They handed us an explosive
we had nowhere to hide
we were inside a small cave near
the sewer drain
They had found us
Now we were dead
soon to be enclosed in an explosion
Each moment surreal
The outset of a hallucination
Unfolding into the death
The separation of life from flesh
Just stained shrapnel
whizzing into whatever is left of the day
A reality we are now locked out of
caged windowed looking out
only tasting a new envy for the living
He came to the old house
Paint thick on the antique doors
Attempted protection hidden nostalgia
his walk was protection his life a chore
Conveyor belts along corridors
lazy legs appreciate not having to move
Uniforms radiate values nonexistant
Formal symbols of what the heart should contain
at the end of the corridor is middle age
The feeling one has done everything humanly possible
An elaborate lie designed and perfected by habit and fantasy
Until he opens the door between career and sensuality
An admirer shares his disgusting appetite for sarcasm
The obvious familiarity of family stand the unpolished trophy
A weight of pride if nothing else a collectible braggable piece of kit
whereas the new toy manipulates his ego
The old house has a slight odor of mould
For the simple maintenence that this man performed
was now neglected as was wife and children
For the satisfaction of one man, himself
Mother
Oh how the truth is just a peak
how much you could say if only you'd speak
Muted the imagination is territory
yet to be won yet crawling with resourses
You see youself in someone else
Look in heart lo love so slack
this mirror we wear glass at the back
glancing back at ourselves distracted
unknown is promise infinite
and yet after all it is unknowable
search through desire and come up empty
Oh the road undiscovered blood not bled
lone grains of sugar
melting in sunlight
truth is just a peak
then you look at the mirror
a piece of yourself
in the pull and push
A heavy cosmos
weightless space
They've left my son in the factory
The earth stood still
Playing with his halo
eden's snake and Eve's apple
Confusion they painted the world with
Colored in stupidity
and deep turqoise addiction
I'd like to hear you slurp the opiate
before you blurt out your sermon
Outstay your welcome
attract some poltergeist demon
to inhabit the syndrome
medication couldn't fix
eye to eye explain death to me now
skating on the fantasies
mere plagerists floating on the chaos of their own misplaced egos
In the cape behind the sun
Seeking the breast of comfort
The infant huddle lost lips and empty stomach
They've left my son alone down in the factory
They painted the surface of the land
In lines of order and circles of chaos
Blaming others for their burdens
Humans are just selfish machines
Through the darkness
I could taste and smell the smoke
Through the fire of the curtains
and the house in conflagration
the heat under my nails
The electricity moving through piece by piece
The wall paper incinerates
The flames illuminate the dark void
Alive through eons of pain
Eyes open reflections in embers
I hold on a child beguiled in the backdraft
Thrown by firestorm of brimstone
The gargantuan traumas
mountain agony
The fire dies down and the blackness returns
I am alive
I walk the stage
Just to test the audience's faith
we spent our lives anticipating
On top of rocks at sunset
at our cousin's house a prolonged joke
The afternoon of great events
Dreaming of one moment
a defining second that would freeze our lives
Redeem us from shame guilt and pride
give us pure light
We'd stay up thinking about it
some lost sense that we needed to feel
Like hollow vessels we never did
The longing never fulfilled
How much twisting of a craving
sprouts the seed within our minds
prodding us like cattle to believe
in the intangible
A lonely world there you say
a foreign sky passes over
friendship less tangible
I'd send piece of my heart
arrow disobedient for good
reaches the tradewinds lifting
where no man breathes
into the grass old men blessed
Walking in silence at the base of the world
Where compassion is learned amid sarcasm
Where my own body grew and advanced forward
Take this piece of heart this arrow and stoke tomorrow
A lonely world indeed out here
take this handful of intention to see you well
to shield you from depression and anxiety
to filter their lies from the vessels of our minds
Overthrow their low thought
Head up and forward, I read your face
Take from me my word my faith my grace
Prosper despite their want for pride and shame
Poverty was overfed
wealth was hunger enhanced
A child whose legs were thin
couldn't feel autumn's dance
couldn't hear the scorn of it's call
Busy picking corn too tall for him
wealth looked like famine and unease
poverty was a decadent feast
Boy wasn't told he needed to read
Just given a sack and some shears
to harvest the yard crops no cares
before the day of eviction
Couldn't hear the malevolent wind
Frost and blizzard it's prediction
Stripping husks down no afflictions
peeling through the days
His precious blood kept the body red but tendons slack
the freeze worked into the walls claiming the shack
right through his frame and without a flame
Cold robbed him next to the unlit coal
His attempt at existence
his God given soul
The dreamer relaxes in lost days
swallowed whole by the longing
Lost in a world where love is illusive
the struggle everywhere
Discontented on empty human boxes
wishing for the future
Praying in the abandoned junkyards
emptiness has it's charm
Centuries of anchoring
people who prefer to be adrift
On a path somewhere
that promises freedom
I see everything tipped on one angle
swinging one way
Is there no opposing force
No reistance
Pulling her arm down
The tray empty
Her blindfold loosens
The sword cuts
The horizontal length
Is not straight or even
In this void of order
Roots of mal intent take
Not the sun nor prayer can kill
Just balance
just order
just the straight lines of civilization
The chair was once filled
by some power unheard of
unspeakable today
echoes of him in the chamber
presence of him along the walls
Shadows that wouldn't obey when he lived
now distort the floor after midnight
The rattle of the doors
That crown still in the glass case
waiting for some far off pretender
nostalgic and naiive
Decides to bathe himself
In a seasoned sycophant soup
That spurned courage of initial conflict
That spun the web of all elaborate traps
plans that included the final step of inhumation
False morals to the end of him
well crafted stories that flew from truth
As the demonized are stained
matyrs and myths will reign
speed of eyeshot
penetrates the psyche
carbonized shoes
flee flee
The speed of this glare
friction singing fire over the path
Toward your face you turn
question burning a sythe
A simple glance
evade it like a disease
but it's a lazer
Cutting through you
The velocity of my own eyes
capturing your dangling legs
Half of you today
haphazardly over tomorrow
The mere look I dare
bold and inapproapriate
moving through solid steel
desire cooks it and serves it fresh
Your last thoughts dissove
eyes shut you fall upon the rising stairs
the instinct of grasping the day loosens
you go completely slack
The elevator moves you up toward the sky
Just an enormous face of a phantom spread out
starlight cloud and knife moon
all watching your eyes twitch
hearing your nose whistle
or your mouth snore
Throwing the very spirit of you through a dusty cloud
Which parts and splits into fragments
you are in there somwhere seeking perfection
Silent footsteps make their way down back to earth
But it's not your spirit anymore
It' just a vestige of the wide phantom sky I painted
I helped clone in the shattered swamp
it's methane interrupting your aura
Just so that I may inhabit the untouchable within you
for eternity
All across the dream
colors and flavors came
warning bells rung
I couldn't find a home that didn't move
Warning bells were ringing
Across the city unknown
faces that would greet then disappear
Flavors that would grace the mouth
But depart like ferries to urgent islands
from across those island towns
I could feel breath on my face
The night air delivered it
A reciprocal sensation
I could smell you
like salt rising off tides inverting
Morning a thief of dreams
wake to confusion
sweat and drool
what a lifetime
in silent slumber
As I remembered the dream
and it all came back to me
Like a childhood taste
telepathy
Studies first as clock ticks
A simplified existence
Being disturbed is a brick
that cracks and fragments
all over the classroom floor
A piece of it fits his hand so sure
fits his rage and violence flows out
Not like clumsy angry shouts
but divine focused will
yet the cycle of revenge spills
circles like the serpent attempts to tangle
curling back around to squeeze and sink fangs in
Wise and oh so patient and bright
won't drown in the uncontrollable tide
but use it's secrets to get back to dryland
The chaos and hostility now under beach sand
When the pen is clasped
and studies resume
the assailant be swept
by fate's steel tine broom
turn into the aisle
Old gremlin is pacing and impatient
child lost cries for father
whispers wash the shelves
Gossip in the long queues
fishfaced lippy cashiers
the overweight nonbinary
Plays her cellphone music out loud
Turn into this aisle and meet eyes with sranger
chomp chomp where urgent hunger
packets and packets
empty stomachs and bouncing checks
gossip in the long counter help desk
illegal giggles and hand goes up to conceal secret
whispers washing the linoleum
She turns the pop music up
deformed hands and midrift exposed
Atwell wielded fate
The rocky ancients
The sheet drying in the wind
next to last centuries hedge
Rolling the tobacco
gazing across the bay
On new land the eyes must digest
A generation of children cast across it
Atwell in the turbulence
In the fog fighting out of it
standing firm on south rocks
throwing forth a version
stir these times into becoming
from the root of the last century
spring up in vigor and genius
conjure this divine dream
Bring the power of that hope
Up to these current skies
let us awe you this
Boldness through that ancient vein
Atwell war at a gallop
recession on the street
Through strength after strength
Give your version echoed down
a humble lost vestige
Wandering through those overcast days
Arriving in these words a light
To the mess we tend to tangle further
your sip of milk
your fresh morning
tiptoes across consciousness
sweet warm morality
musings on the wooden table top
As dawn gives way to day
Surrendering to your face
yet hungering to kiss it
Mail arrives
news says instability
Sun peeps into your kitchen
inches from your skin
The to do list looking up
A confused toddler
an unborn realization
You reach for the pen
your sip of milk is comfort
mood is moreish
Light fills your kitchen
The early sun a perpertrator
The night market is just so we can peruse
The waves of nostalgia and novelty
The dusty items and articles they try to sell you
You reach into deep silky pockets don't dribble
Pull out the change lick those lips develop inside it
Bargain and leave the vendor scratching head
Value and prices no relevance just twitch in game
Twitch pretend to catch a firefly
Furr coat purpose in a world spun of silk
The upside town cranium
There you go shaking in withdrawl
Consumer drench envy stench
The night market makes you reach out and grasp
something you might just decide to own
Petty leverage in your tone
Barking puglike excess fat
You'll fall off the spaceship and well need to pick you up
You'll scream and cry on the ground
We can offer you a planet
somewhere to center yourself
the space out there chilly and lonely
lips for the sun forehead reflecting the light of it
before another planet blocks it out
Gasp in the deep dark usurped
Those heroes double crossed
as they went to put out sky fires
Watch them dazzling flowing climbing falling
Forming into the very words coming from your mouth
You'll fall off your craft neon ketchup impact
Screaming and ashamed infront of their eyes
They'll offer you anything just to shut you up
somewhere far from their ears
The space out there so desolate
cold salt on the tongue
Mangetically disconnected
In the void is an appetite
Strong as the pull of a local gravity well
Locked in to be broken up
Like a mineral disaster
Holding onto the tiny fragments of love
I looked upon him with forgiveness
stubborness and pride holding him back
Hubris mesmerizes the willing heart
You have spent your life comparing
Trends are food
friends are protection
loyalty a currency
So why are you empty
I looked at him with pity
a short life is so bleak without love
Fierce rage inflates wing and talon
it descends hunger spreading through open feather and claw
Severing the oppressive air resistance on the downward arc
Beak cutting through it tyrannical blades
It lands and spreads grace to apply precise death
Orgasms roar as the rodent loses air and blood
Thundering back toward the horizon prey in claw
each golden red drop of blood escaping
dissolving in the air all remains disappear
The empty nest will see life again
we were just watching t.v wooden cover 1980
in the pine log cabin with large double glass windows
above the flatlands the wilderness watches us
high in the mountains above the snowline
Dusk smiles watching the invisible ghouls watch us
Through those big windows soon the snow flurries will cover the road
The illusion of safety the complacence of youth
Step out onto the narrow concrete slab
cigarette now wafting a drag and a rest then another
The other kids want to join and be part of the adult imitating
The air still at forty, no thick jackets or hats yet
The butt gets pushed against the concrete
back to the beanbags to watch vhs
as the reception doesn't exist up here
Sky now dark lights go on
illusion of safety
complacence of youth
Dancing on the surface of the globe
Bringing the old gods in powdered form
To be consumed with indoctrinated victims
The faith that tips the world in his favor
Lost priests wayward and vulnerable
Cowardly and title driven
Near the embers of fresh wars
hollering for him to come
collusion stripping them of their spiritual strength
as they burn Like the eastern old lands
Collusion as they ignore pleas of innocent people
accusing the bullied
heaven strikes back with a force one hundred times heavier
crushing our arrogance bleeding us out
Chardin The death of a moon on your head
Life is back, it's fragments jagged and fragile
Along some route to the next day
not looking back or forward
just trying to extract the sugar of each little moment
The dead eyes between worlds pick you up
glaring down sending the imagery back
Bounty hunters come rushing and burning
The death of a moon in a nearby system
Cracked open like an egg for an angry beast
who knocks on your door now to get his bounty
but you wouldn't sign the contract
Chardim in the arid forest near Pont saint esprit
expecting sabotage and ambush
Men size reptiles sent straight from Hell
tempting you with the kind of promises
Dead moons that God had ordained
Satan took credit and the fat just lay on those lower backs
billions of humans waiting out their fate on earth
some semblance of purpose carrying them on through
Glorious wars breaking out testing borders
and the new coward class upon the face of the earth
Chardim passed through the shanty town
redemption a simple boy breathing his last breath
just a few kind words before his spirit left for beyond
God flicks him back fire and elastic
justice hides in everything and comes out hot and unwelcome
God's own magic adapted in the chaos that blinds you
Often demons who were once humans were allowed a second chance and allowed back to earth. It was God's tool to test Hell, the devil and the demons.
