My name is Leish.

I am happy you are here. Now I have someone to talk to.

For the past two years I have regularly encountered the carcasses of dead animals across my path. I must be the walking incarnation of the ultimate living bad omen. I find dead birds and squirrels across my path every day. This has got to mean something.

I get a prickly, tingly feeling every time I find another carcass.

I tend to get ahead of myself. My doctor keeps warning me to calm down. He keeps urging me to take my benzos. It is to his credit that I even bother to remember the things he says at all.

It all started one day when I decided to go out and enjoy nature for a little while. The long walk to the lake by the State Capitol gave me nothing to remark about but an occasional falling leaf and several black birds who cawed at me suspiciously. No one ever speaks. More often than not if residents suspect that someone may speak to them they will retreat hastily into the safety of their homes.

Downtown Baton Rouge is the last place in the world I would recommend to someone looking to make friends. I can think of no other reason I love it so much. Welcome to the social no-man's land, smack dab in the middle of a region endowed with an antique and fraudulent stereotype, that of southern hospitality. That is not to say that southern hospitality does not exist, just that where I'm from people tend to be kindest to you shortly before they slide a blade into your back.

Abandoned buildings accent the landscape of the inner city, dominating the area with their testament to southern man's fool hardy ideas about segregation and equality. Riots spawned by racial tension created a permanent ghost town in the area twenty years ago. The good old boys and the black community leaders refused to patch things up, and now there is a hole in the economic structure plainly visible for all to see. Huge chunks of mangled, worthless machinery fill burned out hulls of buildings. Boarded up bars and service stations sit busted open for no other purpose than to serve as a rest stop for the occasional crack addict in need of a place to get high.

Nothing whispers poverty more clearly than empty, glassless windows.

Once upon a time I found beauty in the blasted scenery. As I turned off of North Street onto North Eighth the burning in my stomach occupied my attention completely, and just passing notions of abandoned buildings seemed to make the bile rise higher in my throat.

The maze of old homes and apartment buildings still hanging on in Spanish Town made me feel a little better. The warmth of hanging plants and intricately woven window coverings dispelled a small portion of the melancholy that descended upon my spirit with the encroaching holiday season. The world might be wrong, and the city of my birth might be abysmal, but Spanish Town has always been a cool place to be.

It's only five blocks from North at N. Eighth to Capitol Lake. For the duration of that stretch the dropping temperature in the wet air reminded me of all the things I have never liked about winter. By the time I reached the lake I regretted that I was truly a southern man, that I did not own any fur lined gloves. My hands were numb to the bone. The wind coming over the water carried a chill with it that could not be stopped by lackadaisical, ordinary methods.

Fatalism never entered my philosophy until I discovered that I was genuinely depraved, at which time it become pointless to do anything but accept the cards I had been dealt. Sitting on the lake in the freezing cold was a perfect example. I was miserable, but that must have been the way God intended me to be or He would have made me with fewer leak holes in my head.

I could at least take satisfaction in the knowledge that the weather in South Louisiana never stays cold for very long. True to South Louisiana fashion the weather will turn warm even in the middle of very cold winters. The moist currents coming off of the gulf breathe vapor through the streets. Exposed surfaces become damp to the touch.

People diagnosed with respiratory disorders suffer unimaginably. Sometimes their lungs fill up with fluids. Other times sinus cavities become so enlarged and swollen the patient must be taken under observation so that they will not be allowed to commit suicide to escape the misery of their condition. The wide variety of skin fungi that thrive in the area are another fringe benefit of the high moisture content in the air. Athlete's foot left untreated will become athlete's leg. The funguses are very happy with their environment. Or at least that’s what I was thinking while I sat on the lake freezing my ass off and wondering if it would ever rain again.

The old houses that sweep around the east side of the lake from the rear end of the Governor’s mansion were once flawless, belonging to the wealthiest of the upper crust. As I sat there trying to warm my hands in my crotch it occurred to me that somewhere along the way everything in this town began to look run down. Even the rich people’s homes looked dumpy. It couldn't be that they didn't have enough money to get their homes fixed up, because it was plain to see that almost all of them had been fixed up. It was almost as if some wizard had cast a decay spell on the entire area, and no amount of working or wishing could reverse it.

A man in a small Japanese car slowed down on the street behind me. As I glanced back over my shoulder at him I was absolutely positive he had not slowed down to look at the houses across the lake. I often walked down to the lake to enjoy a view while I delved into the dark recesses of my brain. Unfortunately the lake area has always been a favorite venue for homosexual prostitutes and their johns. I decided I wouldn’t worry about this one unless he spoke to me. If he did that I would have to go over there and drag him out of his car (so that he could grasp the idea that the world is not one big, happy gay party). I was happy when the man drove off and left me alone.

The people downtown are unmatched anywhere else in this world. Less than a hundred yards from my seat there was a very ugly man on another bench. His face appeared to be fixed in a state of flabbergasted agony. This man could have been the poster model for the old folks’ adage, “Don’t make faces! Your face might get frozen like that!” This poor man must never have listened to his elders because his face had gotten stuck in an expression that even made my own mouth hurt. Not that being ugly could have been his fault. I am probably going to hell just for talking about the man. Please remember that I consider the bizarre, mutated people of this world to be extraordinary. Freaks are things to be cherished.

A large nutria rat swam along the shore directly in front of my seat. The giant furry rat reminded me of a dream I had some nights earlier. In the dream I had been spending time with a beautiful, sophisticated lady. We were very close. She and I spent all of our time together. When we were in bed together each of us would respond to the other’s needs before they became conscious considerations. Our love was truly a miraculous, sensuous thing. It became necessary for us to part company, for some reason that never became clear to me.

After my lover had gone I was called upon by a gentle, kind old lady named Myrtle. Myrtle was always sweet to me. We were just talking to each other, but somehow she and I edged closer and closer together. The next thing I knew I could no longer control myself. I was all over little old Myrtle. She was very excited.

She asked me if it bothered me that she was an ancient, wrinkled widow. I told her that as far as I could tell there was nothing wrong with her. Myrtle and I were getting it on when my lover came back to get something she had forgotten. I remember that the expression on her face was somewhere between disgust and utter contempt. And then I woke up in a cold sweat. It was a dream fit for the human king of the great nutria empire.

I reluctantly acknowledged my impending responsibilities by standing up from the bench. The fresh air was supposed to invigorate me. The plan had been to take comfort in the sounds of nature. Nothing of the sort came to pass. I stood up gritting my teeth, determined that if anyone should approach me in the next twenty minutes I would make them feel as cold and isolated as I felt. The stark emptiness of the life I lived brought out the worst elements of my personality.

I have always known that it’s wrong to hurt people, but somehow that was all I wanted to do as I turned to walk home. The best case scenario would be that no one would come close enough for me to take out my loneliness and frustration on them, and luckily that’s how it went. The mess would have been a terrible and gruesome thing to clean up.

I could hear the police report to the media: “Never in all of my years on the force have I ever before been witness to a crime of such savagery, of such sheer depravity.” Make it look like it feels on the inside, the little voice inside my head kept urging me on. So much better for the public to stay away... way, way, way the hell away from me.

So many thoughts wander around in my head while I am out on my walks building my positive energy. For example, the insane people of the world have a better idea of what’s going on than most of the rational ones do. In my constant expeditions through the poverty stricken areas of town I had come across a man named Joseph Preston Lagarde. Mr. Lagarde inherited a difficult life when he was born into this world. He had been cursed with paranoid schizophrenia, and that was merely the most recognizable of his numerous psychiatric disorders. It was my great pleasure

I once described her as a gentlewoman doing cartwheels in high heels. When her skirt dropped and her panties showed, her face reddened into a deep blush.

One day we broke up because I was not, and had never been, good enough for her. Right after she broke my heart I smelled the three day old remains of a crawfish boil someone had failed to clean up. There is no other smell in the world quite so nasty. Now I think of Deanna every time I smell it. Such smells are common along the river.

I have found many occasions to think about the past because of the smells that come wafting to me on the air currents by the water.

The thin line between the waking world and the world of dreams frequently blurs and becomes indistinct in the small hours of the morning when few people stir. A few mornings ago the insidious details of a very deadly game twisted and turned their way through my subconscious mind. The participants whispered to each other tauntingly. We were all like family.

Cindy was there, and Jenny and Douglas. In the real world Cindy had been one of my girlfriends. After we broke up she killed herself. Jenny was her sister and Douglas was her husband. That had been many years before I had the dream. I am not sure what prompted Cindy to haunt my sleep.

We decided to play a game. I can not remember all of the reasons why. I do know that we were determined to prove our loyalty to each other. We had decided that the best way to do that was to kill each other. We all wanted to die as a group. We were all suicidal, and we were all very close to one another in thought and emotion. Cindy wanted to go first. She begged me to kill her.

"If you can find the strength to kill me," she said, "The others will find the strength to kill you. We will all die happy and secure about our love for each other. Besides, I want you to do it."

Cindy cuddled up to me. She nuzzled at my neck and kissed at my ear as she begged me to kill her. My will to refuse her grew weaker and weaker. Jenny and Douglas were right there next to us. They were cooing and moaning softly as they too attempted to induce my acquiescence.

Cindy coaxed my blood to a boil, the temperature rising inside me as hot flashes swept back and forth across my features. At last I could see that she was absolutely right about what I had to do. As we coiled together on the rug, joined in an unholy union to consummate our grisly vows, I wrapped my hands around her throat and cut off her air supply. She smirked at me as her face turned dark purple. Her eyes swelled until they looked as if they would burst.

"So good." Those were the last words Cindy ever spoke. I couldn't stop studying the look of contentment on her face. I grew jealous before any significant amount of time could pass. We had all agreed. Now it was my turn to follow her into death.

I turned to Jenny, anxious to experience the deadly embrace she would apply to extinguish the tiny flickering flame of my life. Where Jenny had been before, almost on top of me, there was no one. Douglas wasn't there either. There was nobody with me but Cindy, and she no longer graced the land of the living. The scene changed in a couple of seconds though.

"Cindy? Are you all right?" Jenny asked as she walked into the bedroom to find me in a compromising position on top of Cindy's dead body. Horror washed over Jenny's face as a blood curdling scream tore itself from her throat. I opened my mouth to explain that it was my turn now, that she had to kill me, that she agreed.

All Jenny did was scream and scream. Cindy's vacant eyes scanned the ceiling endlessly.

