Story Poem

Fog was in my mind and mist in my eyes. And voices!
Voices that whispered and screamed into the beating heart of my ears.
My earthly body and mortal spirit - now a living, breathing corpse.

Fog was in my mind and mist in my eyes as I peered down at the laceration scars
running lengthwise up my forearms, standing at the rusted, wrought iron gate of
the castle graveyard - the resting place of my friend, Frieda.

My mind for certain was in a fog - a thick, white veil that concealed reality
from what little normality I had at the time. The soulful voice of mine, muted
to the hallucinatory ones - the whispers that you, the reader, cannot hear!

For within this narrative, you are about to discover destruction
followed by creation. As the old, wilted Sheila now blossoms in rebirth -
from an end to a beginning.                              

These immortal eyes were once pale blue - now golden yellow
and bright beneath the moonlight. There was no respite in my past life,
madness tore me to pieces every day. And every day my soul bled out.  

As I wandered through the smoldering rubble of my life, I wanted to die -
and be reborn. And through this narrative, the reader's eyes
shall dance with my words across the many pages ahead.

And as you read further, you will sense the whirling of clouds overhead,
pulsating with flashes of lightning. What will follow, as you will taste
in the downpour, is a purge of your understandings of what is real.

What is real and true did not become known to me until after my imprisonment
in the looming tower of my family’s castle
and had entered the Gothic Forest.

When the sun had burned away the fog,
and boiled the mist from my eyes, I saw clearly.
I knelt before Frieda's grave, and I intended to join her.

I forgave her when she started whispering to me again.
Voices! Raspy voices of the dead pricking my ears,
driving me mad. The only thing I could do was listen!

And be content with my torturer!
"Self-mutilations are so beautiful in the graveyard,"
Frieda would whisper to me.

Frieda's headstone was draped in moss, and thick branching vines.
There was beauty, no depression there. However, her distant voice
from beneath the clay could tell me to commit suicide.

"Kill yourself! Join me here beneath the earth, Klara."
And there is no doubt that it was her breathy voice
drifting into my ears.

Frieda whispers in death and I would visit her grave
to bring respiting moments of purgatories within.
By that time in my life, I often thought of my own coming sunset.

The glint of the knife in the dusking light as I unsheathed it
was like a flash of lightning in the corner of my eye.
It was there, where I was happy to join my friend in the grave.

But at that moment before I cut, with a firm grip on the handle,
I sensed a heaviness in my heart. My breathing had slowed
and became shallow. Happiness was suddenly tainted by fear.

After wandering through the smoldering rubble of my life,
I wanted to die. And through this narrative, the reader
will widen their eyelids thus unsheathing their perceptive eyes.

As my hand tremored before the first cut, I gazed
at Frieda's headstone one last time as a mortal,
and even my voice tremored as I stuttered,

"the knife dances upon my skin with only I as its partner."
I stopped, for the was a sudden, violent shiver that tore through me
quicker than it had built up. Mortality clearly bled out.

"With only I as its partner..." I continued with a tremoring voice,
"and of course, with a firm grip – I lead on...
with crimson footprints following us."

As I felt the cold, metallic tip of the knife puncturing my flesh,
I squealed and whined as I carried the tip down my forearm.
The first sight of running blood gave me hope, I remember.

So, to ease my thudding heart and go quietly into the night,
I again cut down my forearm. White-hot pain
that I had never felt before, brought me to the realization

that this is what death feels like. So, I continued to recite
my suicide poem, "now our dance has ended -
down the forearm and to the wrist, tears of joy run thick and red!"

Before I died, my eyes came to rest on my friend's headstone
till they glazed over. I leaned back against the trunk of a yew tree
and my eyelids snipped out the orange evening light.

I felt the warmth of the descending sun fade from my face.
I could imagine the illumination of my eyes dimmed
in my long-awaited sunset, as it bled into the blue twilight of my life.

I awoke in rebirth at the witching hour. I lifted an eyelid and noticed
the earth washed in the milky hues of the full moon,
which itself shined white-hot. And there was mist, a vagueness.

"One hug," I muttered, "I just wish I could've given' ya one last hug."
Without parting my teary eyelids, I crawled over Frieda=s grave,
wrapped my bloody arms around her headstone and pressed my lips into the moss.

"Come back." Tears trickled into the moss. "Come back."
Then a breathy voice crept into my ear, "Klara." I hoisted a damp eyelid
and the chilly night gave a fresh chill to my bare, teary eye.

"Klara?" I heard again as both my eyelids unlocked from death.
I remember imagining that I would see an imposing gate to Hell,
in the backdrop of a blood-red sky while my guide would, at some point,

motion me to gaze at the heavens behind me -
and I would lay earthly eyes on that distant Paradiso.
One last look at what was the heaven of my life.

Once upon a long time ago  
in a country cottage there lived  
a grandma and her surprise gift  
from her dead daughter's unknown beau  
an unruly and awkward child  
coltish, doltish, a dreamer yet,
wouldn't learn her letters, made granny fret  
with troubling traits, like, running wild...
 
