House Of Bones
I hear you in the yawning thaw
Of a thousand chilled whispers
Through weeping fields
Of scorched beryl bounty.
Under a fallen sun’s kiss
Dusk’s latent funeral
Is a thirsty sinking light
A humble bow and burn.
The black eyed angel in the courtyard
Is overcome
By the violent bloom
Of rose petal skies.
I’ve returned
Suited in shadow black
To mourn an empty house
Where love now starved
Once lived.
I think aloud
That a house
Was never meant
To be a grave.
Winter leaks
Through the lace
Of my razed soul
Its viper hiss
Boiled kettle steam
Its ear splitting blasts
An ugly and frosted scream
Of cogent volume.
This house
Is both sanctum and storied sadness
And salts the wounds
Of freshwater streams
And rains a teary cascade
All ire and vinegar
Where diver’s depths
Can never reach.
My heart starts to bleed.
I take these weathered feet
To walk again through glass and ghosts
And stir back to life
The symphonic thunder
Of muted dreams
Delivered from the hourglass clutch
Of time’s charlatan beast.
The rustic music box wakes up
Her porcelain chipped dancer
Eyeing the hollowed rooms
In an untamed rickety loop
Spinning weakly
To love’s lost songs of doom.
I think that I must go
And let these memories weep
So I close the sighing door
To let the skeletons sleep.
Crushed
It doesn't scare others
that I like the slaughter
of flowers,
and find it worthy
of our center table.
But I worry
about the ants
in funeral procession
who come
with respect
to their end,
beneath a thumb
that gently rearranges
my fragrant wilting bouquet
--This symbol
of our infatuation
with Life & Death--
only my Heart
will understand,
in the great unsaid
static shock divide,
how it is
Love also dies.
A closer look...
The man walks up, and stands by a lake...
Man standing by a lake looks down...
The lake is clear...
The lake is wide...
It stretches like a flat cool blade
Out into distant horizon line...
Ir seems so calm...A bird flies out...
There's stones beneath it's still, wide face...
Red, green, and brown...kelp floats about...
Uh oh...Here we go!...
The lake is doin a jig, hey, shit...
A swirling eddy has opened up and the man's becoming
Fascinated...
"What's this he says?..."
A funnel spout of water ripples; wraps around
Like arm in arm...
The sun reflects in spots, and shimmies...
His mind's eye dances down the drain...
There's writhing fish, and algae, coral spinning
Within the soup that's churning mad...
The man is in vortex of thought...
Watching colleague stretch her back...
She asks him why he asks such things...
He tell her cuz he thinks too much...
He's on his phone; chats with his boss...
His boss tells him he'll pay his miles...
A rainbow fish brawls with the tide...
Man feels an ache within left eye...
His boss tells him record your miles...
Fat sun now dips like tongue of dog...
The man is plunged down in the eddy...
Maybe he'll come out other side?...
He fights the onslaught of swirling pools
That soak his jacket, and fill his shoes...
While death is nearing, a voice approaches
Out of the darkness...so warm and rich...
It sounds quite husky, with cave acoustics...
It asks him with a funny swagger
To let his last breath free and come...
Share in the new life at the bottom...
An epiphany he'd never guessed...
The sunset cascades out from water;
Changing the sky from blue to gold...
The boss's voice from tunnel echos...
"I want to pay you...Just chart your miles..."
The lake is clear...The man is gone...
Two birds fly in and skim the waves...
7/9/24
Bunny Villaire
School Spirit
Welcome to where school spirit
Has no class
And
Comes to die.
Exit the bullseye daggers
That pockmark childhoods’s scalded pig belly
And give a greased pitchfork’s prod
To eat itself alive,
As death chases its galaxy coiled tail
And plunges your corner painted pariahs
Into the silent snares of icy waters
As your dark laughs
Are carried with the black current,
Trauma captives
Tethered to the wayward whim
Of your brutish fancy,
Still recalling the way
Your bronzed power suit
Towered over me
And pronounced me the class idiot
And a grandstanding faux extraordinaire
From the wrong side
Of our nowhere two horse town
Slain on wraparound morphine tracks.
