting for him to see me, know me, understand me.

This is not like a Disney movie where everything happens the way it should. This is not Greece, or Italy, or Rome. This is Jackson, Michigan, and I am sitting here,

typing this on my broken typewriter, spinning stories so God won't know.

Sarah Is Walking Home.

Sarah is walking home from the deli,
and cradles a tuna fish sandwich.
It is autumn. The rays of sunlight has
fallen, quick, over the mountains;
my neighbor got a goat and names him Will.

Sarah is walking home, and spies a lonely kitten,
drinking from a canister of milk someone
left on their porch.

The wind sighs lonely and sad. Darkness falls
in every street corner. Fireflies come out,
one by one, and greet the darkness of the sky.
Sarah is walking home, she holds the sandwich
as if it is her last link to earth.
No one will befriend her, now.

Not even the old man
who brings her the mail, a sad, sorrowful face of
forgetfulness, a man with Alzheimer's.

She knows people are like chess pieces. She knows
people don't know about sunlight,
or how to buy new cars.

A man drives a hole in the world.

Dance of the Universe.

The clouds perform a dance
Of the Universe,
And the Music is a lesson we cannot hear.
The soul of voices rises from Your pain,

The pain of plentitude,
The pain of beginning.

I can’t begin to describe this lesson,
The lesson that is an unknowing,
A season of darkness in the winter months,
Shadows that reach out and shake broken hands.

The clouds. Perform. Zealous eyes,
Glare, from water. Streams are broken,
Streams misused,
I am plenty gone.

The clouds perform a dance of
The Universe,
The numbers on the hands of Time
Have stilled.

The crabgrass turns brown.
It is fall. October is cold,
Like Alaska, like Antarctica,
Cold as the darkness that is within me.

Just In Case.

Just in case I die before my time,
I leave you with three things:
A jar of clay,
A sculptured pony with a jewel in its eye,
And a blue hairbrush my grandmother
Made for me.

Just in case I die before my time,
I will tell you stories I have written
In pen,
Stories that are burned in tabletops
Somewhere out east,
Stories that tell of my grandfather’s pain.

Sarah told me you hated them,
Hated the words, hated the sounds
That rolled from my tongue,
I thought it was in English.

You said it was “Getthefuckoutofhere,
Shithead.”
Your words are pained and painted.

The jar of clay was put on the windowsill
In my grandmother’s house.
She spoke of China, Ireland, Aruba.
She spoke of letters in brown boxes.
She did not speak before she died.

Just in case I die before my time,
I will leave you the world.

Sing To the Moon.

Detroit was a big city filled with pollution and old men who hated the Japanese, and wheezed about the Vietnam War at lonely old doughnut shops that sat on lonely corners with street names like Franklin and Carmickle.

Maria Sanders lived with her parents in a small white house with a picket fence. She was doing her homework at the table one evening, and the light was slowly dwindling in the sky. Her mother was on the phone, talking to her Aunt Christine, who lived far away in Seattle. She was talking about Uncle Jim, and their family. They lived on a farm in Durand. Maria's third cousin, Isaac, was seven years older than she was. By the time she was fourteen, he was already out of the house and joined the military to feed his wife and baby girl, Layla, who was born seven pounds and just shy of five ounces.

Maria was half-white, half-Hispanic, and had a part time job at the supermarket, shelving food items.

Her boss, Mr. Salez, was a balding man with a beak-like nose and an odd demeanor that made him appear almost menacing. It was Saturday and Saturdays was Farmer's Market and Maria was putting milk in the refrigerators when Willis walked in. Willis was Maria's next door neighbor and he was old and fat and was a trucker from Ohio who divorced twice already and had a new girlfriend.

Maria never met his new girlfriend but she saw that he was happy with the way the relationship was going because he always bought beer on Saturday nights and he only bought beer when he was happy. Maria saw him in a foul mood twice that she could remember. Willis leafed through the magazines on the rack by the front door. A nineteen year old boy walked in, smiling at her. He looked at her with his eyes. "Hello," he said pleasantly. "Do you have any flowers here?" he asked.

She nodded mutely. The flowers must be for his girlfriend. Of course. Maria was Hispanic and never had a boyfriend. She was slightly overweight and had some freckles and wore thick, black glasses that hid her face. She said, "The flowers are back there." She didn't want to look at him, she was so mad. Why was she mad at him? She just met him. She blinked back angry tears.

Mr. Salez looked at her and chuckled. "Maria, my poppet," he said gently, lifting her chin to stare into her eyes. "You must meet my wife."

Maria blinked back tears. "Meet your wife?" she managed. "I didn't know you were married."

Mr. Salez laughed. "That's because she doesn't want anyone to know!" he said jokingly. "My Madeline is very protective of me. You can come over if you want. Forget that boy. You can have some tea cakes and talk about your friends."

"I have two best friends," she whispered.

"Good, good. Come Saturday." He smiled and resumed counting the cash in the cash register. The boy bought the flowers and left the store. She hardly noticed. She was planning what to wear.

"Okay."

After work, Maria went home and took all the clothes out of her closet and put them on the bed. She shook her head. No, no, no. Those wouldn't do at all. They looked old and shabby and Mr. Salez's wife was probably sophisticated. She'd heard from other coworkers that they had two other chain stores in the tri-county area and it meant a lot of money for them. Maria was only sixteen. Her mother said she needed to put away that money until she was an adult.

Maria always did what her parents said. They knew best.

The next afternoon, her mother dropped her off at the mall and Maria wandered up and down the aisles at a clothing store, exclaiming over the tank tops and dresses she couldn't buy for herself. She had thirty dollars in spending money and she could only spend sixteen. The rest was for gas and a snack. She reluctantly bought a one-piece dress that cost 8.99. The cashier, smiling pleasantly, bagged it and took her money and gave her back a penny in return. She was finished for the day and had some money left over.

Maria went outside and sat on a bench and waited for her mother to pick her up to take her home.

The Ford truck pulled to the curb and Maria jumped in and her mother dropped her off at the house before heading off to work. Work, she said, was dull and dreary and long without her daughter around. Maria smiled at the thought. One day, when she was an adult, she would have a daughter just like her mother did. She was going to name her Sarah.

She loved the name Sarah, after she read a book called Sarah, Plain and Tall.

Her best friend's name was Ellie. Ellie had long blonde hair and brown eyes and she liked to sing songs and dreamt of being a famous singer one day. Maria couldn't sing and the only instrument she played was the cello. Ellie said singing was like a language and only special people knew the language. Maria could speak two languages, English and Spanish. They mostly spoke Spanish at home.

"Maria," her father complained later that evening. "¿Qué usted está haciendo?" His face was pinched and angry. That was how he usually looked, especially after work.

Maria was in the bathroom, singing a song in English.

"Apesadumbrado, padre," she apologized, her lip trembling. "Ellie liked singing and I thought-"

"I know what you thought," Mama said. She was brushing her own short, brown hair in the hallway mirror downstairs and had come up to see about all the racket. "You will not be a singer. I don't want that girl putting ideas into your head. You must get grades on your schoolwork!" She scowled and went downstairs to make dinner. They were having pot roast for dinner tonight.

Maria sighed and went back upstairs and cried into her pillow.

The next morning she got ready to go to Mr. Salez's. She got permission from her father the day before and he was off at work already, he worked at a feed supply store called Grumley's and made enough money to pay rent and bills. Maria contributed thirteen dollars every month, to help pay for milk for her little sister, Laura. Laura was getting to be a big baby and would be going to preschool in four years. She did not want that day to come but it must come, and when it did, Maria would be proud.

Maria arrived at Mr. Salez's at four. She repeated Madeline's name in her head to remember it. Madeline, Madeline, Madeline. It had a nice ring to it. Unlike her own name, which was a normal Hispanic name for a girl.

Mr. Salez lived in an apartment building downtown; his wife was the owner. They were rich. Well, almost. She buzzed the doorbell and Mr. Salez answered. He wore brown slacks and a brown shirt that looked fresh and ironed. His hands swallowed her small ones. "Thank you for coming," he said grimly, and she followed him inside.

The apartment was made up nicely, just like a magazine. The living room had a coffee table, a long, brown couch, and a grandfather clock and fireplace. The fireplace would not be lit until winter. It was only spring. Maria saw Mrs. Salez. She was humming in the kitchen. It was a song Maria did not know. "Is that her?" she whispered, low, so he could hear.

"Of course." He pushed her forward. "Go on. No time like the present."

"Hello, Mrs. Salez," she said softly. "How are you this evening?"

"Roger!" she exclaimed. "Maria is beautiful! And so sweet! You need to hire more girls like her."

Roger rolled his eyes. "I'll do my best," he muttered. "I'll see to the cakes." He scurried into the kitchen to check on the tea cakes. A wonderful smell filled the living room.

"Tell me, Maria, do you have a boyfriend?"

Maria blushed. She didn't like being put on the spot. "Well, no," she admitted. "There's this boy, Jake, at school, and-"

She beamed. "Are you in love with him?"

