Submissions by jasonedwarddias (Jason Dias)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
6th Nov 2017 1:14am
6th Nov 2017 1:14am
Excerpt from Driver
Driver appears in my new collection of short stories, The Endpoint of Sentience.
It never occurred to Regina to wonder how the driver found this place - she had never looked at a map or an atlas and had no obvious navigation system in the car. When the car pulled up alongside the right series of plots, though, she had to ask. "How did you know just where to go?"
"This was high on the list of probable visits, ma'am."
"I don't understand."
"A good driver anticipates the wishes of their client, ma'am. Perhaps I can help you carry your flowers?"
"No," she said,...
It never occurred to Regina to wonder how the driver found this place - she had never looked at a map or an atlas and had no obvious navigation system in the car. When the car pulled up alongside the right series of plots, though, she had to ask. "How did you know just where to go?"
"This was high on the list of probable visits, ma'am."
"I don't understand."
"A good driver anticipates the wishes of their client, ma'am. Perhaps I can help you carry your flowers?"
"No," she said,...
#PopCulture
476 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
25th Sep 2017 6:44pm
25th Sep 2017 6:44pm
Empty
I don't feel like writing today
But I write, I can't help it.
Resting is writing, writing is resting.
When I look at all my projects I feel
empty.
Empty as the white page gleaming aptly back at me.
I turn on the TV to escape the blank page,
the feeling of desolation that goes with it
and the show is a little too close.
I can't turn it off because it is about the emptiness I feel.
The jokes make me laugh but every laugh
turns into burning, dripping tears
and my chest shakes with weeping that is laughing.
One can't be without the...
But I write, I can't help it.
Resting is writing, writing is resting.
When I look at all my projects I feel
empty.
Empty as the white page gleaming aptly back at me.
I turn on the TV to escape the blank page,
the feeling of desolation that goes with it
and the show is a little too close.
I can't turn it off because it is about the emptiness I feel.
The jokes make me laugh but every laugh
turns into burning, dripping tears
and my chest shakes with weeping that is laughing.
One can't be without the...
#LifeAsAWriter
494 reads
0 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
12th Sep 2017 6:28pm
12th Sep 2017 6:28pm
Writing
Now I do feel like crying,
but who has time to cry?
It's time for working, too busy
To attend the inner workings of grief
of sadness
of tears that stab at the throat.
So I'll pretend that the sadness is hunger,
Try to eat something.
Unleavened bread, maybe, or salty meat.
Never mind that the scale says I eat too much grief.
After all, what have I got to be sad about?
It's not like anybody died.
But it's time to work, not to eat.
Time to write. Long stories for hard markets
that don't like sadness.
but who has time to cry?
It's time for working, too busy
To attend the inner workings of grief
of sadness
of tears that stab at the throat.
So I'll pretend that the sadness is hunger,
Try to eat something.
Unleavened bread, maybe, or salty meat.
Never mind that the scale says I eat too much grief.
After all, what have I got to be sad about?
It's not like anybody died.
But it's time to work, not to eat.
Time to write. Long stories for hard markets
that don't like sadness.
#LifeAsAWriter
491 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
16th Aug 2017 3:28am
16th Aug 2017 3:28am
A Monument
Soft under hand
A pillow in aggregate
That stretches from shattered cliffs out into the sea.
Feet strain to get purchase
A morning stroll
That will leave legs
Pleasantly aching.
One grain caught inside her clothing
Abrades, chafes,
Holds her awareness.
Later, she finds it on the floor of the bath.
So easy to wash it away,
Let clean municipal water
Flush it out to sea
By a long series of pipes
And processing plants.
But she puts the grain of sand on a shelf
Next to pictures of her friends,
A pet dog now...
A pillow in aggregate
That stretches from shattered cliffs out into the sea.
Feet strain to get purchase
A morning stroll
That will leave legs
Pleasantly aching.
One grain caught inside her clothing
Abrades, chafes,
Holds her awareness.
Later, she finds it on the floor of the bath.
So easy to wash it away,
Let clean municipal water
Flush it out to sea
By a long series of pipes
And processing plants.
But she puts the grain of sand on a shelf
Next to pictures of her friends,
A pet dog now...
#LifeCycle
472 reads
2 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
4th Aug 2017 3:47pm
4th Aug 2017 3:47pm
Dedication to Values of Pain
This book is dedicated to my dog, Scooby Doo.
If that seems unusual, allow me to explain. I buried my friend today. He has been dying for a few weeks now, the good days growing ever less frequent, the bad days less tolerable. He was thirteen or fourteen - nobody rightly knows as he was a shelter rescue. He has been part of our family for twelve years, and you could not ever ask for a better dog or a more loyal, loving companion.
The last couple of years I have worked mostly from the couch where I'm sitting now, writing this dedication. Aside from a few classes a week at the...