Such are the comforting images that visit me now and then before most other people awaken. Of course nothing even remotely similar to the scene had ever taken place in reality. I liked Cindy a lot while she was still alive. She gave me Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre. She wanted me to open up mind. Without her influence I would probably have been terribly shallow. I looked out at the traffic on the river and hoped that I would not dream anything like that about her again.

I grew weary of the view and the emptiness. I could more fully appreciate the cozy warmth of my home having walked around in the cold, unfriendly wasteland for a couple of hours. Nothing makes the heart grow fonder of the same old boring walls, ceilings and floors than going places far less hospitable.

"At least there is one thing Baton Rouge can be credited with," I thought to myself as I moved on to the south.

On the banks of the river directly in front of the old warship, the lonely memorial to the war that ended many decades ago, there was the twisted body of a small brown bat. The microchiroptera that inhabit the trees by the water's edge thrive on the clouds of insects that plague the area. This little creature would never thrive on anything again, and for a few moments I lamented its passing.

Something caught my eye as I turned to walk away. The bat's wings were twisted backwards on it's body, as if someone wished to present the image of the wings flapping unnaturally on a shattered frame. I squatted down to get a better look.

I could not tell how the bat had died, and I could not think of anything natural that would have caused its wings to end up in such a position. I was only disturbed long enough to remind me that home would be a better place to be.
I walked away from that place and put it out of my mind. It could not, after all, have meant anything. It could not be of any consequence to my life that I had stumbled across a dead bat, and so I quickly forgot about it. It wasn't until that night that I remembered it.

I sat at the desk in my living room with a small glass of Scotch over ice. As I mused the mirror on the wall to my right sent odd shadows over my reflection. I have always been very aware of changes in the energy levels and vibrations around me, especially in a spot steeped in so much familiarity.

I looked more closely at my reflection. For a second my face became hideous. Open sores choked my ability to speak. The smell of rotting flesh forbade me to breathe as the apparition leaned far out of the mirror and kissed me on the forehead. Fear gripped at my heart, but I refused to allow it to control me. I silently recited a Greek litany against wandering spirits over and over in the few seconds before the entity shimmered in the air and evaporated.

I have never believed in coincidences. Never before had a spirit visited me in my home. My heart rate slowly descended out of the near fatal range, and my breathing returned to normal. I delved deep inside the dark places where I hide my suspicions, my paranoia and my dread. I looked for an answer to the questions I had about what had just happened.

The image of the small dead bat kept flashing through my awareness. I have never believed in coincidences. I stood up and put on my coat. The small corpse by the river called out for me.

I haven’t felt this way about anybody

For a very long time

I feel I can open up to you

I have no romantic fantasies about you

I respect you for who you are

I just want to chill out with you

I have nothing but the best of intentions

I am at harmony with myself

How could I feel anything but harmony with you?

I have mostly positive thoughts

About us.

There is such a thing as happiness without pain.

I think I could make you happy.

I really think that this is it.

I honestly think that you are

The One.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Do you believe any of that crap?

I just want to screw you

Over and over.

The Sense of Loss

The sense of loss…

Fleeting, barely a glimpse,

It’s the IF,

The what could have been,

All of the things that could have mattered,

But didn’t.

How many lies does love tell?

More than that,

Do the people who honestly love

Know about the envy of those

Who don’t?

There is the small matter

Of the fading awareness,

The dying light that is the human consciousness.

Lost stories,

Lost dreams,

And many other things

A good man should care about.

Lost hopes

And pleasant illusions gone

Wash over me in pale hues.

Remember, I wish,

But nothing,

Only a vague sense

Of the uneasy.

Concerns and worries fade,

Dissolve into a world

Where the salt shaker

May as well be an international treaty.

International?

Maybe the term should have been

Consolidated.

A dinosaur in the urban scene

Would understand

What the hell is really going on,

Far better than I.

Sometimes great meaning skips a beat,

And in that moment these words

Grin out at you like a pariah.

The meaning of life sometimes translates

Into very, very hungry.

Vampires exist.

Every moment I stare at the pale flesh

Of one who I would devour

I am painfully reminded.

Cannibal does not fit the scenario.

I want to eat, and eat again,

And reap a companion for my efforts,

One as voracious as I.

Daydreams do exist.

Consumed by lust,

So does my psyche prosper.

Many items to peruse,

Many packages to review,

Life should be complete…

Another attempt at humor.

Roll another number,

Roll your insufficient life into the bayou,

Roll over and play dead.

No one will ever notice.

Suicide seems so pointless

When it affects no one.

Many lives once concerned,

Now look the other way:

Definition of alienation.

Alone

With only my faith

And the useless, false hope,

I remain warm

[The summer sun].

The sky licks my flesh,

Without heed to my volition,

Sunburn.

Loveburn:

I lick and lick,

The area becomes inflamed,

And the bearer becomes enraged.

I am not the sun.

Union.

The place where I exist,

That state in which my own words

Convince me there is nothing wrong,

And all of the universe crumbles

As I sip tea.

If only the self-told lies

Could be true to me.

Oh, sure, the world can hold its own,

But I am left wondering,

Wandering.

Slaum

::: Magic is an application of natural laws

That our civilization has chosen to forget

And science has chosen to ignore. :::

I lit my candles on the wind’s four corners,

Cast primitive scents into the air,

Humming with faith as the incense burner

Swung to and fro’ in the small darkened room.

My peers had advised me excitedly

That the moon and the stars, the constellations and the planets,

Would not align that way again for centuries.

That night represented my greatest chance

To accomplish my greatest goal:

To embrace the diabolical emptiness

And return with a companion

Whose dark appetites matched my own.

Thousands of hours in study

Culminated in the conjuration ceremony.

I laughed long and hard thinking about

Shallow interpretations of symbols and runes

Left behind by jealous, vindictive seers,

Twisted meanings meant only to obfuscate and confuse

So that no one could find the truth after they had gone.

I had found their cleverly wrought pitfalls

And deciphered that which was meant to remain hidden.

The ancients had failed to stop me.

I was not at all surprised,

For I knew that my intellect,

My powers and my energy

Surpassed any that had ever before graced this plane.

That was my inheritance.

That was my curse.

Even the chant, the true words and intonations,

Eventually unclouded before my penetrating gaze.

The way opened by the means at my disposal.

The ceremony underway at last, I focussed.

Even as the film between the dimensions

Weakened and began to tear,

My flesh quivered with desire

For the unholy playmate I would call my own.

The portal opened before my eyes,

A black slit from my world

Open into nothingness,

Bound on every side

By the protection of the pentacle.

From the ground below my feet

Light coalesced into balls of pulsing electricity.

First a flash and then a rumble,

The metaphysical lightning spoke

As it hurled itself at the sky.

The luminescent thunderheads increased in frequency

And the rumble became one constant roar.

Rivulets of static light out of control

Ripped out of my hands towards the gateway

As I raised my arms overhead

And called out to the black beyond,

Demanding my companion come forth

In words the human tongue was never meant to caress.

The light and sound fought with the silent darkness

Until the struggle became a spinning maelstrom,

A strobe pulse of all and none,

Forever, and never at all.

The spectacle disengaged from the floor

To hover in the air momentarily

Before blinking out of existence.

My vision blurred from the intensity

Of the scene never meant to be witnessed by human eyes.

For a moment disappointment washed over me.

So close…

I wracked my brain for the reason behind my failure.

In that instant of self doubt and uncertainty

The motion in the pentacle at last caught my eye.

The entity had come forth,

Indeed,

All things positive turned into doubts,

All things certain made lies.

What words can provide to describe

A creature that has never lived and never will?

A being without a concrete form

Stood before me, nonetheless.

Horror never entered my mind

Though it may well have suited an inferior.

The word fails to illustrate the being’s physical side,

But I can think of no other:

Love.

For the reader’s sake I must not leave it at that;

I am far too polite and correct.

It was not a large creature.

It was no taller than I was.

The light skimmed off of its surface,

And I could see no trace of any hair.

The creature looked a lot like me,

But of course not nearly as beautiful.

I mused about our relativity

As I pored over every inch of its features.

My attentions were abruptly halted

By the being itself as it spoke to me.

[Its name must never be revealed,

But for the sake of simplicity and reference

Slaum will suffice.]

“I suppose you think you have called me here,”

Slaum spit at me.

His voice sounded like the skin of a snake

Rubbing over rough rocks

As the new skin fights to be free of the dead.

Before I could respond he continued,

“This entire tableau…

Is in and of itself

A testament to your ignorance and naÎvetÀ.”

“I have summoned you to do my bidding,”

I interjected forcefully,

To Slaum’s infinite mirth and delight.

The furnishings of the room wavered,

Waves of heat curved what little light there was.

Slaum nonchalantly slipped out of the pentagram

And positioned himself directly in front of my face.

“We are going to get a couple of things straight,”

Slaum whispered to me,

Nearly kissing me with his sickening contempt.

“I am the one who summoned you.”

My mind faltered under the barrage of impossibilities.

All of my childish security blankets failed.

The powerful symbols surrounding the ceremony

Giggled at my impotence.

My plaything did not dance for me.

Slaum did not twist or whirl

At my misguided behest.

“Are you feeling confused?

Lost and all alone?

Perhaps you need to get your bearings,”

Slaum murmured gently,

“Look down at your feet.”

The ground below me no longer existed.

My feet dangled over a slowly turning whirlpool of the damned,

A murderous undercurrent of lost souls.

I could not kick away

Nor could all my strength move me

The least little bit.

When I sought to move my hands

To my shock and discontent

I saw that I no longer had any.

The whirlpool grew to encompass my vision.

If I strained my eyes I could see

Along the edge a boundary:

The pentagram.

I was bound within its confines.

History has never known a darker moment

Than when Slaum approached me with an evil smile,

And malicious intent

As he commanded me to dance and twirl.

I am not proud of this story,

For it is one of the few that testifies to my imperfection.

I much more enjoy the one

About how I escaped

And turned the demon Slaum into a ferret,

But that is one for another day,

When the sun shines bright and the birds sing.

The Liquid Nature of Objects

This is your finest hour,

Paraded naked before prospective buyers,

Reason by lust devoured,

Caution burned in desire’s fires.

Once upon a time

None of this was real.

Once upon a time you imagined this

When reality was mostly rhymes,

So how does this reality feel?