Maria laughed. "I would like to get married when I am old enough. Boys are immature. I plan on getting married when I turn eighteen."

"Eighteen? Why?"

She shrugged. "Many Hispanic women get married at a young age. My father said it isn't a tradition, he says women are getting smarter these days, what with the war and all."

Mrs. Salez became serious all of a sudden. "The war in Vietnam is a terrible thing," she said, shaking her head. "Have you heard of this man, Dr. King? He speaks for all races, not just blacks."

"I have a cousin in the army," she said.

"Is he in the war?"

She looked troubled. "Last time I heard, he was stationed in Mississippi. I don't know why. They never say why."

Mrs. Salez nodded. "I suspected as much. You are too young to know, anyway."

Mr. Salez came in with a plate full of tea cakes and set it on the coffee table, sharply. That was their final discussion on war.

"It was weird," Maria said to her second best friend, Ronald Chandelier, over the phone that evening. "It was like, she didn't want to talk about the war."

"Most people don't want to talk about it," Ronald replied. "My cousin died in it and he's only 18."

"Oh," Maria said. She felt sad, suddenly. Why did nice people have to die?
"What are you doing later?" she said. "We could play baseball in the park, or-"
"I can't," he said sharply. "I have to watch Emma." Emma was his baby sister. She had not turned one yet.

"It's time for me to go, anyway. I have to do the washing." Maria hung up the phone and started singing. She sang until dinner.

After dinner, Maria went to bed, and dreamt about butterflies. The next morning, she got dressed, and went to school. Ellie was standing next to her locker.

"Ellie!" Maria exclaimed. "You're back from Seattle. How was it?"
Ellie made a face. "It was terrible," she answered, shaking her head. "The traffic was so thick, we were waiting at the light forever. Benny arrived before we got there."

"I'm sorry," Maria said. "You have a little brother now."

"I didn't get to see him come out!" Ellie pouted.

"It's okay." Maria grinned. "I am sure she will have one more."

Ellie nodded. "You are right. She loves babies. She said once she will have ten of them one day."

The bell rang. "Race you!" she said, and tore down the hall to geography class.
Maria followed slowly. Her mind was on singing. And her cousin in the war.

The war was not going well, her parents said at dinner. It looked like Vietnam was going to win. Vietnam was a small country in Asia.
"Why?" she said. "Why are they winning? Every side should win." She pushed the green beans around on her plate. The baby screamed, its face red and angry.

"Time for homework!" Maria said. She jumped up and went upstairs to her bedroom. She did not sing that night. That night was for sadness.

The next morning her mother was gone. She left a note on the table, saying she had gone off to a job interview. Maria's father made enough money, but just enough, and they needed more to keep the family together. The family was not doing well financially. Maria could only give them a little money. She wanted to give them more.

That afternoon, a letter came from Isaac's wife, Jenny. Jenny had smallish handwriting and her dotted i's looked like flowers. Isaac had died, killed in war combat. He stepped on a grenade on accident. It took off his leg and he died the next morning. Maria never felt it coming.

Maria opened her mouth. She couldn't stop singing, not even when her father came in, his face angry, twisted, and yelled at her to turn off that damn radio. They were both surprised he spoke in English. Her father rarely spoke in English.

"Looks like the war's over!" her mother laughed, and hummed a Beatles song under her breath. They went out for dinner that night. It was the first night in years. Maria could breathe easily again.

In the darkening Atmosphere.

The trees vanish after centuries,
glaciers form from huge cavernous rocks
in the ground. Snow in the Himalayas
are melting at a rapid rate;
herons settle in ponds of North America.

A change in the atmosphere, bodies littering
the ground in Hoa An, the landscape is quickly
changing.

Four years old, I was reading by firelight,
the shadow flickering on the walls. The wind
pushes me constantly, in a spiral,
I spin until I fall down.

The sun is dark. The streets are dark in winter
and summer, and a lone whale stakes itself on
the beach in California. As far as I know,
all the pelicans have gone home.

Apology to Moths.

A moth lives in the attic at night,
sneezing dully. Rabbits hop about my
backyard, three of them at once.
The stars shine in the night above me,
like shooting stars.

I am sitting at my typewriter, clickclacking
away, trying to create/make/bake something
that is more worthwhile than words.

A moth lives in the attic at night,
and eats away at my clothes every single hour
of every single second of the day,
munching happily.

My little cousin asks me if moths are like
butterflies. I tell him, "Yes, they are,
listen to the beat of their wings." He falls
asleep on the couch.

The Sea.

The rocks jut from the stormy sea like eyes
that look back at me. The flowers are wilted,
like green hands growing; a man bends over a fishing
pail, and drops in a roll of quarters. The sea is lonely.
It is wide and lonely. My mother makes me sandwiches
and puts them on the table in the kitchen. Flowers
sit in the vase. The words are not spoken, they wither
like sorrowed dreams and broken things that glow,
shattered and old.

The rocks jut from the stormy sea and the sun flashes
off of them. The boat rocks in the harbor and no one
has ever gone in to shore out of darkness,
darkness that rises from shards of glass. The woman on
the beach wears tattered, old clothes she got from
Goodwill, in Ohio; Ohio was where her baby was born,

who was taken so cruelly from her. She has long
fingers; the fingers are covered in sores. She has been homeless
for a long time,
and still, the rocks jut from the sea. The sea has drowned her.

My Husband Talked To a Man With an Eyepatch.

The surgery I had lasted three hours long.
My husband was cooped up in the waiting room,
Talking to a man with one leg and an eyepatch
Over his left eye.
He said he was here for his father’s open heart
surgery,
Of which he had several.
He says every day the doctor tells him
He has twenty-four hours to live.
His family takes it as a joke, now.

The doctor’s used kitchen utensils, and stitches; they said
This later, when I was in the recovery room,
Eating jello and drinking ginger ale.

The nurse’s shoes sound like whispers on
The cold linoleum.
When I watched tv,
I had to cran my neck upward to see it.

Always Tries, Beethoven.

My mother asks me, "What do you want from me?"
My brother thinks I'm too old to play poker.
My sister is in Florida, learning how to be a nurse;
my stepfather is busy being in the army. I don't want.
I am. Shakespeare wrote this in his plays;
Mozart played this on his piano, back when he was a boy
and learning how to be famous, before Beethoven stole
the spotlight.
My boyfriend always tries to make it up to me by being
a hooker, by bringing home strange women who can't think
for herself.

My mother asks me, "What do you want from me?"
When I am stressed, I hide in the bathroom, reading The Atlantic
Monthly and Times magazine.

Sometimes, I give old men second chances.
Other times, I send them messages through my absence.
Everyone thinks I have a problem. My problem is everyone else.

Divided by Problems.

I planned on being divided like strangers.
I planned on shielding you from the warmth of the light.
I planned on Halloween costumes in October;
running through streets at night.
Clouds hang in the sky, the sky frowns brokenly down at me.

There's only so many problems I can take.
There's only so many wishes I can grant.
I am not a musician. Heck, I'm not even a doormat.

I am always the little problem in the back of your mind.
I am always the dent in someone's forehead,
the glare, the whisper, of shadows that moves within your mind.

I planned on being divided.
I planned on rushing rivers, scaling mountaintops.
There's nothing more you can do than to go back,
to be alone.

Glimmer of Trains.

I don’t see you solving the glimmer of
The train that whizzes by on its track,
The sheltered stones that sound on rhythms beaten
In crowded rooms.

The zebra munches happily on long grass,
Dances in a field of roses blooming.
No one is at home right now.

I don’t see you. I can’t find the sorrow
That flicks through the rain,
The harbor of night,
And the boat on the shore.
I am not what I have seen.
I solve the puzzles in the back of
Newspapers,
I wreck places that move within
A night of shooting stars.

Someone creates drama. More drama for me.
More stress I don’t need to deal with.
Bats fly through the air and
Disappear in a cave. Cave of night,

Where are you now?

The Morning I Lessen.

All the night.

All the dusk.

I walked down the street. Walked with my head up, drinking rain.

Rain falls.

Secrets about rain.

Secrets, secrets about somesuchnonsense, she whispered. Her words. curve. Sorrow is nonsense syllables.

Colors fade.

Night. Nights broken.

You. You left. Shattered, grains. Screams of ghosts. Night. Night is good. I am homeless. I am broken. Words creep across stained glass. I sit in churches. Sit, glance, seize dayz and throw them out.

Too many lines. You snarl. Too many lines like cat claws. Throw words in gutters.

On the War In Vietnam.

From the depths of the night,
I followed you, walking,
Down the path in the park.
A sparrow flies past me,
Chittering softly.

I am walking my miniature poodle,
Who I rescued from an animal shelter
In Jackson, Mississippi,
When I lived there with my uncle,
Who was dying from Alzheimer’s.

Sometimes, I could hear him crying
In his pillow,
Carrying on and on about the deforestation
In Malaysia,
About the dying, the crying,
The horrors he saw in Vietnam.