Chardin walked straight to his bedroom in the great two hundred room hotel. None of the beds were made, the room was an absolute mess. He went to the window and looked down from the fifth story window to the cobblestone carpark. It was half full. It was very far down. From this height he thought he might be on the tenth storey.
He slept a few hours and woke to movement in the corridor.
He stretched his arms and ran his hands along the skin.
Who was he supposed to be? After centuries of living in a reality of sin. Death and torture were not the everyday occurence of hell, it was low awareness suffering much more long term. The kind of pain an adulterer or drug addict feels and not the direct slaying and whipping of wretched souls. His job was solely to feed the hungry whims of the masses, identifying their destructive need and supplying it. What was God trying to prove by sending back to earth into human form?
He took his gear to disorganized open shelf reception area in a narrow corridor.
The twenty year old woman with short black hair asked to see his stay permit.
Chardin rummaged through his things, but couldn't find any document.
"You can't stay here, you'll need to move on I'm afraid." Her smile made him realize, she was enjoying it. Was she also put here in some absurd divine test. Looked like she was keen to get back to hell.
He packed his things back into his bag and headed out into the bright but cloudy day.
Any memory he had of earth was vague and despite what they say of hell, it is thousands of times bigger than earth. With it's own classes, births, deaths and hierarchy. A slow reality that imitates human living making more of the opiates addictions and distractions available. For hour long thrills to pay for day long suffering. rinse and repeat. Where the longer living upperclass the prospecting demons, would indirectly make the lower classes lives hell. Only sharing in the misery when the low souls organized themselves into revolution. in which case, the roles would reverse. None of the underlying mechanics of their suffering would be questioned or be reformed.
Chardin got to the crossroads at Pont saint esprit. A hunched over Begger was sitting with his back supported on the signpost.
"Sir where may I find refuge?" Chardin asked.
"You are better to follow the forest path to the next village. These roads only go to the big cities."
"Oh thank you." Gratefulness was foreign and strange to his lips.
The begger stood up with his own satchel of things and said "I'm going that way myself."
He stood even taller than Chardin, ostrich like thin legs, distended stomach, self satisfied grin across his elderly face.
He walked quickly toward the mouth of the arid open forest path and disappeared into the low lying scrub.
Chardin was still catching his breath.
None of the grace and energy he had accumulated as an aspiring demon knight in hell. Supernatural powers that in hell granted him the kind of power he had longed for since he was a simple catholic priest on earth. In human form again he was completely lame and frail. Every movement was an effort.
He ambled down the forest track dried twigs and branches cracked and split under fit, like bones of old carcasses.
Something approaching a land version of a crawling trilobite made it's way after Chardin.
At first Chardin tried to avoid it.
Speeding up his pace. Then Turning, Chardin saw the thing had kept up, two awkward dark eyes staring into him. The rest of the absurd body made no sense, except camoflage.
Chardin ushered it forward. The trilobite transformed into a man with leopard characteristics.
"Flauros, come to taunt me have you?"
"Not at all, I am here simply to remind you of your legacy waiting back in Kasyrgan."
A gale of wind blew the trees and bushes in the area down. The land darkened and in the sky Flauros painted the city of Kasyrgan. A post grew out of the soil shooting above them. At the top of the post was a silver clock.
Flauros pointed his feline claw like finger and turned the hands forward until they were spinning.
"Flauros what are you doing."
Flauros just laughed and laughed as the hands kept spinning.
An Image of Chardin appeared on the streets of the city Lauros painted. He could see himself in fine robes walking down The old city street with his own minions some of whom were even higher in rank than him.
"Chardin, imagine all this power will be yours. All you need to do here is allow me to accompany you back to hell." His confident grin matched by shining furious eyes.
"What if you renege on this promise?"
Flauros tapped the lampost a small steel panel opened out and a contract fell into Flauros hand.
"It's all here, just sign."
"You know when I asked you for a promotion in Hell you ignored me."
"You want to know if you are a pawn." Flauros said.
"Oh with optics like these I know i'm a pawn. God's wants to see if the original priest is still here."
Flauros started to laugh again, deeper than before.
"You are looking for a better offer."
Chardin thick sickly feeling of de ja vu overwhelmed him.
"I never understood why I fit into your group of Demons to begin with. You can wow me with your powers. But i'll be cast down again, by someone over your head. and your contract will be null and void."
"How do you know his for certain?"
"Because it was conceived several times before I even entered this forest. God keeps throwing me back, and the big sharks come in to rack up a few points."
Flauros wiped the image from the sky, the day brightened.
the clock post disappeared into the earth.
"Chardin you are cursed, God will never let you into the after realms."
"Well it's better than being demoted each time I sign away my life."
Chardin pulled a short knife he had stolen from the hotel and cut Flauros deeply across the chest and jumped back as Flauros flailed.
"It does give me some relief to be able to destroy something again. How does that blood your bleeding taste?"
"I'll see you back in Hell, there will be consequences." Flauros moaned. Flauros pulled dental floss out of his coat pocket. Used it once between his front teeth, transporting him back to hell.
The carcass of the trilobite was left on the path. Chardin kicked it into some brambles.
Silently celebrating Flauro's foiled attempt. His position would be questionable at best at such a fail.
He continued walking till he came to the next town. Maybe God would save him. Or was just observing his little experiment play out.
The trunk was open inside were the last thirty years of sunshine.
His mind was a game patience dripping into the smile.
Signatures and happy friends pour outdated softdrink
wishing someone something special
The steam bath will go to Elizabeth
the carpark to David
The one that takes up two city blocks
The story goes to Simon
I take every word and form Little rants
That decorate occasions idioms that dance
That vary and light up the lamps
That smile like similies as metaphors dance
The youngest will recieve it all
To acknowledge that persistance
The old man turned to his own father
Talking to the kitchen of his heart
What I pass down is all yours son
The legacy unfold on you
Feed the grateful
My father's will
thank you father for this creativity with words
these worlds I curate in the swarm of living
the gift you have bestowed me
lifts me
encourages me
immortalizes me
Hubris and grandeza aside
All powerful
witness to the humble movements
of the poet at play
smooth and eager to impress
My father's will
Thank you father for the incredible experience
this life has been
and will be
The tilt of the pen in my hand
the ideas as bullets through the mind
whizzing into the page
with a keeness to live there
See me stumble
was that not the grand victory
toward what is greater than me
A piece of me left behind
My father's will
to nurture he said
those living things in your surrounding
Everything grows
In the ponds of heaven
where thousands of tiny spawn
strive through the algae murky waters
to evolve
Check this fish packet of death
open and count it
teethy bite taboo and obsession giving squash mouth
Now greedy and tinfoil peel it back lips tongue labor
check it all out the dollar notes fall into the street
Throw in the next hook line and fever
The sea burps and farts freely eternal and frugal
the wind throws it in your face seagull neutral
and raging against the posts where people hang their bait
is a green algae that eats into the wood seawater can't prevent
this packet of flakey fish in the tin foil begs fire and oil
just enough for a basic meal after the rod and toil
an attempt to feed oneself on the rough
the foil kept it fresh enough
It's packed in a suitcase overfilled with papers
flavors for the commuter
Now lick the folds of these hundred dollar bills
roll your tabacco in it
light them up and drag each puff out
fishy and engulfed
stoned and nicotined
weird and gloob eyed
fresh out of oxygen
waiting for the lemonjuice to set in
You see my shadow by the bridge
Signs of my presence
The day tells you to procede
make it to the cold shelter before dusk
You see the last tag I left
A scribbled brag bereft
A piece of clothing abandoned
Next to the column
You see my dirty hand prints
along the bridge rail
signs of me give you hope
But I am just a ghost
Mist dissipates the late afternoon leaves the world
The bridge enjoys one last ray of sunlight
shining on the spot we once met
now just a trash shelf for derelicts
my name is whispered in the waves below
echoing up to the hobos and vagabonds
as they make for the cold shelter
before true nightfall
Look up to the top of the support post
a seagull's longing cry
It's beak is me it's wings are mine
exposed as day mist dies off
The city's scarcity and abundance
it's life and death
light and dark
I surviving in the contrast
invisible to your eyes
leaning on the pedestrian rail of the bridge
emerging and disappearing until I'm full form
trespassing into the realm of the living
Observing the stragglers as they head for cold shelter
Among them I cannot be counted
I am not there in person only vestiges of me
can be picked up in vague apparition
They lived where the city hills curved inward
A built up area within a shaded one kilometer area
The shade was old age where middle aged people lived
in old three storey houses with garages that opened up to cal de sacs
Even in the tropics the sun wouldn't shine there for some months of the year
An impression that the day stayed at the same hour all day
some time in the morning all the way into the first hour of night blue humidity
Huge garage roller doors opened and boxes arived in long sturdy open bed trucks
An indonesian man sat on a stack of pallets and smoked his cigarette with cloves in it
He smiled and speculated about the contents of teh boxes coming in
As trade war became the reality of the world the black market exploded
An unlikely purgatory in the dim neighborhood police avoided
The raggedy raggedy
spitting truth like a looting refuting rioter
pony tail and roasting observation
ranting into the void
taking the day walk somewhere far north
that desolate nature they compare with jungle
Spatzieren gehen alles volle lebensmacht
Pointing out the inconsistancies among us
You hate fakeness
but what about taboos
They used to be more popular
Now we just take everything throw it in the pot and call it soup
He got to the window and pursed his lips
what boxes still needed to be ticked off
the longlist the spirit is just little squares and checks
floating on thin air and rough ideas of productivity
He placed his walking stick point on the carpet and steadied himself
Every joint formed an ember and lit up inside his bones
He pursed his lips again confusion overiding pain
Like one ghould pushing the other out
he stumbled across the white rug to his smoke stale lazy chair
cigarette in his mouth and an expression as if he was calculating something
each drag contemplative of the fire ware and tear on his body
pursed lips whatever he needed to take serious has slipped his mind
Old man what do we grow into at this point
the blue wall paper and the blue sheets
her corpse upon it, arms crossed in simulated peace
Teeth bared in an extinction open mouth smile
you potter around the tiny kitchen
So many ages have passed
pleasant times and illusions
the illusions often served instead truth
what sauce do you make of this old man
you point your walking stick and make fun how clever
flimsy white curtains and some nurse to organize heaven
then I see you approach the invisible temple pursed lips
half finished sermon nostalgia rhetoric and soft soup
easily slurped up inside a wide straw with optimism
Don't share any of you secrets of wisdom
don't show any of your sadness
Because I was inside there for quite a while and know every pitch
every speech and every angle every scar and every stitch
for I am the lost one my elder the loner hill pariah
Here to exist and exploit the glitch
The rejected one not fit for sport, nor exacts, nor math
useless burden boiling over with meager words for wrath
wheeling down crusty delapidated creek house hunger in my axis
you can see my lower jaw coming up and claiming the bigger half of my face
I bounce around my knees and calves form wheels the rest of me deals
I roll right down the french alley thats me there
Arrogance and speed and some bilge brackish water cooking
spinning up circus fountain disc like in the curtailing onlookers
I rub off on the graffiti wall criminal grin and grimace set striped and drippy
I crack brick as I move over it dirty sharp wheels things of destruction
The meat in my face reverberates french alley smile sundown floating on it
milking the rest of the reflection in the canal light still pouring up
with my lungs watch them balloon and Im airborn like a calculating crow
perched on a zepplin with this criminal grin wheeling across on and off
I'm speeding back to the city sinister two faced and hairy and free
a brilliant monster for the redlight guilty tourists slip as they flee
my teeth and hands leap out from me and all thats left is their bones
Coughing out the useless tasteless cartilage their body once owned
read my derogatory name mixed in with a trash image across the brick sphaghetti
Across the backwalls grey and red as the deck blood by the port my empty eye socket bay
the second sight full of hellshattering tragedy and gruesome wheels illustrating the escapade
city ditches dry and volcanic buildings that walk and block my exit way with magma disdain
I'll be out of sight at the speed of sound
at the speed of fright out of bounds
Ill be rolling sled crazy with the disregard
fangs and fury of hell hounds I'm forced to discard
shaking like the scarecrow given life and mobility
Running up the walls in the wee hours goblin swift
you can catch my grimace a dagger long and thin
On the rolling wheel catch the mobile contemptable grin
avoid those eyes
walls swing mirrors
we loved ourselves for centuries
now we are born
It sees you in it's periphery
Nature interferes you want to be seen
admiration makes the heart so thin
eyes meet and you spring a leak
Avoid those eyes
don't even speak
we loved ourselves internally for centuries
no outside validation
It sees you pose and sell yourself gracefully
Nature bounces off hormones trapped between
beguiled and horny the face loses to a shiny grin
Mirroring each other where the connection is weak
watch this as the hands go round
emoji murder
what is the demand you found
exploit it
Invisible coming into your vision
bomb blast exit
In human will sum of fool's decisions
instant media face twitch
we counted as sheep under heaven and hell
every gullible numb one slave and freeman
every sceptical intellect you well
hellish do-gooders and heavenly demons
Those who profess to own the world
and the clique behind the curtain
drilling our values with snapshot extraction
monetising our sick opinions
She looks to the highway
then turns around to face the play house
The ghost of the unwed bride has claimed it
skeleton like and screaming eternally
dressed in dark clothes she opens the glass door and exits the main house