It’s one thing to be an economic slave,

(The world of business owns you

Body and soul),

But quite another thing to be ravaged,

With no rights to beg or bargain.

I can’t tell you what it means,

But I can tell you how it feels,

To reach out to an object wanted,

A common action among fiends,

Then find your senses swimming,

The world becomes water.

Time doesn’t exist.

All bets are off.

If no time:

No meter

No rhyme.

Pictures come off of the page,

And give commands.

Try to remember this when,

When the world was safe,

For a few moments more.

Nature wants to make you

Her bitch.

Nature is a cruel mistress.

Sanctity: a worn out lie.

Evil all your dreams defiles.

Danger, oh my middle name,

This world is not secure.

If there is one thing of which I am sure.

Every step taken, taken in faith

No level, no ground

Neutrality a dream,

Make your stand,

Hold your position,

And hold it with tenacity,

The storm is coming,

All of the winds of war,

Every moment is a battle,

And you wouldn’t want to lose,

Would you?

Around the time, when

(Around the when)

All people hated each other

In the name of some imaginary god

Civilization was on the verge of crumbling

Nothing made any sense

But survival.

Just about then,

This poem was born.

It didn’t know what to say at first,

But over spans it found a way.

Never, and I mean never,

Take a precious second for granted.

What makes you think you have the right

To another breath of air

(my air),

Or anything else

That doesn’t really belong to you?

If you thought,

You thought wrong.

You have no right,

And no left for that matter.

Cry,

For the world is wrong.

Thief!

Stop, thief!

(oh, shut up.)

[can we please extend public domain to the often said?]

Damn it!

This is important…

Why must I argue with myself this way?

[schizophrenia]

The magazine became a movie,

And I was the porn star,

Which is funny

Considering I am shy…

A project

For the outgoing girls.

Every step becomes a tribulation,

You have entered the big bad when,

When all hell breaks loose,

And you don’t even do drugs

(go tell someone who cares).

Concrete material loses cohesion.

Tangible becomes the impossible,

And even the probable,

For all of it exists

At this moment in which you breathe my air,

On borrowed time

You do not deserve.

Reach out to touch the crucifix,

Understand, none of this

Amounts to a hill of beans

In a world of carnivores,

And that’s where you are –

Among predators.

Fresh meat,

Warm blood,

Big cat’s joy.

You are merely an appetizer

For the big, bad

Now.

Tastes good,

Where’s the rest of it?

Never fear,

Sacrilege will not be silenced

By the ticking of a simple clock’s tock.

The cigarette becomes a fresh spring,

You wanted it, but you find you want even more

To drink of purity, with a mouth

So filthy.

Reality is what you make it.

And so here I am,

Not especially creative,

And not especially knowledgeable.

Lost,

If you will,

Amid a whirlwind of conjecture.

My reality

Is a lagoon.

Everything touched

Trickles away..

If I were emperor,

Everyone would feel this way

To become a man,

And feel thankful

That it was not permanent,

As it is in my case.

Absolutes might as well be absolution,

And forgiveness does not exist

For the murderer of dreams.

Take joy

In my condemnation.

I know I would,

If I were you.

The beast has been captured,

So why?

So when?

Did I become a slave

To my own desires?

In answer

Only more questions can be found,

Such as

What is it you want?

What have you seen

That makes you different from me?

Please

I am begging you

Tell me,

For reality drips away,

And I am

Hard pressed

For an answer.

The keyboard walks away.

Like me, it is tired of this shit.

Wake me up when

You find this god-forsaken reality.

Then

I can curse you properly.

Finis?

You tell me.

Beside the Fire

Seashell wind chimes clattered incoherently outside the sliding glass door leading to the courtyard, heralds for the continuous arrival in twos and threes of ice cold elemental ambassadors and courtesans from the palace of the north winds. For weeks the mottled gray sky silenced the joy of any and all who gazed heavenward, with it’s mind numbing display of more shades of emptiness than the world had ever witnessed before. Winter stalked the land.

The sliding glass door whirred to the side noiselessly as a large, dark figure escaped from the frigid gales into the comparative warmth of the house. There were no lights on in that first room inside the house. Had someone been there to squint at the figure it would have passed as a man in the half-light, but no one was there.

In a heartbeat the figure abandoned the foyer to glide through an inner door and down a hallway leading to the rest of the house. Locked doors leered from both sides, pointing to the library that breathed life at the end of the passage. A soft yellow glow flowed from the room. Crackling sounds and warmth indicated a fire within.

The figure reached the comfort curling up through the stacks of old books, pausing in the doorway at the sight of a shrunken old man in a large stuffed chair. This was the man who had called him forth.

The old man glanced at the figure before taking a long sip of single malt from a crystal glass. He gestured at the figure to take a seat.

“Make yourself at home. Would you like some Scotch? No? Well, you wouldn’t.”

The figure began to remove its winter clothing: parka, mittens, scarf. There was indeed a man underneath, or at least the remains of what had once been a man. It settled into another chair opposite the elderly gentleman and regarded the latter with dusty eyes.

“Why have you called me here?”

“Certainly you know the answer to that. You more than anyone should know the answer.”

The sound of the wind and the distant chimes outside again ruled over the scene. The man corpse shifted its gaze to the fire mechanically. The fire crackled in response, sizzling appreciatively at the attention.

“I have grown old. I weary of waiting for the bells that mark the hour. In all these years I still have not found the answer. I want… a hint.”

The rotting creature turned its head back to the old man. A little shower of dirt freed by the motion floated unheeded to the rug before the fire. A bubbling, liquid sound, probably laughter, stirred from its dead lungs.

“What could it be that stirs in empty rooms but can never be seen? Who could it be that carries light to the void for the pleasure of removing it? Are your nightmares so tame that you must ask me for a hint?”

A long moment turned into several more. The old man took another sip of his drink before responding.

“Actually my nightmares have grown so ferocious I chose your grave company over sleep.”

“Thus has it always been for those who walk the path.”

“I must admit that there was more to my summons than just a need for trivial banter.”

If it was possible for such a thing to happen, a spark of interest flared in the creatures eyes, only to be smothered again by the thick film of death.

“I have decided I am ready. I have decided to speak the words. You were with me at the beginning. I feel it is only right that you see it through to the end. I don’t have much time left, and, as I said, I have grown weary of waiting.”

A howl rose out of the waste and blasted down upon the house as the old man revealed those things, drowning out any nostalgic euphemisms that may have followed. The creature sat, unmoving. The old man tossed back the last of his whiskey and rose from his chair.

The east wall of the library was covered by an immense curtain. The thick folds concealed all traces of the window that lay underneath. As the old man pulled each side back in turn the room filled with the dreary presence of the outside world. Almost at that instant a heavy snow began to fall.

The corpse shifted in the chair. In the light from the window the advanced decay of the body could be seen far more clearly. Patches of flesh hung from its cheeks, and its eyelids had vanished long ago.

“Do not do this thing, Morgan,” it rasped.

The old man looked genuinely surprised to hear the sound of his name. No one had spoken it in many years. Morgan shook his head sadly and returned to his preparations.

He cleared a large section of the floor with a strength and quickness rarely seen in men his age. Then he strode to a cabinet at the far end of the room and rapidly produced a folded cloth of crimson silk and four small braziers. Gathering the bundle up in his arms he returned to the clear place.

Snow battered the panes of the window from every possible angle. It even blew from the earth to the sky.

“Do you think that after all these years this will make any difference?” the creature again appealed to Morgan’s better judgment.

“I haven’t been able to live with myself since I was a young man, so I am certain that dying with myself would be just as unpleasant,” Morgan responded cryptically.

The crimson silk then lay stretched across the floor. It turned out to be a perfect circle. At the points of the compass Morgan placed the braziers. Returning to the cabinet he removed four black candles, and then crossed the floor again to place those properly.

The corpse opened its hideous mouth, as if to say something else, but closed it again without making a sound.

As an afterthought to his previous actions Morgan lit the candles and then began disrobing. There was nothing unusual about his well groomed gray hair or his short goatee, but the body beneath his robe told a different story.

The runes of the Sephiroth, branded deeply into his flesh, covered only a small portion of his torso. Every inch of his flesh had been geometrically engraved with alignments and ancient symbols of power. There lay the symbols of the spirits of the twelve houses intertwined with the symbols of long forgotten Sumatran demons. A small spiral of words in ancient Gaelic wound from his navel to his right ribcage. Thunderbolts graced his shoulder blades, and the ankh hovered in the middle of the back of his neck. When he stepped onto the silk circle all of the symbols began to pulse as one.

So great was the power invested in Morgan’s flesh that when he knelt in the circle nothing could be heard within the room but his heartbeat. The snow still flung itself mercilessly at the glass, trying to breach the warmth of the house, but even that could not be heard.

The creature turned away from the spectacle and returned its gaze to the fire. The fire once again sputtered affectionately.

Morgan began to chant, very quietly at first. Over the course of many long minutes the chant grew in volume and intensity. Even when he began to shout at the top of his lungs the words were unclear. They must surely have been from one of the archaic languages.

When the chant reached a crescendo Morgan held his arms straight out from his sides, allowing his hands to come to rest over the flames of the candles of east and west. Huge beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and the room filled with the smell of burning flesh. He then rose to his feet and cast his hands up to heaven while bowing his head low to hell.

Then he spoke in English:

Guardian of the root of the power of earth, air, fire and water

Hear my exaltations.

Illuminating intelligence bring my creator before me,

Face to face in the spirit of peace restored and harmonious change.

Sanctifying intelligence grant me a vision of the sorrow

Brought to be by my material works.

Gedulah show me rest from strife and pleasure,

Oh mighty crowned king

Deliver me upside down across the gulf

Yawning to swallow me from the four corners of five.

I bow to the great spirits,

Plucking each of the thirty two petals of the rose,

And cross myself so that balance will never be lost.

I command thee,

Give me the answer!

Finished with his ceremony Morgan opened his eyes. All of the power had vanished from the totems and symbols that covered his body. Outside the wind had died down and the snow now drifted lazily to the ground.

At last Morgan sighed heavily and let his chin sag to his chest. He stood on his crimson circle a few moments longer before he stepped wearily to the window and let the curtains fall back into place. He extinguished his four candles before returning to his chair and sinking into it with the groan of the defeated.

“It didn’t work.”

“It never does.”