Instead, I melt slowly inside myself,
Until I am nothing but a shadow of myself,
Wishing for another heartbeat,
Wishing for the cold to enter me.
Wishing for someone other than myself.

I am gone. Just gone.

Winters in North Carolina.

The winters in North Carolina are bitter and cold.
I can’t move my hands. They are frostbitten,
Like shards of glass,
Moving in front of my face.

The sound of a dog howls outside,
Lonely,
Bitter and lonely,
Its eyes like two lantern flames.

I am whole within myself,
Whole within the…something.
I am movement, stiller than life,
Stiller than autumn leaves.

October comes swiftly,
Swift on its wings.

Nothing Shatters.

Nothing Shatters

I forgot the sky got dark early in October and the wind moaned like a beaten animal.
I felt guilty for the homeless people who would not be sheltered tonight, or the men in bars who pondered over their wives who made bread from scratch and married them for their wedding rings and their beer bellies and their families who adopted children for money who couldn’t remember their names the day they came home from the adoption agency.
I cannot face my relationships without harboring guilt.
It was one of my confessions.
I sat in the rocking chair late one night in October, watching the wind whipping through the trees and hearing the wind moan in the corner of my ear. The day had gone by swiftly, like a pigeon soaring through the air, and the darkness was thrust upon me without warning and it felt like being in the middle of the universe, always spinning out of reach, always spinning past me. I forgot when it got dark in October, October was the month when they updated the book rack at the pharmacy and I liked to go down there and read through the titles, old paperbacks by Danielle Steele and Stephen King and names I’ve never heard of and sometimes I bought the ones that cost only ten cents, not any more or less. October was a strange month. It wasn’t even tax season. I didn’t know what to do with myself in October. It was a perpetual cold that went down, down, down, to my feet and past my ankles, but no one was ever there to warm me. My family lived in Florida and my ex-wife, Anne, was living with a man named Michael somewhere in New York, where Malcolm X was toiling in his grave. I didn’t like to give out Halloween candy. Most children were brought up poorly like all my old school friends who forgot me and left me for dead, who took jobs at factories and movie theaters instead of having careers, who married women named Heather and Brooke and Caitlin-I always hated that name-and left me off their wedding list.
I used to have a career.
I was a journalist and worked in Great Britain and England and got fired over an article I had written back in ’07. I got Social Security, now; sometimes I write short stories for the local magazines and made fifty bucks which didn’t cover any of my expenses except beer and old wine. I lived in an apartment outside of Brooklyn and there was nothing to do here except smoke cigars and leaf through porno magazines and wait for the mail to come. I never got anything interesting except a Medicaid card every month and an occasional check for my writing.
I started novels and discarded them after thirty pages, it’s hard to write something when everyone told you that you’re a huge failure and your life is nothing but misery. Sometimes I wondered what everyone else’s life is like until I realized they’re all idiots and I have nothing in common with them except some of us share the same zip code. My grandfather used to own a farm. The farm was torn down in ’93 after he died and he left me the money in his will.
I was his only living heir, besides my great-aunt Harriet who lived down south somewhere in some nursing home.
I haven’t seen her in years, not since the birthday party of ’99 that only housed me, all of her senior citizen friends, and about a dozen cats and red and green balloons and a chocolate cake.
I only came for the cake. It was Saturday and I went downtown to the supermarket and wandered up and down the aisles, getting the food I needed. Apples, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, bread, cheese, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and, of course, coffee and beer.
I couldn’t live without beer. The cashier was a young woman in her twenties with flaming red hair and blue eyes and she smacked her gum and spoke in an Illinois accent and I left the store and went back home and spent all day dozing in the rocking chair by the window.
The next morning there was a package waiting for me on the front stoop and I bent over and picked it up and realized it was addressed to my ex wife, Annie. Last time I talked to her she threw a hair dryer at my head and I almost got a concussion. I brought the package inside and unwrapped it-it was my mail after all-and a catalog for wedding cakes fell out.
The magazine was from ’98, quite a few years back. I wondered why it took so long to get here. She had a different last name now. It was Johnson, I think. Or Jones. I wasn’t sure.
Couldn’t remember. Didn’t know if I wanted to.
“I don’t want to have to give this to my ex,” I muttered, and, shaking my head, I threw it on the kitchen table and went to sleep.
The next day the catalog was still sitting on the kitchen table. I haven’t thought about weddings until now. Weddings. All my friends were married off and my wedding was small and simple with thirty of my close friends and relatives. We had a white cake with pink frosting and we didn’t add the plastic bride and groom on the top for fear of it giving us bad luck-maybe we should have added the bride and groom. Maybe we’d still be together. And maybe pigs could fly.
Hey, that wasn’t such a bad idea.
I snorted. Not a bad idea at all.
I needed to get out more.
I traced my fingers over my ex’s name and put it down. Picked it up again. Apparently, I thought cake catalogs were quite fascinating. I hardly had any money in the bank. I didn’t know anything about weddings; Anne hired a wedding planner for ours.
She didn’t know how to plan them, either.
We were thirty at the time, which was a little old for most couples to be getting married but it worked wonders for us. I missed being married. I didn’t miss Anne. Who am I kidding? I missed Anne. I missed the sex. It wasn’t that bad. I hoped I had been good for her. I hoped Michael had a small dick. I hoped he was gay. I hoped he would find his long lost uncle and move to Mexico. I put on my jacket and went down the street to Sarah Ferguson’s Cemetery. Sarah Ferguson’s Cemetery was a cemetery my grandfather built for the family.
Three generations of Harrison’s had there final resting place in this cemetery. My resting place, most certainly.
I haven’t made up my will. I was only fifty-seven. It wasn’t my time to go yet. It wouldn’t be for awhile. I hoped. The doctor said my heart was tick-ticking away, like some great big clock. The cemetery was very peaceful. Some of the tombstones were old.
Very old. Or quite old or not nearly as old. I liked the ones that looked like they were from some ancient Old West cemetery with cowboys and Indians and the skull of buffalo. I imagined bones that littered the place. I imagined ghosts.
“Right, Max,” I snorted, shaking my head. “No ghosts live here.” I had to stop buying mysteries at the pharmacy. They had other good books, too.
I stumbled over the tombstones to reach my grandfather’s.
I leaned forward to read it: Scotty F. Fitzgerald, 1924-1999. Loving husband and devoted father and grandfather.
Someone left a rose on his grave.
It wasn’t me.
I stared at the flower for a long moment. A twig snapped from somewhere behind me, and I turned, somewhat irritated, expecting a ghost to sprint out at me at this very moment.
Nothing did.
No one was in sight.
Which made me wonder where the flowers came from.
I took a piece of paper from my pocket and a pencil and put the paper over the letters and shaded the letters on my piece of paper. I missed my grandfather so much I could hardly breathe, but there was no one to talk to, and a psychologist cost too much for me to afford one. I had Medicare. I didn’t want to be a bother.
I put the piece of paper in my pocket and snuck away, hoping I wouldn’t disturb the dead.

THE END.

No Good Deeds.

I don't do the work I should be doing. Your wife putters about in her kitchen, whistling a tune

under her breath, oblivious to the suffering outside.

You are dull of the mind; you get angry when you don't have to
be angry; the words roll off your tongue.

I try to have a good conversation with you, but you glare at me
from hunched shoulders,
like a gargoyle, and shout swear words to me in Spanish-
I don't know what words they are, shithead, damn, fuckturd,
that one was your favorite.

Finally, I Exist.

Tomatoes in the garden. A bug sits chewing on dirt in the garden.
A flash, a movement, a sound of voices,
the metaphors look at me from behind pained eyelids.
I am not who I say I am; I am a piece of paper,
a book, I am something that is not even real.

No one cares to know me. To them, I am a ghost,
something to be stomped on. You see me climbing
up and down a moss-covered wall; you see me staring
in the windows of houses with families. My mother stares
at me dully, with eyes like glass; trying to get me
to take out the trash, do my taxes, get married to a man
I don't love.

I used to love you, stranger, used to love you and wait up
for you at night, while my bed is cold and the sheets
are cold and others act like I don't exist.

I wish I hadn't met you. That would have been better for
the both of us. You put on a good act of being a nice
person.

Untitled.

Clouds blink against angry rain that washes down
streams and picks apart the moon that shimy-shamy
smiles down at me-

my thoughts glare at me from down spirals and shadows
pierce through a veil of stars and I am, I am
reason that remains hidden within a veil a seed of

destruction. I am not nothing. I am not anything
that I can see, I speak to you from times unknown,
reasons that are not meant to be.

We are wrapped in misery. We are wrapped in darkness,
I speak of sadness, gladness, words that are not mine.
You think I care but I don't care. You think I can't see but I can see.

Befriended.

The woman knocks on my door every Saturday morning,
hoping to revive my faith in a God I no longer believe in.

She is not Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist. She is Catholic,
she says, one of the few left surviving in the world.

Every Saturday morning, I disappear down the street,
and sit and people watch at the coffee shop on Mood Street,
trying to find a way to network.

Most people I know are doormats, losers, sinners, thieves,
living in a world that is not right for them.