Normality and sobriety in each step toward the pond
soft words fall on her curated for her ears alone
That wedding day expected to come some day
The road of life a serpent
a reptillian spine running down a long tale
It's all over when you reach the teeth
It runs from the sacred womb
To the elegy blessed shiny wooden tomb
She will run this course loveless
like many men who dread their feelings
directed by their fears
the grass is soft her feet step gently across it
she fantasizes about an amazing person a special day
faith so souplike so nutritious in a world without meaning
Not changing herself as she looks in the mirror of the playhouse
gossip and social expectations
The importance of appearances and personal mock tests
Lost youth tatooed and warped by potent illusions
sold and rented across mass produced screens
The deep fantasy of the bridal gown and chapel
The playhouse empty
The mirror
It shines off a shield reflecting the sun
the front line still holds up sturdy and idealogical
Teach me of glory and honor so that I might advance
Not the honor of cowards in virtue of gender
The honor of the frontline grunt
holding up this shield like hero
Not knowing if this day be his last
Bracing for projectiles and a stampede
Teach me to conjure all the fire of battle
to use my voice and hands to organize chaos
To rise up over the gleaming shields
To fill the sky with falling death over the enemy
It shines off the unsheathed sword
The swing and clinging bells of the afterlife
The glory of conquest hidden in the hearts of men
glowing the reflection of city fires
Not the ants of well dressed politicians
But the hornets and drones of the one
The collective mind is the new weapon
The flow of raw power
dragged like roadkill
A piece of me is missing
I claw my way back to the roadside
This body is a mess
I cannot stand
my clothes are stained through
blood in pools insects bathe
emerge red and twitching
I want to live
My arm bearly grips the guard rail
the road that promised me
was filled with too many neon signs
bad drivers
blind curves
unpredictable wildlife
a million accidents
meaningless statistics
I prop myself up
blind my eyes in the sun now
as I bleed out to the silent humm of the afternoon sky
I await my lungs to fail
As the vulture gracefully lands upon the guardrail
Looks left and right in prayer
Observes my severed arm
blood drips the seconds away
tourists slow down to get a better look
Then speed up again pretending they saw nothing
I could almost wave
Dusk comforts
Sun abandons over distant hills
streaks of blood tinge the long cloud
breathing clicks and catches on ribs
I subside leaving from my bodily form
climbing up to the whisps of blood cloud
trapped in the day's transition
looking down now able to wave
its about what you've got
where you are going
who you know
the cash in your pocket
in the void behind
it's about clean consumables
water and food
wholesome love
emotional support
some connection
It's about sense of the future
some notion of aspiration
The will to adhere to a path
It's about faith in work and time
adaption and sacrifice
he was banging in a fence post with a mallet
Pulling the wire of the fence tight
ankle high grass seed head tapping on his boots
Sun causing him to squint
Thick hands and permanent facial expression
You can hear the far off bahhhhs and neehs
"whack" "whack" the fence post goes in another inch
calluses harden and the day wanders
The spring sky is absurd
The man's eyes looks to rolling clouds
Turns throws steel headed mallet on truch deck
"Thomp" key turns "vroom" off he went
Dog awkwardly looks up at him from passenger seat
He glances toward him and back onto the narrow dirt road
Rearview mirror darkens as he descends the hill
"It's going to rain, pup" changed gear and spat out the open window
you feel limited static
just weight on the floor tantrum tragic
On the sofa you cannot see yourself
yet you are infinite
You get bored by the marketing hotspots
The glowing false euphoria swells and pops
fades and subsides from your brain
you sit programming the next campaign
You feel organic
a physical machine in panic
Product at the end of a line of geneology
No purpose to exist free me of the need
Your peers take to thread bait
quick highs in love and lows in hate
no final destination just emoji soup
Breeze to nowhere on a happy loop
Minds carved out of nihilism
it obscures your incredible inner course
The eternal part of you forced into a schism
the worthless feeling grows enormous
where is the purpose you scream
what is this life really even for
This absurd hurdle for dreams
lives disconnected from their core
I open the door to the night
The sky is a mouth
It comes right out those teeth that tongue
deafened by the shifting words it sung
we are just guests our anticipation brightens the gloom
our bodies disconnected as our spirits are to be groomed
It's eyes are stars
seeing every angle from afar
Tiny lights of compound knowledge
above us night's edge
Those stars followed for millenia
by the primitives and explorers now entombed
I predicted when crunching numbers in the womb
forming deciding how I could get to you
Walk the avenue that drifts upward
Life once safe like inside a cupboard
Now traffic and criminals spread out
The road young unfamiliar to itself
she says she is lonely and looks up at me
she says cars drive over her all day
Their occupants all off to parties
She just gets the fumes and tyre stains
who am I to communicate with the dead ashphalt
yet it comforts me as I cross the street for an opportunity
Looking for a building I might feel whole in
these smiles for alleys leaping out begger funky
semi rude quite edible my teeth and tongue unglue
the cloud sets in like heavy divine sister an imposition
grandfather lawnmower spinning on sunny obligation
The contrasts obscuring and illuminating the avenue
The eclipsal apocalypse in stasis cradling humanity's sick heart
It's outer hardened veins in concrete vias
that run between families and careers
feeding hudled residence and commerce
Endless celebrations at large halls
young valets tap the pavement
competing for the newest model
She looks up at them all as they get out and in
that stain in the party table cloth purple and ready for impropriety
Like road tar in the summer I can't pull my lips off it
The road she envies me all of this a tranquil vibration
Before she ends she bids me farewell
The thoroughfare is empty a sheet of rain relief
at the party plastic cups replace inconvenient faces
lamposts bathe in lonliness and the moon sets the night
a dictator of sorts conspiring with the supernatural
In ways that separate sanity from the sound mind
The road under light drizzle reflects up off the smooth tarmac
communicating with the silent moon no reply
She the road was taking everyone somewhere
and told me of the solitude
the broken white lines wearing
the cracks running from potholes
I stand on the street listening to it all
The door to another universe opens
flaws and defects peeling off like barnacles
Those shiny demons that once clung to your back
Now search for refuge in the shadows
Through the passage way your existence shudders
A million parallel lives sparke inside the vortex
The pressure almost pulls you apart
Step into the effulgent blue gold
Blinded you settle on the new earth
you slowly form weight and organs and thick veins
Gravity pushes you into yourself
The drums of the cosmos beat through you
flesh wraps and stretches against your frame
Layer upon layer until the gift of life is fulffiled
breath after breath until you can taste
The whole planet
Braddock's father dashing and debonair
with botox and flash new head a hair
he was looking sixty in his eighties
and ready for newage dating
The ghost to our left was undecided
In a physical form that would hold her
curly grey hair past her shoulders
grin of thunderous aspiration
whatever she knew that we didn't
Obviously gave her pleasure
Braddock's father died hair
shiny face waxed fair
don't bring roses she said
In a language now dead
he asked her to translate and assuage
the fact roses reminded her of old age
for they spend as long opening
as they do in the vase wilting
People just throw them out early
To keep the truth from unfurling
Three driveways got us here
we stand at the center we care
Braddock's father will marry the ghost
The blessing delivered to guest and host
The past overgrown litter and oil stains
the present open and well maintained
and the future goes onto the horizon
seducing ignorant hearts never to wizen
Keep the roses out of the ceremony
If one dies the other feels lonely
stay neutral and expressionless externally
Celebrate jubilant illusions of eternity
Thin human pretender attempted ambition
The snide expression merciless heart
Looming shadows looking for entry
Because a man is nothing more than a portal
He swears he can enter heaven or hell
Yet heaven and hell enter him
swirling a storm of hallucinations
a swarm of self induced euphoria
He is the raw container vulnerable
The flesh vessel naked unprotected
yet he thinks he has arrived at
some righteous destination
The cigarette flicks itself
ash and ember spray over
He holds in these experiences
until the the filter is burnt
That destination he seeks a cosmic joke
Awakening inside an infinite laughing fit
observing the world slow motion
running slipping spilling backwards into the past
shadowss applause from edge of memory
parallel they observe the nightmare
drenching themselves in the fright of sweat
streaming down from the pretenders head
On the street they spit in our faces and attack
we drag ourselves to our knees and adjust our backs
so that we might stand up from stuck in a crawlspace
Street sweepers will dispose of us as waste
No refuge in hiding we are better running
we have no land no rights nor money
just another expence for the state
conspiring to shorten our fate
our lives no worth
our footsteps no sound
scattering on the siren of the patrol car
dispersing and finding cover
Shelters burned, food and belongings confiscated
The suburbs arm, we the riff raff predated
valueless in this perfect world we creep
targeted scape goats among sheep
we looked out of the tower together
at all the prejudice below
Their trendy cafes bars and restaurants
bringing in the acceptable
the wartorn freaks may burn
you sign
we look out of the tower
Intolerance is a brand you can't afford
one everyone wants to buy
but just can't afford
but they are still invited to come and window shop
as our neighbors and family burns under occupation
We were not looking out of the tower by choice
it was our prison
and when we escaped we were snakes slithering on the streets
ushered out of shelter with broom handles and shoguns
The chosen victims in a world divisive
The elite painted every different color
One color envying the next
seasonal shift
zero sum jewellry
wearing across and into the hypocrisy
as children perish Near the warzones
The cog well fixed no longer looks for revolution
Doesn't want to change anything from the inside
The margins grow a little higher
so he may be painted into envy
painted into privilege
pseudonym
Hi my name is
People call me
I identify as
On wireless
That old expression
cordless some say
Plug me in
Holistic organic
artificial and modified
manufactured in mass
settling plastic
Then there's eyes reading words
reflecting the message into the brain
not transferring this information to the brain
but inventing your own convenient meaning
I am the metaphor open and closed
shaped by imagination
A puzzle for forbidden prose
I the tool to urge fascination
Purely by claiming a notion
Simply by stating I control the ocean
From the safety of the sure
I am the ship an honest metaphor
transitioning from one sea to the next
Words are just well trained pets
Sometimes the lifestock
For the hungry knife
Painting on the canvas of life
Charcoal on death
Oil on thread
blood on skin attached or shed
The metaphor
boldness and rebellion
flights of the mind
grandeur captured silent
On the page screaming out
I am the metaphor
sent to undo reality's tight stitch
A spell that escaped the witch
Now a net to catch monsters in the swell
So tomorrow I might have new stories to tell
The turnstyle clicks I enter
From years in the factory
have i arrived there's no answer
Jovial sits at the desk observing
He holds up a pen that he designed himself
The one I use to write everyday
I ask how long is that Ink going to last
He reached into the past there
some lost chapter far away
yet still waiting for me
In a future beyond
he held up the pen
The ink was full
The pen as incredible
I would write my future with this
Short hairs on the arm
each one a factory
producing more and more pens
Writing into the world
Words like these ones here
I've arrived here bare without clothes
Nude ashamed redeem me I say
For even the sky remains cloudless
The land shallow
I am exposed here
Not an inch of me hidden
The earth is just one big round eye
Looking straight at me
glaring with the sun as spotlight
Applauses and condemnation
The legs exhausted march forward
Obligation whipped ambition
Discipline abandoned this false hotel
It peeps in from the forest where
it still forages its sustenance
It can see I'm not decent
A Cherubim reporting upstairs that won't unlock me
A test I failed on crashing into the third rock
With eight billion poorly equipped comedians
Soul mendigo scraping the surface cake nails of tedium
Just to find underneath absent of ingredients
No real sense no deeper meaning
No righteous rhyme or logical reason
No higher value or forever season
bare rock and flesh neon arrows point fun
goodbye as I dry and age under the sun
The dying gaze of organized humilators
I'm seen by all known by none
Pretending to hide something
beyong my delicious superficiality
that spreads so well over town rust
And tastes like acid tax officiality dust
The tight trench with a slight water flow
If good for the image pretend to be short on dough
I could hear an exaggeration two sentences after
well timed moderation inducing soft false laughter
You can impress all demands
But they look up grin in hand
The one that fits across their hungry faces
Over the trench to their tents your grace
A narrow creek running up to the project
The feast is set gluttony gut opiate regret
We sit on the margins smiling with bowls
Of well boiled gruel and a stick dried fowl
Sun beats down on umbrellas lords and ladies
Who spun etiquette mysteriously bliss and bless
their own private dramas and emotional neediness
How they elegantly move ignoring the real world
renaming it after their dining room wishes and thanks
Where tunnels to the future arrive directly under banks
Where locks and screw conspire along the passages
Opening the vaults on those checks and balances
while the help just wanders up and down the trench
Soiled by the dirt and sun tired peasant and wench
Insane and simple celebrating an existence in dumb
as if made with your fingers under your thumb
The odd one will rob you
Most just beseech you for wheat
A corner of the shade a gram of yeast
as they witness you waste the food the feast
The thick lip and tongue
The mouth to savor
A life to pleasure
The immediate priority leisure leisure
Fuck all else for my self esteem farm
Is my trip across the sea far
The fact I annually upgrade my car
Soft bonding with the invisible duke
The restaurant opens for me
the people in the line shift across
making way as fleece and I floss
I grease and wax with swagger
I haven't a cent in the bank
But I jibber convince and jabber
I wear several layers of luxury
snort near midnight
False feasts of two sides
You should be grateful
Do not swap the truth for favors
Wipe your mouth after eating
hide those stains from everyone at the table
Keep the dirty napkin out of sight
Those who hold the chains
that bind others
Spoilt children wander into the foyer
As if in rehearsal for a show
Picking over the sweet cakes
Waiters pretend not to look
You can pretend in real life
We can see the double standards
