Emptiness is self help

A formula to pat yourself on the back with...
 

Human should shy away from nightmares
when the secret embers that freeze the mind in them
Don´t offer any short term reward
You are too obsessed with the shape of the week

The strange form of the year, dancing needing specters
hungering for the gasps, regret not hugging phantoms
emptiness as all the ghosts have gone
checked out wrecked and lonliness factor 

Atleast if it were haunted we could get some sounds and images
yet all is dead still
And this is the formula to pat yourself on your own back with
The caterpillars have left the tree

The stardom neighbors have fled
The emptiness has surprisingly volunteered to host the party
the night outside angry at having no access to the day
fighting with dusk, lonliness adjudicates
The light from in and the darkness outside
makes the windows great mirrors

The lack of any entity
No bipolarity of fear and love
No mythology coming to life
Just a big fat loupe and invisible grins
So the excluded darkness can look right in
shameless emptiness forgot to invite it despite it´s role
So it braces the window like a vomiting addict to a bowl

The restless panic drives one to sacrifice dignity
to dive into a chatter, laughter and twitter of questionable character
any species of shallow cheap affinity
 may just save you from
horrid individuality

A trainer on the wall that screen

 cresh crash blesh
tanned face and no cigarette fire
These walls heat up with activity
people lift their desire

blicking flicking through a half written biography letters crawl
The last sentence brushes the present waiting for the next word to fall
I exit the place a giant having entered a dwarf
abandoned south found my north

Click clack crunch
authentic information through the screen
Lost a piece of you and a piece of me
A willy wonker stew you see

What does the world on all sides impose upon you
A heavenly soul trying to lift others

Catfish creek

 Here's the district of abundance
Water and life and probably blessings
Each brain of ours swells in satisfaction
As pets and purpose give us a path

Life and living it is invited to the neighborhood
Installing a swimming pool to look down into
See your reflection or tighten envy stressed organs
eels moving in the creek below life accelerated


The wheat grass erect the breeze not strong enough to bend it
Fat cattle from the car drive window
Poxy shops painted and polished and gleaned for big dreams
boutique meals and an embedded pretension
That brings a layer of percieved luxury onto the face and the dinner plate


Sweet sugar like adventure as you build a life here
Colors and celebration as the town inaugurates 
your official settlement
And schools and stores and civil meetings long for you
another drop in the puddle of civilization

Small town's like this lean and sleek
abundant chances of achieving the feat
of becoming a contributory household in Catfish creek

streetdog tough

 The street dog
brown red and white chest and neck
squarish head and average sized floppy ears
big size body eyes like tears

navigating the streets with ease
Catching that whiff on the breeze
And locating it´s lunch on the way
jogging effortlessly at a constant pace

The street dog must not be domesticated
It needs the smells and dirts of the street
The petting of random neighbor´s kindness
The stray cats and dogs territory mark whizz

Freedom is it´s existance
gutters and sidewalks it´s house
when he´s not smelling he´s listening
fearless streetdog never cowers

A mild distraction

 Nebuchadnezzar perched up in the throne room
in the serving glance captured the execution
Just as the sun came up a man stood disillusioned
soldiers stirred below as the thief was brought out

Almost a pink hue on the sand willing a kill
a forecast that put dishonest blood to spill
The wind silent and anticipating colluding with the palace
almost a breeze in the royal chamber then relapsed

power breaks over the land like the sun and ruler´s gaze
Worshipped Khopesh exposed bright inside it´s rays
Now exposed over the crying thief awaiting babylonian doom
Nebuchadnezzar´s face over the bough of the open throne room

Looking down on the city center´s rabble as it grows
Eyes penetrating the simple souls bound to the sandy expanse below
Generals attempt to capture and imitate his outward looking gesture
collectively reflecting king´s emotions as best they could

The executioner paces toward the king looking for approval
With a serious face King´s head nods smoothly
Crowd gasps as the executioner returns the kopesh to the scabbard
and out comes a rustic whip leathery and barbed

Nebuchadnezzar utters a guttural command
And the generals eyes light up stunned
A small grin appears on the King´s face while below panic and uproar
Immediately lashes echo out, the sun and sand silently applauding

The first beads of blood forming
King´s grin widens and sun rises proportionately
A simultaneous sadistic pulse of a rush
As the man bleets and begs and the crowd hushes

Now the sun shines down shamelessly revealing itself to every nook and cranny
The king feeds on the shock of the masses, his grin widening and uncanny
Generals switch glances between king and spectacle, souless goons
 For now the flesh is in tatters each lash splattering through the wounds