The corpse once again regarded him with its lifeless eyes. Morgan reached shakily to the bottle on the end table beside his chair and refilled his glass. He took a mighty swig and then shuddered.

“Come, forget about such things, “ said the corpse, “You still have many hours to pass, and we have much to catch up on.”

You may know that you want me,

And be certain that I want you,

But appearances can be deceiving.

You want none of this.

This is the time to die,

In three original ways.

I would not share this with you,

Even if you really wanted it.

It just isn’t done.

Ladies are allowed to go free,

Even if you don’t believe you are a lady.

It must be something about your face,

So sincere, anxious and hesitant,

That makes me preserve you from this doom.

Be happy..

Will you?

Be happy that I just want to be friends,

Instead of wanting to give you

These viruses.

I am most honorable.

All these things

You wish you could buy?

You could… buy…

Each and every one of them,

So that’s why I am here –

To tell you about my mistakes,

And what they cost me.

The price was always a lie

Hiding more

And more

Costs.

Mistakes can be

Very expensive.

I am the costliest one of all.

My entire life is a mistake.

I will never stop paying.

Only if I cared

Would that mean something,

But this is not a fearful bisexual rock song.

I, truly, do not give a fuck.

I,

Oh the same I

Who said you mean nothing to me,

Man or woman,

No matter how bad you wanted,

My affection.

Damn.

I hate to tell you.

That’s what I had to say,

Because…

That’s what I had to say.

How should I feel about all the men

Who aren’t men at all?

I chose lukewarm.

It seemed… most lucrative.

And it was.

Turns out men like me

Love the question,

The question is a sucker punch,

The question is so much fodder.

Anal virgin seeks:

Uptight sadomasochistic whore

To reach unbelievable orgasm.

Oh, it was my orgasm,

Go figure,

A man had it for forty-five seconds.

I feel lucky.

It’s a shame,

All the years I spent writing things

That will never be read

Because I know about judgment.

Judge this:

You know nothing,

If you judge.

Humor?

I know all about it.

Perform the inhaling action,

As I have done.

You too may know

Something about funny.

Funny…

How I feel when I lick your body,

Knowing I will be ripped off.

Funny?

That’s how I feel when I know

No one will ever read this

(Are you certain?)

Did I become that real?

If so… it should be known…

I have no regrets.

I have only grudges.

“Let go of resentment,”

Yeah, I have heard it all before.

I will never forgive this world

For how it made me feel

When I discovered that I

Was nothing special.

For my guardians:

For my mentors (you naughty children!):

For those who care:

I was not guided well,

For now the entire world knows

That I think this whole charade

Resembles masturbation.

You can all find likenesses of yourselves

Herein.

As long as this is a fantasy world

You should know

That this is my reality.

(Oh, not for you – just for me.)

Oh, I was so curious,

And now, I just want so much more.

How many of you

Glean meaning

From my confession?

Do you think that gives you power?

Ha!

Humor, again.

I WANT MORE!

I want your soul,

Or at least your letter jacket,

Or your undying love,

Or your virginity

[Something I never gave you!]. . .

I want you sluts!!!!

Gender sensitive?

Huh?

What are you trying to ask me?

Which deity turned away

His male worshippers?

Even unwanted,

They richened the pot.

Judge me.

Please.

I am looking for victims.

Is it not clear?

The conclusion…

Fuck it… do your own homework.

I got an “A”.

A gnarly twig of a vine shaped like a hand dropped onto the paper in front of me on the table. When I tried to move it a spider ran out of some hiding place on the twig. It regarded me briefly before it leapt off of the edge of the table never to be seen again. I thought about the night before, the crazy night that left me out of breath and unable to cope with any of my problems.

My friends Gary and Nicole decided to have their wedding party on the old city docks down by the Mississippi River. The structure has not been tended to in many years. The metal deck has rusted through in many places. One look through one of the many holes in the deck will easily attest to the dangerousness of the location. That didn’t bother Gary or Nicole. They made up their mind to use the place for precisely that reason. Adrenaline addiction amounts to a monster, not that any other addictions were to be ignored at the party. It would have been nice if they had gotten some sort of permission to use the place. “That would be like having a normal wedding party, and you know I wouldn’t be happy with that,” Nicole had told me with a sneaky little smile on her face.

Despite the clandestine nature of the operation the party would still be a tremendous event. I was in charge of invitations, decorations and entertainment. Essentially I was in charge of everything. I invited eleven hundred (and twenty-three) people. I spent $8,672 on laser lights, balloons, food, alcohol and other assorted party items. I spent another two grand on the disc jockeys. I wasn’t worried about the money. I invited a few people whose occupations would help defray my expense, once I received my kickback for having invited them.

Since I was in charge of everything I was the first person to arrive. The party started at nine. I got there at nine, in the dreaded morning. I brought a portable generator, a small one, to run my espresso machine. Two industrial generators were due to be delivered at noon, but I knew that without a constant supply of very strong coffee I would never make it through the day. Mornings have never been my favorite things, especially not the ones during which I was forced to get something accomplished.

A small man of Italian descent named Luigi, believe it or not, brought the first delivery of the long day ahead. This was not a good thing. He was the delivery driver for the bakery, and the bakery items he was dropping off were not due to be delivered until well into the afternoon. By one o’clock the coolers would be online and functional, but not before then. Luigi looked as though he were going to begin threatening my family as I told him he would either have to wait until then or come back later to drop off the pastries.

The next problem reared its head at a quarter to ten. My cell phone rang. It was Donovan. He felt he needed to tell me that his turntable was on the blink. “I am trying to call my friend Marcus to get another one to use for the party, but he may or may not have stayed out too late to ever answer the phone,” Donovan told me. It sounded like he wanted to be apologetic, but didn’t know exactly how to sound to pull off that effect.

“Donovan, listen to me. You can either carry your ass to Marcus’ house, or wherever the fuck you need to go, to get a spare turntable, or I am going to call E.J. and offer him the gig. Did you get that?” I annunciated very clearly into the phone. He hung up quickly, as though his greatest fears about my response had come true.

The next few deliveries came in quick succession. The beverages came first. There were 10 kegs of beer. I spared no expense on the alcohol. There was Budweiser, Foster’s, Guinness, Coors and Anchor Steam. Along with that I had ordered two dozen cases of vodka, whiskey, gin and tequila. Much to Luigi’s relief the enormous portable cooler arrived early, and in no time was partially stocked with pastries, cakes and pies. Along with the cooler came the generator, the large party bar, one hundred tables and four hundred chairs (for the people who drank too much to remain standing). While that eighteen-wheeler was still being unloaded the sound system arrived. While I watched the huge speakers being wheeled out it occurred to me that I could have supplied Marcus with a turntable, but I had been in too foul of a mood being awake so early. Anyway, it was his responsibility, not mine.

The decorator, Francois Guillaume, showed up five minutes late. I am sure he did it on purpose. Gay men are so into fashion. He brought a whole crew of young men and women who were all much too well dressed to be on a condemned pier in ninety-five degree heat. They went to work like a team of army ants hanging drapes over the corroded metal and putting elaborate table cloths over the rented tables. Before they were finished the ancient dock looked like it had been antiqued and polished rather than left to decay for fifty years. It was a miraculous change toward the aesthetically pleasing.

The lights for the party were the things I was most pleased about. I have never been mechanically or technically inclined so I am not easily able to explain them. The most expensive ones were called XL-2200’s. They put out a cone of light seven feet high that rotated 360 degrees every ten seconds. I particularly enjoyed their effect when coupled with murky air, so on the very slim chance the people at the party wouldn’t smoke enough to make the air murky I also rented a fog machine. The fake fog would also make the other lights more spectacular. I rented laser lights, strobe lights, black lights, disco balls and gray lights. I even got a few lava lamps to punctuate the open spaces. This party would be quite a spectacle.

At five in the afternoon several of my friends crawled out of their holes to come give me moral support. “Fantastic!” “Unbelievable!” Their mutual appreciation made me feel a little better about the hassles I had been subjected to. I was glad to see them. Morgan walked up first, his walk somehow betraying a buzz even though he could not have been awake for very long. Right behind him Jesse mosied up calculatingly. I understood immediately that Jesse had to be driving Morgan. Jesse was a catty old gay man of fifty-something. Morgan was a former heavyweight drug dealer who drank himself into oblivion on a daily basis to mourn the passing of the era of easy money. They were just friends. Morgan always had to get rides because he had been stopped for driving while intoxicated one too many times. By coincidence Lance and Kristie arrived at the same time. As a couple they were far less peculiar to the eye than most. They looked absolutely normal. It was impossible to tell from simply looking at them that they were far gone freaks. If they thought it would get them off they would probably eat somebody alive.

“What’s up? What’s up?” Kristie asked. She was always so nice to me. The guys were still sizing up the decorations as she began to talk to me. “We’re just a little bit early. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Thank the stars you are here. I have been dying for somebody to talk to,” I responded warmly.

“I just love the decorations,” Jesse said matter of factly. I couldn’t be sure whether or not he meant it. I am certain he would sound exactly the same no matter what he really felt.

“Tell Francois, Jesse. I had no hand in it other than his check,” I informed him in case he secretly didn’t like it. The corroding steel dock probably wouldn’t be most people’s first choice for a wedding party, decorated or not.

“What are you gonna do tonight?” Kristie asked me with that look in her eyes.

“What’s up?” Lance finally spit out after standing silently for a minute. He was a space cadet. The pills did a number on his response time. He was very intelligent, however. A genius, actually.

“Let’s walk and talk, my droogies,” I revealed as we sought a more private location to converse.

***

The music pulsed out like an enormous and muscular serpentine leviathan. It wrapped its coils around the torsos of the dancers, intensifying their gyrations. The air was thick with the scent of fertility. There were fifteen hundred people at the party at 10:00. By eleven security gave up hope of containing the people who were clamoring to get in. Dozens of people swam out into the river to climb up the river’s side of the dock. I didn’t spend enough money on security. I must make a note of that.

The light show could be seen from a quarter mile away. I could sense the situation was coming to a head. “Let’s go,” I motioned to my companions.

“Skeedaddle time.”

My cohorts and I climbed down the long ladder at the back of the dock and into the boat I had waiting at the bottom. I looked back just as swarms of uniformed police officers and the S.W.A.T. team hit the place. It was not the prettiest sight in the world. In a few seconds the whole property had been engulfed in dark blue. The only prettiness I could see in it was the flashing lights on the tops of the police cars. I almost felt sorry for the hundreds of people who were going to be arrested. Anybody who was anybody had long ago left the party though, so there was no danger that anything would happen to any of my true friends.