learning to be silent
Till we get back to shanty
So jokes might touch our hearts and relieve them
Make us grateful for the little we have
You all attack together
clever words you woke me from a dream
My happless reality bursts
The inner lining warm and nourishing
You threw me into a nightmare
Each word a stab at me
My body hits the train of derision
splits in pieces across the hard rusted grinded steal
The handsized rocks stained with the spirits
grease and soot in those words
built to fit in machine gun mouths
No shield to take these flying splinters
They bury themseves deep into flesh
The wounds and blood just urge
The next critical points
Attacking just walls of the nightmare
Pass away on the rocky mess
pieces of my former self
His awkward step and unsure face
running up the pavement a concrete wave
His short black hair and glasses
his reflection an appariton in the cheap bakery window
Looking back at himself not knowing it was his own likeness
Crossing walking stumbling he is a man
Cars wouldn't slow he awkwadly speeds up his step
Reaching the curb lifting that leg and ankle
The sun cradles him
The ground scoffs as he steps on it
He climbs the stairs
derision echoes across the steel
Their voices overfed dribbling sarcasm
The man's struggle is food for the Gods
They weave jealousy and trickery to the jeerers
False sense of seriousness and maturity
The man continues his day
His body seldom obeys
Angels aww and shed tears
the pain of today mirrors that of decades to come
The fork is laiden Gods mouth opens
he chews and ingests witnessing the man below
amongst us being laughed at
by healthy brand buying conveyor belt people
Peeled back the layers of human skin
I inhabit the walking person as it makes its way to work
I spit against it's will and cackle like a brain freeze for it
I inhabit it deep within flourishing through it's short life
Then I fly off shattering peace as the midnight owl
Provocative and nonchalent
The world in my mouth
The rat blood drips across the wee hours
the beak strips you naked a violin bends you
The violence lasts longer than the instant
The spirit within the spirit is me
Peeping out of predawn wartorn backdraughts
diving into the next thoughtless pedestrian
Ambling home from the simulated expedient
Sweat and stress robbing it's brow
It's movements I now manipulate
I've grown into the folly of this one
slurping at the night with grin and cheap straw
The gut says it's vitals are juicy
the stars are teeth the blackness mouth screaming in vain
Steps up to this impossible stage host celebrity scientists
To disect this happenchance piece of flesh
Breathing eating and drinking
To the beat of Some cosmic giant on the goatskin
The shy moon accumulated cloud to dress it
Owl eyes voyeuristic in the existing light
Slurping them of it and exposing it naked
grinding the air and the stratosphere
Until it launches me off earth
Into the middle of pale bliss
Illegal and immoral the hermit once excluded
now hobbling and slithering toward the village
As I the owl into the moon
To consume it all to live through it
To violate it's senses dominate it's reflection
Radiate my own abstract whims from within it
The hermit turns back toward his cavern in the hills
the village in flames to echo the son of the day
To rock the embers with falling rafters
The lost owl observing throwing dawn down on foreign laughter
paths of destruction threading through needles
that stitch the land in upward curve silent smile
Once delicate lullaby uttered on mother's tongues
massage slumber where infants dwell
now the flames and sparks call screams and yells
The eastern necklace black down until the chaotic red
Owl picks up fearful scurry once prey is on the run
getting those power wings to knock down castles
The fear of the Hermit, fear of the night eyes
the stars are teeth mercy lost the serpent tongue
A politician plugged in to ride the sting
puffed up chest falsities crowd the lungs
To immigrate on the voice settling in your ears
Flying yet from up high I can still hear
each of you being infected by an opinion
we distilled in lies your slurpy grins are certain
I have found myself forming into the mold
You maybe surprised to see the grisly beast
struggling to escape from inside me
it has not been calmed nor passified
the years die like soldiers inside it's aim
each shot felling another
the whistling bullets freer than I will ever be
Riding through months till they hit december
Days and hours are blood in this mixture
between the divine and the physical realm
In the old vain stale and slow running
will the grisly beast keep it fresh in me
I will not ask these questions
But let the beast on the leash
Just tow it's master into a new decade
where he can dress and meet and speak
and hide under the flesh infront of the waiters
the millions of waiters
at the afterlife bus stop
one where they decided paradise is near after
that their little experiment has granted them bliss
If there was an angel to laugh itself to death
This described would be the punchline
Let the grisly beast growl and moan
Until age and silence dominate us
pushing us closer to a hole in the ground
where finally one may rot in peace
Torto e careca
O assento rangeu
O homem em cima zombou
as expressões dos outros quase não leu
as palavras dele nos seus ouvidos cozinhou
Ele criou um reino falso de tempos bonitos
enfeitou o ar com cada exagero que descreveu
Com cada adjetivo dourado que tombou
Tanto ênfase que a boca dele deu
Com o balbucio lúcido de um velho
Comemorando um passado que não aconteceu
Your hand outstretched
Light hits cheek and forehead
The day is not bright
Hark the light thrown is hefty
Eyes of promise
a smile of welcome
One day my errors ditched
Telling them away
No err
No shame
No death
All blessed
Eyes of virtue
invitaton of kindness
One ridding my mistakes
Chanting them down
Your hand outstretched
Absorbed by the day you made real
A peaceful yet brutal fight
Hark the faithless run shifty
wear
get
see
sweat...
And what do you think you accomplished
grey jacket
late arrival
empty smile
shiver
Who have you become
Glance
reach
possess
dream
Lets wind you back to zero
Swiftness of death stopping woodpeckers knock
We aghast breathless can only observe in shock
The blizzard opens the wood then closes and locks
Winter wind bounces among the boughs it rocks
Oh the frozen valley between
the snow weighted evergreens
Conifers that nest the stubborn crow
The expanses over the gray high and low
It scares the sullen heart from under
That might call home in the summer
The tragic end to many who enter on a whim
Never to surface and embrace living again
A life like grin scribbled on a snowman
The wendigo present is seen by no man
Hunger of a hundred ghosts cursed by mammon
Into one infected animal plagued by cold and famine
It's true purpose is to devour alone
It's screech and its cracking bones
moving like a long limbed Phantom bird
Violence in it's alarming grim call heard
Dark disorientation falls in the thick of wilderness
something assembles itself out of nothingness
reaches through branches and logs with persistance
seething in sinister animation subsistence
Seeking whatever living things still occupy
Or hide within the exhausted forested floor
the dark mess abandoned to the frozen silence
Energy of greed consumption in violence
It hunts at night trespassing on the holy
Gaunt staring into spring losing it's form slowly
Unable to bear the next season swallowed by the thaw
The warmth once desired doesn't sustain it anymore
I looked up at the Canopy and cried father sky
Sky father so far from the undervalued earth
owner of futures none may see
bringer of the storms and tranquilities
The boughs of the trees holding it all up
The grey sky ready to weep again
Father sky do you see your small son
ambling with his mut
lost in these grand thoughts
Wanting to know you through
That life might manifest on a higher level
open my eyes my own eyes
Let them see far from these canopies
far from these mountains
yet let them stay here
To greet pristine mornings
you yourself colluded in creating
Father sky this year giving just enough rain
to keep all of this green
To stack the trees with snacks
So the simple man may pick
and celebrate long lost rites of simple survival
That this be the rudimentary prayer for the day
That it be blessed and transferred to the piece of me
The piece of me that wants to walk into tomorrow
with the same optimism as today
Three years of school left
Racing through that time
Destiny is dumb and deaf
No use loooking for a sign
Be the Rugby player at his best
diving into it one scrum at a time now
Coming out strength after strength
Holding the catcher in the line out
Into the first fifteen force in your quest
Propping up the team staunch and stout
Leaving the opposition often bereft
Declare hoorahs in hellish shouts
Push scrummage forward until the other side's spent
close enough so the try line is found
Hard and aggressive til their forwards repent
To fight like an Anzac for every inch of ground
Lay it and claim life's course
Undaunted toward it tirelessly
Through fifteen years of force
Break the walls on the field of violence
all the younger teens congregated there
outside the beach bar
where the best music would play
A generation of youth
a drop of culture and a few thousand liters of beauty
mimic into sensual gestures
The ones people oggle
swoon over
yeah imitate those ones
Turn up the heat
sweet stick of lip balm
dealing the sticky glistening
summer not gone
last weeks still tight and inviting
short dresses overpromise
The sand and the artificial lake
the trends come and go
the pinings and the longings
that weigh young hearts down
causing them to sink into trouble
Like the very tall mango tree laiden by December
ripening like hot coals forming in a fire
the weight of the sweetness too much to bear
And for the excess rot and nothing else
No bite size entertainment
whiskey and cocaine gets smuggled in
conventional organisms
predictable effects
games and games
To be played through love
through work and what's left of existence
Yet for the moment relax on the sand
the sunsets and in a group
you'll massage egos with dexterity
changing the expression on young faces
dimples beauty reflecting harder than the clear water
Autumn was just a myth
and summer was over reaching so nicely
The water and breeze continued warm
inviting copying the prior weekends
Mimicking them as you do your peers
freedom play with freedom ball
A freaky tardis that you toss around and admire
yet you are unable to enter
And out here you've collected the clauses
from the book of law like tatoos inside the brain
falsify your feelings for the group
The bar isn't serving alcohol
Someone has a flask so what a treat
An illusion of rebellion
An exciting emptiness
left over from inebriation
you can belong with the beautiful people
sucking up the last of those harder rays
almost getting a burn
envy flux and apathy cream
I know you obsess of the same shared dream
frivilous useless luxury
flaunted and stained and flaunted some more
with such a demand
So few can have it
and watch how they show it
And wonder how the superstition of crime
has come to roost upon the land
So drink your last swig at the figueira beach bar
with your click and siblings bubbly and mimicking
keep all those gestures out and commit those dance moves
Over the curves and tan lines oh
over the plastic surgery
the piece of yourself that never was
The illumination of the quasi medievil church
Lit up like cheap mcdonalds
Getting to the ice in your glass
you travel in your mind to Miami
With some special identity
some privilege unmentioned
with your poor story packed away
and ready to tell next to the bag of drugs
and a receipt for your plastic surgery
Put yourself on display
The decades ahead meaningless
in the pool of youth and thick lies
stealing a cigarette, stealing friends
stealing test answers and hearts along the way
Led astray by an imaginary picture of the world
the temporary things you thought would last
You saw them leave totally disappear
still believing those fleeting moments would return
Begging them to come again as they fade
like the sun behind the mountain at the end of the day
dulling the lake and welcoming mosquitoes
Will you put your drink down and call your parents
They too can't save you raving in their own version
of random convenient facts that comfort us in this commotion
Your friends pile into the car and leave figuera beach bar
The lip balm falls between the seats and you can't reach it
At home a decade later you reach down and find it
But it didn't wake you from your living slumber
your juggling of the freedom balls
without entry
feeling exclusive and unique
In the majority who fudge out the same opinions
In a group of people who live for one false thought
out of millions that many groups cling to
Each forgetting their beach bar years
and the lessons that might prevent their current blindness
Zombies are grown in such unquestioning routines
searching for their own brain and quick strong drink
to dim down their IQ
Jesus pressed a button
And it all began again
Life surged a new
forests and grasslands grew
seasons tackled the skies and lands
animals bred and moved
till the whole mess swarmed
abundance in the veins of the earth
thick and rich
eternities of satisfaction
Jesus pressed the button
filling me with life once more
I was nothing in the dip of the blue
remnant of a small island colony
I've rolled and crawled through
seasons bleak trust and faith crushed
flavor still strong
vein of God feeding my brain
Jesus pressed the button
I am alive today, I stand
Through lost decades of learning
hope so illusive
illusion such a norm
Destined for resignation
I can smell the scent of a new era
Behind color and false grandness
Jesus dragged my carcass
with a drop of ocean water stood me on the sand
Now I walk where he walks
the land grows where we go
faith is not served in a measuring cup
This one I drink from never empty
I walked into the future
I've gone hiking into the past
These rolling hills that were once desolate
Now give millenias of harvest
She rolled over in bed
SHe said what time are they switching
The lights blinked and sunday morning
splashed all over the room
She got up to open the windows
the doors and the curtains
The perfume of her
a wave down the corridor
hitting the stairs and swallowing the first floor
Washing it all up and out
Her brother and sister in law
Threw off the sheets icing off the cake
The morning turntable
revolved back around
the second version said
when are they due here
Our bodies could not contain
the acidic desperation
so eyes closed again
we fall back into the sibconscious
Snoring even with the sun out calling us
We awaken again and replay events hitherto
At this rate sunday will last longer
Breakfast and coffee made it up the stairs
literally pulled me out of my bed
fed me and slapped my lazy vagabond face
Hannibal left the world today
From the southern Island off the coast
two young men see their father off
their tears numerous each one vaild and real
precious to the loss
For gone is a kind father
One whose temperament
smooths rough flows in rambunctious hearts
Meeting old age with Silvery white
A small smile just warm enough
A guide a rock a stand up man
One whose trails of admiration
will be left in many
in the land of the living
Follow down little ribbons
The square tile sleeper
The midnight barker
Strange human expressions across your dogface
follow me to the gate
using all force that springy trim legs boost with
furry hairy ordered pelt slowly moting unashamed
leaving piles of hair to accumulate across empty smooth pavers
I give you this little master ribbons
governing over the seven meters of lawn
with a quiet grace that scares nor creeeper
Nor bold and swift motion crawler
Eyes can speak a language
elaborate exactly what you want
I cannot make you human
Tiny pupils bearing into me
emotional brown eyes everwanting
something beyond reason
There is no need for you to become human
For that is the biggest trait.