The blood soaks the ground below the thief as he suffers 
His longing to live did not win over the state´s need for justice
teeth appear now and the king´s mouth was sarcastically crafted
The grin burst open like a cannon giving way to hysterical laughter

The soul perspired as whip end licked bone, daydreaming god
The sun too was satiated with the ground´s steaming blood
callousness rising in his majesty, as hoards´ sighs and moans try repeal
Fatuous life of a thief unworthy of slavedom, this moment the most surreal

A punishment merciless beyond reason or measure
Yet the only moment the king felt any semblance of leisure
from the million concrete slabs of bureaucracy
and a world of conquest and bellicosity


 

Trenchfires

 This complaint rings through the ears of rank and file
stinging morale a stinking infected denial
rifles drop into the gravel

Faith a dirty plate empty two metres from no man´s land
A squad diseased by doubt a wrath like blight
Metal up against a skull
The undying trenchfires

The gut wants to run
The head no logical exit

A blue dog revival

 Said he might levitate the birds his way and his time
In the corner of an eastside London delapidated flat
Where stale smoke, mould the marks of crime
have taken their toll on the carpet and walls

His venture was to capture the sky
when the clouds were at slumber
and moon and sun were distracted by the other planets
To obtain that blue

He´d gravitate toward a world at war
bursts of laughter drowned out by the volleys and blasts
waspy bullets crackling through wooden doors
willing for the invitation

in that corner of the delapidated flat
Some wonderful dream of existance
surreal seventies wall paper peeled off to form a smile
Dialing a joke on the grabber

The old curved landline phone squawking like a bird perturbed
Knowing the dank streets sight smell and touch
Conspiring with those powerline pigeons to steal a bit of the blue
before the fog and bombs and commie logs came marching through
smoke and flames pouring off them for as long as the conflict sparks

He´d gravitate to a regime that would set up these people
who have no will of their own
queuing for their own shame
buying their debt for the next decade
dressed in blue

The inefficient dogmas of the day smelted in the pot 
yielding no gold
All to the blue as the castle is reinvented
all these plagues all of this speculation
not a net or a weapon
Just those dying carcasses of last century´s empires

An urban merchant

 The suitcase I dragged 
it's contents falling out 
spilling across the decorative urban rug
Looking for a crossroad
A market
A place to express all assumptions
A semblance of wisdom
Of charisma
SO that I might sell the contents
Neighbors pull curtains
As my footfalls echo off the clean dark ashphalt
My wares falling out on the road
Like a cumbersome child insistant
That it's toys accompany him
The day oscillates between late afternoon and midday
I have no vehicle
And the legs of a tired merchant
One mission and all other purposes lost and forgotten.

As night falls

Down from those whispies
my boots scuffing across the concrete
Falling down to those shadows on the oval
Dusk left me behind mercifully

My cape kicked up on the last lick of wind
The day had in it´s lungs
I managed to land just well enough to not break a leg
feeling the impact as the relief

For a life in the sky is a lust the lights lie to you about
Rolling toward that little oval concrete port
The tiny gravel pebbles kicking up
My cape calming farewelling my brother dusk

All about me the city wails and shines
Too many lights too many mouths
Dropping down to this busy little earth
A metropole confused by nightfall

An ancient piece of that moonlit god
Passed on a plastic disposable plate
To fill a pleb and achieve a half smile
remarkable

My knife wants to cut out that dark area 
Surrounding the moon itself
the shocked audience
Spice on the blade

Folly of the sun
deception for it
Dusk knocks off
Night falls with me
On this concrete stage
dancing upside down smog savvy

The cherry overtime

 The new job gave me no notion of myself
The computer a pet that needed stroking
A salary, a semi social life
A place I should meet my skills

Take the sweet basket of treats home
To share the cherries with my past hopes
looking through the excess
To find what our mouths and stomachs want most

Ordinary household perplexity

 The confusion of sleep, of blankets,
of conforting lights
Busy chaotic family tending their brood
Peculiar midnight

Downstairs T.V dark and reflecting
Surley woman on the sofa
quilts and little beds strewn about the house
A house to repair, to organize and administrate

Messy dreams lose sight of reality
Slumber rolling up walls
No logic, just some semblance of survival
As if existence were random

Meaningless obsessions
Generating their tendencies
Phantom addictions materialising
Like the eternal mess of a neglected house 

The Grinning statesman

 That lord who has over the realm thus presided
from inside of the tower´s central spire
Robes and contracts are abided
As low citizens do perspire

This Lord is influential outside
secretive and hungry inside
A machine of desire
A devious lier

A smile wide and inviting to endorse or deride
Haunts the counsel as they read it dire
Not in his lips nor brow do they confide
They serve and address him sire

