sunshine.

rainbows.

unicorns.

my enemy's

tough skins

melted off

and we made

amends.

chocolate.

ice cream.

sugar.

the weatherman

said today

it will never

rain again

(but the weather

shall remain nice

and temperate)

glitter.

sequins.

gold.

all my conflicts

have suddenly vanished.

away,

onto some

unfortunate soul

that isn't me.

i love it.

despite being

bored

to

death.

You cupped your ear...

it seemed big enough

to listen though

You yourself

were fading

in the distance

I thought

you couldn’t hear

all that much

And yet

for sure

you reappeared

larger than life

in my rearview mirror

your limbs looming

over all we ever did

08.03.2020

...Forshortened challenge @Last

Am I killing the Sun?

Its fillial smile waning

before the dawn's begun...

All my sins since twilight

come seeping in and new

embarassments! Sssmear

across the clean horizon

...While a light is still

arising and abiding

final judgements

might overcome,

dissipate again

the harm my

wanton acts

have done?

...My time,

no Time!

in itself

has its

sum

...

I'd take credit I know

if credits were rolled;

the Sun has ample

measure though...

and I've only killed

another Day...

08.02.2020

The killing of a celestial being challenge @friendly_cynic

just a familiar stranger

whose fate lies in my hands

and mine in yours

traits hereditary

names unnecessary

i've met you sometime before

before i was encapsulated by flesh

before i was bound to a beating heart

before i adorned my shackles with diamonds

remember the light

reflecting off of you because it was reflecting off of me

how we danced a dance which required no physicality

just being and understanding

i am you and you are me

the smallest kernel

every talent in the world

in fire... shall explode

08.01.2020

Write a short poem about popcorn challenge @Isabellamb

“STARLESS and Bible Black” is a collection of interrelated short stories in which I use science as a backdrop to put humanism in the foreground. This succeeds in rendering a fascinating juxtaposition of cosmic effect and psychological affect.

GENRE: SciFi/humanism

AGE: 14+

WORD COUNT 45,000

AUTHOR: Gerard DiLeo

A GOOD FIT: it appeals to those looking for a theme not explored previously.

HOOK: Our world thrown a cosmic screwball.

TARGET AUDIENCE: SciFi fans, intellectuals, curious, offbeat/quirky, esoteric, philosophers.

SYNOPSIS: STARLESS and Bible Black centers on a common premise that we are suddenly alone in the universe: on a crisp, clear night the stars and other planets vanish from our night sky. Suddenly, mysteriously, and totally. Would you really miss them? As science scrambles to explain it scientifically, scholars wax philosophical on existentialism, religions fall victim to irrelevance, and the rest of the world scrambles to try to make sense of what has happened. Individuals--each visited via a short story--must deal with the effect the phenomenon has on him or her. Why should this change anything? The stars had no tangible effect before they left. Why should their absence even matter?

The stories center on religion, fanaticism, financial markets and capitalism, coming of age, sexual encounters, the common man, and other motifs. It interweaves humor, pathos, and several other facets of the human condition. STARLESS and Bible Black explores our perspective of place in the universe, whether we notice or not.

BIO: I am a retired MD writing full time now, with an interest in introducing themes based on science into stories that center on humanism.

HOMETOWN: Boston, from New Orleans.

This book is completed. Please request a PDF if interested. Thanks.

I hold multitudes of ideas

with paper hands,

each a spectral amalgam dyed in

the fleeting, busy shades of life:

innocence, experience,

my weary-youthful brand an

artisanally awkward blend of both...

Ideas,

waiting for pendulum pens to realize,

and gift relative permanence to their

scattered echoes.

Ideas,

like an evanescent sand,

searching to find the small of

the hourglass and

make a grand(ly clumsy) escape.

To soar away with the color of

ideas; to taste the night beyond

self-wrought bars of radio silence,

white-noise-dipped thought.

For now...

Ideas rest dormant in the depths of

smooth hands.

And I’m here...

Waiting with

trapped breath, for age to

perch at trembling fingertips

and vein its way through my

gasping system.

I wasn’t re—

And then...

Waiting for neglected ideas

to be tapped;

and to spill carelessly-awry from

the fissures of my core.

Years softly evaporate.

Ideas rest restlessly,

electrically shiftless,

erratically dead.

The neglect decays all it touches,

and what once danced on

an irregular smile and painted a child’s

powdery laughter collapses on itself

and tumbles, resigned, into a black hole.

Ideas rest dormant in the depths of

cold hands.

Now unable to be realized.

#fiction