Everybody was dressed in yellow
everybody plugged themselves into the mega screen
share the same emotion slow flowing tunnel sludge
All the same all the same
conveyor belt behavior
in the wake of the hungry tide
masses and their bets and lotto
gambling themselves away
safety in numbers
numbing after the straffing
Concert bomb blown
terrorism clown predator distinct
hungry for sheep in football jerseys
Torn apart between pariah teeth
forgotten about by the stewards
magin by margin
row by row
I want to hear your applause
when you protest it's gas and bullets
Raging chaos couldn't put us down
It's dogs and truncheons
till your passified behind the mega screen
back to your betting and clapping and shouting
complacent football player fans
heros of the big nothing
the space where thought should be in your head
obedience is cultivated wear the jersey
so we can identify your blindness
your mule conformity
for without your disregard
the profits can't flow
we won't be able to stack the losses on your shoulders
We collide with life's expectations
We hit death the wall of it all
bricks those solid lost attempts at memories
crushed and gone blown out and drained away
the body lies flat the glints of recognition
summarize and exit the eyes
whatever the destination
our heart pretended it knew
Part of us fights to exist
on the concrete we are broken
smashed lungs and ribs
fractured and empty
searching for our breath
in the darkness
upon the reawakening alone
naked blue flesh in the cave
lost and cut from that life
could tears still stream
sadness manifest
you raise a new hand
it's foreign
you try to smile in the pale light
old flavors return
yet no sensations
what kind of creature are you slowly to become
what have you retrogressed into
Pale lost creature
cold in the dark
Dance around the subject
beat around the bush
aligned with how things are done
train track farer
Select words
add a mouthful of flattery
sugar it down
The bosses spectacles
They inch down
exposing questioning eyes
searching a reason
for abrupt disappointment
so curry approval
iron it out
massage it in
tools and resources
shared and implemented
serfs with reaping hook
Kingdom observing labor
nodding in approval
The dullard echoes back into the voices
chanting the same anthem
it has driven the crowd hoarse
yet they scream to make it worse
Complacent thought weighs
how it all appeases the once critical thought
If we tweak you in this way or that
we need you blind obedient lying flat
suppress that essential creativity from within
as if a new child in the breeze and sigh of spring
is destroyed through an emptiness a drought
where waste and envy have wrought
Silence the bold numb the soulful
assembly line pictures recopied repasted
tell us who we are among identities of a type
predictable like grinpop join political hype
Flow into the drain duplicate the brain
post deluge you've been taken along for the way
For the ride for the flood water punchline
take a gulp of the undertow lucky floatable spine
some of you swim to the surface panic apparent
then down you slip back into the rocky currents
that drag the city along for the drive
For the lift for the torrent as water rises
Few swim against it fewer even percieve
they let the direction be chosen no personal beliefs
coughed up breathless on some shopfront eave
You've got to go with the flow half drowned fully decieved
Saw where that got you
Nothing really changed except organizations
that hand you a ham sandwich of expectations
soggy dripping from the downpour brainwash pay off
Submerged in the chaos
You reach out to the one you once called freak
who built himself ship and taught himself to fix leaks
boat oar hits your head and it's underwater senseless
for the ones you followed shape and measure consensus
create a concentrate juice then serve it under sweet pretences
you got a cup right now sticky syrup gushing out
Filling the streets and roads flushing out
Inundating the city with koolade from the castle moat
you've taken a swig a barrel now you float
as it takes you in the direction that serves the pourer
unquestioning and docile stained tongue adorer
we will see you emulate the strokes
repeat the slangs the moves still soaked
drown in the fashion following the furrowed path
In groups of rebel irony lipsunk and choreographed
There is a layer upon a layer on a man that becomes something
His earlier years past lives almost inaccessible
There's a layer between each milestone
The allowing through only those painful lessons
That light up like a red emergency button
allowing the memory to flow in like blood
A layer of tense regret and a promise
To never repeat the cause of such again
There's a layer in the day
Between the morning and afternoon cake
the inner icing sometimes sugar
sometimes concrete
there's a layer in my words
That try to limit what I want to say
Can I break it with a metaphor
won't it just reform
As settle into the next
solid sedement piling and settling
What will be of me
Just layers of words
Sentences that declare meaning
just boundaries between regions
Of an overcrowded mind
That decorate the margins
of life through these eyes
Grey hair covers the person who laughed
who bragged and raved how do
we'll never know ourselves
you made it through the stages
pretending the thing you thought you were
Laughing is painful cracks like a whip
it echoes again like there's shelter from it on the world
Age battles us all a souvenir year to the nostalgic
Snow globes and keyrings to a decorative burial
Beauty and ceremony grief and pomp
Prides fat layer of inner lethargy
only escaping with the ingestion of grog
obsessions make us all thick and liquidy like cake icing
When the ghost looks at you
fright and inquisition
Appropriate fearful workholic
Open up and ask
What kind of myth am I
what animal in the wild
what vibe do I radiate at all
Am I the lost the pariah
the outcast rebel adventurer
the damned eternal
The mess left for others
The ouija board shuffle
these thousand staircases
these towers of status
give me an ounce of snity
as I float in your reflection
night breathed in through window
Make our way mouth by mouth
to the tenth story death
test the dragon of the heart
ask its secrets ruthless
Let it avoid truth
point you to the feckless
you strove for each clue
The old blind to youth,
the youth sees the old
ignorance is a choice
where's the wisdom
beyond the appearance
ask the question
that freezes blood
that burns skin
accumulated in heart and mind
that is the tick in your face or your wrist
ask the question it is the raven
it must be free in those dry skies
which will soon be filled with cloud born morners
the mirror shows you nothing
Yet a centimeter of you is fossilized
A potential clone
to follow a similar trajectory
The copy is not a meaning
just another attempt to manifest
pouring through to the material
randomly reinventing
To grin and tolerate other's grins
To climb the tower stairwell often blinded
by the lights and darknesses
the shock of contrasts
the untouchable secrets of the heart
The intangible deathnote written on the air of grief
The last pats on the back
The rhythmic sobbing the drumdrop of tears
The blindness to the past
A mixed tape of liquidy cake icing
Oversweetened and miguiding
Far from the reality of this ghost that stands infront of you
Looking up at the twenty meter tall wooden design gate with winglike structures at the entry to the retirement center. Days were long and sunny that autumn which gave the false impression that everything was ok for Joe the son of Veronica and John.
Veronica and John were his parents living in a three story house inside a retirement condominium In Waikanae a small town in New Zealand.
Joe stood outside the house not one hundred meters from the main gate. Watching the impact of the wind on the great wooden wing mural over the entrance.
"You know one day the wind is going to blow that straight into your house Mom."
She didn't comment. Joe only came around every few years, he lived far away, so every comment he made on anything not up to his personal standards, made his words come out sounding false as he spoke them.
He walked into the round tower like structure of the house.
"Mom I haven't even seen the third level of the house, can I go up and check it out?"
"Umm your Dad is actually still sleeping up there, he'll be up soon, you can say hello."
"I'll be quiet I promise."
About to climb the stairs he looked back down at his mother's face, from beside her appeared John.
"Dads already up" He said and came rushing down the stairs to see his father.
The three of them walked out into the sunshine together.
Joe hugged his father "How are you doing?" he asked
"I don't have long, Joe but I'm ok." he whispered sadly
"John you should probably lie back down, get some rest." Veronica said concerned.
"I'll get some rest when I'm dead" John disregarded stoically
Joe took John to the local vehicle show. Where people were buying and selling and exhibiting the thing that John liked most, vehicles. After querying a few classic car owners John hopped on a motorcycle and took off. He came back a few minutes later looking quite happy in himself.
The two of them took a ride in a new sports car with a very wide strange front.
John interviewed them all. "what make and model is this?"
"Where was this made?"
Joe could only guess when he was young cars were much simpler.
They got back in the car and made their way back to the retirement condo.
"Dad are you going to die soon?"
"Yeah I'm not very well, son"
On the drive they passed a few of the monuments they had seen for most of their lives in Waikanae.
Things that illicted some slight feeling each one an anchor into the small town reality.
Nostalgia a heaven, a neverending bath in the past, just hot enough to warm the heart.
Yet the familiarity of it was Hell, one that Joe couldn't stomach.
The town was composed of dozens of roundabouts that gave the impression one could simply drive around one forever or until the gasoline ran out at least.
Each piece of news John shared seemed like a miracle, a new painting on an impossible canvas.
Joe was interested. But felt like he was watching a t.v screen from many meters away. Or watching a play from the backrows.
As they got into the condo, lunch was on the table.
They spoke of family friends and Joe's current projects and aspirations.
The afternoon sun was never this hot for an April in Waikanae.
Most of the windows of the house capturing the sun at some point of the day.
John struggled out of hs chair and excused himself.
"John don't you want help to get up the stairs?"
"No I'll be fine" John said effortfully.
"Dad you've changed so much" Joe commented.
"How you do you mean" As john made his way up the spiral staircase to the third floor.
"You don't talk about politics anymore." Joe commented
"I try not to speak ill of anyone anymore." John said
Joe walked back down to join his mother.
Joe thought to himself.
"My father was well spoken as a young entrepeneur. Over the years he became blunt and uncaring of others opinions. Now he watches what he says to people." Joe commented.
"He's a lot easier to live with" Veronica said in a pleasant way.
A human tendency or the circe of life.
From dependent children, to dependable adults hopefully, to dependent eldery once again.
From making noises out of baby mouths, to learning to speak as children, then losing all cognition to speak as our brain fails us.
The very beginning and end seem to be completely incoherent, only the middle makes any sense. Possible plugs from the before to the after, a circle within a circle.
She is eager and unoppressed
elaborating intimate chapters
Reinventing hundreds of dreamlike moments
Soothing the most emaciated soul
Speaking through the sunset.
Recounting her life of love and deviation
Men's ears feel naked and unprotected
without bragging mouths to validate them
Her face and body glisten
as thick humidity sinks in
reflecting aggressive orange tones
That close the circle
Millions of witnesses
attempt to peer into the foggy glass
Wanting to be changed by the sunset
to be part of the sacred circle
How they pine to absorb it all
as if returning to the most splendid home
remote yet abundant cozy yet in order
only to find they have misplaced the keys
The lawyer adjusts his suit and drops his key
The door won't lock and each time he gets the key to the lock
his slippery hands lose grip on the key
Then fall and he must bend to pick them up again
each occasion requiring him to adjust his suit
expletives now rule his voice box
All other expression has been boycotted
He attempts one last time it locks
He carefully navigates the steps downward
The distant sound of folk music pinches his ear
As he gets down to the main street he sees
dozens of enthusiastic dancers dressed in white
Using the pavement and road to prance
step twirl and shimmy with gleeful purpose
He avoids it all and heads straight for the circle of youth
Arriving just on time as the defendent was sitting down
He sat next to the beautiful plantiff who dressed in morning
Even though it was the end of the day
He asked him directly if he had infact interferred with her
He nodded without speaking eyes uncaring
boiling orange sunset reflecting of his colorless face
The plantiff interrupted and swore that she had welcomed it
The lawyer's body hardened as the sunset soaked into everyone
A stationary object now just waiting for the homage plaque
Unable to remove his own soul from the circle
living out the trial in the hot wet waves
of a never ending sunset
Illusions of control
The drug dealer fails to lock his house
He fumbles the key again and again
The mossy steps down to the village
make it dangerous as he carefully steps down
The music starts to play
a multitude of men an women in traditional dress
make their way to the village center dancing
Their white gowns and long socks brew medievil
He sees the Junkie in a circle of youth
he is sat next to the dawn princess many admire
Sat above the town square absorbing the sunset's last light
He eavesdrops shamefully from nearby
The junkie makes claim to having slept with the girl
The circle briefly flinches the Junkie blasé
The dawn princess admits it openly
saliva in her voice surrendering to the sunset
The drug dealer leaves for town dissuaded
Worrying of his house being left unlocked
Slightly nauseated by the humid sunset
The symmetry of the circle too much
Attempted escape
the t.v screen a blurr
Be the negligence
Be the free for all at pub night end
Beginning was never easy
Leave the house
The key is rusted and barely fits the lock
Struggle to turn the key
The night sky blinks yellow then dark then yellow
Turn the key it won't lock
Unable to leave the house open
Turn the key again finally click
Searching for a distraction from existence
The antique modern dancing show is starting
Come across that weaker friend from school days
And the Muse who left so many beguiled
Sitting in a circle where it all began
where Gifts were distributed before life
each one in their perfect position
The muse and the weakling exposed to the last rays of the sun
The weak one nodds his head confident
It must be a trick for pure kicks
He implies her first kiss was his
She confirms as sunset sweat cover them
Yellow and orange and temporarily tropical
intangible changing morphing
Playing fantasizing decieving
A sunset controlled by the circle
It comes over us like liquid gold
as she speaks from wet lips boasting
The grey weakling satisfied unreadable face
He is the t.v screen a blurr
Leave the circle in relief
You are the attempted escape
a shell remains in their little circle
eternal celebration duty
Hard unforgiving streets
Locked doors
dancing the only art
outlawing curiousity
Vinte e cinco camadas de gordura se acumularam
Está manchado como o jeito de viver folheado a ouro falso
Ocioso e sorrindo, sem suor
Cinco milímetros de cinza pendendo do cigarro
Cabelos castanhos sujos, emaranhados com cobras cinzentas imundas
Sob o sol antes do meio-dia, tão felizes quanto sortudos
Petiscos locais meio emergindo de sacos de papel oleosos
Um súbito tremor de desejo agita uma piada quase presunçosa
Outra explosão de riso quando o caminhão do cliente aparece
Encostando e reduzindo a marcha para um reparo
A cinza cai e os olhos se levantam ao som
Os sorrisos ociosos se curvam novamente
Fechando os macacões encharcados de fuligem – hora de trabalhar, receio
O fim do dia ainda está a um ano de distância
De volta às sombras da oficina
Cafeteira no último gole escuro
Um súbito tremor de desejo de soltar uma piada
Mas logo se dissipa quando o cliente mostra o que está quebrado
Below the backyard of their house
some in this life invent success
lord it over the floor, over the fence
over our flaws through every door
That grass was uncut
sheep were eating it down
Farmer only there to catch people trespassing
a farm of broken tractors misguided prideful intention
Can we sense the smell of the cauldron of perfection?