This lord has touched the ghostly dukes and brides
Briefed and directed assasins for hire
Licked spice at the sight of an enemy on fire
Feasted eternal as conquered people cried

A world to be managed under his code one sided
Developing the tools to fashion obsession wild
Harness the masses as if a mind of a child
reactionary and feeble pushed by the tides 

Hovering above the political facets the elecric wire
electrocuting the curious the devious, the denied
Changing his name along each age never tired
Throwing power to control subjugate and bonify

Dancing formalists swing in his direction and step predecidedly
A smile a curved blade cutting the state and guiding the bleed 

Rural urban working class drunkard

 The Auckland years
A swipe after the millenium
The city displaced by estuaries
confused by the wind and seasonal humidity

The bakery gave them a cause
the river was me
The lunchtime impatience was them
competing with the unseen

Across the suburbs
A thousand brothels
Not a drop of love
Just a few kilos of flour

For a working class bakery

We lost ourselves in metropolitan rhetoric
And the backstreets cut off from the gargantuan highways
Where the pauper peeps head tilted to check we are lost
then disappears into some shack

Just enough to snort or smoke or smack

And we pointed jokingly
assuming our lives were fountains
of mineral water
blessing the fields of our experience

Ignorant us and our tentative appearance

Did we lose ourselves
through weekend mould
liver fat and hangover cold
In the biggest city

In our tiny corner of the world

Designed the brag
Big yaughts far from reach
we'd tell ourselves
we were starfish on the beach

Outcompeted we, the bakers butchers and cooks
and uncouth, beerbellied rookies

  

The corridor is the length of the venal grin

 The corridors of presage
The forks raised at dinner
Faceless eaters
Crime dressed in satin and jewels

The corridors forecast a fate inescapable
Like a song you know the ending to
Table unstable and food falling off it
laughter bellows off  those affable gluttons

Crime wipes his lips with a silk sorviette
The table goes quiet
the light blinks twice
And the room starts to narrow and lengthen
A corridor

The far end is darkness
All we can see is a hay laden floor
All round us bars
A nun to hear our last sins
As a father wouldn't have us

The feast has ended so abrupty my friends
penitence must be driving a faster car
Justice had eye surgery
Our hunger goes unsatisfied
The corridors of our stomach hayladen too

Would you call our lawyer
Is that him at the door
Our greed supported by the law
Make sure he's in court
or waiting for us, in the corridor

The sonolent exorcism

 That ghost going to come and sing a rhyme of death
It sing it on the pillow
On your sleeping breath
On the shadow on the wall
That hollow midnight pest

Yet in it´s shape I touch the ethereal tickle
No hat or claw or ravenous clown
No omen or demon or cursed eye or frown
My nightself pouces and my dreamself devours
Of whatever in this night darkness cowers

A spell cast from slumber
mist in the air
capturing foul phantoms
whose aim is to scare

 

Ross Dexter- And the Demon of Dover.

 Ross dexter grew up in Dover massachussets
He had a normal upbringing with his father William or Bill and his mother Shelly.
His parents would go through a rocky relationship until their early 60s and Ross left university to get his first job as a cars salesman. 
During school Ross was an athlete and did very well in most sports. which gave him an advantage in his social and romantic life.
Ross grew into a strong young man and enjoyed the popularity with his small victories of his teenage years and early twenties. His many friends and girlfriends, his seemingly normal and active life.

Even when Ross was a child of six years old he could remember getting a feeling. His father would take him down to the local baseball diamond was part of the entry to a local national reserve. One there infamous for a few old legends.
Oddly his father would always have to grab his arm by the end of the game, Ross would start to focus on the trees overlooking the grass area that made up the baseball diamond.
On those occasion he would feel a strange tickle just between where the back of the neck meets the spine. Like a very mild and continuous electric shock.
And something stirred in that forest, it made his father a little suspicious, his father would interrogate him on the way home in their old station wagon. "Ross, what were you looking for out there? What were you staring at?" and Ross would answer "The bright forest, there were lights in there."
His father would look at him doubtfully and think and worry to himself that it was the onset of some cognitive disease. In later years Ross´s family went on a camping trip, one where Ross had disappeared for 2 hours and was found again gazing into the trees not far from the camp.  medical tests would prove that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him.
Whenever Ross was close to open forest he would slowly start to focus his attention there.