We were a few hundred yards down the river when the first arriving police boat spotted us and changed course. They had a much faster and larger boat. Curses. I should have left a long time ago. I turned to see if Carlos had seen the police boat behind us. He had. So had Lawrence and Aaron. Nobody looked the least bit happy.

“Turn into the shore… now!” I shouted as Carlos was doing it. There was an intense sense of urgency in the air.

“Oh fuuuuck!” Aaron yelled as the shore came up very quickly.

Carlos barely straightened the boat out before running aground several feet out of the river. We all knew what to do. Aaron and Lawrence both ran in different directions. Aaron ran down river and Lawrence ran up river, and both of them ran inland. Carlos and I had the same thing in mind. We both ran in a straight line away from the river as fast as we could.

I couldn’t be sure if the others had gotten out of sight fast enough, but in our case I knew we had not. The police spotted us just as we were nearing the corner of the College of Veterinary medicine. I could almost hear them on their radio even though they were over a hundred yards behind us. Getting away from the police on foot is not easy.

Carlos was pulling away from me. I had to put out an extra burst to catch him. Four fences later we were on the north-south railroad tracks. The only way to go was north, back toward the dock. Otherwise we would be out in open country. We couldn’t head east because there was a baseball stadium in the way. Damn. We certainly didn’t pick an easy area to run away in. The first place to get off the tracks was over two hundred yards down. The cops didn’t have a direct line of sight at that precise moment, but I was more than certain that they would before we could get off the tracks. I was right. We were almost to the end of married student housing when the cops began coming up the tracks after us.

At West Chimes St. Carlos and I jumped another couple of fences, heading for the catacomb of old houses in a poverty-stricken neighborhood known as the bottom. Approaching sirens let us know that we were rapidly running out of time to get away… very rapidly. Just then I realized where I was. The adrenaline flow to my brain, coupled with lack of oxygen from sprinting for three-quarters of a mile, had limited my thought process.

“Over here, Carlos,” I managed to wheeze out.

I burst through the gate into the courtyard of one of the nicer apartment complexes in the area. I hoped to God my friend Alan would be home. We flew up the stairs to his apartment door. I knocked as loudly as I thought would be reasonably safe. I certainly didn’t want any of the neighbors to come out and see what was going on.

Alan came to the door quickly. I said a silent thank you to my creator for looking out for me one more time.

“What’s going on Leish?” Alan asked me, obviously coming out of a deep sleep.

“I’ll tell you all about it,” I gasped as I pushed my way past him with Carlos right on my heels.

“And who is this?” Alan asked, looking disturbed by my unexpected visit.

“This is Carlos. Carlos, this is Alan,” I said quickly.

“Nice to meet you,” Carlos said. He was barely out of breath.

“I simply must stop smoking so much marijuana,” I thought silently.

“Yeah. Yeah. So what is al this about?” Alan asked me as he finally closed the door.

I breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Nicole and Gary got married. They had a party.”

“Oh, Jesus. You were running from the police,” Alan deduced. He and I had known each other for a while.

“Well, yeah,” I answered candidly.

“Tell me about it. How bad is it?” Alan pressed for further details.

“That depends on how you look at it,” I responded vaguely.

“It’s really bad, man. Please don’t let them get us,” Carlos pleaded.

“Take it easy, Carlos. Alan wouldn’t put us out, would you Alan?”

“Of course not. But you really need to tell me what is going on,” Alan doggedly pursued an answer.

“It was the biggest, wildest wedding party this town has ever seen. We held it out on the old city dock. I spared no expense. It was phat beyond words. In order to fund the little venture I contacted several of my business associates about catering a large quantity of, shall we say, special after dinner treats,” I explained.

“What and how much?” Alan asked, bound and determined to find out everything.

“MDMA, and I think the total take was around forty thousand dollars. Does that sound right, Carlos?”

“$42,575, to be exact,” Carlos confirmed.

“Of that I will only get ten thousand. The rest goes to my associates and their people,” I continued, “So it is very fortunate that we took better care of the money than we did of ourselves.”

“Don’t you think the police will come looking for you?” Alan asked me.

“It may be very difficult for them to find me. After all, the man who threw the party doesn’t actually exist. You don’t think I would be stupid enough to use my own name while catering for a rave, do you?”

“No, that doesn’t sound like you. Now running from the cops because you were too stupid to leave early… that sounds like you.” Alan retorted.

“Thanks.”

***

The newspaper the next morning carried our story on the front page. “Rave Busted” read the headline they gave our story. They went on to say it was the largest such event to ever take place in the state of Louisiana. “The events at the State Palace Theater were not considered raves because the location was not illegal and the events were neither spontaneous nor secret,” the newspaper explained. Well, how about that? I made illegal drug history.

Police admitted that almost all of their arrests were for drunk and disorderly or resisting arrest. They assured the public that their investigation was ongoing, however, and that the person or persons responsible for the incident would be brought to justice. “Oh, I rather doubt that,” I mused to myself as I reviewed the list of names of arrested parties without recognizing a single one of them. Aaron and Lawrence got away clean. I had no worries, but the overwhelming knowledge that terrible things had taken place filled every fiber of my being.

No one knew the truth about the wedding party. The drug dealers thought it had been all about sales. The “guests” thought the experience was all about a good time, all about pleasure. The police thought the incident was a simple case of criminal behavior. My closest friends thought it was an exercise for my ego. The truth was that my plan had been far deeper than any of those explanations. Gary and Nicole’s wedding party represented my greatest experiment yet with the manipulation of people and reality for the sake of a greater power, in this case one that preferred the shadows of darkness.

Donovan had a perspective that might allow him to speculate about the true nature of what I had done, but taking into consideration his personality I was not the least bit worried anybody of consequence would ever know. He had played certain tracks at my behest, at key points during the light show that I had programmed. Even worse than that, my associates at the laboratory in Dallas had added one special ingredient to the tabs that allowed for a facilitated manipulation of the human subconscious. I had the intelligence community to thank for that chemical. It had been designed for the interrogation of prisoners. The manufacturers of the ecstasy obviously had to understand at least part of my plan, but they were in no position to make it known publicly, not that they would. Those men, much like myself, were easily impressed by masterful strategies resulting in the elevation of the planner. It would have made no difference if they had known how sick the plan was.

Sometimes when I wake up the nightmares won’t go away until long after I have reached consciousness. That usually means my reality has become so negative that the nightmares are more easily consciously endured than the truth. This was one of those times. The subliminal messages embedded in my personal tracks at the rave told the revelers to do bad things, wrong things. Just for the sake of a control variable I made the suggestion very specific. I didn’t want the partygoers to go out and commit crimes, or hurt other people. Instead I attempted to program them to be self-destructive, to short circuit or otherwise do the wrong things for themselves.

It sounds kind of silly, but the idea was more hideous in practice than it could ever be in description. Imagine a few thousand people opening their awareness at the most instinctive and primitive levels, only to have messages like “waste your money”, “quit your job” and “ruin your relationships” pounded into their heads. Every time I thought about it I began laughing again. It was such an evil idea that it was genuinely funny. The event was an uncontrollable germination of misery for my own personal amusement.

I would never be able to gauge the success of my strategy, but I would be willing to bet that I was far more successful than even I could imagine. The entire atmosphere of drug abuse already contains all of those negative suggestions. All I did was magnify them a thousand fold. The final punch line is that I did a service for the straight, law-abiding side of society. By pushing the drug users to see the wrongness of their life choices close up, I pushed them closer to being forced into a way of life that more closely conformed to the traditional law-abiding standard. If my plan worked they would have to feel pain regardless of their personal wishes to feel no consequences.

Maybe I did those things simply to glorify the dark side of substance abuse, but that probably is not the answer. I certainly did not do what I did to make a little over a thousand dollars. I think the ironic answer is that I did what I did because instead of feeling bonded to those people because their behavior closely resembled my behavior of the past, I felt nothing but loathing for them. My hatred may have risen from the similarities between us, or because of my own personal self-loathing, but I don’t think that was the answer. I think that I hated most of them because they could do all of the things that I had always done without experiencing most of the consequences that I had always experienced. And that’s just plain unfair.

I remained very happy that I had escaped the situation despite my folly at wanting to see everything unfold. By now the authorities had analyzed samples of the drug and had undoubtedly discovered the addition of the interrogation drug. That would constitute a major violation of the human dignity of a large number of people. The authorities would not like that even if the people it had been enacted upon had been drug users. I could imagine that they were very hot to catch me. I could also imagine that their desire would only increase as the results of my experiment began to come to light.

I needed to talk to Donovan. I needed to get my cd’s back. That was very important. But first I needed to take a little vacation out in the country.

***

The shallow tributary of the Tickfaw River wound its way through the old growth pine forests in the back woods of Tangipahoa Parish like a slender and delicate necklace gracing the neck of a diminutive and frail debutante of an age gone by. The camp sat on a raised foundation at the sandy edge of the beach that buffered the creek from the harsh realities of the forest. The tiny little creek would become a raging torrent after a downpour, and so it was necessary to protect the building by putting it on stilts. At the moment the scene was very picturesque and the temperature was perfect.

While I was growing up I spent dozens of summer weekends enjoying the creek and the woods. Fifty yards down stream from the camp the creek widened and became fifteen feet deep through one of the bends in its course. It was a fantastic place to stream. Even on the hottest of days the water was twenty degrees cooler than a swimming pool. My father taught me that meant there was a cold spring somewhere at the bottom. This was one of nature’s small treasures.

No other place within hundreds of miles allowed me to commune so closely with nature without being disturbed. The temple of the earth goddess always aids my recovery from worldly pursuits. When I am too long separated from the scent of the wind through pine trees and the sound of rushing water my spirit begins to weaken. It is then that I can no longer hold on.

I drift away.

Drifting away in the afternoon

Entranced by the delicate lines

Of another belle tournure

The peri for whom my heart pines

Encased in expensive haute couture

The vision could make marble swoon.

The reckless abandon of our union reached

Even unto heaven; amid great hue and cry

The seraphim beg condemnation teach us

The sinfulness of our sensual communion,

But true passion Elohim won't deny.

My virago is the sweetest treat,

But goodies should be consumed cannily.