The sheep of obedience forced into the zero sum
Jarring the gates with the last of their humanity
You are composed of two iron lengths
Railway tracks to move upon
the persona and the shadow
Breach your own fence
Far from boundaries
tickling someone else's comfort zone
the psychopath awakens from somewhere
Lifting the crypt from that last life
Rising to impress it's creator
sing for it's supper blade cliche play
Elder eyes ignore and fading hair greys
Never wanting to see your success
The spotlight was broken
Pleasure's straw allows sweeter liquid
when plugged into the prideful narcissist
From womb the sucessor progeny victorious
from garage impeccable classic every box on the list
Humility has a poor Locum
wreaking of everything you lack
when you get it together let him know
so he can chalk it up to his influence infact
It's hidden in me that lazy button, that should not exist
It distills me then I drink myself
Drunken hold dizzy with boldness
Hopeless with food slipping into gluttony
As if the table were angled
to slide the feast down into the mouth
What kind of man becomes this?
This end should not have been reached
Sofa sinks another inch the expanse of fat rests comfortably
Screens feed those tired needy eyes
Knee creaks under the weight of over fed body
Body struggles to even get verticle
Noble causes as sugar and salt
Age and lazy nights
sloppy oven
sunlight and exercise shut out
The cool shade of the house
Lulls us forcibly a phantom sedative
As the fast world blares and rolls from outside
Hidden wheels on the thing
Tracing my body I can't find it
that hidden draining bug inside an organ
Heavy hungry dull and bleeting
ever taxing ever feeding
Life is an aeroplane coined the bored clerk
Tatoos from waist to forehead
So when is it going to take off silly
The voyage he eloquently said
is a ride inside your wacky head
family flight all eyes and life
the stalk a graceful symbol of peace and fertility
The crib the illusion of safety sing me sweetly to sleep
from birth to death on your harp of a mouth
The clerk adjusted a packet of junk food
Fat t.v fingers seeking the corners
big cheek grin
Feelings take off you can see the beautiful ciy from here
The soup of intuition as you penetrate the clouds
The soft compassion of the sunset approaching bliss
Emotional jet stream
Choreographed hostesses with prepackaged existences
handing them out like actors
Superhuman balance as the turbulence makes them work
life certainly guarantees that says the clerk
Monday morning in Appleton Wisconsin, a street connecting the city to the majestic Bubolz nature preserve.
An Airedale terrier named socks boosted out of the front screen door that summer morning. Ben Felder a brown haired, energetic boy of fourteen sprinted after him. Clattering down the steps. Socks had jumped down without touching any of the six wooden steps to the lawn.
"Socks stop, stop slow down." The dog kept sprinting through the grass, making those pattering sounds and flicking up grass as the creature moved.
So Ben did the same, almost in a panic. His family had just finished unpacking the previous evening. For Ben it wasn't a big deal as he was still in the same region as his local school. And now it was the school holidays. The two story stately house and expansive garden would be foreign to the terrier socks.
"Ben we have to get off to work now, please keep Socks indoors for today until he gets used to the place."
His mother's words slapped him at the back of the neck now, as he sprinted after socks.
A healthy anger brewing up from his throat, as he could feel the dog was getting some form of satisfaction at having broken out the same moment Ben attempted opening the back door to investigate the garden.
The same garden which was now whizzing by as he raced after Socks. Ben had always been quite athletic at school and was able to keep up with his dog's pace, although he couldn't gain ground on him. The awkward looking two and a half year old Airedale terrier was very nimble, when he wanted to chase something or even just escape, there was no outpacing him.
Socks threw himself into a gap in a low Abelia hedge, Ben had to jump over it, getting poked right under the knee, in almost the worst place possible.
"Ahhhhhh no lunch for you, stupid dog... stop slow down... come here!"
Ignoring completely, Socks dove through the square weave galvonized fences dividing his family's section. Ben knew this would get him into a lot of trouble, especially on the first day in the new house.
"Yeeeelp."This dog could really howl. Accidentally catching some of his wooly hair in a piece of protruding wire.
He was stuck, looked a lot like a trapped rabbit as he lay kicking between the fence and the ground. Ben caught up to him, and grinned.
"So this is what you get, maybe next time you'll obey, or not try to run away at all.''
Ben's glee at socks getting caught in the fence was quickly replaced by concern.
"Are you ok boy?" Ben approached and checked his body for injury.
The dog looked to be completely stuck, Ben changed his position looking over the other side of the fence to see which way he would be able pull or push the dog to get him out.
Ben climbed over the fence into what looked to be sparse forest that deepened further in. Ben was curious about the forest itself, part of him actually wanted to be there. He liked plants and trees, though he was really interested in animals, thats why he had such a connection with his dog socks, albeit the dog was certainly testing the relationship today. The way the dog was stuck it was only practical to pull him out on the other side of the fence. Kneeling down he was able to pull socks forward an inch, using all of his focus. His head suddenly jarred as he heard a sinister noise coming from a tree 10 meters off.
"What the hell?" he looked around.
As his eyes identified the large brown Owl in an Aspen tree, Socks wriggled free from the fence and took off running again, only stopping a hundred meters ahead to drink from a small creek.
Ben looked back at the owl, had this bird been an accomplice in making my life a nightmare. The mysterious shape of the owl's head fascinated him.
What was this animal doing out in the early hours of the morning? Ben puzzled, wasn't this a night predator?
He continued running after socks when his brain videoplayed several versions of punishing words his parents would give him for losing the dog. Ben was more afraid of losing the good company socks often was to him personally.
The creek was only ten centimeters deep and a meter across, the crystal clear water was made questionable with the decomposed leaf matter in the creek bed itself. The dog was no doubt picking up some of that with it's tongue as it lapped aggressively at the water.
The forest noise which was not obvious until this moment had stopped as Ben got within three meters of socks. A deep silence Ben's panicked mind hadn't adjusted to. This was it, he would grab socks by the collar and pick him up in his arms.
But as the forest had gone completely quiet each footfall Ben made was audible, the dog turned before Ben could get within a meter, Jumped the creek in one bound and continued deeper into the forest. Ben stopped in his tracks, Was the forest quietly observing his antics with Socks?
Ben looked around again. "This place is working against me! Evil forest" He complained a loud.
Then as if a big joke the forest leapt back into full noise with crickets, cicadas, frogs and song birds. Now he realized how loud the forest had actually been, the difference was spooky.
He cursed a loud again, jumped the creek and sped after the dog.
The forest thinned out in some places and thickened in others as Ben jogged after socks, close, only five meters away, socks had slowed slightly as if looking for something.
The forest changed from being composed of white barked aspens and maples with a spongy forest floor randomly spotted with ground ferns. To evergreen pine with a pine needle floor and areas of thick shrubs that thrived in the shade. The pines presented large spacious areas like large rooms or halls in a house. Ahead of Ben lay a hill that rose up twenty meters.
Ben ran up the small hill, the sun lit up the top of it. Ben had time to think about what an excellent place to bring friends to hang out, the grass was like a cushion, Abundant patches of blueberries and red currents clung to the periphery and slope of the hill. He'd have stopped and filled his pockets if not for the chase.
He got to the top of the small hill just to see socks crouching in the grass with his back to Ben.
"Got you" Ben let out the satisfied breath of relief.
Socks didn't flinch. Letting himself be held in Ben's arms.
Then sam sat down into the grass as if to make himself small.
Something was standing between some pine trees down the other side of the hill.
No undergrowth, just reddish needles making up the forest floor. The figure whatever it was stuck out and looked completely artificial in the natural surroundings.
"What's that boy?" He whispered to socks to seek courage.
The figure about the same height as Ben but fatter, it had greyish skin.
Ben couldn't see a head or eyes so he decided to reposition behind a tree on the hill to get get another angle. Making sure the whole time to not make any noise.
He stared down at the man like figure. But he couldnt make out a face.
Whatever it was it didn't move.
He took Sam by the collar to go back home. This is not something I want to waste my time on.
The forest went dead quiet again, and the dog pulled against Ben to go back to the figure.
Gritting his teeth in frustration he loosened his grip slightly on the dog and went back to the tree, the thing hadn't moved. Was it living?
He suddenly realized it was probably just a tall rock, but he'd need to test his theory. So after failing to find any stones he got himself a stick heavy enough to throw near the thing, to see if it was actually a living thing.
It was scary because as the forest had gone dead silent even the hard swing of his arm would make some noise, potentially giving away his position.
He threw it. It landed very near the figure. Nothing. No flinching, no response.
This was stupid, he led socks who was keen to investigate down the hill, the shape of the figure looked more and more rock like. As he walked around the figure from about fifteen meters away, a sense of dread swollowed him whole.
It had a face.
As he walked he fell forwards as the sight of the face stole his focus, distracting him from a log just big enough to trip him. As he impacted the ground the forest lit up with noise again. It was like a stupid comedy where they record an audiences applause, that the actors are somehow unbeknownst to.
Ben was very aware however, it was surreal and disturbing. especially the sinister timing of it.
However socks looked back sympathetically and didn't seem to be running anymore, and the thing with a face wasn't alive it was frozen. He got up approached and put his hand across his eyes briefly.
"It's a statue socks, but what the hell is it doing all the way out here."
Ben examined the stone figure. It had human features yet the ears and nose looked like that of a deer.
The figure was pointing in the opposite direction of his house as if ushering the way.
"Socks come." Ben ordered. As he turned and walked back up the hill from whence he came. He looked back not expecting to see the dog following, to his amusement socks was finally obeying.
"Good boy." He said, as Socks joined him walking up the hill.
Now that's it he thought. I'm going to carry as much of these berries home as I can, he thought.
He used his pockets, cap scooping up all the berries he could then followed the way he came back to his house. Socks not causing any comotion on the way.
That night he showed his parents, the bounty of berries he had collected.
"Nice one Ben, but where did you get them?" His mother inquired.
"I jumped over the fence they aren't far away inside the forest."
"What about socks?" she continued.
"Oh he stayed inside the house" Ben lied about the whole chase.
"Well did you take him outside to play."his father said
"Sure" Ben could say relieved that his response was closer to the truth.
His parents tasted a few of the berries at first pretending to like them, before realizing they were as good store bought and gobbled them down.
"Look Ben, if you go back over the boundary please be careful. That forest connects onto the national park, you can easily get lost."
Ben finished the pointless conversation with his parents, exchange I love you's and went up to bed.
The next day Ben took off into the woods. This time he left Socks tied up in the yard. Packed some food, a lighter, a small swiss army knife and a piece of rope.
He jumped the fence, looked around at the trees to see the owl. Nothing.
Something caught his eye further into the woods, a brown red furr and gone in a split second.
He reached the creek and saw it's paw prints in the semi hardened mud.
It excited him to be in a place with so many different creatures. in the town he had only seen rabbits and in the water ways the odd turtle.
He jumped the creek and headed toward the hill again. The berries were ripening and this time he had brought a big bag to put them in.
Greedily his hands worked like they were automated picking and placing as fast as he could.
He heard a soft crunching sound coming from the other side of the hill. The sensation of cold liquid being poured down his back made him shiver.
He crept like it was a life or death situation. Making it to the top edge of the hill looking down on the strange statue again.
Munching on a few sprigs of grass growing in a patch of dappled light ten meters from the statue was a deer. No common deer, a piebald. That is a deer of two colors an almost albino white and a dark grey.
Ben had a feeling it might be rare.
It looked up but not in Bens direction, it looked at the statue.
It started to approach the statue and looked up at the face. Ben gritted his teeth. what the hell is going on. The way the deer was looking at the statue it looked like a conversation.
Then as if someone had come and shaken Ben's whole body the statue moved it's head ever so slightly.
He felt his arms and legs freeze up. He shut his eyes briefly.
The fright of it made him want to cry, he tried to imagine that he was part of the ground and not a thinking feeling adolescent at all.
He peeped over the grass once more the deer was still looking up the statue seemed to be as stationary as it had been before he saw it move.
The deer slowly moved westward between the hill and some thick ground shrubs. His house was eastward.
He slipped down the west side of the hill and followed the deer westward taking note of all of visible landmarks.
The deer walked at an even pace that Ben could easily follow.
He passed huge berry bushes and thick evergreens that were almost impenetrable.
Ben wondered if the deer knew it was being followed. It seemed to express no fear at all as it sauntered into a shady valley. The forest floor was gloomy.
He followed the deer a long a dried up river bank that scarred the low point of the valley floor, climbing at a dead end to the valley like a path to someone's house.
As the he followed the deer up the rise a small cave entrance came into view.
"what the hell is this deer doing now?" The deer had continued and simply disappeared into the cave.