By his late twenties his athletic abilities were gone. He was no longer selling cars, back then he would make a lot of money and continued to see his friends yet had no stable relationships. As he neared thirty years old he became the manager of the car yard but could not keep things under control. losing staff over silly bickering and not paying attention to the business itself.
Two years previous at 28 years old both of his parents dies of heart attacks in the same night.
Something that baffled authorities, family and neighbors.
Ross was heartbroken and felt alone. his life had reached a plateau, he had the best of everything for such a long time. As he reached thirty he went to alcohol and junkfood and lost himself in shallow relationships in the local bars, and popular political idealogy.

One night as he made his way home drunk and cursing when he saw a child sitting on a park bench hugging his knees in the cold dressed in shorts and t shirt and pair of sneakers as the temperature was getting down to around 5 degrees centigrade. Ross asked him if he was ok, the child shivered, "My father sent me out of the house, he beat me because I came home late for dinner." The boys name was Tim, and Ross felt there was something really wrong.
As Ross got closer he could see dried blood around his nose and lip. He convinced Tim to walk with him back to Tim´s house. 
Ross walked him all the way back to Tim´s house, Tim was very anxious and started trembling as they got to the front door. 
Before Ross could knock the door flew open and almost flew shut rebounding back on its hinges. Tim gasped. The father marched out, quite a large man. He pointed inside and commanded his son "Get inside and get to bed." Ross retorted as if for the boy "You know you shouldn´t hit children, it´s a sign of cowardice." The father ran toward Ross and hit him so hard Ross fell back about three meters falling onto his shoulders and rolling over once, suddenly afterward recieving a hard kick to his upper thigh.
Despite being drunk that night he never forgot what happened. He remembered every detail as if he had lived it many times.

Ross stopped drinking and started thinking about his life, he resigned from his job as the manager at the car yard. And started a new job driving a tow truck for the town of Dedham not far from Dover. 
He started to spend more and more time in the local forests in the weekend, usually walking through the many trails and tracks. Observing the animals and slowly but surely regaining a sense of his connection to nature.
He had  walked further and further into the woods, he would stop where two small creeks met. In the trianglular area in the space afore the 2 creeks narrowing into one, Ross had laid down rocks in a circle about 3 meters in diameter. each week he would go there as if visiting a grave, each time placing a well shaped rock on top of the growing rock circle. Ross could spend many hours there even in the winter. between the winter and the spring he woud feel an ill presence thereas if something wanted him gone from there. But Ross needed to be there, it was like part of him could only breathe in the woods.

Each day he would help motorists who had crashed or broken down on the local roads. always doing a little more than necessary, comforting people, giving them rides home. Becoming a samaritan, and getting quite a reputation for it.

One night in april in early spring he was passing the entrance into the wood he would frequent. He saw a glowing blue light through his windshield inside the forest along the track. He could see it through the light drizzle. So he looked down at his watch, thought to himself that he had a spare hour it was only 10pm, so against better judgement, he got out of the tow truck and made his way from the gravel of the parking lot into the woods toward the blue light. As soon as he got under the canopy of the forest he could see the blue shape quite clearly now, yet it was moving. Moving toward his circle of stones where the creeks met. He followed it through the dark wood along the same route that Ross himself had walked many times off the main track. As Ross arrived at the circle the blue light hovered inside it intensifying in color and light. Ross was mesmerized. Suddenly it was gone. Ross suddenly became hyper awoken and looked down at his watch, pressing the watchlight and feeling a deep sense of fright and desolation as he read 2am on his watch. If he was honest with himself he wouldn´t have given himself 20 minutes in that wood. But things would get much worse. As soon as he looked up to find his bearings he heard the most blood curdling guttural bellow as if a man was giving his last dying scream all he had before death, also with a kind of electric scratching inside it.
Ross froze and looked for something to defend himself with.

He felt it was already too late as he could hear this great monstrous thing approach him from directly behind him. He instinctively jumped into the circle and the blue light shot up from above him, it lit up this 3 meter high giant skeletal spectral figure who looked absolutely furious and hideous at the same time. Ross held his own throat from not fainting. And forced himself to look at the monster. The monster walked in a dishelved manner around the circle of rocks as if to find a way in, to pluck ross up and do god knows what to him. The blue light began to emanate from Ross now, He could feel an energy running through him, it felt like he was on somekind of methamphetamine. He glared back at the monster now putting his hands down and studying the ghostly features of the giant skeletal fiend.
The monster screamed again the kind of scream that a predatory animal might make if cheated a meal by a prey that had outrun it. The demon like monster became quiet and just stared back at Ross now. Ross felt a new feeling a kind of hunger swirling in his groin his lower stomach his heart and his throat. all four areas of his body started to drum in unison, as Ross´s back arched up and he jumped out of the rock circle head held back to look challenge the monster face on.
The monster let out another scream, this time one of astonishment and protest. It was as if Ross was breaking some rule of the game. The monster lashed out trying to scratch at Ross, the blue light intensified around Ross and where the long bony like claws were to land upon his shoulder and head light reflected and the spectral hand fell away as if being shocked.