I know, twenty years from now, she, as a forty-three year
old woman,

will still be knocking on my door, her face pressed against
the doorknob, desperately trying to dredge up a reason

for coming here, for her existence, for something that is
bigger than herself. I refuse to befriend her.

How I Know Each Poem.

I know each poem like it is my best friend.
The words sit on the tip of my tongue,

settle there like dust and destruction.
We live for destruction. We are a part of destruction.

The darkness is pure as I am to yourself.
The wholeness of the world is bright and unseeing,
the face is reflected in the glass.
I know each poem like it is my best friend.

I write each words on paper plates, napkins,
on desks at school.

They speak to me in a way that is transparent,
unmoving like shadows and miniature statues.
I know each poem but they do not know me.

On Discussing Sigmund Freud in Seventh Grade English Class.

I am ignored. I am moved.
People ignore me like broken rivers,
Dreams that are shattered and torn,
Dreams that are shattered and torn.
I cannot speak to you right now.

You call to me from the mist of the deep,
The deep dark that deserts me
In the midst of chaos.
I am moved.
I walk across empty streets all in the name of
Beer,
All in the name of an ancient language
That was spoken by the gods.

I am a language.
My mood is a happy one,
I am filled to the brim with pickle brine.
I wrote a note to myself in seventh grade,
When the boy, Matt, would not appreciate
The teacher and spoke out of turn.

Wheels turn. Everything turns.
I am ignored. I am moved.
Nothing moves.

Cars on Freeways.

Soiled sheets drifting like barren coins in names of
Dreams that focus on seeing eyeglasses
I said I wasn’t back in Kentucky I wasn’t
Back home where you melted the hole
In the wall and I crept on my hands and knees
And spoke to the dead.

Trees gloat at me from the shadows
And my father drives a silver Mercedes he
Got at the local dealership and when he spoke
To me last Thursday night his mind was somewhere
Else,
On fucking a blonde woman he met at the bar,
On the work he was supposed to do and didn’t.

He was the man who got cancer from a doctor
In Ohio and angered my mother,
She broke a vase and threw it out the window
And onto the ground,
All tired out she went to sleep on the couch
And the tiredness is still there, still unseeing,
Still within the sight of mind.

My mother was a redheaded woman who did not
Like alcoholics or parallel parking,
Who worked at a nine to five job and
Quit because the manager was obese and looked
Like he needed good home cooking
And Tennessee Williams. His uncle was a famous writer
Whose last novel bombed and he went to work at a
Dealership instead,
Living off of food stamps and angry words.

once i knew.

Once I knew where I was going.
Now I am in my twenties, fresh from hard labor,
drowning in my sorrows at the loss of the X-Files,
and my grandmother with the big ears who used
to speak Russian and no longer remembers.
Once I knew where I was going.
Once I stood for something.

Now I write poems that are too short for magazines,
too long for anyone to understand them.
Now, I break my back walking to the store,
where I bring home a carton of eggs that rots within
weeks,

and the man of my life, the man who was supposed to be
my wall,
left me in a pile on the middle of the kitchen floor,
laughing at me like the Joker from Batman.

Once I knew where I was going because of Gandhi, King,
Malcolm X, Maya Angelou-once I wrote their names on blackboards
in my tiny, childish scrawl,
in first and second grade.

Once I knew, now I know nothing.

Unknown.

I left you, far away, dancing in a field in Georgia.
The corn fields are always growing. The women are always
large, especially their breasts, which heave in rhythm to the rushing
of rivers-
streams.

Thousands of streams rage across Georgia, hardly understood by man,
for they can save lives and take them. I am not one to understand. I hold
no objects in my heart; I do not cater to a man; my eyes are small and
brown and you yell at me from the other room, asking me when dinner is going
to be made.

Sometimes, I want to scream so loud they can hear me in South Carolina,
especially in Greenwood where the president heard his favorite story over
a cup of tea from a man with a brown hat and rotting teeth. In Africa, it is like
this, the woman in South Africa tired of being raised by her aunt,

tired of wondering where her mother is, her brother, her sister, tired of not
knowing her own name.

Cat.

The branches tremble like a leaf in the wind.

My eyes stare through the window,

to the place beyond the garden, where my cat is sunning himself in a field of

roses. I wish he would come home. I miss stroking his back, his ears, I miss talking

to him even though he cannot understand a thing I say.

I go into the living room and flip through my magazines, constantly aware of

The passing time. It passes quicker now, quicker than a rabbit with wings,

Nothing can move me, not even still breath.

My memories sift like sand.

They rot like forbidden fruit.

Fruit that I refuse to eat.

My mouth is full and ripe.

The garden moves in the wind.

I rise, exhausted, from the bank of the river

And cross to tides unknown.

The Woman Who Loved Cheetahs More than God.

The cheetahs. Yes, so much to say about the cheetahs
with their wild hair and wild stares, and the old woman
I knew once who loved them more than God.
Big cats, little cats, cats who climb up branches and fall
flat on their faces. In Africa, they are being driven
out of their home by wind, rain, and poachers-
poachers who live for their pockets.
The cats cry out in lonely nights, in deserts under full moon
brights. The cheetahs are bigger and louder than the
lion, who sleeps lazily under a tree.
In the winter, the winds are bitter, and they cry out to their
dead mothers, their words echo lonely across angry rivers.

Hours and Hours.

I work.  For hours and hours and hours, I work,

trying to please, trying to bend knees.  For years I have

worked at the same place-a chinese restaurant-shelling fortune

cookies and feeding them to pelicans.

This is not hard labor.  Hard labor is different it is something else,

something you cannot see, cannot feel, cannot be.

Every day, after work, I eat one orange, my grandfather loved oranges

and peeled them for his wife until they both died-collapsed on

the kitchen floor at ninety-one.  

I do not break down.  I do not move like an unmovable wall.  You stand

there like a wall.  You are my boss.  I am not sitting.  I am not tall.

I am not reflection.  This is not my house. 

Sometimes I wish for a quick death and that is all I can take,

talk, talk about now.  The wind moves my hair.  

Fields.

I am raw.  Raw as the fields in which William Carlos Williams walked,

hands stuffed deep in his pockets.  I am raw.  Rawer than the fish I ate

for pot luck supper that one night in October when the leaves were

beginning to change and I had no one.  

I am raw.  My voice is a seal, and the door opens and you stand,

nodding your head, nodding, always nodding.  

I am raw.  I am pain, pain that is quicker than lightning,

that moves up out of the ground and onto still air,

I have won every award that does not bear my name.  I am childless.  I am homeless.

I have no bread, no way to eat.  I give my food to orphans.

I am not anyone's angel.  I am nothing.  The world is ever changing, ever dying.

You accuse me of nothing.  I speak nothing.  I speak.  

you call me.

you call me a faggot.

you call me words my grandmother

would not speak to her enemy.

you say, you do not deserve ripe

cheese, you cry tears that are

raw.  

i see flowers on the stove,

the oven is baking sourdoughbread,

it is being made by my mother,

the woman who destroyed

her womb to heal me.

you call me a liar.

you feed me to the wolves, the lions

in their dens, and your old girlfriends

who know nothing of the suffering

in afghanistan,

or the pain of being in surgery

for forty-eight hours straight.

you call me a cunt, the words

slow and loud, drifting down from

thunderclouds.

Vulture.

Vultures sit on the 

dashboard 

of promise,

flicking their 

great 

brute of wings.

You rise from shadows of

things,

you empty out your pockets,

and call to the wild,

the wild wilderness

that holds my tears.

Vultures peck at 

corn fields,

and spout calls 

of venom.

I ward myself away, away,

breathe in the cold.

Ruler.

The shadow in the distance,

that bleats like silver eyes.

Is barren like leaves in spring.

A leaf wanders across the sidewalk,

parks itself in front of your driveway,

singing sad love songs to a pine cone.

I hate your eyes, the way you stare

at me, I hate your face,

etched in bric-a-brac.

The clock ticks in the kitchen.

An old man hums,

speaks of tomorrow and the yesterdays

that came before.

the shadow in the distance that bleats

like silver eyes,

and dances across gray areas.

Be Patient: a Eulogy of Fall.

Be patient. Fall does not start for another few weeks.

Be patient. Wrap your arms around something real.

Be patient. The light is turned on in the bedroom.

Why are you that way? I tried to call at the end of the

freeway,

to peer down into it.

I tried to speak of the heart that brings in reason.

I do not speak at the end of it.

The blue car zooms on the freeway.

I can't see you, can't hear you-the radio is turned way up high.

These tears run dry.

I am wearing a pair of blue jeans.

They were on sale.

Be patient. My dreams are safe for now.

About My Writing.

