Overheard and undersigned

Posted in emotive with tags , , on May 2, 2012 by thecalibancan

Thoughts, smoky and elusive, hard to catch with sausage pork pie fingers, greasy, slippery -

Kiss and kill the aberration, torn sinew within you something broken,

A record off its grooves skittering and waving, dancing curvature strange and twisted,

grab ahold and choke the fucker out.

You know it.

Slimy and slippery mass lurking just behind the shriveled pineal gland,

A constant reminder of this wicked failure, how wrong

you’ve gone.

Wrong.

Another concept to be tossed out with notions of equality and common courtesy,

Foul abhorrent pig, for what once you stood like some strange unequivocal pariah -

So much we thought then, that this was ‘right’ and ‘good’ and ‘pure’.

Hatred comes in many colors, the worst of which I wore on my insides,

Shit stained and sodden curtains over the heart and mind,

Blanketing doubt and blotting out hope,

floating further down the vortex on liquid wings, colors burnt amber and sienna, burning -

There’s no answer on the other side of that demon.

Particular colors, these, strange shades,

The true path inwards,  a dark tunnel coated in oil,

Quicksand traps and pressure sensitive spikes screaming self loathing -

A runner too late out the gates, crawled to the hurdle and hurled,

To finally grip the light and extinguish thought of doubt and darker times.

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Breath

Posted in Schema, short story with tags on December 9, 2011 by thecalibancan

She sat in my passenger seat and closed the door, buckling the seat belt. She arched her back to holster her weapon, craning her modest chest outwards, captivating me with alabaster skin untouched by age or hardship. Nothing about this was making sense.

Waiting for me, she pulls out a soft pack of Camel Lights and a zippo, lighting the cigarette dangling between her pursed and pink lips so casually, flicking the lighter closed and turned to stare at me under roughly manicured bangs. Her eyes refocused from laughing at me to something behind me, something she didn’t like at all.

Reality came crashing back in at that moment, a chaotic wave on calm shores – a harsh and loud scream behind me, so full of anger and hunger and pain. The sound of shattered glass on tile, a rack being knocked down, I turned at the last to face what I had to imagine.

Its face. His? Hers? I have more and more difficulty telling as time goes on. Ravaged, certainly. Long jagged shattered teeth in between flaps of skin and sinew, milky white eyes dripping…something. You could almost call them tears. Vocal chords vibrating violently, a cry ripped forth from its bowels unholy. Sad.

Time always seems to slow down so close to death – it’s happened to me more than I really cared to admit, especially as my own particular disease got the better of me in the recent months. My reactions seem to have slowed. I can remember pulling up the shotgun like dragging a log through marshland, unable to comprehend why it wouldn’t leap to chore unbidden like the extension of my being I’d trained it to be.

I could see bones now, fingers, tatters of flesh flapping in the offending wind, impossibly long nails with god only knows what cultures beneath – what a thought that? Was I really concerned with bacterial infection in the face of something intent on killing me?

And her face flashed unbidden in my minds eye, the last time I’d seen her sneering at me in the dank club lighting, blowing smoke in my face and slamming her gin down – a flash then, an explosion of light and color and putrid mess.

Finally I’d pulled the trigger.

Standing in the aftermath heaving in shock I wiped…bits…from my eyes. The acrid stench of gunpowder and undeath filled the air, stinging my nostrils and making my eyes water. Remarkable how it never gets any easier.

Laughter behind me.

I turned about to see her, this random living being, clutching her sides as if they might burst. I cursed myself and grabbed my bag, making my way round to the drivers side.

“It’s…it’s been a while, ok?” I stammered as I threw the car into drive and peeled out.

She wouldn’t stop laughing.

“Its amazing you’ve lived THIS long,” She managed between gasps. “Like a fucking deer in headlights. Too cute.”

I didn’t respond, just staring at the road, pretending driving was that stressful and intense.

“It’ll be dark soon, so you’ll have to stay with me tonight.” She nodded absently, seeing elsewhere now.

Miles melted away into twilight, and the neighborhood began to come to life. Beady animal eyes, and something else, something taller, filled the sidewalks, just on the side of my periphery. I always avoided looking, acknowledging, but she seemed intrigued. Curious.

I always wished I could go faster.

She stared into the coming night unafraid, and I turned into my parking lot, the wrought iron gate shuddering closed behind me. Silence all the way into the room – as I opened the door I became acutely aware of the smell, the state of the place. When the world dies the last thing on your mind is being prepared for company. I didn’t exactly have a second place set at the ‘dinner table’.

Sitting down on my dingy dilapidated couch she pulls out her smokes again.

“You mind?”

I shook my head and grabbed a few glasses and a bottle from an otherwise empty cupboard and sat down next to her.

“Whiskey okay?”

She nods in assent and I pour a few healthy drams. “I haven’t smoked in a while, do you mind?” She smiles as I spark up.

“Call me Elle.” Elle. Her smile indicates I’m missing something.

“As in the letter?”

“Well, Vogue was taken.”