He felt that slight pain of shock in his arms and legs again from when that scary statue had moved.
"What am I doing here, I am far from home now. I should be making my way home."
His brain rationalized that if the deer entered the cave it must be quite safe. He had a lighter and his swiss army knife, maybe he could go in. Just for a quick look then go back home picking up some of those sweet berries on the way back.
Ben investigated the entrance before taking his first steps into the cave. The celing wasn't much higher than his head and an adult would probably have to duck down to get inside.
He clicked the lighter five meters into the cave, illuminating the cave infront of him.
After about twenty meters in, the cave opened up into larger space about three meters high. A round room with strange drawings stained and etched into the cave wall.
He approached and gasped at weird and very lifelike designs of humans standing beside animals. As Ben checked the whole space it suddenly dawned on him that the room was a dead end.
So where the was the deer? How had it disappeared in here.
He gave his thumb a rest from holding the gas switch on the lighter. The darkness bothered him a lot, especially with the vanishing deer. I'll go back home I thought what am I doing in here anyway. Following some half grey albino deer?
But he knew there was a reason he was here. The interaction between the deer and the statue. The strange communication that manifested.
In the dark silence he became aware of a subtle breeze with him inside the cave. He flicked the lighter on and followed the flow of it back to a depiction of an animal that looked half human. A cross between a wolf and a man.
Although he had already browsed he inched closer to check the details of the image. He lost his footing and felt himself sliding down. He realized there was an opening between the cave wall and the floor.
He reached nothing to grab onto. He was sliding quickly meters under, suddenly images of the statue flashed in his head. Ben had an all consuming fear of what he might land into.
Another few meters down he slid out into a chamber lit by a subtle hole in the cave wall, giving enough light to illuminate a central altar like focal point. In granite covered in small etchings of trees a small two inch blunt metallic point protruding from the top.
Ben was certainly calmed by the fact there was enough light to see now. On the other side of the chamber he could see an exit too.
Naturally a cautious boy Ben liked adventure but he hated unnecessary risk. Today had been enough the fall he took just now made him feel completely out of control. He would go home and relax with socks for the afternoon.
Ben passed through the middle brushing the altar like structure in the middle, on contact feeling an electric shock falling to his knees then continuing to walk as if it came natural.
His vision changed he could smell the deer he had seen before.
He ran for the exit not seeking home or safety, he wanted the deer, that Piebald deer.
The Piebald deer was running now the cave mouth disappeared and Ben was in the middle of the forest again, hs temples were hot and a hunger brewed inside him.
His bag and other items were lost somewhere back at the cave. It didn't seem to matter. Or it mattered to anotehr version of Ben. He sprinted up the side of a low precipice putting his hand around a protruding root so he could look down over the valley to see where the deer had gone.
Except the hand was a paw with claws digging into wood and his eyes could much better especially in the lowlight.
He bolted back down into the valley. It felt almost like flying, the sense of control and torque from within the limbs, the hunger to rip something apart, pleasant and reassuring.
Alas no deer.
He leapt onto a fat length of rotten log. Observing the undergrowth once again.
A small but flabby bushpig kcked out from under the log and boosted toward the cover of undergrowth. Ben's animal body launched itself and caught the pig a few feet from what could have been an excellent escape path.
He spent what seemed like hours devouring the poor thing.
The new feeling that there was something else he needed to do, that this forest, this adventure wasn't his main concern. The lght was leaving the forest and shaded areas of the canopy were slowly becoming pitch black.
I am not an animal. But why do I have paws and fangs.
Something stirred from within the forest, is that my next meal. Suddenly fire and hunger kicked back in like a motor at high revs. Ben sprinted after it, it was a shadow, but he was pretty sure it was that deer.
He ran another hundred meters and found himself near the creek near his house.
No deer in sight.
This is insanity a voice screamed from the back of his warm satisfied mind. Go home, go home!
He jumped the creek and realized the trees looked familiar. Oh there is the fence my dog got caught in.
And now he could hear barking. He rubbed himself against the fence and peed.
Socks could see him poking his little face out of the shrubs from the boundary of the house.
In Bens mind he was shouting at Socks to stop it, so he would somehow make his way over the fence and everything would be normal.
His father appeared from behind the bushes. He could hear his mother.
"What is socks barking at?"
"AAAAAAHHHH" His father screamed.
"It's a mountain Lion on the other side of the fence"
What! A mountain lion. Is that what I am now, he thought. He took off to the hill.
Early evening was setting in, he curled up on the hill looking over the statue.
How do I get out of this one. His teenage self struggling but slowly getting more cognition into the animal he had become.
Ben's intuition let him to glance over at the statue. wasn't there something weird about the statue.
He ambled over and crouched infront of it looking up at the statue which had an open expression on it's face as if listening to a problem. And trying to understand it.
The deer features over the human face made it hard to not want to hit it.
The statues arm moved silently and touched Ben's mountain lion head.
He felt himself transforming back, looking at his fingers, checking he was still clothed.
then suddenly glncing back at the statue which looked more sinister now in the lowlight.
It didn't move or change in any way, although the expression was different from the original expression it had, had. It had a look of I told you so. He touched it again tempting forgetting fora second it could have potentially transformed back again. It's granite shoulder was cold as ice.
It almost felt like a burn on his finger.
"Oh no I'm late for dinner, my parents are going to kill me." He sprinted over the hill and back toward the fence when something rather exquisite dawned on him. What if the statue was the piebald deer!
Looking back he felt like some strange rite had been fulfilled.
Part of the human inside him had been shaped and chemically changed by the experience of being turned. The fear he should have felt was non existant.
His parents shouted at him for atleast twenty minutes. They had called the police and the forest ranger, thankfully the search parties hadn't assmebled and were called off in time.
It was wednesday still another five days until school started.
"Ben wake up please, come down and have breakfast with us." His mother urged.
"I am awake Mom" Pretending to be awake.
Putting on hs shorts singlet and flip flops.
"Your father wants to speak to Ben." As Ben entered the kitchen dining area.
"Ben you know we love you, I've always only had one rule for you, what is that rule? His father asked.
"You told me never to go into your office again." Ben recalled how angry his father had become.
"That's it Ben, never go into my office. And after reporting you missing ,we can't have you running off like that, and not coming home until almost ten pm at night. We were really worried, not to mention Socks who missed lunch by the way."
Ben hung his head and apologized for the third time.
"So we were hoping you would go and spend some time with Logan, he only lives two kilometers from here."
Ben smiled. Logan and Ben had been good friends since they had started high school at twelve.
"I like that idea Mom."
"Well I've already spoken to his Mom, so after breakfast I'm going to drop you off there ok sweetie?"
Why the hell did she have to use the word sweetie?
"Oh and socks will be going with you, so let it be a lesson to take care of your pets." His father added.
As soon as Ben opened the car door to meet Logan who was standing outside his family's front door, not half as athletic as Ben. Curly black hair an inch from his hunched shoulders and pudgy form. Socks jumped out and tried to run away again with the provocative tongue out bounding toward the base of the driveway aiming to get on the road. Probably as punishment for leaving him alone the day before. Logan sprinted around the other side of the car and they both caught Socks before he could escape.
"So you get lost in the forest yesterday...?" Logan teased.
Oh so it's town gossip now.
"What are moms for." Logan hinted as his mothers car backed out of the drive and a waving hand came out of the window.
"Byeeeee" his mother said. Ben thanked her in his head. It's a miracle she didn't use that old pet name sweetie. Ben was discovering he didn't want to be treated as a kid anymore.
Maybe Ben's mother was using it for his bad behaviour he wondered. A theory for another day perhaps.
"You wanna play some fortnight?" Logan offered.
"Sure." Ben didn't have a playstation at home, he'd usually binge play when his parents left him at his cousins, who brought him up to speed on all the new games and created an aggressive sense of competition.
Most of wednesday was just videogames and a few breaks to play with Socks in their backyard which also backed onto the Bulboz national park. As late afternoon approached Logan's curiousity got the better of him. "So what happened out there in the forest?"
"My dog ran out of the house the first day we got there, he took off into the forest. We saw some owls and other animals. But there was this weird statue." Ben explained.
"What do you mean statue?"
"A very weird statue of a dwarflike man with a strange face." Ben responded.
"Wow weird bro, makes no sense. So how did you get lost." Logan pressed.
"There was this real weird deer with white and grey on it, I wanted to follow it. But it went real far."
"Why do I get the feeling you aren't telling me everything?" Logan inquired
"Why would I lie?" Ben appealed.
"I didn't say you were lying. I just don't think you are telling the whole story, I can tell by your face. You are deciding how much to share." Ben knew Logan could read his face. He also felt like there would be some consequence to this conversation.
Back home during dinner with his parents, he could feel his parents had let go of their anger at the day before.
"How was your day at logan's?"
"Nice mom, we just played videogames."
"Did you play with socks too?" His father checked eyebrow raised.
"Yes we played with him in their backyard." Ben's tone changed to frustration.
"Why did you tell everyone I got lost. The whole neighborhood knows now."
"Probably because we were in the middle of planning a search and rescue just as you were getting back last night." His father giggled.
Ben scoffed. He knew his father cared about him, he also knew his father enjoyed these 'I told you so' moments too much.
"Whatever" An anger rose that required quite an effort to hold back now.
"You'll be at Logan's again tomorrow ok?" His mother's voice died out as Ben walked up to his room on the second floor. The anger he was feeling was almost alien. It rained heavily during the night. Ben imagined the droplets landing on the strange statue.
The next day he slept in. Thursday. When he got downstairs there was a note on the kitchen table telling him to wait for Logan's mum to pick him up.
He hadn't finished his breakfast before the doorbell rang. It was Logan's mom.
"Socks come boy." They both got into the back seat.
"Hi Ben." She said.
"Hi" ben said shyly.
"Logan's waiting for you at home he says you guys are going to do some archery today" she said.
Archery?
She left him and Socks on a leash at the side walk to Logan's house.
"Okay now take care" in her forced caring voice.
He saw logan opening the front door of his house as Logan's mom left.
"Where's the bows and arrows genius" Ben asked Logan.
"We're not doing archery today my friend, we're going statue hunting."
There it was, like a gunshot, Ben's worst fear. He knew the conversation he had with Logan would bring trouble. If he told Logan what really happened, he'd think Ben had lost it or that he was kidding around which would only anger him further.
Logan handed a pack over to Ben. "This is yours. It's the food, look after it carefully in case we get lost." Then he cracked up laughing.
"Where are we going?" Ben now in a more serious tone.
"To find your statue." Logan replied. Logan led them out the gate and started walking in the direction of Ben's house.
Ben caught up with him and his instincts were to convince him to forget it. He could see by logan's determined face it wasn't going to happen.
They got to Ben's house in twenty minutes, he put socks back inside.
"What are you doing? Don't you want to take Socks with us?"
"Not after last time." Ben responded and Logan nodded.
The boys took a look back at the house as they climbed over the boundary fence. No owl hooting. And the forest seemed quiet. Not mysterious quiet.
"Can you help me over the fence?" Ben didn't realize how new Logan was to the outdoors, despite living nextdoor to it. Even some of his movements were clumsy.
"Becareful of the wire near the bottom, that's where socks got stuck." Ben warned
From there the boys walked to the creek which was a little wider and a little deeper than it had been. Ben took both packs and cleared the width in one long jump. Even he was amazed at the ease with which he had performed the jump with weight added to it.
Logan made the same jump with a run up and still sank his ankle into the freshly formed mud on the margin.
Ben let out a laugh. "Are you up for this bro, you know we can always go back." Logan looked up redfaced. obvously irritated.
They neared the hill approaching the berry bushes stacked with fruit. Ben watched Logan clapping and swinging at insects as he went. It had been much faster for Ben when he was with Socks even when he went on his own. It was almost like slow Logan just wasn't compatible with the forest.
"Wow Ben you didn't tell there were so many berries!" Logan dove like a maniac into the bushes picking as many as he could fit into his hand and gulped them down.
"Watch out Logan you'll get a stomach problem."
"Yeah right. you sound like your mom" He cheekily retorted.
After Logan gorged himself.
"This is the hill isn't it?"
"Yes it is" Ben replied feeling the pinch of giving too much away.
They walked over the hill and as they came down the otherside the statue Ben had seen on both other occasions had disappeared. t jut wasn't there.
"So where is it?"
"It's not here. It was here, mean I saw it here before." But he didn't sound convincing.
Logan looked at him then at the ground in disappointment.
"Let's just go back, this place looks safe, but its kind of dangerous." Ben said, it felt like a losing battle.
"What do you mean dangerous? Give me an example." Logan made Ben even more uneasy.
"Lets just go" Ben insisted.
"Ok" Logan said and the pair turned around and headed back.
As they got to the creek Logan dropped the packs on some tall tree roots and started jogging down the creek following the flow of it and making animal noises, running away from Ben.
Ben slowly made his way after Logan, realizing Logan really wanted to experience something different. He could hear Logan's animal noises getting fainter, so he started to increase his pace.
A scream! Ben ran down the creek quickly to come upon a very embarrased and panic striken Logan.
He was thigh deep in the soft mud of the creek edge. He was slowly sinking in further. Ben mustered all his energy to hold the smirk off his face.
"What are you waiting for pull me out!"
Ben looked up there was a branch right above logan that would allow him to pull Logan out.
He looked at the tree,
It was an incredible Bur oak with huge surfaces of crazy mottled bark up it resembling some ancient language in squiggles. The branches looked infact like arms. Ben felt a comfort at it's presence.