When night falls the street calls,

It's one kiss goodbye to my daughter of joy

Fore I slink through the city on stealthy feet.

People's of midnight, creatures of disgrace,

Rejoice! Your prince has returned.

Removed from the simple folk, those who never invoke

[the ancients]

I reclaim the throne where

I watched enemies bones be crushed

And my conscience burned,

That scene of my fall from grace.

Ordinary men will not pay this price,

The extermination of humanity's last shreds.

Changed my mind, changed my clothes,

Changed my face.

My oversexed innocence unholiness weds

And my mouth becomes a sinister device.

Every word spoken to hold baleful sway

The untainted bystanders become my prey

I revel in obscene glee: the blood festival,

The cries for mercy reminiscent of a carnival,

If the painted lady could only see

This sacrilege.

Nothing brims with sadness and regret more

Than mechanical snuffing of the life force.

Above all else, hunger, rise victorious!

This reign knells the doom of the sanctimonious.

Impossible to tell which one the worse,

Sate or starve, my stomach's a whore.

Above the scene of demonic carnage

The voice that whispers through my mind,

"Continue to quest for my own kind,"

To void seclusion, our special coinage,

Amor mundanus y amor espiritus

All one.

I dream away of spiritual love

As blood drips off of my chin,

The feast being nothing subtle.

Dream away of my courtesan unfound

Whose eyes are savagery's rebuttal.

Through her loss becomes win,

My one and only hope sent from above.

In my visions I see her and a friend

Making merry with fops and boors;

She waits to be shown the way.

Self-importance puts me on all the doors,

Just a guide, no reason to defend,

But for all deceit must we pay.

A wolf among the helpless lambs,

But she is more, a lioness,

Her smile more ferocious

Than the snarl of the vicious.

The minds of spirits succor me, I confess,

And my anxiousness patience damns.

The hunt for a mate distinguishes

Itself from shopping for the evening course,

For in all things my queen must be equal,

Affection, persuasion, and force extinguish,

She may deny pursuit with no remorse,

And take delight, a prerogative, not fickle.

All ancestral devils listen and take heed

The trumpet of one who would lay waste

To the timid, conservative side of monstrosity.

The old ways are useless and unneeded,

Solo torments long ignored by haste,

Should all be nurtured, an ode to diversity.

*

So I spoke to my time weathered friend,

Who was there before the bursting of the dam,

If I should become delirious, I said,

Make sure I've a pen in my hand.

*

Heeding eidetic vapors, forth I go

To the smoky groggeries in the urban underbelly.

Through endless parlors of iniquity I seek my queen

On both sides of the river sin, and in between.

The best plans crumble, and dreams willy-nilly,

But still I will find the red witch, this I know in time.

Dejected and despairing even

Not even comforted by feasting

The undying mind also withdraws

From the burning touch of fate's laws.

From the joyous taste of life fasting

In the hunger comes the study touched by evil.

In the night a brown study of the body stealers

The eye of malice traces my day's course

Sanity marks the balance beam across the vacuum

All the skeletons from the past exhumed,

And future crimes, even worse, and worse,

Scars beyond the touch of all healers.

When we met it was in a dream

A tightrope spanning a vast expanse

Separated, the lands of safe and too far gone

No preparation in all the words from the Golden Dawn

So I unbunch my panties and hike up my pants

The knowledge is the cream of the cream

(we meet).

Beauty in all her incarnations

Never touched the flower found

Blooming like a hussy in the sewer

None of my spoken words ever truer

Like a vibraphone from my heart to the ground

The lust in my soul its own damnation

Want so strong

The carnal wakes

There is a need to run free

The child has severed all ties

He needs to feed

Nonsense the umbilical

Stupidity the pabulum

But to feel

The golden shot.

That killer rule

Slaughter you,

But save the jewels!

Delicacies…

“Amber”