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Big Empty

Posted in short story with tags on December 8, 2011 by thecalibancan

I’d been through this parking lot 100 times before. I’ve seen each of these cars, even memorized a few license plates. The blue Camry with the passenger side door flung open and a single wool glove hanging from the seat belt buckle, the dark brown Chevy Astro van with every single door open and a car seat still buckled, cargo secure and still. I knew the names I’d given them, the mindless associations I’d crafted to keep me sane. There goes Cherry, the red ’93 Jeep Grand Cherokee with the missing spare tire, or Subaru Susan – but something was wrong today.

I couldn’t rightly put a finger on it, maybe my earlier hallucinations were tugging at the strings of my psyche, and maybe not, but the lot wasn’t so still today. So quiet. It seemed ready for me, eager in fact, as though the darkened street lights craned their majestic necks towards me, listening.

Waiting.

I parked as ever parallel to the front doors – which I’d propped open with mannequins many months ago, a sick joke I suspect like some welcoming party – and shut off the car, leaving the keys in the ignition and the door open. I slid out of the driver’s seat and slung my bag over my shoulder, grabbed my shotgun and was almost through the door when I spotted it, flapping in the sudden breeze.

A scarf, wrapped lazily around the front male mannequin.

I’d never bothered to dress these poor sentinels up, and now that all he wore was a simple scarf they did seem naked. More importantly than that, at the moment, was the fact that it seemed a bit silly to suspect this scarf had blown its way here.

No time now, the sun was setting fast and my options wearing thin, as was my buzz.

Hauling ass into the nearby mens section, I grabbed at a pile I’d set up one industrious day, pulling at as many outfits as I could fit into my oversized duffle. Slacks, jeans, Armani dress shirts and blazers, socks, boxers, hats – anything and everything. Now that civilization had ended my sense of fashion finally blossomed, when I could dress for the Big Empty to see.

“Quite the sense of style you’ve got there.”

And my world imploded.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard words – I didn’t even dare watch movies these days, given the amount of fuel I’d stored for my generator I preferred to conserve. Words.

Not mine, raucous late night ramblings whispered beneath my breath, grumbling utterances not even audibly words. An actual, fully formed sentence.

The shock sent me staggered, whipping up the shotgun and staring at empty space like some deaf, drunk mute.

“I’m over here, silly.”

More words. I wish she’d stop it.

She?

I turned to my left, hazily waving the shotgun. She leaned against the watch counter, staring at her hands.

“Oh hi,” She said, cutely picking at her nails and smiling. “Surprised?”

It was all I could do to nod. She kept staring at me, mouth pulled to one corner in a demure smirk. My eyes adjusted to assessing a living being and drank her in, gentle curves from tip to toe. No harsh angles, she was plump enough to indicate regular nutrition.

5’4″, maybe 135 pounds, jet black hair (dyed? Really?), shockingly blue eyes and gorgeous full lips. And makeup! As if headed out to the bar on a Friday night. A cute little ensemble outfit, tight jeans and white (completely unblemished) halter top.

By this point I imagine I was staring.

She pulls a massive (for her size) Smith and Wesson Model 29 from behind her back (.44 Caliber, if I recalled correctly) and cocked back the hammer. I knew that gun – specifically what model, the size, etc, – because i’d been staring at it in B&B guns for months earlier that year.

I’d decided against it because it seemed a bit too tricky to reload in the heat of the moment.

“Look, it’s getting late, and as much as I’d like to chat, I’d also like a drink. Can we get a move on?”

Speechless still I zipped up my bag and threw it on my back once more. She led the way out to my car.

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Taut

Posted in short story with tags , on November 22, 2011 by thecalibancan

Later that night I drifted away again, sometime in the early hours of the morning, the fascinating glow from my electric lantern bathing my face in hallucinations of a better place, and my eyes closed, my head rocking back on my shoulders. Its hard to read after half a bottle of Jameson.

It seemed to me now that no one would recognize this man i’d become, or even what I’d been when they knew me. Somethings been growing inside of me, gestating, a bastard child of rebellion and dust, and my term is long overdue. Even she, demon of my dreams and desire, so innocent and perfect, couldn’t have understood what it was like or what is to come of me in the days After.

I don’t understand what started it, how it ended, or even where it was going – but I knew I was going. And soon.

Dreams of disgusting deeds drifted through my demesnes, darkness deep inside me I didn’t even know dwelt for so long, death and disease…I could feel my grasp on reality rotting, even as the world proper fell to pieces. Breathing in the walls, a whisper on the side of my shoulder, soft claws parting my hair from behind to enter my mind. Something so close, my soul opens like arms to an embrace of evil entire, warmth like blood on my skin, trickling down my chest, where my heart should’ve been and a shudder shakes me awake -

Shock.

eyes opening slowly the first thing I saw was my chest. The shirt I’d been wearing, some Ralph Lauren knock off, was ripped clean open. A thick knit polo, torn in half. My chest was gouged deeply, with a surprising amount of blood, dripping onto the carpet.