I post stories on here sometimes, usually chapters. If you see an error in there, I almost always know what it is but I leave it in anyways, first because it is just a rough draft, second because I could get money for it one day, and third, no one helps me with my writing so I have to do something about stress myself; fourth, because I don't know who reads this thing anyway, and it's just for myself, not for others. Writing is not for everyone. You can be famous, like Stephen King, but there is a lot of problems that come with it. I usually wait to send something out because I am not old enough; and because I pay attention to the sales of other books. A publisher picks up something that sells, not necessarily something that is just good writing. Most writers have to write something that an average sixth grader can read-firstly, because a book is not something you buy every day; secondly, because the average population reads at a sixth grade level. Sad, but those are the statistics, although I have not checked them lately and could be wrong about that.

Wizard's Alchemy Chapter 1.

Nicknamed Eltos and Betusl, the two suns spin around a strange and distant world called Merlin, as it was so named by the wizard who created it with his mind. Eltos appeared in the eastern horizon during the winter months; Betusl appeared in the western horizon during the spring, summer, and fall. Merlin began with a simple burst of magic, thousands of wars and thousands of years later, magic still reigned. The story begins on a planet called Earth, where Merlin was originally from.

Merlin is filled with a swirling mist of blues, greens, and browns, a beautiful planet some 789 billion light years from Earth. The galaxy it resides within is called Y’rln.

***

Merlin stared up at the towering castle, his mind on magic. A screaming sound came from deep within the castle walls. It was Prince Art, having one of his famous noonday tantrums. He sighed, wondering what it was about now. "Bloody hell," the wizard muttered, shaking his head. "Probably tore up the bed sheets again." He scowled. Merlin, as well as King Urther and his family, lived in Camelot, the greatest kingdom in the world; they had lords and ladies; dragons and sorcerers; a prince and a king. The prince’s mother, Igraine, was killed by a wild boar when he was a baby. Merlin suspected he was acting out of turn because she was taken so cruelly from him at such a young age. It wouldn’t be a surprise if this were the case. Prince Arthur had been irritating him lately; a young man going on fifteen, he carried the patience of a seven-year-old child. His father, King Urther, taught him better than that, but he rararely displayed it. King Urther paid more attention to the Knights of the Round Table than his teenage son, and Art, as everyone called him, did his best to let his father know he noticed it. One evening, Merlin and King Urther sat at the table in the great dining hall, eating a large dinner of chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and beef. Merlin wasn’t sure he could eat anymore; he felt like he had swallowed an elephant, he was that full.

"Something must be done about that son of yours," Merlin said nervously, hoping he wouldn’t receive blacklash from him for speaking out of terms about his son. Prince Arthur wasn’t at the table. He had already eaten in the kitchen with the cook; he infuriated her by shattering a plate in a thousand tiny pieces all over the floor. King Urther sent him to the stables, and he was now out hunting with the other men, checking the traps for rabbit, deer, and fox.

"Art?" King Urther looked up from his cup, filled to the brim with beer. He blinked sleepily. "How’s that boy doing, anyway?"

Merlin groaned and slapped his forehead. The king didn’t even remember sending him out to the stables or that he had been kicked out and was now hunting!

"He’s a travesty!" a servant complained. "He jumped on seventeen beds on the first floor and left muddy footprints all over the sheets."

"He let a handful of toads in the kitchen!" someone else called.

"He tried to use my staff and it bit him in the rear-end," Merlin added darkly. He didn’t want to rat on the boy, but tattling was fun, and he hated it when someone else used his staff, especially someone who was less than worthy.

"We can buy you a new staff," King Urther said, scowling at the lot of them. "It’s not a problem. Really. You needn’t criticize him for that. He’s doing the best he can. Unlike some people who don’t know how to stop a war." He glared around the table, his gaze fixated on Merlin. Merlin ducked his head nervously. War wasn’t always his fault! The king should know that. Merlin shook his head. "That’s the only magic staff I have," he told him. "You can’t buy it at the market."

King Urther wasn’t about to give up. "We’ll call Brutus. Get him to find you one."

"I don’t think there are any staffs like that in the world!" Merlin said, annoyed the king didn’t understand that magic wasn’t an every day, average thing that anyone could have. "I made it myself. With my bare hands. The magic came from lightning." He was pleased with himself.

The king looked at him in surprise. "You made that ghastly thing?" He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "It’s ugly. You really ought to talk to Contessa; she has good fashion sense. Why, you haven’t used your magic here in ages. We haven’t had a war lately."

"Yes, I did make it," he explained impatiently. "It’s a magic staff. I showed you magic before."

King Urther hunched his shoulders in amusement. "I’m the king. Maybe I should have a magic staff." He pondered this, deep in thought.

Merlin took a sip of honeymead beer and put it on the table in front of him. It had the sour taste of being spoiled, and waved to a servant nearby to get him a new one. "I can make you a staff, but it won’t be made out of magic," he said. He was amused. Making a staff for the king. How quaint.

"Why not?" The king looked surprised, if not a little offended by Merlin’s rude remark. It wasn’t often that someone challenged the king.

"Because I said so," Merlin said. He was annoyed by the king’s childish demeanor; Merlin wanted to get back to work as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to have an actual conversation with him. "Are you finished drinking your beer or do I have to use my magic carelessly, as usual?"

The king nodded, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. "You may take it away."

Merlin scowled and shook his head. "I’m not a servant. I’m a wizard."

"You are my wizard," the king said happily. "That’s enough for me."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "Don’t remind me." He rose to his feet and stretched. "I think I’m going to find that son of yours."

"If you see him, tell him I said hello." The king's head dropped into his bowl of soup and it wasn’t long before he was snoring heavily in a pile of his own drool.

*

Prince Art glared at the stable door and kicked it with his feet, irritated that his Uncle Brock sent him back to the stables, and was making him work with the stable boy. He didn’t do anything! Honest! It was true the cook had shrieked at him this morning because he got in the blueberry pie when she told him not to, and it was true he had scared one of the maids while she was cleaning one of the hall closets, and it was true Art put a stuffed animal in one of the traps and made it look like a real animal, but they were just jokes. Really. They ought to know the difference. Besides, he shouldn’t have to talk to common folk if he didn’t want to. They were just jealous of him.

"If you’re going to destroy my barn," a familiar voice said patiently, "at least be polite about it." And there stood Merlin in the doorway of the barn, wiping his hands on his pants.

"What are you doing here?" Prince Art said, looking at him in surprise. "I thought my father was making you come up with love potions again." He chuckled at the thought.

Art was old enough to think about girls in that way, but he didn’t know who to ask yet. There was Cherri, the cook’s daughter; Minerva, his neighbor; and there was the girl his father paid to befriend him. She was by far the cutest but he was embarrassed she had been paid to talk to him. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. Nowadays his father gave him less pleasant feelings as time wore on, and he had to rely more and more upon himself.

Merlin shook his head. "I told him the potions wouldn’t work," he said in a patient tone. "Somehow, I didn’t think the information set in yet." He chuckled. "Now, I’m saving you from a lifetime of labor. Come inside, boy, I have something to tell you."

Intrigued, Prince Art followed him into the barn. It smelled lovely, manure with a mixture of hay and wood and just the hint of spice. Sunlight fell in the windows of the barn, the gold glimmering against the shadows around it. "What do you want to talk to me about?" he asked, wondering if the man was going to give him another lecture. Everyone gave him lectures; the cook; the servants; even his father, on occasion, when his mouth wasn’t around a drum stick.

"Magic," Merlin responded with a smile.

A smile lit the boy’s face. "Magic?" he said. "Really?"

Merlin nodded.

Finally! Something fun! He knew he could count on Merlin, even if he was just a crazy old crackpot with too many magic tricks.

"Are you going to show me one of your tricks?" he asked eagerly.

Merlin uttered a short laugh. "It’s not a trick, boy," he said, shaking his head. "It’s real magic."

Art looked around. "Where’s your staff?"

"Hidden inside my robe." He pointed to a block of wood. "Sit on that, please." He pulled another block of wood next to him.

"Now," Merlin began. "I am sure you are already aware of magic. You perform magic yourself-each and every day." He smiled, pleased with himself.

Art scowled. "I knew there was a catch." He started to get up.

"Hold on! There’s a point to the story. A very good one, too."

Art groaned. "Let’s here it," he said, wishing he was anywhere but here, even inside, cleaning the sheets, like the servant wanted him to do earlier and his father saved him by sending him outside.

"The point of this story is," Merlin continued. He frowned. "I forgot the point of the story." His face brightened. "I know! I’ll make one up!"

Art scowled. "Why don’t you just make me clean the stables instead? It’s quicker."

Merlin nodded. "Atta boy. Get to it. Up! Up!"

Art rose to his feet, picked up a rag, and started washing the dirty windows.

"Art!" Merlin started to say.

Art looked over his shoulder but the man disappeared.

"Just great!" Art complained. "Now I have to clean the stable by myself. Some

advice," he grumbled, and started scrubbing the windows fiercely.

*

This Is Not My Life.

My ears revolve around satellites.

My old friend, Stan, gave up his life in

return for a few radishes-radishes that

were old and had potato bugs stuck on them.

You said you would not go back to that place,

the place with the dirty walls and dirty homeless

fools who fell from grace,

who switched from being businessmen to jerks

wearing brown jackets.