Ross looked at the beast again until the beast gave a low humming sound and look of disapproval and anguish it turned and starting sprinting off into the darkness. He could see it slowly disappearing about 100 meters into the forest in the pale blue glow that had lit up the bush around.
Ross slowly made his way back to his tow truck and hopefully back home. However on his way back he passed the same park bench and to his consternation and shock once again he saw the boy tim, barely able to recognize him though as tim had his head in his hands. He recognized him because they were the same shorts tshirt and sneakers hed seen 18 months ago. It was something Ross had never forgotten, not because of the way the father had knocked Ross himself over and kicked him, but by how someone who was supposed to be loved was being left out in the cold and night for anything to happen to. Ross swerved the truck brought the side window down and asked the boy to get inside. He could see this time the boy had a black eye and looked like he had other injuries. Glances were exchanged the boy got in. Ross accelerated to the front door of Tim´s house once again, this time he told Tim to stay in the car. He went right up to the front door and knocked on it with hard impacting fist blows. 

The big man, Tim´s father pulled back the curtain of the side window, probably checking it wasn´t the cops. Once the father recognized Ross´s face he sprinted to the front door burst out of it like a bullet, and went for Ross´s neck, the attack was too high, and Ross full of addrenaline and energy ducked low letting the father fall over him, suddeny rising and letting the father topple down his back hitting the two concrete steps leading up to the front door. This temporarily stunned the father and gave Ross enough time to put his knee into the father´s temple knocking him out. Then he ushered Tim to come back to the house. He said "Tim you will stay here for a few days without your father, can you take care of things. I will be back tomorrow to check on you". the curtains in the window suddenly moved. "Tim who else is in there?" Time responded "Oh that is my younger sister and brother." Ross insisted "please take care of them until tomorrow I´ll be back by then."

Tim went inside closing the door quickly behind him. Ross looked down at the father and then hauled him to his feet and guided him to the passenger side of his tow truck, the father protested and tried to muster the strength and outrage to push at Ross but the trauma and damage of the landing had incapacitated him. Ross could tell he was not faking it.
He lifted the injured man into the passenger side and casually asked his name. The man answered "Robert". Ross continued "Well Robert we have a little date in the woods with me, what do you think of that?"
Roberts eyes lit up with terror even with the intense pain he was feeling. He wasn´t looking at the same man that he had bested 18 months before. Ross was way too energized for this hour of the morning, and from Robert´s point of view it seemed Ross was raging or getting excitement from the altercation.

Ross pulled back into the parking lot of the forest reserve once again.
Opened the side door and tugged Robert by the collar of his jersey.
"Why are we here, are you going to kill me?" Ross stayed silent.
"You know those children need me, there´s noone else to look after them."
Ross smirked.
"You will look after them"
The words were said with a kind of certainty that freaked Robert out so much he could feel his stomach turn even as the rest of his body ached so much from the fall.

When they got to the stone circle Robert was now begging, "Please don´t kill me out here, what do you want from me?" 
Ross drew him into the circle and the man tripped falling inside the circle.
Panting and pleading.
Ross lit a candle and placed it on one of the flatter stones illuminating the creeks and the circle that were completely obscured for Robert before. Robert flinched at the scene he found himself in, as if his mind was searching a de ja vu of his own death.

"Robert are you going to follow my words or must I call out the forest?"
Robert looked up trying to confirm that he had understood the words.
"Robert I will leave you here in this place if you do not comply, tell me what I want to hear.
Robert's leg and back were stinging in pain, he thought he might actually have to go to hospital.
"What do you expect me to say?"

Ross looked diappointed even if he was putting it on, as if he had an ugly surprise install for Robert, he was hoping they wouldn´t need to discover. Ross looked at his watch it was 3.30am and he could hear something stirr in the undergrowth. He said "Ok Robert, you have not convinced me you are going to be a caring and compassionate father I will let it come"

Robert looked up confused again the candle light flickering and a swishing sound started to rear up from a  a few dozen meters into the bush, what had happened to Ross? Had he turned into a witch, or warlock? It seemed he had actually conjured the very demon who was a few hours earlier before, trying to terrorize him.
Robert started trembling. his voice wavered as he tried to reassure Ross. " I could do better" But before the last word uttered, Ross stood up and leaned backward spreading his arms. Robert started to look in the direction of the swishing which now appeared to be an electrical scratching, He could see something approaching,
Then the guttural accusatory scream came echoing out, that made Robert piss himself by not a small trickle and moan in low panicking tones.