    A heavy dewfall carpeted the earth in the hours before Morgan woke up to get ready for work.  When he stepped through his back door to sample a feel of the temperature he could taste the moisture in the air and see the droplets trickling off of the leaves of the shrubbery onto the lush blanket of grass that was his back yard.  The subtropical heat and humidity produced enormous shrubs and flowers, and the live oaks had never looked fuller. He scanned his large, healthy tomato crop in his garden with pride before deciding it was going to be another scorcher and heading back inside to finish getting dressed.
     It was only five o’clock in the morning, an hour a lot of people considered obscene, but he had always been an early riser.  Nobody could ever say that Morgan O’Leary was irresponsible or lazy.  He had performed the same morning ritual every single working day for going on twenty-five years. The ritual gave his life order and meaning, qualities he felt were desperately needed to offset the growing imperfection of the world beyond his driveway.  Morgan looked down on people who did not share his love for the productive conservative lifestyle.  He looked down on them with nothing short of utter contempt.  “It’s people like that who are responsible for the world being in the shape it is in today,” he would think to himself, in those words or words with the same meaning, every time he saw anyone who did not conform to his notion of a good citizen.  He felt absolutely justified in thinking such thoughts, just as he was absolutely certain that the way he lived his life was the way God intended life to be lived.  He was a righteous, God-fearing man, just as his father had been, and, like most of the O’Leary family, his religious values came before everything else in his life.
     In the kitchen Morgan poured himself a large mug of hot coffee.  He considered the tasty brew one of his only vices, but one he just couldn’t bring himself to want to give up.  The sensation of enhanced awareness and energy appealed to his productive side, to the extent that he was willing to overlook the minor nervousness which sometimes accompanied the sensation.  Morgan liked to start the day bright eyed and bushy tailed, and coffee with a hearty breakfast was just what the doctor ordered, or in his case what the businessman ordered.  In direct keeping with his ritual he left the piping java to cool for a few minutes while he fried bacon and eggs and popped some bread in the toaster.  By the time his food was cooked the coffee would be at the perfect temperature.
     At precisely twenty-eight minutes after the hour he turned on the television to catch the first edition of the local news.  He prided himself on being well informed of what was going on in the world around him.  “A man who doesn’t keep up with current events can’t tell his ass from a hole in the ground,” his father had always said, and Morgan had never had cause to doubt anything his father had told him in good faith.  The morning anchorwoman warned the audience about a chlorine gas leak at a petrochemical plant in one of the outlying communities as Morgan assigned blame for the incident in his head.  Though he had nothing whatsoever to do with the plant he was emphatic in concluding the accident had to have resulted from poor management and lazy, inefficient employees.  “If I was in charge of that chemical plant a leak of chlorine gas would be the last damn thing that would happen,” he told himself as he chewed down the last of his eggs. Determined to catch the weather forecast before heading out the front door he sipped on the last of his coffee patiently.
     The weather man said the area of low pressure they had been watching in the Gulf had developed into a tropical storm after all.  This was the first storm of the season, and they had decided to call it Amber.  The story penetrated Morgan’s intolerant shell for a microsecond, which had nothing at all to do with the story itself.  He didn’t focus on the story at all after he heard the name of the storm.  Amber had been his wife’s name.  He loved her with all his heart, but all his hard work and prayers did nothing to stop the cancer that had taken hold of her and ravaged her in the sixteenth year of their marriage.  He spent so much time actively burying his thoughts and feelings about her death, when they somehow forced their way to the surface he would be at a complete loss.  This was one of those times.  A solitary tear rolled down his cheek.
     Morgan choked back any further emotion as he tied his shoes.  He didn’t have time to waste feeling sorry for himself and crying over the past.  The bitter anguish bottled up inside of him once more as he grabbed his umbrella and strode out the front door impatiently.  The clouds overhead swelled menacingly, but according to the forecast it would be a couple of hours before the first bands of tropical weather struck the area.  They said it wouldn’t be a powerful windstorm, but there would be plenty of rain.  “Let it rain, you son-of-a-bitch,” he thought to himself as he looked up at the sky accusingly.  He was a righteous, God-fearing man.  Nevertheless, God had raised his ire on many occasions.  The world never seemed fair on days like this.
     The drive to the downtown headquarters of his small restaurant chain passed uneventfully.  As usual he made it to his office an hour before anyone else.  Morgan O’Leary had not become successful by sitting around waiting for other people to tend to important matters.  In his experience the people who worked for him rarely tended to anything unless directly ordered to do so.  He often wondered if all his employees were in on a conspiracy to ruin him, as the degree of their incompetence was often so great as to appear intentional.  He had to stay on top of them from the start of the day to the finish, and never for a second did he mind the looks of hatred he received for his efforts time and time again.  The employees weren’t supposed to like him, in his opinion.  After all, he was the boss.
     By lunch time the rain fell heavily outside, and O’Leary had driven his team of workhorses to finish negotiations for a large advertising contract with one of the local television stations.  Through cunning  manipulation of the station’s advertising representative, on the basis of Morgan’s discovery that the representative had lied on his application to be hired to the station, Morgan managed to receive the sixty second advertisements at a substantial discount.  He was very proud of himself.  The television advertising would reach people seventy-five miles from Baton Rouge.  He could see his profits rising.  He envisioned himself living in a mansion on one of the lakes in the Louisiana Country Club, with a Bentley parked in front.  In his mind the ends would definitely justify all of the means.
     In his experience, and also the experience of almost everybody in town, the tropical storms usually meant a day or two of moderate rain with little or no serious problems or damage.  The tropical storms usually fizzled out long before any flooding resulted, and because of that the residents of the area tended to underestimate every one of the bad ones.  The one that hovered off the south coast of Louisiana that day turned out to be one of the bad ones.  By two o’clock in the afternoon O’Leary became concerned that his safety  and the safety of his employees would be in definite question if they waited until quitting time to go home.  He was a shrewd businessman, and a slave driver, but he wouldn’t risk anybody’s life or property for another two and a half hours of work.  “Besides,” he thought to himself, “we’ve already signed the advertising contract.  This is as good a time as any to go home.”
     The drive home normally only took him twenty minutes, but he could barely see in the deluge and the streets were filling up with water.  It took him almost forty-five minutes to reach his comfortable home in the old neighborhood by the campus lakes.  He had to detour repeatedly to avoid high water in the streets, so Morgan breathed a sigh of relief when he made it to his driveway without stalling out and getting soaked to the bone.  His relief was replaced by consternation when his garage door failed to open by remote, indicating the electricity was out and he would have to get wet after all.  Rather than leave the car out in the open under an enormous live oak tree, which was subject to dropping any number of limbs onto his Cadillac, Morgan jumped out of the car and went to open the garage door manually.  He knew he would have to get wet anyway, and he considered his car an investment that needed to be protected.
     Once he got the car safely into the garage and made his way into the house he set about changing out of his soaking wet clothes and drying off.  Even though the temperature outside was warm the downpour delivered an insidious chill to his aging body, a chill exacerbated by the air conditioned interior of his home.  Morgan quickly bundled himself in a thick cotton bathrobe for fear of catching a summertime cold from the chill.  After putting on a pair of thick socks and drying his hair as best he could without a blow dryer, he went into the kitchen to make himself a hot bowl of potato soup.  Every time a storm knocked the lights out he was thankful for the gas stove he had never replaced with a cheaper electric version.
     Even though it was four hours before sunset Morgan found it almost too dark to see.  Accustomed to numerous power outages in the old neighborhood filled with oaks and pecan trees towering over electrical lines,  he kept candles all over his house.  For the moment he lit three in the kitchen and three in the dining room so that he could see to cook and eat.  The candles cast bizarre shadows on the walls as he stood in front of the stove and stirred two cans of water into his can of condensed potato soup.  The fire warmed him up on the inside because it represented his normal reaction to hunger, which was to cook something.  The fact that he had to leave work early had jolted his normal pattern.  It made him nervous to deviate from his daily schedule, even slightly, and he was anxious to return to normal.  Just cooking something helped ease his nervousness, but he wouldn’t feel right until he could spend an uninterrupted day back at the office.
     Morgan poured himself a glass of milk to go with his soup, and then poured his soup from the pot into a bowl.  He walked the few feet from the kitchen to the dining room and sat down at the table to eat his meager supper.  Outside a particularly heavy squall was moving through the area.  Heavy thunder approached closer and closer, indication of a hyperactive electrical pocket within one of the tropical bands.  Limbs could be heard crashing all around the outside of the house.  The wind, which no one had anticipated being any sort of problem, whipped past the windows with a howl, punishing all of the vegetation as it went.  Morgan was too old to allow himself to worry about a coastal storm causing him injury this far inland, so he continued to eat his soup as if nothing at all was happening outside.  When he finished he wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned back in the chair, deep in thought.
     Though he was loathe to dwell on the past he couldn’t stop himself as he began to think about  the day he discovered Amber suffered from something serious.  She loved to work in the garden when the weather was pleasant and she didn’t have any pressing social obligations. She was out there planting a new bank of day lilies when he saw her stumble and fall down.  He rushed to her side to help her stand up when he saw that she was sweating profusely and her lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen.  She had trouble catching her breath, and it was obvious to him that she was out of sorts.  He helped her back into the house and onto the sofa, which was when he ascertained that she was in very bad shape, a condition which he thought had overwhelmed her suddenly.  He called the family doctor and arranged an emergency appointment for within the hour, frantic that she might collapse before he could get her to the doctor’s office.  The doctor had seen that she was admitted to the hospital where she underwent a battery of tests to determine what was wrong with her, as her symptoms didn’t indicate a basic illness.
     The tests discovered she suffered from lung cancer.  She had small cell carcinoma in her left lung.  Their doctor told him that Amber had to have been suffering for quite a while, and he wanted to know when she first started complaining of pain.  Morgan had been forced to tell the doctor that she never had complained.  After O’Leary thought about that a long time he concluded she had been hiding the pain from him because she didn’t want to disturb him.  She always stood behind him one hundred percent, so much so that when she was dying she didn’t even say a word until it was too late for any treatment to save her.  Nine years later he could still feel guilt point its long accusatory finger directly at him.  Maybe if he hadn’t rebuked her for bothering him so many times... but it was too late to bring her back.  It was too late to change any of those things.
     He didn’t want to think about it anymore.  As the storm raged outside he forced himself to desist, to dispel the memories of the last moments of her life.  He couldn’t bear to recall the glazed look in her eyes after he administered the morphine that spared her from living through unbearable agony.  Even as he slammed down the firewall in his mind he shuddered at the lingering thought of the smell in the room, a smell he never could get out.  He had moved his bedroom to the opposite end of the house because of that smell.  Morgan never went into the room where she died.  There was nothing in there he wanted, nothing in there he needed.  In his mind that room was a bottomless pit of infinite loneliness and despair, and the doorknob was far better left unturned.
     Morgan fixed his thoughts on the problems directly at hand.  He had been wallowing in morose thoughts about his dead wife for a lot longer than he should have been.  Suddenly it was almost seven o’clock in the evening and the rain had not slacked up one iota.  The candles still had plenty of life left in them, but he was growing weary of the darkness.  Just to reassure himself he went to the phone to call the utility company and report the power outage.  When he picked up the receiver that avenue of comfort was extinguished instantly.  The phone lines had also succumbed to mother nature’s temper tantrum, and, just like the electricity, there was no way to know when the technicians would be able to get out there and fix the problem.  Morgan sighed out loud.  He knew it was going to be a long night with nothing to take his mind off of the emptiness  and no light to dispel his melancholic gloom.
     He couldn’t think of anything better to do so he got dressed to go outside and take a look at the havoc coming down like the end of everything sacred.  Over his casual slacks and golf shirt he put on a full slicker, and then he laced up waterproof hunting boots on his feet.  As he stepped out the back door the water immediately began pelting him, the wind driving it nearly horizontally.  It was so black and thick he couldn’t see the fence at the property line in the back, and leaves whipped around like swollen masses of green snowflakes before blanketing the ground in banks.  After he was several feet beyond the vestibule he could make out the sound of something banging against the back side of his garage.  Morgan worried about something happening to his car, so he went to make sure nothing would break a window and allow the elements to have their way with his trophy vehicle.
     “This is a nasty mess for sure,” he thought to himself as twigs whisked through the air around him and wet plant matter clung to every surface of his rain suit.  The banging increased in intensity until he wondered how he could have been unable to hear it from inside the house.  “Of course,” he persisted, “this is exactly the reason I got dressed and came out here.”  In his mind a property owner could never be too careful when it came to taking precautions against loss.  Never for one second did he worry about his own physical safety in the storm.  Morgan was one of those people who took his well being for granted because being well was all that he had ever really been able to count on.  Despite all of his bitterness he knew that God would look out for him, because he had always lived his life the way it was meant to be lived.  All of his presumptions counted on the presupposition that existence here was based on fairness, justice and the benevolence of the divine creator.  Sooner or later he was bound to find out that those conditions were difficult for reality to meet.  Morgan O’Leary was a good man, but the universe could never live up to the high expectations he had for it.
     Rounding the corner to the back end of the garage Morgan was able to see that the banging noise was originating with a piece of aluminum roof that had blown onto his property, from where he did not know.  Opposite corners on the diagonal of the rectangular section of roofing had become wedged between the eave of his garage and the ground.  That left the material flapping against the wall at both of the free ends, like a seesaw gone out of control in an alternate dimension of whacked-out canty corners.  The metal acted as if it possessed a life of its own when Morgan reached out to free it from the bind it was in, jumping away from his hand as if it were afraid of his touch.  Before he could react the edge sliced back through the air and across his hand, opening a large gash across his knuckles.
     Morgan grabbed his hand and staggered back a few steps in shock.  He could not believe he had gotten cut so badly doing something so simple.  He strode back to his porch and into the house to get a bandage for his hand, by that time concerned very little about the mess he tracked in through the back door.  “If it’s not one thing its another,” he cursed silently as he tried to find the first aid kit in the darkness.  He always kept the first aid kit on the first shelf in the bathroom cabinet, but when he went in there and started reaching around for it there was nothing to be found.  Momentarily losing his patience Morgan grabbed an ordinary washcloth and wrapped it around his hand so that the blood would stop flowing all over his floor as he lit a candle to search for the first aid kit in proper fashion.
     The cut was painful but it didn’t bother him nearly so much as the fact he was fumbling around in his own house trying to tend to an injury that never should have happened, on a day when he should have been at work all day.  On top of all that he was having very poor luck dismissing his own weakness and frailty in the face of the power nature had unleashed upon the world.  Morgan felt very lonely and forgotten by the time he found the bandages.  Awash with self pity he wondered what would have happened to him if it had been a serious injury, if he had suddenly had a stroke of if his heart had tightened in his chest until he could no longer draw air into his lungs.  All of his strong, manly talk vanished when he thought about how he would spend the last days of his life either in complete solitude or surrounded by strangers he did not trust or respect.  The idea nearly drew a whimper from his lips, but he was far too stoic to let that happen.
     After he got his hand bandaged a blinding fury consumed every fiber of his being.  He went back outside and into the garage, oblivious to the wind and the rain.   The weather became tiny in his awareness as he picked up the ancient sledge hammer that had belonged to his father and hefted it in his hands.  Happy with the way it felt he went around the back of the garage where the section of roofing still flapped ridiculously against the building.  Morgan took the maul in both hands, raised it high over his head and brought it down in the middle of the aluminum with all of his might.  The metal buckled in the middle with surprisingly little resistance and settled into the bank of freshly fallen leaves with no sound at all, once the crash of the hammer’s blow subsided.  The event was so anticlimactic that instead of helping him to reduce some of his built up aggression it did nothing but increase his frustration.  Morgan resisted the impulse to pound the aluminum into dust, instead opting to bend over and drag it away from his garage.  He half expected the wind to reanimate the sheet and direct it to doing him even more serious bodily harm, but he took hold of it and dragged it to the end of the driveway without having any problems, other than getting very wet.
     The downpour diminished briefly as he stood at the end of his driveway.  He felt light headed as he looked up at the black skies, so much so he had to concentrate to keep his feet from floating off of the ground.  The whole world stood still while the clouds stopped in their tracks and turned their attention upon him.  The thunderheads sucked all the air from the lands of humanity before blowing it down upon him in gale force.  The sun had set over the horizon but Morgan O’Leary could not even tell.  The darkness swirled around him in a myriad of shades, the countless depths of gray shadows and opaque blues coalescing into a tangible body devoid of light, a body that moved like an ethereal entity occupied by an alien intelligence.  Morgan did not like the feel of that strong wind on his face, nor did he enjoy the glimpse of abundant faces grimacing with malicious delight in the eddies of moisture vapors amassed above his home.  He almost ran as he turned back for the safety of home.
     He knew that there was something happening beyond the limit of his comprehension, something that involved him, something wrong.  He stood in the washroom just inside the back door and tried to calm his frayed nerves.  His hands shook violently and he was having a hard time catching his breath.  Morgan’s faith in the basic mundane benevolence of the world around him could not handle the perceptions flooding into his awareness.  His belief system could not account for sentience of any kind controlling the forces of the weather, much less discontentedly directing their wrath towards him.  Morgan came to the conclusion the cut on the back of his hand must have somehow introduced a toxin into his bloodstream which was causing him to experience hallucinations.  He gathered his wits to prove to himself that what he had seen and felt was only an echo of his feverish meditations.  A couple of deep breaths was all that he felt he needed to dispel the illusion, so he drew the air into his lungs and steeled himself before stepping back out into the storm.
     Straightaway he knew that he was right.  There were no faces in the clouds or in the shadows.  He did not feel that the wind was blowing down directly into his face, or that the energy behind the storm wanted to hurt him.  Reality looked completely normal, if normal meant the earth gradually sinking into streams of brown, muddy water.  He felt very relieved the vision had vanished.
     As if in answer to his prayers the power came back on, but his gratitude only lasted for a moment.  Every minute detail of his home tumbled in upon his perceptions with a gravity and magnitude too grave for his intellect to process.  The insidious vision had returned, or more precisely, his world had become the vision.  Laundry detergent, fabric softener, his household appliances... everything he could see twinkled at him with malignant awareness and motives.  Morgan’s chest tightened so drastically the blood to his brain flowed to a trickle.  The edges of his perceptions blurred and took on a static effect signaling the flight of consciousness.  He careened into his living room like a drunkard, all of his efforts to steady himself only seeming to make the problem worse.  He gulped air raggedly after collapsing into the sofa, but without the flow of blood oxygen does very little to help the human organism survive.
     As Morgan sat there fighting to stay alive he saw the trail of his own blood across the floor.  The drops and splatters began to move toward each other, trickling across the rug and the tiles like an unholy slug.  In a few seconds he could make out a word.  His life crashed down around his ears, but somehow refused to subside completely.  A passage from the Bible sprang unbidden into his mind, a passage from Revelations.  “During that time these men will seek death but will not find it; they will yearn to die but death will escape them.”  He found it so true, so painful.  As his life went on and on forever he could do nothing but look at the word on the floor.  “Amber”.