Then you marked me a legend
But in my own mind,
When I was 16
And already being skinned alive
By the roving predators
In the mangling machine of life,
Yet whatever devil spawned
The bullying ogre of your throwaway words,
Shredded my black and blue heart
Until I was only ash
And vacant eyes.
I think you pissed on the carpet of my soul,
Just because you could.
But whatever,
So long
Farewell
Find God
Plant a tree.
Your cheerleaders have long since gone home.
But I Stayed Anyway…
We were in a state of irreparable decay. Now dull after being once so shimmery. But I stayed anyway.
Withering away like leaves in the autumn we kept sinking further into misery hoping to reach the ocean’s bottom.
I was comfortable in the agony only because we had enough history to alleviate our shared apathy.
What happened to us? It isn’t that much of a mystery. There was simply an inflated amount of distrust.
I have overstayed my welcome. Leaving now will reduce injury. Our relationship’s death has come.
Our relationship’s bones have grown weary, and I’ll miss him. I know it’s self-contradictory. The sad truth is that we were better in theory.
Someone Else
Days like these
it’s hard for me to be at ease
with the girl in the mirror.
Self-hated consumes me.
Convinced everyone else agrees
that I lack value.
Days like these
I beg my maker, “please
let it be my time to go."
Living in exhaustion
of never having the option
to leave me.
Days like these
I resent my disease
to feel everything so deeply.
Violent disgust with myself
makes me wish I was someone else
then maybe I could accept my reflection.
“LOVE”
My husband is dead. It is a sad day; I, along with twenty-seven other women all dressed as brides march behind the casket with downcast faces weeping. We do not weep for our husband. We weep for each other.
My name is Aite. I am the youngest of my husband’s wives and, at eighteen years old I have already born three children into the world-twin boys, Draco and Acheron, and a girl named Eris. They will not ever know their father really, they won’t remember him. I like it that way.
Most children in noble families never know their father, they only meet him-unless they are the eldest. I live in a strange country-on an island. I only believe our culture to be strange because of the white man who got lost at sea and joined us here a year ago. My husband commanded that he be received into my home and cared for-as the youngest and hence least privileged of his wives, it was my duty to show the rule of hospitality.
The white man’s name is John. He is not handsome like my husband or my boys. But he is kind. And learned our language well. There is no way off the island so he can only choose between us and death. John spent many nights telling me about the other lands in the world-the ones where there is only one wife no matter how noble a man is.
He says we are one of few cultures that still live this way. He has not quite been here a year so he does not know yet how strange we are. He will find out today.
I hold my baby girl in a sling on my back and I clutch the hands of my two little boys on either side of me. I stare at the floor as we process to the cave where we shall bury my husband with his long dead ancestors.
When we arrive, the rest of the village has already congregated. John stands among them, watching-confused. There is a strange air in the crowd today, he cannot understand all the words they say but he can feel the tension. He catches my eye. I was wrong, he is handsome. He tells me I am beautiful, I do not listen. He smiles at me and I look away. This is not a day to smile.
I wonder if perhaps my sister was right, and John loves me. But love is a strange word and only used for those who are married or should be married and I was already married.
The priest stands beside the casket, he takes my husband’s empty head and cuts a lock of hair from it. He beckons the oldest of my husband’s sons-son of his second wife-to stand beside him. The boy eats the hair and looks up at the sky. The priest takes a knife and carves an ‘X’ shape on the boy’s shoulder, he yells.
The ‘X’ is to let the gods in. He is our king now, and his first son, a small boy if his first wife, shall be our next king.
John winces as the knife cuts the boy and looks away, pained. He does not believe in the gods. I don’t know what I think anymore. I find myself more skeptical every day. John is right, they don't make sense. But they are all I have ever known.