If that seems unusual, allow me to explain. I buried my friend today. He has been dying for a few weeks now, the good days growing ever less frequent, the bad days less tolerable. He was thirteen or fourteen - nobody rightly knows as he was a shelter rescue. He has been part of our family for twelve years, and you could not ever ask for a better dog or a more loyal, loving companion.
The last couple of years I have worked mostly from the couch where I'm sitting now, writing this dedication. Aside from a few classes a week at the...
#PopCulture
449 reads
1 Comment
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
13th May 2017 00:06am
13th May 2017 00:06am
Faded Chinese Ballroom
841 reads
2 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
16th Mar 2017 8:06pm
16th Mar 2017 8:06pm
Excerpt from To Remember Their Names (in progress)
What are they doing with Dobo?”
“Testing the new apparatus.”
The two men hauled him out of the cage. He did not fight until they got close to one of the standing frames. It took two more big people to hold his arms while the first two tied his wrists to the rings in the corners of the frame. They all stepped away, leaving Dobo hanging there with his arms high and his feet not quite touching the ground.
“Good so far,” Rogene said. “Now pay attention, boy. That wolf has eaten nothing for three days.”
Everyone cleared the arena floor and shut all the...
“Testing the new apparatus.”
The two men hauled him out of the cage. He did not fight until they got close to one of the standing frames. It took two more big people to hold his arms while the first two tied his wrists to the rings in the corners of the frame. They all stepped away, leaving Dobo hanging there with his arms high and his feet not quite touching the ground.
“Good so far,” Rogene said. “Now pay attention, boy. That wolf has eaten nothing for three days.”
Everyone cleared the arena floor and shut all the...
627 reads
2 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
6th Mar 2017 4:40pm
6th Mar 2017 4:40pm
Excerpt from To Bury Their Parents: Studies
Studies
"In the third century of the fourteenth dynasty, King Arionus was, we think, a woman. As does your mother, she wore a golden beard and a man's headdress. It is difficult to verify the assertion after so much time and following the loss of her tomb sometime in the middle fifteenth dynasty. Are you paying attention, Jul?"
Jul was a child of ten, with dark skin and hair, golden palms and soles. He wore a gold kilt as fitted his station. "Why should I?" he asked.
His teacher was a woman of indeterminate age, gray of skin, gray of hair, gray of eyes. Even her voice was gray....
"In the third century of the fourteenth dynasty, King Arionus was, we think, a woman. As does your mother, she wore a golden beard and a man's headdress. It is difficult to verify the assertion after so much time and following the loss of her tomb sometime in the middle fifteenth dynasty. Are you paying attention, Jul?"
Jul was a child of ten, with dark skin and hair, golden palms and soles. He wore a gold kilt as fitted his station. "Why should I?" he asked.
His teacher was a woman of indeterminate age, gray of skin, gray of hair, gray of eyes. Even her voice was gray....
532 reads
1 Comment
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
9th Jan 2017 2:46am
9th Jan 2017 2:46am
Excerpt from To Bury Their Parents
Prologue
She stared at her thumb.
Once, the woman had had a name. It was lost now, forgotten. Her identity was secure, though: she was the emperor. Just Emperor now. She knew what she was and a name was not needed.
Her thumb contained some of her identity. It was dark on one side and light on the other, golden and warm. The nail was white like the inside of an oyster shell. The pad had lines that swirled and twisted like eddies in a tide-pool as the waves go out.
“Emperor, we have brought you a prisoner.”
Her guard-captain. He had a name also but, like Emperor,...
567 reads
0 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
28th Oct 2016 10:18pm
28th Oct 2016 10:18pm
Exhalation
829 reads
1 Comment
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
25th Jun 2016 2:40pm
25th Jun 2016 2:40pm
In those days
In those days, I was thinner and my hairline was lower.
I could run faster and lift more.
In those days, I always held doors open for people,
And I never said “no” to a cookie.
Was the world a little greener, a little brighter?
Or is it the dull haze of nostalgia that makes me think so?
In those days I worked hard at life.
I have nothing to show for it,
Accomplished little of real value,
But I worked hard every day.
In those days I laughed at adversity.
I was in love in those days.
With whom I could not say.
With the grass and the trees,...
I could run faster and lift more.
In those days, I always held doors open for people,
And I never said “no” to a cookie.
Was the world a little greener, a little brighter?
Or is it the dull haze of nostalgia that makes me think so?
In those days I worked hard at life.
I have nothing to show for it,
Accomplished little of real value,
But I worked hard every day.
In those days I laughed at adversity.
I was in love in those days.
With whom I could not say.
With the grass and the trees,...
672 reads
3 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
22nd Jun 2016 3:44pm
22nd Jun 2016 3:44pm
You don't know
694 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by jasonedwarddias (Jason Dias)