Another Fibrous Comes

The girl with cherry lips

Shivers when the thoughts reach inside,

Where all good things hide,

And guilty innocence trips.

Touch the quivering, luscious

Over-ripe petals blooming,

Pollinating every fiber of

Fresh discovered ache.

Anatomy quietly slips into

A more comfortable

Existence,

Bright sea-foam green tendrils

Creep out tentatively

To caress the closest stalk,

As was ever meant to be.

Nature knows no secrets.

Even the barest trace of life

Buried beneath the ground

Feels the beck and call

Of the only show.

Couple,

Mingle strands and grow

As far as confines will allow,

And beyond.

Essence

Quietly reaches out from silence

To caress the air;

Sunlight leaves membranes quaking,

Such a powerful lover.

Switch gears with me,

If you will.

I have done business

With Insanity,

And many of her agents.

The beast known as Worthless

Would have the energetic and thrifty

Sifting through mountains

Of their own filth.

The beast known as Cloister

Would have the outgoing

Speaking to their own shadows,

Especially not knowing

The whole world cares.

The beast known as Hunger

Would have the healthy

Feed upon their own muscle.

The beast known as Desire

Would have you beg like a dog

At the feet

Of all the things you never wanted.

The beast known as Pride

Would have you proclaim your superiority

To a room full of zombies,

As if it were important.

The beast known as Vanity

Would have you primp you hair

Before an audience of lepers.

Loss of flesh will not be covered

By a comb-over.

Say more?

Insanity herself

Drew me down

Beneath the covers.

She made me feel like a king,

Like the real thing,

But all control dissolved.

I watched pieces of my face become twisted

In the mirror as I shaved.

One side looked happy enough,

The other spoke of carnage.

She was difficult to face

When I went to break it off.

Break loose?

That’s what hell did.

All of it.

Insanity left me with

An imperceptible

(to average humans)

Overbite,

Exposing two thirds of my skull.

Feel the good times…

Pay the – bad price.

In return I left Her

With a Venus flytrap in place of her organs

(Truth revealed),

And a hideous honeycomb

Where Her smile should have been.

She is very dangerous.

She should be considered scorned.

The damage lasts forever…

Things that should never have been seen.

And I really loved her!!

Says a lot for Hate,

And His errand boys.

Don’t like boys?

Hate them?

Oh, they like it like that.

I fight with the sense

Of having been used.

I reconcile my afflictions

With the knowledge

That tainted was

Will tainted ever be.

My face turns red with the shame

That everyone knows

What the paper and I have been doing.

So rash!

So brash!

Paper!! You are the one!! I really love you!!

Once I thought

Something had happened to me,

To the man in me,

As if a lesser devil could be in control

Of my actions.

But then there was the coronation,

And I was crowned Me!

It was then that I knew

That - - I - -

Had written all of these things,

No excuses, No prayers, No whining .

What a rush!

I am this man!

This is the same man

Who enacted the twelve stages of the cross

And felt that Jesus and I

Broke the law with our homosexual marriage.

How many times did I have to say I loved him,

When I already knew how he felt about Mary Magdalene?

Catholics, I mean homosexuals,

Somehow failed to recruit me.

I don’t like young boys.

The nuns, on the other hand…

So pure, so forbidden,

So er… so yuh!, so Wruh! Wruh!

Give it to me!

You hot habit girl…

I once had a habit,

But I took it off.

It left scars,

Pits, to be exact.

Opium, religion,

Well, if you don’t know where I stand…

One drop of liquid sky

Should bring you around.

Argue with your invincible

Incarnation.

Ten feet tall, huh?

Bulletproof, huh?

Ya think, big boy?

I think green blood

Makes the best high-protein shake.

Turn me in.

Report me.

Seek the authorities.

I am sorry to say that I was correct all along

When I said

The authorities are totally useless.

They only appear

If your entire life is at stake,

And all the evidence against you is easy to obtain.

1.

Having made a commitment to

Warmth and beauty,

Endless side-trips into disease

Represent betrayal all the more.

2.

Do you not know?

Do you not know that my entire life exists because of your—

Audacious beauty?

3.

I once spoke to a sinister party.

He said,

“We’re gonna go to a party

With lots of chicks in chain mail, and corsets and leather.”

I said, “You must be the devil.

I have been waiting for this day.

Would you like to make a deal?”

False Prophet

More and more

I make the fear a part of myself,

Days on end isolated.

Vision ends where

Insight refuses to see.

No silent plea for help,

Screams, sobs, broken furniture…

Nobody gives a fuck,

Not about these petty confessions

From a false prophet of obscenity.

So I pick up the phone,

I make the call

Should have learned by now

There ain’t nobody out there

Maximum security alienation

No friends

No morals about stealing material

Nada.

Enough with the small talk.

Isn’t there a story here somewhere?

It was around this time

Baby flesh no longer held

That magic appeal it once did.

I still hated the world

And everything in it,

But something was missing,

That fragrance, that edge,

The joie de vivre.

Murder doesn’t even fascinate

The stone beyond jade beyond stonage.

What then?

Self-mutilation –

Been there done that.

Mummification?

Hmm. No, that’s out

(requires an assistant).

Well, asceticism,

Starvation does appeal in certain ways,

Even though I have done it before.

And then this whole magic thing,

What the fricatrice?

After all this work

Patience and practice

Still nothing

Aside from a promise for sure damnation.

Believe me

I have thought about it

And with nothing else to do

Damnation sounds pretty good.

What bothers me is the last minute.

At the last minute before damnation

I finally get my invitation to that party,

You know, the killer party

At the end of time and the universe

Where all I do is stay wasted and get laid

For all eternity,

But TOO LATE

I’ve got a date with hell,

Maybe next incarnation.

I know, I know

There is no damnation,

And sing me another lullaby

Like you love me,

Or everything is going to be okay,

Or the world doesn’t suck,

It suckles until the mother gets sick of it.

And just when I thought there was nothing new

I invented a creature,

A creature that inhabits babies bodies

(only for a short while).

This creature, me,

Would only stick around for the breast feeding stage,

And could choose which mothers it preferred.

Sucking titty for the rest of time.

Oh, yes, there is a heaven.

I have envisioned it.

But a hell?

I think not.

Too easy.

Hell for a masochist –

Being ignored.

I’m there now.

Don’t throw me in that briar patch.

Brer Rabbit,

You look mighty cute.

Wait! Stop!

This is serious!

Your mortal soul is in jeopardy!

Cry me a river

All you limp dick, dry twat

Christian conscious,

Obsessive compulsive

Busy body

Number crunchers.

I have seen the odds,

And I have a new bell curve for you.

Have you heard of freedom?

I don’t mean free Domme.

Freedom.

All I can tell you about it

Is that it is real,

And any god you would want to worship

Would endorse it.

Every single action we commit to

Echoes infinitely

Across the expanse of space-time.

Damnation?

Oh, that’s being sick of yourself

When all you ever did

Was look ugly,

‘Cause you’re gonna see it all over again,

Baby.

The question, then, would be

What makes this magic,

This witchcrafting lie.

So many answers, but one: Be Free,

And nothing will be found

Through many writs and warrants.

Light is a terrible, painful thing,

For in that substance true form becomes clear.

The formless takes shape

And innocence takes to wing

When only the shadows

Can be called dear.

The righteous masses would vilify

The union between intellect and predation.

The sane would institutionalize

To correct through deprivation.

Dreams made flesh must falter

Only in that the real seems so much stronger…

A freshly slaughtered bride at the altar

Once kept alive to suffer longer.

In pain victims find recompense

To all that pleasure could not dispense.

Recurring theme:

The lips of a wished for lover.

Once and over again,

The tender growth kisses the sky.

Bright green could never mean

Anything

But wanton sexuality.

Growth, a symbol of fertility

For the new millennium.

To hell with the peach and the pear,

I like the tender shoots.

This Life

Never a better place or time

To worship the sun

Unhealthy?

The flesh trades pleasure

For some imagined pain.

Why lie about

The pleasures of the flesh?

I mostly want you…

That’s what the tan is all about.

Is that a crime?

Is that so wrong?

I want you - -

All of you.