I lift my fingers to my eyes, and see the blood and skin beneath them. Was this a sign?

Was it happening to me too?

Couldn’t be. Just the insanity taking over, maybe too much booze and the loneliness – I was supposed to be safe. Ok. Untouchable. I ripped off the remains of my shit, mind reeling like some twisted circus calliope, and stumbled over to the bed. How does this happen? How do I know when it’ll happen again? Was it really me?

Seems like time is folding, shrinking, and my thoughts fly to Dune, a book by Frank Herbert I’d read recently to pass the time, and suddenly i’m in the hands of the Bene Gesserit, my hand in the box. ‘Fear is the Mindkiller’ but I wonder now if fear is in fact the culprit or something else, something darker, more present and tangible.

I pour whiskey over the wounds and puke in my bathing bucket, battling the beast within.

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Sky fucked

Posted in descriptive, emotive, stream of consciousness with tags on November 21, 2011 by thecalibancan

Dancing along the edge of this black knife,

Sorting emotions and suggestions like voters cards in decrepit hands -

who really gives a shit, we’re just pretending it matters.

Anyway.

Move with me – I’ve seen you do it. So many others I can trace their hands

on your flesh and lift the prints like some CSI prick -

Not saying it matters but can we play at perfection?

I pick you up again with a sigh, knowing the game

doesn’t make it any easier.

Spin!

Back around and into my arms I dip your head into the clouds,

to paint beauty into your hair.

Someone has to.

Lifted and twirled you drag me forward unwittingly, such a

graceless gyration.

You first came to me in a dark club, spread my legs and grabbed my cheeks

pulled into a kiss not unwilling, but rather unaware.

Knowing you had me your tongue snaked out my soul

and spat it on the dance floor.

You grabbed my hand and led my through the writhing masses,

turned pivot point perfect, your hands around my neck,

brilliant blue eyes piercing we locked momentum.

Still no words, walking out with lit cigarettes I offered you one and you shook your head,

pulling out a menthol (god I hate menthols) you pushed me into a cab.

You push a piece of paper into the cabbies hand and lay yourself on top of me,

pushing in hard, your breasts crushing my chest your hands moving mine to grip your ass,

biting lips and chewing tongue.

I could still hear the bass in my blood, pumping and throbbing,

never so awake and aware.

I awoke in a shitty hotel room with your card on my naked groin.

So here we are again, equipped at the least with names,

dancing naked amongst the stars.

And I love you, and I say it, and you laugh so callous,

pull me in again for another empty and beautifully cold kiss,

passion permanent in the lines around your lips,

I never stood a chance.

Really, this was all your fault.

Naked in the grass a wasp alights on my tongue,

the stinging burning waking me. Instinct driven I bite down, sucking its life

from the crushed carapace. To taste something alive again.

Like a tarantula in a thunderstorm I inch forward, the trail of blood on the grass

growing a deeper shade of shame.

I can see it on the table.

Bright red and still pulsing, my heart pumps the last bits out into the night air like a sputtering boat engine on dry land.

Remembering her smile words unbidden leap to mind as he sorts out how to sew shut the hole,

“Some just like to watch the world burn”

He steps up to the table and pulls the meat towards him,

A last loving caress, and it shudders to a stop.

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smile love laugh stroke and shower

Posted in bending bukowski, emotive on November 16, 2011 by thecalibancan

Drunk again and wandered

some strange thematic variations

but really more of the same.

Given a reason its the weight of persuasion,

beast of burden and bottle burned and buried -

I’d call it wasted but mostly just time.

empty and yellow

another dram of excuses and useless -

the only true laughter -

As if in that moment dangling by a rope,

Skull briefly separated from spine,

The weightless pressure of freedom.

Dead passion, this emptiness. Begging the introspection -

Possibly incapable, I lack the motivation to solve her mysteries

but most especially my own.

Naked in the mirror wavering and wondering.

why though.

stylings of submission and subjugation, sussurations speaking silent misgivings made mortal methods medieval.

Movements mimicked not meant.

Massive mistakes made love linger, sweet stench in the air allowing amicable release, shook loose my soul with stillness,

the gentle finger nail dragged along your cheekbone

and shivered.

Cold creeping consequence denied death and driven into evening, examined your entirety and fed futilely on your focus. “Give up and get going”, holding my handsome horror. In intimate intricate impositions I improvised – and the cracks began to show.

that’s the problem with a mask.

I closed my eyes and spun backwards,

into my own mind and down,

waking up on the floor again those little bits of broken glass,

rubbed between my hands as if to make them sand,

beautiful red and carpeting,

splashing,

shouting inwards and up, like a bright golden torch through the top of my head,

These wings.

To die again and again each night, fifteen thousand lives in years,

remembered only occasionally at the bottom of a glass

of tears

and they struggle to drown the rest, my third eye swimming.

Shit.

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Another fucking haiku

Posted in emotive on November 6, 2011 by thecalibancan

New gray horizons

Another mystery lost

And I dreamed I died

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