He looked at Ross who seemed to be getting some kind of energy out of the whole spectacle. He thought to himself perhaps its a trick, but the big ugly skeleton like demon paced up to Ross and looked as he would attack him, sniffing him up and down and growling a very loud and almost doglike growl. feeling overwhelmed Robert picked himself up off the ground and the demon went straight at Robert tearing at his forearm and cutting it open badly. Ross closed his fist and a blue light started to emanate from around the circle, the monster backed off from the stone cirle and Robert sat back down holding his bloodied forearm and trying to control his own hyperventilating.

Ross proclaimed to him "Robert if you do not show me on a daily basis that you can be a good father to those children, I will leave you here in this circle and the beast will find you before you escape these woods." Robert looked up wide eyed and nodding. "Ill do whatever you want"
Ross looked upon him disapprovingly. "Best prove it with actions, because both me and that thing that lives here in the forest are kind of hoping you mess up again."
Both men made their way back to the tow truck Ross guiding them in the pitch black as if he could see. They got the carpark and Ross helped Robert into the side door, Ross jumped into the vehicle slammed his side and started the engine, as Robert struggled to close his side. Just then the skeletal creature that had just been terrorizing Robert came into vision as the headlights lit up. Robert fumbled at the door, and the creature sprinted toward the door, in five seconds the creatures face brushed at the window and pushed the door slamming it shut, even though it´s real objective was probably to pull Robert from the car and devour him somewhere in the dark forest.

Ross turned to him unsurprised, "See Robert, we are kind of betting against you, so prove us wrong if you can."
But Robert didn´t prove them wrong in the beginning, for the next three days Ross would check up on Robert and the children and could detect when Robert was lying. On the third day Robert went to the police and made up a story that Ross had tried to kill him in the forest, conveniently missing the part about a skeletal like demon requisitioned for the job.
He had described the place where the circle was near two creeks. At first the police were sceptical because they all knew what a great member of the community Ross had become. Darcy was one of the sour lipped cops who had bought Robert´s story hook line and sinker and had very little faith in humanity. Darcy had seen samaritans at work in the local townships and didn´t like it one bit. His interpretation was that good samaritans were taking credit away from the police.

Robert knew that Ross was visiting the forest every night, as he would follow him after Ross checked on him. He took Darcy that tuesday night with him, after convincing him that maybe he was hurting or kidnapping others out there in the woods. Both men followed Ross as the sunset that tuesday evening.
As they got into the fresh cool forest  they could hear Ross´s foot falls and crunches over dried leaves and twigs. Twenty meters in, both men grinned to each other absolutely certain that they would catch Ross red handed or atleast track him down to confront him at gunpoint.
They went further and further from the main track, deeper and deeper into the forest toward the distant mountain ranges some ten kilometers away, after following for 2 kilometers the last light was quickly disappearing. Seeing that Ross was quickly approaching a thicket, Robert whispered to Darcy "Let´s catch him before he goes into the thicket, it´s too dark to keep following.
Darcy looked at him and realized he was right, nodding his head and pulling a 38 from his inner jacket pocket. They both made a run for Ross as Ross started to walk out of their vision.
As they approached Ross from behind both men pounced on him.
Ross´s body hit the ground. Robert let out a sigh of relief as he saw he had caught Ross by surprise, he and Darcy would force him to show them what he had been doing. Ross did look surprised but not unhappy. Even Darcy found this incongruent with the new situation. 

Darcy put cuffs on Ross and asked, "What are doing out here?" Ross answered directly- "I am here to check on another person I kidnapped." Darcy´s face lit up. But Robert suddenly became pale, It wasn´t what Ross said but how he said it. In the four or five meetings Ross and Robert had shared, Robert had already learned that Ross never bluffed, and if there was but a hint of confidence in his voice, he would have something up his sleeve. Nevertheless he attempted to trick himself into believing that they had control over Ross this time.
Darcy insisted with a barking tone his voice "You will show us where you are keeping this person."
Ross looked down at his cuffs and replied "Well I guess I have no choice."