I am not proud to admit this, but my old friends

are like this, old and misused ones who would

trade a million dollars for a drink of beer,

for a date with a hooker, for a credit card.

The dreams are not there any longer.

They have been buried underneath piles of sand

by parents who thought too much about themselves

instead of their own children,

about handmade pot holders with pictures of

snowflakes on them.

My old one fell behind the stove.

I can't use it anymore.

I asked Jon how his date with the hooker went.

He stared at me, bleary eyed, smelling of too

much beer and onion rings,

his sorrow in a bottle, his eyes holding back tears.

He has problems with finishing the things he started.

Mrs. Alsworth.

Do not follow me, my seventh grade teacher said,

do not follow where the path may lead-follow your own path.

Do not follow bears, chipmunks, lima beans.

Every day a boy named Joshua brought her an apple.

She was pleased by it but others did not like it,

they called him pirate, scalawag, girl-boy.

Every day he brought her an apple,

and he only got C's in math, and went to church like everyone else.

His suit was old. Worn.

And when he grew up he got a job at a factory

and made money selling pamphlets at the local pharmacy and

barely had enough money to pay his bills.

He did not hate the government, he merely shunned it,

did not shun the president, the Senator, the FBI.

The days wore on and violence grew less and less until he changed

tactics and became a famous rock star but he never

grew tired of those pamphlets that he kept in his closet.

untitled.

Words dash against wooden planks.

Ancient words are not words themselves.

I move, like Shakespeare, he iseth me note!

Not like wounded soldiers in the Battle of Stalingrad.

O harketh! My wounded soldiers speaketh note,

wherefore I am blustery like the rivers of Babylon.

I babble on and on in radios, on television,

people stare at me with bitter eyes and nothing is

forgotten, begotten, like a long begotten son

who glimmer glares down at me from some other tree.

Ships sink in a tourniquet. I am borrowed, not blue;

who, who are you? My little hand that weaves

like minnows during the Civil War and nothing, no one,

marches with glass and old buildings never shaped

from. sake.

untitled.

Stupid Atlantic Monthly. Think they'll reject my work if I send it in? Probably.

William Shakespeare.

It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for equalities are so weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. -King Lear

The Manuscript.

The manuscript sits on the shelf, gathering

dust and mildew and the old writer still

does not see-

my life is a blank page that is open into

a door that revolves around a world that

is no longer here-

forgive me, uncertainty, for I may mingle

in doorways that see into yesterday and boxers

are calm in their waking;

and the uncertainty is not coming with something

I no longer see,

and we are here, like revolving shadows,

caskets, if you will, of broken parts,

words that speak of reason,

no more reason to be had-

Update.

I tore 75,000 words out of my novel and I am working on the main plots: when Ellerhynwyn and Sebastian were adults. That works better.

blah.

Okay I deleted 150,000 words-that was just my practice writing, not my real writing, the real story is on my laptop. It is like getting rid of a friend but I had to do it for the sake of my plot.

List of things I want to buy.

Next month I will have to buy a printer.

A memory stick.

Speakers in the Wall.

This is the world that is closed

like a void-a door swinging shut.

This is the world that speaks to me,

an endless void of blackness that fills

my eyes, fills my heart, fills my lung

like a shadow.

Clouds gather above, a thunderstorm

crashes into autumn, blocking me from

becoming something that is sinister.

Trees look like haggard old women,

dresses sway in shopping store windows.

I am Madame Quartinine, she cries, her teeth

showing slabs of white bread.

Mystery.

I found one of my old mysteries and I am working on it now. It is 12,43 words long.

A Beginner's Guide to Sign Language.

The woman signs to serpents singing

in the Baltic Sea one day, it was a Monday,

and Caesar was not well.

He did not like the feeling the war gave him,

his throat tightening, his mouth frothing,

his friends running around like wild boars on

and island and by the way did you see that episode

of the Simpsons where the children got trapped

on the island with Milhouse and a wild boar who

was eventually slaughtered? The president told me

he did after he knocked over his podium when one

of the journalists was trying to find out if trolls do,

yes, sir, exist behind podiums and not just in cupboards

and sometimes field mice live in actual fields-.

The island was not an island of forgetting.

The dawn came quick over the horizon, slicing

like a grinder and my heart stopped for a moment when

I witnessed the sun’s first rays of breath.

Update.

I sent in my vampire story at 15,055 words. It could be turned into a novel. I also started working on a script called "Don't Look Behind You" a ghost story about a haunted house. I have decided just to write the dialogue and plug in everything else later.

In an Empty House.

the house was empty when he got home
no one was there to help him unpack his things
it was a studio he rented from an apartment complex
in ohio he only moved there to be closer to his friend
alex who was going through divorce and bought
a green bicycle alex was his best friend he had a nice
house and a good job and a girlfriend he did not have
any of those things yet he was new to the area and
his last girlfriend dumped him for a sumo wrestler
who was only in nebraska for a week he hated long
nights in autumn when the roof leaked and he could not
hear himself think sometimes he wished he could think about
deep things like his friend becky but
whenever he found room to think
he didn’t know what to say afterwards.

Dog and His Bone.

the dog trots thru the traffic
hoping to find his bone he lost

the bone was special to him he
loved to chew on it underneath

the stairs while his master watched
tv in the den or read the newspaper

the master’s name was larry he
went away on vacation once and left

the dog with his bone his neighbor alice
came to check up on him

he wagged his tail whenever he saw her.
They did not have a special bond but he

liked it when she pet him.
he never found his bone but he liked it

when she pet him.

Woods In the Forest.

The woods in the forest called my name.
Minerva was my crow; I lost her last week.
She ran away and never came back. Ran
away like my cousin Wilma did when she found
out her husband was sleeping with the pianist,
the man who thought Hitler was insane.
I thought Hitler was mad, but not insane;
insaneness is a different theory altogether,
a different thing, I’m sorry if my words can
connect together better than your words can,
I grew up being alone, grew up getting along
on my own. Some say we are never alone.
That little ghosts follow us wherever we go,
sometimes hiding in cupboards or underneath our
bed, where mothballs usually go.
The woods in the forest called my name.
I wish I could go home. I am in Chicago,
waiting for my uncle to stop drinking; waiting for
my dog, Hercules, to wake up from his nap.
I moved here last week with my mother, my
brother, the boy who fell in love with a stripper
and crawled onto the edge of the world to peer
down into it.

Beginning of a new story, Shadowmaker.

The glow from the sun came drifting through the fog as the submarine made its way through the mist of the Bering Sea.  Lieutenant Theodore Walsh of the 54th Platoon stared out the periscope, his mind reeling with questions, wondering what he was supposed to do next.  He had just gotten a call on his cell phone from Commander Louis P. Harrington.  

Looks like the Russians were at war with the U.S. again and were keeping it secret.  That was a good move on the president’s part, but it didn’t make the transition any less painful than it actually was.  He was going to have to do something about it.  And soon.  But not until he got word from the president.  

"Lieutenant," a familiar voice said pleasantly.

He jumped, whirled around to face Commander Larry Samuel.  He was an oldish man, going on fifty-five, with a long white beard and beady brown eyes.  Theodore admired the man profoundly and was hoping to be just like him when he reached that age, with awards and medals galore and a submarine to boot.  "Hello," he said.  "What’s the word on the street?"

The commander shook his head.  "No word," he answered.  "Just breakfast in the kitchen.  You’ve been kind of jumpy lately."

Theodore nodded.  "Just received word from the president.  Feels like war is on the horizon."  Goosebumps rose on his arms and he shivered.  "What’s for breakfast?"

Larry chuckled.  "Eggs and bacon.  And sausage."

"Biscuits and gravy?"

"Yes.  Of course."

Theodore did a little dance on deck and followed him through the submarine until they came to a little room marked "Cafeteria."  Larry pushed open the door and they entered, side by side.  Six pairs of eyes followed him.  Commander Sarah O’Connor; First Lieutenant Sarah Walsh; soldier, Patrick Littlefoot; and others.  Theodore saluted them and pulled out a chair.  A steaming plate of food was waiting for him.  "What’s this?" he said, surprised and pleased.

"Food," Sarah Walsh answered.  "Clyde got a call from his wife and he wanted to take it."

"I thought his cell phone broke."

Patrick chuckled.  "He got it while we were on land in Barbados."

"And now we’re all the way at the Bering Sea," he said.

Patrick nodded.  "That is so.  Dig in."

Theodore looked at it, wondering if the man had spit in it.  He shrugged his shoulders and dug in.  The food was delicious, and he went to the breakfast buffet to get more.

story update.

I got another rejection from "Flash Fiction Online."  They said it went to the second round; I thought it didn't get past the first round.  At least the story didn't completely suck.  I would send it out more if I could actually buy a new printer that works longer than a year.

Morning House, Morning Glory.

The house looks foreign in the morning.

Like a Nazi warrior grimacing over broken bones

and pots and pans, over cousins who steal

jobs from foreign workers and promises we

can’t see.