Now, granny had a little job  
working from home, with pen in fist,
writing children's rhymes with her nimble wrist  
five hundred words earned, just ten bob.
She started work on the stroke of five  
unaware of that silly kid  
tearing pages from her books, she did!  
and granny wondered, what the, strife?  
 
Well, the walloping of that silly lass  
took quite a while but changed her tune  
and after a day and night 'lone in her room  
came down contrite and cried, " alack alas."  
Granny took it on to teach her her letters  
and the magic of the written word  
and by force of words taught that flighty bird  
to fly and not be rude to her betters.
 
Granny kept on writing all the way through  
she reached the age of one hundred and one  
and that lass produced a fine grand son  
and granny lived, watched, till he grew...
" See, Gran, your pen, long since found  
your books, bound, repaired, from your files  
your pen writes now for older juveniles,  
and to be published soon by, Shuster & Brown..."

It's the year 1305,late nights at work keep me company. As a vet i have found a new hobby of dissecting animals trying to understand their anatomy, this i do as the hours pass by and thoughts of my dead wife hinder me from going home. In all my life times this one seems hardest, loneliness creeps at my door steps and only my knife under these animals can keep it away. You can only keep an animal at bay too long, monotony in these animals anatomy has created boredom and curiosity of other things apart from animals. One night as I am going home i find one a burger dying in the streets of a stab wound, i lean over to assist but I'm fascinated by this being i start cutting it open tearing it apart limb for limb organ for organ. What have i discovered why is this more fun. Aware of the atrocity i have committed i quickly dragged the body to the river, tonight i sleep better the troubles and sorrows disappear for a while. The fact that i feel no guilt makes me question my humanity did it die with that which i loved. A week goes by i try to go on dates so as to find healthier habits, but im an addict, in a dark ally i reach out to kiss my date, we get phunky i push her against a wall, i can see her vein on her neck pulsating triggering an urge i cant answer to at this moment. We get rough i lift her up against the wall as i turn her i accidentally twist her joint i say sorry she laughs a bit, but the urge grows i twist her arm again this time on purpose, she screams tells me to stop i press her pull out my knife and like the animals at the vet hospital i start dissecting a human alive. This time i don't dispose of the body, it's found in the morning neighbors claim they heard the lady scream jack no from an erotic tone to one a cry for help to disspair. I embark on a series of these activities as i gain notoriety as Jack the reaper.

      “Love for his unique race died long ago
But blood through pain and suffering is flavor for the flow,
      “Every skull surgical implanted in Papa Blood skin is that of a smurf
Uniquely tortured to death, but not before he heard their song of hurt,

      “Without the Smurfs knowledge he used evil magic for their protection
But with each use the evil was infecting his soul in nightmarish sections,
      “Sinister visions and sick laughter became a cancer within his mind
Some episodes became so intense he would wake up shitty and crying,

      “But the final trigger was the apocalyptic battle between Gargamel and Azrael
When Papa Smurf sacrificed the last of his goodness to the depths of hell,
      “His body expanded as his veins painfully tunneled within his flesh like worms
As his blood transformed into living hate and begin to burn,

      “Instantly on Azrael he executed a forbidden form of cannibalism
Then drugged a defeated Gargamel into the swamp to live the final days of scaphism,
      “Now Papa Blood, he returned weeks later to perform the ultimate crime
Genocide through torture of his own blue kind,

      “Through dead smurf bones he dripped hot blood into Brainy’s eyes
Keeping Brainy smurf fully awake while he was being lobotomized,
      “Smurfette was introduced to the pear of Anguish in the most extreme
With an evil smile every morning Papa Blood wakes up to her screams,

      “Clumsy smurf Papa Blood magically manipulated into an abused pet
Having Clumsy to commit suicide by hanging himself by the neck,
      “Papa Blood showed Jokey smurf the ultimate killing joke
When he castrated Jokey and forced his dick down his throat,

      “Handy smurf creation was magically warped that broke his smurfy heart  
In front of Handy’s own eyes Clockwork smurf tore Grandpa and Baby smurf apart,
      “With Grouchy smurf he amplified his black love for hate
Turning him into a mindless savage who murders smurfs followed by sick rape,

       “Papa Blood’s torture tactics within evil circles have become renowned
Even Ungol the Leprechaun gives him sinister respect, but with a twisted frown,
      “Those smurfs that ran Papa Blood can find them any place
Because embedded within their soul is Papa Bloods evil face”.  

in tobacco tar night, and
we’re singing the usual:

“ I  C A N ’ T  G E T  N O ! ”

But your voice
shakes, buckles,

your eyes blaze
with disintegration.

What’s going on?
What’s up?

Why so hasty
to put away the phone?

I try to probe (gentle, now!):
“Is anything…. Ah…”

Tears seep like oil
from a shoddy car.

“It’s just…”
you begin,

“Are we doomed, not blessed,
to be free?

And Ian’s breaking up with me.”

“Oh! There, there,” I say
(a little feebly)

“It’s okay,”
you say,

“even if freedom’s a shackle,
nothing’s to say

we can’t do our best,

and anyway,
he was kind of a ****.”