All three men got up from the ground, Ross began leading them in the same direction as Ross had been going before they pounced on him, deeper into the forest. Robert had found a flashight on Ross, and Darcy already had one, neither men realizing that above Ross there was a subtle blue light growing.
Ross looked back at Darcy and asked him in mocking voice. "Did Robert tell you about the demon that haunts these woods?" Darcy scoffed "There´s no demon they´re just local legends made worse by those UFO obsessed nerds." Ross insisted "No did Robert tell you about his experience?" Darcy didn´t like where it was going and didn´t respond. Robert however did "You did something to me, it was a hallucination. You better take us back to the carpark." Ross Laughed, "We are like four hours hike from the carpark, I´m going to leave you guys out here with my friend, I gotta get up early." Disbelieving their ears they suddenly started to see the blue light that often accompanied Ross, except they saw it behind them, It seemed to be like an orb that bobbed and dimmed and brightened as if conversing with the trees. Darcy and Robert were transfixed. 
By the time they came around Ross was gone, the cuffs and the keys to cuffs that were on Darcy´s belt were all on the ground right beside them. The blue light started to dim down into complete darkenss and both men started to panic. Darcy asked Robert, "what exactly did you see out here?"  Robert said "Lets use your compass, and get the hell out of here". Darcy produced his compass and both men started to move almost jogging in the direction they had come. In the distance they could hear something moving and breaking through the brush of branches and shrubs in their direction. Tears flowed from Robert´s eyes and his voice became hoarse. Darcy caught a glimpse of his face and felt a sense of doom. The distant noise in the forest sounded way to big to be Ross.
After an hour both men were dripping with sweat and started taking off their clothes as they fiercely moved through the forest together. Spotlights randomly hitting several points ahead of them. The crashing behind them had stopped, and the men were certain they had outrun whatever it was pursuing them. Then as if things couldn´t get better they seemed to be in the carpark again. Both men hugged each other and started putting their clothes on. They could feel the gravel under their feet and see the familiar outline of the same sycamore trees surrounding the edge of the clearing. They could see the knee high posts with rope through them dividing the gravel from the bush. But Darcy suddenly stiffened and pushed Robert off him. "Hey you idiot, if this is the carpark, where is our car?" Robert laughed. "Don´t worry this is the kind of thing Ross would do, he probably stole your car, we can actually get him on theft for this." suddenly Darcy felt the disgusting feeling that he was being played by a conman. "Hey dipshit there´s no exit out of this carpark." Robert rushed to where the road out of the carpark was going to lead, and a sinking feeling of doom overwhelmed him, the road seemed to continue predictably for about 10 meters from the broadening into the carpark, but after that the stones met moist bushy ferns. Both men suddenly felt the feeling of the cold. Now it seemed to be about 2 degrees celcius, when not 10 minutes ago inside the forest it seemed like 20.
They were exhausted and found they had no energy to continue.

Five days later Darcy awoke in hospital to find his wife and reporters surrounding his bed. "Darcy how was Ross Dexter able to save both You and Robert Fleming from that mountain?" Darcy was too nauseus and disoriented to answer anything.
And Robert who was now leaving hospital would not comment to the press. By the end of the day both men would see the photos of Ross and several emergency workers carrying the men to an emergency helicopter. Both men would learn that the state was now celebrating Ross as a hero and the local police had created a plaque of heroism for the town square in homage to Ross Dexter.
Robert wondered to himself if being torn limb from limb could have been a better fate than this. 
  
 
 Ross kept his eyes on the small towns of the district, looking for excuses to test his supernatural prowess. There would be trouble a head.

The blue light of the forest guided Ross every weekend further into the forest, into different districts. Sometimes he would end up in campsites and small rural villages.
Ross would never see the wendigo creature, but knew it´s origin were the mountains and it would come down in the winter to decieve or attack hunters.

But one hunter had been illuding it for many years. A hunter named Cedric, who hunted wild animals and people.

The conjuror

 The clearing was bare short clumped grass 
no higher than an ankle 
The soothsayer strode forward from the darkness
of the edge

His head inside his hood
his hands clasped
the solemn afternoon
was a swirl of fleeting light

The hull and husk of dead trees holding back the rest of the forest
skeletal and oppressive pale and obstructive
The soothsayer eyes them as if alive
then turned back to the grass

The open palm opens the earth
and through it comes the alter
the skies darken and the woods around rustle 
the alter rises and on it´s slate rock top the unknown rune

In the windless darkened sky the rune reflects a glow 
within the nimbus
The air bewitched
Overcome by the imprecation
seduced by the malison

The conjuror absorbed the storm
fingers on fire
Hair fell from the hood
and the face was revealed as lightning crashed

seven wolves poked out of the undergrowth
forming a circle around the alter
eyes lit up nostrils flared
The soothsayer put his hand on the alter

Lightning burst out
from about 2 kilometers high
arching down onto the man
lighting the rest of him like an incendiary

My hungry beak

 The king pigeon took the center
ducking his head
A misfit a killer spraying bacteria on the street below
like a concert

