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Dawn of The Dragons

Invictus

Beast Of A Different Burden

Sonbather

The Snowman

O Me! O Life!

WALT WHITMAN

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

 

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

 

 

Face To Face

REMINGTON GRAVES

I stepped into the tub and turned the plastic knobs to somewhere between lukewarm and hot.

 

The splashing mild roar of running water noise pacified my anxiety, and tamed a bit my tension.

 

With eyes closed and face down, I stood with arms outstretched, one hand on the shower door and the other on the opposite wall.

 

The voices tip-toed in and painted the pretty faces of the women who crossed my path, the weathered countenance of the old man needing one more dollar to buy his Greyhound ticket out of town, a blond-haired girl who cannot be, the grey lioness-eyes of a siren that won’t sing, the forlorn hiding behind a feigning facade, the curious clamor of half-conscious cocksuckers, the blood I spill from men who have nothing left to fight for…

 

 

The endless text messages my cell phone receives remain inside that flat, cold rectangle–tiny monolith with bitten apple–and it tries to be my god. Why can’t I bow down, it wonders.

Some are lengthy from an old acquaintance explaining the new things they’re doing. Others belong to my sister, also endless, divulging information about our unimportant family. Clients who want me to do a particular job, and they wantonly wax on about their needs; the new window-shopping.

I try to keep up with them all.

 

The knobs are hard to find when I go that deep in the rabbit hole, but eventually do. And the water becomes scolding. It helps my tension.

 

 

But I can’t hear their voices.

I can’t see their faces.

 I can’t read their gestures.

No hesitation marks to spot.

No flirting to be flattered by.

I can’t be taken by the way their hair exults their stare.

I cannot be seduced by a tiny chip on her tooth.

I won’t wonder what if when those hips sway by accompanied by a biting lip.

No wonderful perfume to assume or warm vanilla to lead me to my doom.

No soft giggle to decide if to approach and then collide.

With pleasant platitudes and stumbling attitudes

I yearn for the old ways

of

 

face to face

∞

 

 

You Is Fucking A

REMINGTON GRAVES

I’m looking out the window of a Greyhound bus and dig the dirty glass, the cursory cacti with its bruising blur, the waving and bending of the summer heat on the hellish horizon of Nowhere, Texas. My holy turquoise converse scarcely shield my gaping toes and wiggle inside the dried and dried again films of sweat accumulated through the past whatever miles of forgotten road behind me. My heroes on small sheets of wooden slabs and neon-green gummy wheels leap down flights of stairs, magically levitate over fire hydrants, over park benches, into swimming pools, off the roofs of houses…and land gracefully, these feline fiends then grunt in glory as their comrades all in unison leap from their seats and wooo and wail–yes, they wear their shoes without socks.

California. That’s where I’m headed. In a film called Smashin’, you get groovy glimpses of blonde and honey-tanned beach bunnies hopping aside a beckoning bike trail near the ocean; the fellas are handsome and charming with a devil-may-care charisma as they elude the authorities, chase skirt, and speed down mountainsides atop their four-wheeled surfboards.

 

I came back to my seat and the cute girl I was talking to got off as I was dropping off the Cosby kids at the pool. How long was I in there? I wonder. Rosy? Rosa? Shit, who knows. Maybe I should just call them, “baby” from now on–save me from trouble. Why not?

 

“Anybody sitting here, young man?” Said an old white man with a beer gut glancing from under a “Life’s a Beach” T-shirt.

“Just me, dude,” I replied with a smile.

“Where your parents, kid?” He asked as he shoved his bags overhead.

“That’s an old song on repeat, man. Who knows and who cares?”

“All right, man, I get it. You moving, huh? New adventures and all that?”

“Sure am. What about yourself?” I said inquisitive and excited for a new conversation.

“Visiting my sister across the country and checking out this You Is Fucking A, kiiid!”

“Sounds like a blast. Hey, seen the desert outside these windows. Just fucking beautiful. This world has me drunk…everyday I behold the sublimity of my ephemeral existence.”

“Huh? Listen, kid, don’t go reading too many books, you hear me? Get some pussy, bud. Contract an STD or two. Get on drugs, steal a Harely and live with two broads. You know, live a little.”

 

“Yeah, live a little–no, I want to live a lot.”

 

“Here we go, little dude. You Is Fucking–”

 

“A!”

∞

 

 

Notable Quotes

PHILIP K. DICK

“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me’.”

 

 

Run

REMINGTON GRAVES

Close your eyes. Can you hear the night outside screaming your name in faint whisper–from somewhere behind a billion exploding stars. Where hidden murmurs tremble the cold still. Planets spin slowly and silently reserved and partially prurient–but not as we are, in their divine arrogance dormant and whirring like massive gears turning and doing an unappreciated job.

 

Inhale deeply. Allow the rust of a million machines to sing to you, O death, and the demise you are. Humming and cymballing like falling pebbles on a brass countenance, an Egyptian sweaty fever dream atop a pyramid while beetles cook far down below in the indignation of an ancient sun. Our creations die without complaint, and it pains the brain to miss the point. Perhaps we have created better versions of ourselves.