The priest wipes the blood off of the knife and turns to the body. The boy lifts his father’s corpse and places it on the altar. The priest lifts an old sac, inside the sac are twenty-seven white rocks and one black one.
Our young king takes the sac and walks along the rows of women dressed as brides, each woman grasps a pebble and holds it tight so no one can see the color. I am the youngest so I go last. I take the only rock remaining.
I feel my heart rate rise as I run my fingers over the smooth pebble. I breathe in and out-I am afraid. I look up at John, he looks at me and smiles, he nods his head ever so slightly as if to tell me it’s all alright. I give a tiny smile back and tear my eyes from him and back to the ground.
The priest signals to us and we hold our right hands out fist down with the rock inside. He counts to three. I feel my little baby girl squirming in her pack, she has a cold-she is fussy. My two little boys cling to the hem of my skirt, frightened by all the people and new sounds-tired from the long trek up the mountain.
I remember when our old king died, I was seven. I didn’t understand then what happened, but I understand now and my heart feels cold.
Twenty-eight brides open their hands in the dim dusk light for all to see. Twenty-seven brides smile with relief as twenty-seven white rocks shine back at them. And I stare blankly at the cold black rock in my hand. I swallow. After the initial relief my sisters begIn to look around for the chosen one, slowly all eyes find me and they move out of the way so the priest can see me.
My heart is racing. I can hear it in my ears and I blink up at the priest blankly. I feel my sister’s hands gently taking my little girl off of my back. I turn and take one last look at my baby. My sister’s husband pries my little boys from my skirt and they start to cry.
I kneel down so they can see my face, “Hush,” I whisper, “Look at my face, remember my face…Take care of your sister, and tell John that I want him to protect you. All of you, especially your sister. Understand? Do you understand?”
They nod. I hug each one and I stand brushing off my white skirt. I let the pebble drop to the earth where it belongs and I lift my chin up. My body is trembling. I walk forward one foot at a time, it is an agony. I am afraid. I am afraid.
I look at John, he looks frightened, and confused. My sister and her husband have reached him. Draco and Acheron clutch John’s legs and he lifts them both. I think he has some idea of what is to happen, but it is not normal nor is it natural-not to him and not me. My boys bury their faces on his two shoulders, I know they will be alright. They will be honored, all three of my children will, what I do is an honor and my children will reap the reward.
I have reached my dead husband’s face. He looks no different now. I kneel by his coffin. The priest speaks, I do not listen. The corpse before me was once alive, only he looks no different, there was no light in his eyes to disappear so there has been no change in his sallow appearance. I believe my sister was right, he never loved me nor did I love him. I love John. And John loves me.
I turn my head to look once more at my children. Their faces are covered, I am thankful for that, I do not want them to see. I look at John and I see tears rolling down his face. ‘Love’, the only word from his native tongue that he taught me.
He whispers it, no one understands but me. And I whisper it back. He smiles and begins to weep. I stand and begin to weep too.
I am lifted by the priest and my young king onto my husband’s body. His arms are placed around me and we are chained together, in life and in eternity. I do not know if the gods are real, I believe there is some God. I do not know His name, but I believe that we are wrong. A real God would not ask us to bury ourselves.
I do not believe in our gods but I believe in some God, and I love Him and I am sure He loves me, even though I do not know His name. I breathe in and out trying to calm myself and find peace.
My husband and I are lowered into the grave in the cave. I look up at the ceiling and picture John’s face as they begin to sprinkle the earth upon me. My husband's cold hands clutch mine. And I feel sick as there is less and less air to breath. My body begins to shudder and convulse and I stuff my mouth with the fabric of my wedding dress. I will not let my children hear me scream. I hope John does not let them see.
I close my eyes and open my mouth, I am filled with dirt.
Goodbye.