Over darkness that wans; over moonbeams

that give a glimmer a glow of something we

can’t keep to ourselves, to keep us back, 

keep

us moving forward in a time we have been convinced

isn’t real, isn’t sacred, isn’t 

England, isn’t community.

O ode to Walt Whitman, who was unreliable in

his standing; who didn’t like writing anything worth

reading, who stared at Abe Lincoln’s statue and

groaned his lover’s name, a woman who became

a teacher.

The house looks foreign in the morning, sometimes,

after a comma is hashed out, after darkness wans,

after the moon smiles at you and you can’t see

in front of you, you can’t see anything behind you.

This is what I said it is what it is.

This is what I said it isn’t.

update.

Horn of Neverwhen-31,833; not yet finished.

Wizard's Alchemy-138,564

Love By Nightfall-15,055

*and various other stories, unfinished.

Being Hated.

My friend draws tattoos on women with 

bodies like spiders.

He says it makes him happy.

Every day I tell him he is a good person,

that he has a good heart.

He says he knows this.

One way or another, he says, the world is like

a sheet of glass-you can either look

through it or break it down,

but if you break it down, your knuckles

won’t survive the bust.

I don’t know how to do anything.

I am a writer; it’s what I do.

It doesn’t even put food on my table.

I try to write about nature; about birds

and bees and pirates.  It never comes out

right.  My friend, who is an artist,

always has the upper hand-

he’s the kind who smokes cigarettes

on occasion, and can make friends in

every situation, even though he knows

they are part-time friends, not real friends

that people really need.  

Somehow, I always make

enemies.  I wear glasses; they are like two

sheets of glass.  But it doesn’t make me

feel better.  Nothing does.  I still make

the music, still eat the food, 

even though it’s disgusting and I feel like

throwing it up, feel like smoking weed

and drinking booze and I never do.

Nothing ever works out the way I want it to.

People hate me more than average.

The Last Boat.

The boat goes around and around in a circle

in the middle of a lake that is polluted

and filled with broken bottles.

Rain has been falling every day for a week.

The weatherman says it’s going to be a scorcher

every day in September, but I don’t believe a

word of it.

I told you about the tattered magazines I found

in the alleyway, how they were torn up and thrown

away by a man who hated the government,

who despised the U.K. and Israel.

He used to be a lawyer, an attorney,

and was fired by his boss for being late on three

occasions.  The man wanted to sue him but

he fled the country, perhaps to South America.

No one has seen him since then.

The boat still goes around and around in a circle

in the middle of a lake that is polluted,

and the president declares an emergency on India;

while, somewhere in Ohio, an old man watches

the news and cries over his granddaughter who

was lost in a storm.

Update.

I submitted some poems to a magazine called "Five By Five."  Waiting for a rejection.

My vampire story is now 14,341 words right now.

the fir trees glare down at me.

the fir trees glare down at me

from afar, from where I sit on the porch,

leafing through old letters you sent

to me.   my tears blot the page.

I sit on my feet,

humming a melody.  I can’t think

when the wind is moaning like

that;

moaning like a river frothing

at the mouth.  moaning like

some giant dog.

you came up the mud bank,

your hair glistening,

as if you had just gone for a swim.

I know you were at home,

taking a shower,

getting ready for the day.

you smile at me, and words fall prettily

from your purple mouth.

I catch a scent of your perfume

in the palm of my hand.

The Word, "Love."

The word love should not be thrown 

around lightly-

it should not be taken into consideration

unless you speak about the lions

in their dens,

about the genius of a blank page.

I guess you could say that I have

angered the gods.

My shoes are not on too tight.

My heart is broken and misused.

I could not stay away from

the cub,

could not believe the words

that drifted in the fog.

Being on tv will do that to you,

especially if your words are in the media,

especially if you walk in a straight line.

I come home every day after work

and kick back and relax and

look at the newspaper.

Sometimes, my mind is beyond my grasp.

Sometimes, I don’t know where I should 

land.

I see faces in front of me,

but they won’t speak aloud.

Blurb for Keep Her Safe.

**
Who stole Sarah’s prize diamond necklace?
Sarah, the wife of a rich businessman, is flabbergasted when the famous necklace she received from Princess Victoria is stolen right from under her. Realizing she showed it to the maid, Mona Verion, before the burglary, the woman is fired from her job and the entire manor is re-staffed. With the help of Mona’s boyfriend, Shawn Parker, and a snotty, boisterous lawyer, she is bailed out of jail; Sarah apologizes for the accusations, and re-hires her on the spot. Intent on making things right between her and her boss, and determined to show her innocence, she goes on a search to help her find the missing diamonds and clear her name-once and for all.

I have about 5,000 words on this new story; I want to send it to eharlequin.com For some reason, literary agents tire me at the moment. I think.

It Won't Work, Melissa.

There was the time Melissa tried to get me into a singing career; there was that agent at the Billowing Pig, who knew someone in Hollywood who knew some casting director at American Idol and was looking for new faces. I don't care about Hollywood. I care about reading books. So, Melissa, if you are reading this, no, I am not going to be an actress or a singer in Hollywood, no matter how well I sing. I'd rather learn how to make birds out of loose leaf paper. I'd rather learn how to make paper cranes.

Published here: http://tuesdayshorts.blogspot.com/2009/04/it-wont-work-melissa.html

On rejections.

Rejections from "Flash Fiction Online" and "Uglycousin." They say it varies by taste, but you know it has to do with popularity. My name is not popular; and if you don't learn things exactly how they want you to do things at college, you're pretty much screwed if you're a genius or prodigy or if you simply like to learn (which pretty much constitutes for a genius nowadays).

If you want to know why certain things sell and others do not, it is because most products are so simple that an IDIOT could understand it. They don't care about knowledge or talent-American Idol is a prime example. Even names like Michael Jackson or Matt Damon or "baseball" are simple words that the average American can understand. It is quite fascinating, really, I have always wanted to do a study on linguistics and the game theory. It's all about the money. If I had gotten money for the ideas I gave away, I would be able to get published or get a job or go to school anywhere I want. I do have some dignity, thanks, people who are actually intelligent DO have a sense of responsibility to maintain.

Say you made up a word and used it in one sentence a month for a year. Less than 7% of the people you encounter would be able to pick up on the fact that it's NOT a real word. And how many people have actually read a Stephen King novel? Not many. Some buy it to impress their friends. Poetry is a lot worse off, no one understands it, and therefore, no one accepts it. I mean, JEWEL published a book of poems for the love of God! I should just throw in my towel right now.

All the Good Deeds in the World.

All the good deeds in the world have been done-cashed in
Like a check, I am using the pen my grandfather gave me,
Blue with a flashlight on the end of it. Saturday you came
And we went to the grocery store and ordered salami from
A red-headed hooker whose mind was somewhere else,
Probably on fucking a man in a yellow suit, who can’t sing
With a damn.
At a J. Geil’s concert, my aunt sits between an old woman
Who looks like a duck and has a bad hair perm, ignoring
The stench of too much perfume. I am calm in my mannerism,
Trying not to become one of the faceless voids in the crowd,
Trying to be polite, trying not to cast myself out.
People act like
Zombies without an original thought in their head. I wonder if
They like it. I wonder if their moods change from day to day,
If they are happy about their life, if they are proud of what they
Have done.
I am not proud, I am disgusted, self-loathing, and insecure,
Wallowing in my own self-pity of acceptance. I try to fit in and give
Up, force myself to do good deeds. You say I am ridiculous,
That I can’t see past a brick wall.

Homeless.

I cannot be who you want me to be.
My body is ever-changing, like a sapling
Rising from the ground, like the sun
Dripping gold over the horizon.
Shadows whisper and wan. My mood has
Changed. I am a blue-collared mongrel,
You say, and a fiend and I am hungry,
Wanting bread, maybe a hot dog with yellow
Mustard dripping from the edges of it.
I cannot be who you want me to be.
My body is ever-changing, ever crying,
Filled with pieces of information, skin cells,
And a lung.
Every day is just like the one before.
I have no family. I am homeless, without
A man, without a label-I quit my job as a waitress
Last week, my last check has been cashed.
I beg for change on a street corner, pretending
I am someone.

scripts.

And now I am writing a tv pilot about vampires....buahahhahahahaahahahaahhaha.

Update.

I wish I had my characters back.

I was just trying to learn how to write a story. :/

Update.

Now I am working on four projects-

The Great Panda Mystery (script)
Wizard's Alchemy (novel)
How To Say I Do (script)
By Nightfall (novella)

Wizard's Alchemy: Sebastian and the initiation.