 

Now, with a soft exhale, bite into your lower lip…hard…now harder. No–keep biting. Harder still. Break the skin…there. Taste the blood, the river Styx, the iron stream, the scarlet ribbon that ruins the certain skepticism married to any form of sanctity. If a mirror be near you, approach it and smile. Nestled in your teeth, there amid the row of tiny walls, where soldiers squeeze right through and crawl above each other in hope, of their own Helen.

 

 

You see walls around you, in the very spot where albino peacocks stood still, and men murdered muses, soft weapons didn’t see the sun, the zest was yet to be born that rode the zephyr calmly, and babies were bludgeoned for a chance, if a mere one, to be heard by gods created–in wood, in mud, in stone, in crowds or the madness of the alone.

 

Run.  Run.  Run.

 

To home, to turn to stone, to fall within the fault, and crushed by a behemoth pillar of salt, to fuck the angels inside, to let our daughters drain you with drink, to outgrow old clothes, to feel pain from simply waking up…

 

Run.    Run.      Run.

∞

 

 

A Man After My Own Heart

REMINGTON GRAVES

Light slithered in through the spaces, glaring through like slow shattering glass, swallowing the shadows and severing the stillness. Cavernous echoes conquered the perfect silence, causing a chasm betwixt confusion–correcting errors once despised, reverberating the recalcitrant stares inside the windows of a coffee house sidewinding with snakes; the emptiness expanded as glaring tiny screens pacified the creatures once mistaken for people. Their talons taunted my soft, pink flesh. Small rectangled tables riddled the building and shifted from one wall to the other–seating the reptiles to their rancid feast.

The pungent stench from heavy breathing–salivating and repugnant mouths ajar, filled the spot and sent my eyes searching for the exit whilst , as much as I possible could under a sweaty brow, conceal my terror. The vile vermin snarled and reached for one another, locking tongues lasciviously, shlopping amid scraping sounds of jagged teeth. Boxes and cups fell from the shelf all designed with minimalist ideas of art concocted to appeal to the cockeyed masses. I haven’t tried that brand of coffee, I don’t think, I thought as the empty packages pummeled to the ground.

“Your drink looks tasty,” one of them said with a ten inch tongue dripping across the table in which we sat.

“It is,” I replied with a difficult swallow, “would you like a drink? I don’t need to finish it. Truly, I want you to have it.” The heart, I thought–If I could take a shard of glass and pierce him right in the heart!

“No, that’s quite all right, son. You enjoy, okay.”

“Is it okay if I leave?” I belted after some hesitation.

“Why are you asking me? Are you sure you’re okay? You’re looking a little peeked, now that I’m taking a closer look. Maybe you should call someone to come and pick you up, bud. Got any friends you can call?”

“I thought I had some. Maybe.”

“Well, where are they now?”

“They all turned out to be reptiles. Shit–sorry.”

“Oh, sheesh, we’re not all bad, for crying out loud. Hell, let me buy you another drink…I recommend you get it with steamed blood this time. It’s to die for.”

“Well, I could give that a shot, I think. I should live a little.”

 

“It’s tough at first, I know. Believe me, it gets easier.”

“I hope so, ” I said reclining and wiping the sweat from my brow.

“I promise, I used to be just like you…then I simply gave in. Nobody wants a trouble-maker you know.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I’ll take that drink now–extra hot.”

“Atta boy…man after my own heart.”

∞

 

 

Ending Pending

REMINGTON GRAVES

Inclined was the cursory, of a stare opposed–contrived with constant echoing whilst fainting and bleeding as bending lyres behind you in Hades did wrought a dreamt-of your undoing

And those walls were soft–from the corridors that let the light in. Ever so soft and wet to the touch, adorned in the dark with roses weeping le sang de un poet: the tears of the bastard child chasing the perfect line; fingers dragging along, a pliable, silky smooth paneling, and from behind, she calls out

she calls out a name

 

endless…….nameless

 

she utters with desperation in her choking, drowning lungs

ahead the many headless statues maxims martyred one and all

to ward off witches to sing and to pleasantly enthrall

devoid of virtue and swarmed by roaches bearing lofty titles so banal

 

And past the catacombs

the scurrying that now spells home

the smell of dying roses the splendor of broken bones

the dreaming of the iron thrones of a sinking belle that rather die alone

 

On the way the Oculi twin occluded trembling with tenor, plucked harpsichord in wailing, and with the fall came the whim of the whilom–broken back and shivering scenarios of black and light –animus sumina

 

afflatus furtive banging a cold hammer against ice

sparking embers traces for the travelers atop horses long dead now but crying for the deicide

beating drums of revenants never once remembered

bruised behemoth haughty thence now harrowing

art thou the same that slayed the saints without a moment’s hesitation?

 

Almost out and through. In sight I saw the sun, I must confess, I uttered her name in return without a single pause and mortal reservation

 

ending…….pending

∞

 

 

 

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