My Dodge Charger had seen better days
My Dodge Charger had seen better days
June 11, 2024
I was at the end of my line, at the end of Montana State Route 245, nearly 40 miles west of Jordan. The check engine light was bright and because I hadn’t paid much attention to it, I wasn’t.
So, I placed the transmission in neutral and coasted just to the crest of the next hill. With the only luck I had seen this morning, a small town (three buildings) lay at the bottom of the hill on the (now) unpaved road. The Dodge may not always work as I want it to, but it can coast with the best.
I pulled into what looked like a garage and there the Dodge died. It would take money (I had) and time (I didn’t have) to achieve its resurrection. I opted not for a horn, but for a personal greet with the proprietor of this establishment.
Who emerged was a young woman of average size, wearing the customary coveralls of every grease monkey depicted in every movie I have ever seen.
I introduced myself as Jacob. She began removing her gloves before introducing herself as Constance. Over the next few minutes, I explained my urgency to have the Charger repaired. She inquired if I had the finances to expedite such a request. Opening up my wallet, I removed the credit card. Constance just laughed. “Around here, plastic is only good for waterproofing. You’ll need cash.” I acquiesced and gave her $500 down to convince her I was serious. She took the money, holding onto my hand just a bit longer than was necessary. Her smile said she was interested in more than repairing my vehicle.
“It will take a day or so. I have an old Dodge truck I have been parting out, out back. Until then, you might want a bite to eat and a room to sleep. Both are across the street. I’ll keep you updated as to my progress.” I handed her the keys and made my way to the hotel. I am sure her eyes kept close watch as I walked.
I might have to spend a little quality time in these parts more often.
Upon entering, I discovered Constance working behind the desk. Only this wasn’t Constance. She must have been watching me with Constance as she introduced herself as Lorelei, a sister of Constance. Had I been more aware of anything other than the uniqueness of finding fairly attractive twins in such an isolated locale, I would have picked up on her grammar.
That was the first of many mistakes I would make that day.
She said she overheard my conversation (she was blushing at this time) and already knew my name, Jacob.
“Well then, do you have a room for the night?” It was the obvious next part of the conversation.
Walking behind the counter, she turned the ledger of guest’s signatures for me to make my addition.
“It will be $40 a night and that includes a hot bath. If you want meals, they are $10 each. We have a small bar with a few bottles to choose from if you are of the imbibing type. Prices are negotiable depending if you can impress the bartender with your charm and a story of the outside world.”
I gave Lorelei enough money for a day of rest, feasting, and possibly more. She took the money as I signed in, tucking it under her bra strap for safe keeping. Turning to the keys, she gave me the one for Room 5. “Upstairs and at the end of the hall. You can’t miss it.”
I tipped my hat and gave Lorelei a wink as I walked the flight toward my room. I wondered about the odds of finding myself in such a place. There must be a father or a husband present, somewhere. I could have wandered the area, but the clean bed covered with the large quilt made me decide on a few hours of nap time first.
When I awoke, I discovered a pitcher of water resting in a basin. Two small towels and a bar of soap sat abreast of these items. I never heard anyone enter, but I was pleased they did.
I checked the closet and found a white shirt, freshly starched, that fit me perfectly. No such luck in the drawers for any other clothing. Since I cleaned up well, I made an effort to make the bed, dust off my boots, and run my fingers through my hair to look as presentable as possible.
Then, and only then, I descended the stairs.
The smell of coffee wafted through the corridor. I heard the sizzle of something from the kitchen. I discovered the dining room with a table set for four. Perhaps I was not the only guest here today. I wanted to sit down, but I awaited an invitation first.
I did not have to wait for long.
In walked Constance, but not Constance. She looked like Lorelei, but something was different. I held my tongue as I would if I drew quad aces and the big blind began raising.
“Sugar, do you require an engraved invitation? Go on! Sit down and eat while it's still hot.” I moved as ordered, but remained slack jawed none-the-less.