The shadows stretched low over the land as Sebastian Monteserrio walked towards the ruins, afraid and frightened of what might transpire in the next few seconds, the next few minutes, the next hour. It was said that these initiations were terrible things that changed men forever. The Elves had an easier time with it because they adapted more easily to magic. Sebastian despised magic. He glanced up at the sky. A full, silver moon rose above him, throwing shadows in front of him and not behind him or to the side. He did not want to be here. But Alira, the love of his life, was in constant danger and he had to do something-anything-to protect her. This was the only thing he could think of.
The Dark Wizard looked at him, his expression grim. “Are you ready?” he asked.
Sebastian swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yes,” he whispered, his words so low he could barely get the words past his throat. Tears squeezed out of the corner of his eyes and he could not cry, could not let the tears fall. He hated crying in front of people. A bat flew overhead. He jumped.
“Where is the Gate?”
“You must walk up to the ruins of the monument, and put your hand inside it,” he answered, “and then you must try to pull the key out of the lock. If you are able to pull out the key, you are a real Dark Knight. If not, we will cast you into the Wild Blue.”
“What’s the Wild Blue?”
“It’s a skeleton graveyard beyond the ruins. Some survive; most do not.”
“Why not?” Sebastian asked.
“It is hard to find food and water. All the trees are dead; monsters roam the land like shadows.”
Sebastian nodded. “Thanks for the four one-one.”
Crandek smiled. “Anytime,” he replied. “Now, you must go.” He glanced behind him. Sebastian followed his gaze. Nothing but darkness was seen. It made him afraid. Goosebumps rose on his arms. Several Dark Elders clustered around him, chanting an odd, haunting melody that reverberated in the back of their throats, and a terror unlike anything he had ever known filled his soul and clawed at the back of his mind.
The words were this:
“Annatey-arah, kain, tarenmen, ahwie, ehuil, sarahpah,
Arahd, silvea tei lein nah anah fuan!
Harah ney anah dah,
Gorah Hepah haun!”
The wind picked up, faster and faster, until a howl of voices surrounded him. All at once he imagined fingers grabbing him, the invisible fingers of ghosts. Sebastian nearly passed out. A Dark Elder steadied his shoulder. He wanted to scream at them, Don’t touch me! And couldn’t. He was frightened, and it was no wonder, for he was in the land of ghosts. A hand steadied his shoulder. War made it all the worse.
He glanced at Crandek. "I must go by myself," he said. The Dark Elder smiled, his teeth full of cragged, yellow bone. "That's the plan," he replied.
Sebastian shuddered. He hated Crandek. The man was more evil than the others. He did not know why, but he felt it deep in his soul. Stay away from this man, his mind whispered. His heart obeyed.
“Not all apprentice knights are cast out,” Crandek continued. “Therefore, we will give you one weapon. A dagger.” A flick of his wrist and a dagger appeared in his hand where there wasn’t any before. Sebastian was impressed. It wasn’t every day he saw something appear where nothing was before.
“It contains magic,” Crandek continued. “A spell was put over it to help you if you’re cast into the wild. Don’t take it as an insult. Not all apprentices make it.” One of the Dark Elders snorted. Sebastian glanced at him. That was the only sound he made.
“I’ll take it,” he said. He put the dagger in the empty sheath around his waist and moved forward.
A Dark Knight pushed him behind. Laughter reached his ears. He glared at them. “Stop it!” he hissed. “I’m going, I’m going.” He hobbled forward, reminding himself not to make friends with darkness. The ruins of the monument rose large and proud above them.
The monument, that of Merlin the Wise, had been several stories high. Up until seven hundred years ago, when a cannon had blown it up-or at least, that’s what everyone else said.
Sebastian believed it was magic that took out the great and terrible thing; whether he liked magic or not, he knew it existed, and that terrified him even more. Most of the statue still remained intact except for the front of the statue, the door that lead to somewhere Sebastian couldn’t see, and the arms had been chopped off. Most of the buildings around it had been destroyed, but a silver key protruded from the door of the monument. There were eight Merlins that had roamed the land since the first Merlin came to this world.
They are: Merlin the Wise, Merlin the Tall, Merlin the Grand, Merlin the Great, Merlin the Second, Merlin Shartenz, Merlin Oray Bradlin, Merlin the Green, Merlin the Elder.
Only the original Merlin was the most famous, and had done the most magic. Sebastian wasn’t sure if he hated the man or feared him. Some say he was still alive, even though seven thousand years had passed since he took his last breath. Sebastian began to tremble. He wanted to turn around and run, but he was trapped.
The Dark Knights would seek him out, and destroy him, if he did that. A person who did not pass the initiation would be instantly killed. He did not like these rules, but there was nothing he could do to change their wicked ways. Beat ‘em or join ‘em, had been King Og’s saying in 2123 BEC, in order to get men to join the army. It worked. Thunder rumbled overhead.
A cloud of dust rose above him. Sebastian coughed; dust filled his eyes and mouth and lungs. The Dark Knights faded from sight, and Sebastian was on his own. He walked forward, one, step after the other, toward the monument. He was so frightened he was shaking in his boots, afraid the giant statue would come to life before his eyes.
Weirder things have happened. He snorted. Like a war between Elves and dragons several thousand years ago.
His little home had been shattered by magical creatures that he had once believed were imaginary. He wondered if he was going mad. It wouldn’t be the first time the thought passed through his head and settled in his mind like burning sulfuric acid. The wind picked up.
Walking among the ruins was like walking in a graveyard that was eerie and dark, shadows moving around him like they were alive. He’d read stories about zombies and ghosts and hoped they weren’t true. Sebastian inched closer and closer to the monument.
The key glared at him like an eye. The sun had gone completely behind the clouds, a red burning thing that pulsated like lightning. Darkness was everywhere. Sebastian felt at home even though he was frightened. He was going to have to get used to the darkness. He thought about his family. Of his mother and father, their faces flashed in his mind. They had both died at an early age, their mother was the first one to go. He thought about Damsel, the Little Warrior, the Crusader who befriended magical folk, specifically the Elves and dragons. He thought of his twin brother.
They looked exactly alike, like two peas in a pod. When they were children, they played together all the time; and as they got older, and the responsibilities were thrust upon their shoulders and their father died, they grew further and further apart. It was sad, but it happened. He did not think he hated the man-he was, after all, his twin. It irked Sebastian the way Ellerhynwyn always got his way, or the way that Damsel looked up to Ellerhynwyn more than him. He usually did his good deeds in secret, like the time Aunt Millicent came over and Damsel wanted to play with her friends instead of taking sewing lessons and he distracted her while she slipped out the door. He realized his father had always been a transparent figure in his life, even before his death, he had been away on business constantly, or fucking the many hookers he’d hired to fuck. Sebastian did not know how his mother’s death affected their father, probably the worse thing that had ever happened to him.
Maybe it drove him mad. He had never had a full-time girlfriend after their mother died. Sebastian reached the stone steps of the monument and walked up them, one at a time, his eyes on the towering head of Merlin high above him.
“What have you gotten yourself into, you stupid sonofabitch?” he muttered between clenched teeth.
He stood in front of the door, studying the wood, only the door was wooden but everything else was not. It was a very peculiar statue not to mention annoyingly large.

Update.

I started writing a script.

English Language.

Wow if someone says "nigga" or "LOL" or "Omgah beer!" one more time I am going to puke white chocolate. I am serious. If that's what the English language is coming to, I AM SCREWED when it comes to novels. No wonder shitty novels sell so well, the plot is so simple a child could read it. Better stop reading the dictionary and Tom Clancy.

YA novel.

I think that one YA novel idea I have would work...I just have to plot it. I wrote the first chapter, thinking about the others...it's called "7th Order" but it sounds like a crappy Dan Brown novel, I can't think of anything else to call it besides "Untitled" at the moment. I pulled "Wizard's Alchemy" out of Baen Books again, ha! I started working on it and have 130,000 words and think I want to write more. Since it is about a world called Merlin, I am going to add 40,000 words about Merlin's life. He is kind of like a vampire-mage, came from Atlantis, realized he had the gift of teleporting, and uhhhhh....then it forwards a few hundred years to the present, where Merlin is no longer...present, only his relics remain behind. Five relics to be exact, they are called the Power of the Five, some of them include: a black book, a ring, a talisman, a sword, and a gold key.

My goal would be Roc, and I bet you they would accept it, or Tor, however, it is a lot of ink and paper and that would equal to over $75, including shipping and handling-not to mention it could be rejected even if they like it.

Perhaps I should have gotten credit for the other stuff I wrote...stupid ghostwriting. Stupid morals. Stupid art. *sad face.*

My first secret is...I wrote my own piano scores when I was five. THEN I wrote some songs. THEN I wrote a short story and asked someone to finish it for me (which they did). And so on and so forth.

Luckily no one reads this darn thing and no one will care. :/

It's not like anyone can do anything except me anyway. If I have a high IQ, what kind of school am I going to go to that I won't be bored at? If I have a high IQ, what kind of test am I actually going to pass? Not to mention my family, esp. on my mother's side, have a few people with high IQs and they get recognition because they don't have a heart condition. Who cares if I wrote the stuff myself instead of knowing who Mozart was or what time period Beethoven lived in (although I probably knew anyway and no one paid any attention, I don't remember EVERYTHING I did.)

Isn't that what Mozart did, write new stuff? And then they say his IQ is 140+? Hello!

Also a lot of the people in college are immature and tedious...no offense to them.