The other pigeons looked on and imitated
grey skies hugging their backs
apartments as grey and delapidated as they
as they surveyed

For this city is theirs
the homeless do lie
and cry too lazy to scavange or admit they are rabid
The bird has no such shame

To infame ingrain and insane it´s existance
the king pigeon dressed in humming parasites
flies down to the scrap
The homeless have let lay

Maggots and grain

The pigeons follow him ducky heads clicking and beaking all stray
feeding out of the street like butts in an ashtray
That king´s eye catches mine like a falling shameless grain out of the sky
No words or gesture no sound or speak
A familiar spark as I saunter, smile forming across my hungry beak

The hand of an artist

 The eternal Claire Jennings
A piece of nature before and after the insignificant glint of existance
The potent magic of art the eye once alive
brings the observer as the serpent upon an empty earth

the canvas pale and uninvented preghost tool
Of all the insights hot warm, cold and cruel
Contrasts of life´s randomness longing for order
the fleeting supernatural 

The eternal artist intoxicated by color
saluting the ocean with a heartvalve
On those edible hills
this human human feast

The curve of the land in your hands
our cacophony in your swirl
echoing over the hard floors of your studio
like a raven who broke into your house

The unsound and uncertain whispering till their faces formed
their smiles and gestures reaching through you like children to cake
and then onto the canvas eccentric and uninvited
onto the checkerboard where humanity jousts

Light was given wings, darkness fire
and black and white squares dictated our lives like age
withering into an elaborate joke that could both taunt and confound
both quirk and smirk and befuddle the onlooker

The eternal woman of the wave of the paint of old winara
of Inverlockie and of the haunted sunset garden
Of the gull squawk and the dusk consciousness
Of the fruiting tree and the lonely hatman

How did you digest the sourness of old age
and with strength greet me here in midlight
How did you wrap yourself into the wind
While the rest of them deceased and decayed

Your strength and voice still marking my days
invigorating my veins
instigating my words
and annexing new realms
that our future selves will consume 

When to go

Animals stop scurrying
Birds hush in less than a second
so sharp is the silence and deafening
It seems to sever the very dimension
Under the canopy

 Oh the forest fell silent again
No exit from the undergrowth
That spector of the woods
spiritual mutation

The grizzly scream
Wheezing and curdling
drilling into the terrorized campers
stalking them in the sunless wood

Ambling with no permission
with no distinct form
pacing through the brush
anger in the movement of the translucent skeleton

only a mile from the disappearance 
of yesteryear since
Don´t investigate the strange shape and glow
just flee now and know when to go

Winter is starving and the evergreens stir
lost hikers astray in the snow just froze
yet something in the silence grows
you must flee

Take flight from the frozen wood
know when to go

The Dexter effect

 The crown fell
And a dream rose
A particle whispered
wealth cackled hysterically

The socialite gleamed phantom like
gloating and jeering
He came a scheme or two
To trick Timothy truly

Newbury port that colonial drama
Bedwarming stray cats
and coal that strikes the market
A scheme or two fell flat

Luck balled a fist
and set sail on two ships
The congress filled till the bough
mehitable abundant

The bright article
Sparkling immortal dust
covering the old whale bones
Until french corsets were fussed over

Another fortune being made over a ship´s deck
consolidating the Dexter effect 

Trench grunt betrayed

The solitary soldier
betrayed before the frontline
before that honourable sacrifice

Comedy for the corpse

In the dug out that any well timed
well aimed mortar would find and smile upon
inviting the glee of some urgent reaper
without the company beside him

As he had given his hours and existance
to protect and give safety
on an oath only visible on his heart
as bullets and bombs were sent

Separating rocks and trees from the landscape
But never his one value
pulling out those pieces of shrapnel
out of his friends

Then complete abandonment
tepid saliva from some uncaring colonel that spat
and controlled the destiny of the group
his corruption hurrying the enemy

The wind and the Jelly fish

 The wind is yours so don´t grab it desperately
out there by the willows
as if by watching them wavering like long hair was evidence
People need property even if it is a feeling

The wind is yours and you can´t move past it
you dream of being inside it navigating it
As a child running with it and calling it to follow you
One longs for control over anything

The wind is yours and whistles in the fine gaps inside window frames
as if talking to you
yet you can not distinguish it´s howl, it´s subtle ambiguity
machines that pine after certainty, what more is the heart than that?

The wind is yours yet the details of the landscape distract you
so it´s force is redundant for you now
for as a child you were godlike and an instigator of sassy chaos
Now you look for skeleton rules and physical structure inside a jellyfish