I had to ask, but I couldn’t.
Right then, Constance and Lorelei entered to introduce me to their sister, Annalise. They were indeed identical triplets and began telling me the story of their life.
Their parents moved here before their births, seeking isolation from a world incompatible to a pair of Luddites (their term, not mine). Since their deaths from old age, six years ago, the three of them continue their Spartan lifestyle earning just enough to get by. Rarely does anyone come calling, even rarer do any of the three leave. Only a monthly run into the nearest town of Jordan or a fishing expedition into the adjacent wildlife refuge disrupts their placid existence.
“And we prefer it to remain that way”, Annalise interjected.
When pried for a similar tale, I stopped eating my pork chop to reveal that I was single (smiles from Constance and Lorelei) and in my “wandering mode”, living off savings, waiting for that turn of events that could straighten out my life.
Then I sipped the coffee.
The rest of the meal consisted of a few jokes, an inquiry into my musical abilities (could I sing or play an instrument), and what makes me happy. None of the three cared about politics, or fashion styles, or celebrity status. Their life was a charmed life, simple to the core, and oddly wonderful to someone somewhat interested in all it had to offer.
When finished, Constance and Lorelei cleared the table while Annalise took me by the hand to the bar.
“You look like a whiskey guy.”
“I never turned down one yet.”
The rest of the night included a few dances, a few laughs, and a few stolen glances. All three sisters gave as good as they got.
As the night rolled on, I forgot to ask about my Dodge repair status. It could wait until the morning. I also dispense with polite conversation in response to pointed questions from the three.
Constance enjoyed moving her hands across my shoulders as she passed by where I sat. Lorelei was more of a stare into your soul with her big brown eyes. Annalise gave the pretext of reading my palms to hold my hands.
I was feeling the effects of the whiskey and the charms of the ladies. If I didn’t make a choice (how could anyone make a choice?) they might make it for me. Would that be so bad? If I picked one, I would remain here with the other two, forever. There are worse lives than that.
One more shot, one more attempt to stand up. The former I conquered. The latter conquered me. I heard Annalise ask for help as the three of them escorted me to my bed.
I did not resist.
Perhaps I should have.
By morning, by which I mean just past 2 am, I found myself sewn into the quilt, almost mummified. The sisters stood over me, donned in red velvet robes with heavily applied, garish, makeup. They were chanting incomprehensibly, swaying in a synchronistic manner, invoking images of witches and ghouls of ancient lore.
Was there a pentagram in blood on the floor? Was I to be a sacrifice?
I wanted out of there. I leapt up and (bean bagged raced) jumped out the only window, crashing through the glass, falling one story to the dust below. The cuts loosened the quilt’s hold on me, permitting me to escape.
An escape I did. Through the night, naked, running without stopping.
A local sheriff found me and arrested me for a series of crimes ranging from vagrancy to indecent exposure to trespassing. I tried to bail myself out, but my credit cards were maxed out and I (now) have outstanding warrants for identity theft in both Los Angeles and San Francisco.
I told the Sheriff I had never even been to California. He told me to keep quiet and be thankful that I was still alive.
When I get out, if I get out, I am never coming back to Montana again.
My Ford had seen better days.
I was at the end of my line, at the end of Montana State Route 245, nearly 40 miles west of Jordan. The check engine light needed the attention that I failed to pay it miles before.
I had no choice but to keep going. I managed to crest the next hill. With the only luck I had seen this morning, a small town (three buildings) lay at the bottom of the hill on the (now) unpaved road. The Ford may not always work as I want it to, but it has never failed me.
I pulled into what looked like a garage and there the Ford died. It would take money (I had) and time (I didn’t have) to achieve its resurrection. I opted not for a horn, but for a personal greet with the proprietor of this establishment.
Who emerged was a young woman of average size, wearing the customary coveralls of every grease monkey depicted in every movie I have ever seen.