No posts found.
"Below"
As the ocean dies around them, lobstermen Caleb and Duncan push farther into unmapped depths in search of a living catch. But when something ancient stirs beneath the Atlantic floor, the sea itself begins to change. The men are forced into the presence of a colossal intelligence vast enough to erase the boundary between where one's self ends and the abyss begins.
"Below"
As the ocean dies around them, lobstermen Caleb and Duncan push farther into unmapped depths in search of a living catch. But when something ancient stirs beneath the Atlantic floor, the sea itself begins to change. The men are forced into the presence of a colossal intelligence vast enough to erase the boundary between where one's self ends and the abyss begins.
"The Mounds"
"The Mounds"
In the winter of 1952, attorney Mick and his longtime friend Gladwell Stokes investigate a series of strange burial mounds uncovered on isolated farmland. What they find beneath the earth leaves Mick plagued by recurring dreams, mounting paranoia, and the growing sense that something ancient has followed them back from the tomb.
Poetry
"They Wait For Me To Blink"
Flitting like a moth upon the glass
Eyelids strain against the close
To different shades of black
The window holds the moon—
Faint behind the clouds—
Shadows clothed in dancing mist
A weight upon my back
An itch upon the neck
A jaw that’s shut from within
And clawing sounds that keep it
I close and open again—
Black with swirls of blue
Shadow figures who
Take shape with each blink
And wait for me to close again
Certain that I will
Certain that I already have
"Within The Clay"
The ache, the ache
It’s oh so perfectly placed
Inside what binds the mind to flesh
Lies living within the clay
Awake to hate
Awake to wait
Red ledger’s slate
This weight, this weight
We bear this state
Degrees of fate
The ways we writhe
Abate, abate
"Pulling Thread"
With no choice but to stand alone
I turn from what is fleeting
With no choice but to face the void—
Unpicker and hand convening
I boldly go to strip the coat,
Undo the yarn from meaning
These loosened threads of homemade dread
Bind me to repeating
They choke the search for deeper worth
Complicit in retreating
But the fabric’s bare
There’s nothing there
I must begin the seeking.
"The Warmth That Leaves Me Cold"
Wistfulness gnaws—
Wintry wind on dry bones
Evocations of love
Of pride and of hope
And try as I might, I still feel alone
I want to crawl inside and never let go
The pain of knowing
What’s past can’t relive
And the warmth
Of what’s gone
Keeps me cold
Yet I sit
And I suffer
And I ponder
And I yearn
For those years
For those days when a home
Wasn’t just
Where we lived
"The Hollowing"
Cold cement
A black chasm space
Void of all light
I’m wandering, blank
Darkness encompassing
Licking all corners
It seeks now, to enter
Like tentacles, prodding
Filling my pores,
As tapeworms, it burrows
Vying for my soul
Pouring unto me
Shapeless, odorless
Eating my insides
Until I am
Nothing
"Grinding Teeth Beneath Stormlight"
As if stricken by an unseen foe, they sway
Brittle branches snapped and hurled
Through the churning fray
A cadenced dripping catches my mind’s eye
My fire—slowly smothered
Teeth—begin to grind
They fucking grind
The unmistakable sound of shattered glass
Lightning bites down on bark
My eyes—seared by the flash
Dread settles
Man’s grip
A weak bid
Through clenched fists
The winds have grown foul
"Beneath the Calm"
Even when the seas are calm
And no clouds are in the sky
While soft, the ship sways to the song
Of gulls that sing, “nothing’s wrong”
The sailor cannot stop and sigh
Even when the seas are calm
For fear that black, the blue will don—
The happy sounds of birds will die
But soft, the ship sways to their song
He feels an ache that something’s wrong
The gentle breeze must carry lies
All the while, the seas are calm
As dancing dolphins glide along
His jaws clamp shut and hair awry
Still soft the ship sways to the song
A sense of peace is what he longs
Yet purest days, he will deny
Even when the seas are calm
And soft, the ship sways to the song
"A Pantoum of Empty Flesh"
A tidy row of faceless homes
Like coffins holding empty flesh
Adorned shells proclaiming wealth
Surrogates for unknown needs
Like coffins holding empty flesh
Inside each home—a corpse embalmed
Surrogates for needs unmet
The dead are dressed in business suits
Inside each home—a corpse embalmed
They sip on wine like formaldehyde
The dead are dressed in business suits
They kill their young to do the same
They sip champagne like formaldehyde
Stifling unasked questions
They kill the young to do the same
With smiles sewn in permanence
They never pause to question
Inside their faceless homes
Their smiles sewn in permanence
Surrogates—
a life of death, untold
"Morning, Night Time, Sleep, Awake"
Another day in this sweatshop of plagued monotony,
Morning then night, sleep, awake
At first I labored here as a means to an end
But now my own end is the sole break in sight
Morning then night, sleep, awake
Years have begun to interdigitate like machines I work
My own end, the soul’s break in sight
”Brrrrrrring!” attention infringed, the bell says lunch
My thoughts interdigitate like machines I work
My wife’s packed spaghetti brings a moment of felicity
”Brrrrrring!” fifteen minute bliss concludes, the bell says work
Is this all the soul was shaped to bear?
My wife’s packed spaghetti my only day’s joy?
Still, complacency keeps me chained to circumstance
Even though I deplore this cycle my existence amounts to,
I will change nothing.
For that would mean the unfamiliar
Morning, then night, sleep, awake
"The Cabin Remembers The Sea"
Protesting groans from an olden home
Amid the gusts and howling
Salted rain upon a thin, steep roof
Struck slantwise in the dark
This cabin stands—a sentry still
Within her walls, I drift
Drawn now through borrowed scenes
Of harpoons, sails, and gore
Wind-swept whiskers
On a face, weathered and grim
Orders bellowed with hellish fervor
Engulfed within the swells
A burst, a jolt, a scream of fear
Rope snags shaking flesh
A witless body feeds the deep
But blood weighs less than seed
Their eyes are fast upon the line
A string of fate made taut
The war of man upon the sea
To gut her ancient stores
At once, I wake to a golden sky
The gulls are crying sweetly
I wonder now of last night’s quest
But the smell of bacon pulls me