He leaned down to get take logan's hand, with the other he grabbed the branch of the tree.
"Ben... Ben... Ben..." Ben flinched Logan was panting like a woman in labor and couldn't say anything.
IT WAS THE TREE.
Ben almost forgot Logan.
"What do you want?"
"I will help you save your little friend" The tree communicated.
"Why was I transformed into that animal?" Ben questioned.
"To bind you to the land spirit." The tree communicated
"What is that?" Ben asked.
"Courage... courage... courage." The tree communicated
"Ben stop talking to the tree and help me out of here."
"Sorry" Ben said pulling Logan out creating two great holes in the mud from where logan's legs were.
"You made it look easy" Logan said.
Ben remained quiet, he understood that he had a knew strength, not just physical. He felt a new understanding.
Logan cursed. "I got mud all over my pants, my mom is going to kill me."
"You just ran off Logan, what do you expect? Besides you were the one who wanted to come out here."
Logan looked down at his pants.
Ben saw what a small fluffy object move from behnd the Bur oak.
The Piebald deer walked out. Before Logan raised his eyes the deer had gone.
The two boys made their way back to Ben's house. Hardly talking along the way, the forest remained silent.
At Ben's hose gave logan a new set of pants to wear. Washed his muddy pants with the hose.
"Thanks for the new pants. You did see something out there today, didn't you Ben?"
Ben nodded, knowing that if he didn't Logan might just drop the whole friendship.
"Who were you talking to?" Logan pressed.
"If I tell you, you'll tell Jeremy and Dwayne. You guys will make fun of me."
"No I won't. Look if i'm being honest I felt like I was pushed into the mud."
"What do you mean pushed?" Ben started laughing.
"Oh now you are laughing at me, so now you you can tell me what it was!" Logan insisted.
"Logan, it was the tree ok, there I said it happy?"
"Of course, the tree" A puzzled look came over logan's face.
"What do you mean?" Ben asked.
"The tree branch pushed me into the mud. Like it was alive Ben"
They picked up Socks who was anxious and made the rest of the way to logan's house.
Both boys lied about their day in the forest.
Their parents believed the story and both Logan and Ben exchanged messages that evening about how easy it was to decieve them.
Friday morning.
"Ben wake up." Ben's father called down from the kitchen Table.
Ben stumbled down the stairs.
"Morning Mom and Dad" he said.
"Ben we are going to take you to your cousins tomorrow, today you'll be at home again. Please don't go into the back forest."
"Ok Dad."
"Take Socks for a walk too."
His mother and father left for work.
Ben took socks and led him to the forest with him.
Against the strict orders of his father. He felt it all again. The music of the forest in full force. The frogs, birds and cicadas, he immediately felt a presence around himself. Socks turned around his eyes also shining.
They jumped the creek and playfully ran toward the hill.
On the hill the sun hit the top of the grass which was up to Ben's knees.
He crawled around in it and wrestled Socks.
They played like that a good half hour, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out.
"Hi Mom what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, I just wanted to make sure everything is alright."
"Everything is fine Mom I'm just playing in the garden with socks"
"Bark" Socks heard his name and colluded in the lie.
"Ok sound like you guys are having fun, don't go into the forest, ok? See you when we get home."
"Ok mum bye."
By pure instinct he turned and looked down the hill, the statue was there maybe twenty meters away pointing up at Ben. This distressed Ben. It was as if the thing had been eavesdropping on the call. He had a sudden urge to run. So pretending to not make it about his present fear, he grabbed the leash on socks and yelled. "Race you back home stupid."
Socks almost pulled him to the ground as they careened down the hill.
But Ben caught up, running faster and more effortlessly than he hever had in his life.
Ben spent the rest of the day at home, doing the typical things he would do before moving to this incredible place. Watching videos on his phone and playing videogames. His parents came home and he offered all teh predictable convincing lies about the day.
The next day on the car ride to his cousin's house that was about an hour away, he remembered the strange vivid dreams he had about the statue. He dreamed it moved through the wood all day long, with some strange mission fraternizing with the animals, invinting some strange old energy back into the great regions of forest. Enchanting the forest in hidden movement.
Then paralyzing it in stillness.
Ironically his nightmarish dreams had ushered him to a dream like state in the car with his parents. He got a shock as his eyes passively met with a bobtail deer feeding at the forests edge to the road.
He jumped and was afraid to check if he had peed himself slightly.
"What's wrong there Ben." His dad called from the rearview mirror.
"Oh nothing Dad, didn't sleep well last night."
"You jumped as if the car hit a speed bump."
His Mom laughed. And Ben realizing how slly he must have looked started laughing too.
He spent saturaday and sunday with his cousins, playing basket ball and soccer and of course videogames. He enjoyed it there but he knew it was only a twice a year kind of visit. So he never really got to know them on the level he did his friends, like Logan and Jeremy
Monday morning Ben met his friends infront of Appleton Grove high school.
There they were congregating near the bike stands. A cool morning not yet warm because of an early rain.
"Hi guys, what's going on?" Asked Ben.
"Hi there forest boy." Jeremy teased.
"Logan you been telling them about our adventures" Ben accusingly.
"Didn't need to Ben, whole school knows you got lost, search and rescue's chief''s daughter is the school gossip remember her from last year?"
"Sure." Ben said
Jeremy and Dylan were laughing hard. Logan grinned.
For Ben it was a feeling of loss. His experience there was so personal and strange he didn't yet know how he felt about it. One thing he didn't like was people thinking he had gotten lost, it made him feel stupid.
"I didn't get lost guys." Ben affirmed.
"Seems you did buddy" Jeremy said.
"Ok Jokes over idiot." Ben said.
"Hurt your feelings?" Jeremy taunted.
"Whatever." Ben shoved jeremy sending him backwards into a guy that had the reputation for being bully. Ryan biggs. The kid was one year older wirey and always able to land a punch. Born with a face that teased.
"Ben Felder what do you think you are doing?" Ryan responded, catching Jeremy and lifting him up.
"Are you okay Jeremy?" Jeremy nodded and they both hand hugged like they were new best friends.
"Jeremy you friends with Ryan now?" Ben inquired.
"What of it" Ryan said not letting Jeremy answer and slinked over to Ben.
"What are you going to do about it forest boy?" Leaning in until he was ten centimeters from Ben's face.
Ben pushed Ryan off. Ryan lunged forward throwing his right fist to make contact with Ben's left side of the face.
"Weak bully." Ben ducked effortlessly as if it was some kind of rehearsal. Logan and Jeremy were shocked. Ryan stepped back to adjust himself more seriously when a big hand turned him around, it was his older brother Kane.
"Stop bullying these kids, yer punk. Ha ha you'll get kicked out this year."
"Let me settle this." Ryan complained.
"We got bigger things brother, get your stuff, tell ya later." Ryan grabbed his arm and forced him away.
"Why the hell are you friends with these guys Jeremy?" Ben asked angrily.
"Well because they don't attack me is a pretty good reason." Jeremy responded.
"Ben, Ryan is not so bad as he was last year, they are kind of cool when you get to know them." Logan defended.
"Yeah real cool bullies."
The school bell rang and they went to class. unfortunately there were quite a lot of teasing and nature loving nicknames for Ben that day. He had never been an angry boy. Bt then he had never felt ganged up on. He had been reasonably popular excellent at fitting in and now this, where would this end?
He got home in the late afternoon jumped the back fence and walked up to the hill to pick some of the berries there. He looked down at the statue. Where was the fear he had had the days before. It had gone, although the statue itself was in it's original place facing it's original position.
He went down to it, feeling relief in it's mysterious presence. His mind echoed those words that the tree had said. "Courage" Ben sat an instinctively meditated infront of the statue.
Then a rustling sound coming down the hill toward him and a shrill voice.
"Ben" Whoever it was they were screaming.
"What in the name of God ae you doing here, when I specifically told you not to go into the forest."
His father took three very quick paces and fell face forward a meter from Ben.
Ben remained silent and observed his boisterous father as he got up again frustrated more than before.
"You just lie to our face and do what you want."
He grabbed onto Ben's arm, but his hand couldn't close because Ben had moved extremely quickly. Now beside his father.
His tone erupted on Ben. "Is this a kind of game?"
Bens voice came out deeper and lower as if he had skipped the squeaky stage of puberty.
"Father look upon the statue." At first his father ignored. Just staring at Ben in a blinding rage. As he turned he saw the statue.
A look of bewilderment came across his face.
"What is that, what are you doing out here?"
A palpable conversion from anger to fear.
"Dad will you listen to me?" Appealing in a softer voice.
"OK Ben."
"You know how you told me to stay out of your office?"
"Yes I did" his father said.
"This is my office, this patch of land is my land, the land of the Piebald deer."
"That makes no sense son we are going home."
"No you will go home and I will see you there in an hour, I'll be there before dinner."
"Don't try to tell your father what to do!" Going for Ben's arm again. This time Ben parried the hand and used his father's strength to pull him past sending him headlong into brambles.
His father stood up speechless, looked at the statue and looked at Ben.
He could see the same expression Ben was wearing on the statue as if he was unwelcome.
He longed to make another threat. But instead he would forget this ever happened. His father silently berated himself for arriving early from work, and caring too much.
"Dad be careful on your way back, this place is not what you think."
His father kicked at the brambles with all of his might, the anger had returned.
"Better be home for dinner." was all that he said.
That night his father was quiet but his mother seemed very pleased.
"How was your first day back?" she said.
Ben put on a happy face for his mother that night and went through the day as if it was the best day ever. For Ben underneath the conflict and hard feelings it had been the best day ever. His father would take him more seriously and he had stood up to the school bully and lived to tell the tale.
Tuesday filled Ben with optimism at what the rest of the year could be.
He felt more confident than he had all of his life. It was his intention to stand up to Ryan, A bully who in the past had called Ben names, played pranks on him and generally bothered him deeply. Courage pays off he thought.
And his father who always told Ben exactly how things had to be without stopping to listen or check if that was ok with Ben. Was now forced to acknowledge him. Whatever the forest, the statue and that crazy altar inside the cave had done to him, he had new powers. Not truly supernatural powers. It was more tangible. He could feel his joints and muscles were more agile. Part of him was more aggressive.
He saw Logan, Jeremy and Ryan the gate of Appleton grove hghschool. He approached without hesitation, despite his hate of Ryan.
"Hey boys what's going on?"
"Hi Ben." Logan greeted. "What's up bro?" Jeremy said.
"No hard feelings Jeremy?" Ben questioned.
"All good man"
Ryan tried to be cordial. "Quick moves yesterday Ben, you been practicing kungfu in the forest?"
Logan and Jeremy looked at Ben for a reaction.
"Hahaha... " Ben laughed, Logan and Jeremy started laughing too.
The tension that was so heavy on the four of them until that moment disappeared, rapport set in and they started talking about school's football team(american football).
Ben noticed on the inside of the school grounds as students were making their way into the main building, Kane. He was perched on a low wall where students would have lunch during the summer outside. He was staring at his brother, looked like he was signaling to him.
"Guys I have to go. See yall in class" Ryan slinked off his wirey form defying gravity as he walked in smooth lengthy paces.
"See what I mean Ben, he's not a bully anymore." Jeremy said.
"He certainly seemed like a bully yesterday." Ben countered.
"Ben he's cool just forget about yesterday." Logan said.
A lighter haired blonde and darker brown haired girl approached Ben.
Jeremy tapped Logan on the shoulder.
"See you in class Ben." Logan said. the two boys left Ben alone with the girls.
"Hi Ben, how are you?" The brunete said.
"Hi, good. Are you two in my science class?" Ben asked
"Yeah with Mr Frost." The blonde added.
"Oh yeah, he's a bit of a blow hard" Ben tested.
"Well he's cooler than the other teachers." The blonde repled quickly.
"Some one's got a crush." The brunete joked.
"Eew no." The blonde girl retorted.
" I guess what I wanted to ask you both is, should teachers be cool?" bBen questioned.
"All the smart kids are quiet and keep to themselves. shouldn't teacher's be more like that?" he continued.
The blonde girl laughed. "I guess you are right, it makes sense, anyway."
"Mr Frost isn't cool he's just a nice person. Lets get to class" she pulled her friend as she walked off and the girls went to class. The brunete turned just before entering the school foyer and glanced at Ben. He noticed just at the last splt second as she turned away again and entered. He felt that surge of confidence again. They probably heard about yesterday he thought proudly.
Something sliced the air and hit Ben at the back of the head at high velocity, enough to move his skull a good ten centimeters.
"Leave my brother alone little man or I will personally kick your ass"
It was Kane, Ryan's brother.
He kept walking without stopping. Ben looked at his back as he made his way into the school building.
"Hello young man let's get to class eh?" a voice said as Ben was distracted.
"Principal Jennings Hi" Ben greeted.
"Was the boy who passed just now bothering you?"
"No sir." Ben stated formally.
"Is your name Ben?"
"Yes sir" Ben accompanied the principle as they entered the school foyer.
"I've heard about you. Please stay out of trouble this year. Be the same good kid you were last year. And stay away from Kane. Boys like that are trouble."
"Yes sir.
The rest of the morning was like a dream. He bonded with old class mates, a few of which congratulated him for standing up to Ryan. He started to get his very first feelings of attraction to some of the girls in his class. He wondered how much of that was personal maturity or the effects of that strange forest enchantment.
Ben couldn't find Logan and Jeremy at lunchtime. He sat down and spoke to some guys from his last class
