Lost time in cold, leaden fields
Forsaken epochs, unable to yield
Shadow desires, darkly concealed
I wear my armor like a beaten shield
Stone-faced, aching, my fate is sealed
Blood on my body swiftly congeals
And you, my love, are not here
A tender touch to tell me
Everything will be okay
And this dark landscape
Is but a fleeting nightmare
Along the river, the dream skyline beckons to me. Awash in frosted colors of winter, a mixture of cool blues, greens, and yellows, each light is a thousand people burning and dying away. Those high skyscrapers and towers shooting from cold, neon concrete, and those burning people screaming in agony in unison, is the perfect nightmare chorus for this evening.
The river water reflects the shades of my character flaws. A little bit of gluttony, lust, pride, and other deadly sins, a watery grave to put them in. I’m approaching the harbor with my doppelgänger, a slightly deformed version of myself; the eyes are too sunken, the teeth too sharp, and the appetite too large.
Continue reading “Nightmare Within the Nightmare (microfiction)”
The searchlight found the devil
Hiding in plain sight
He has always been a vessel
For the children of the night
He sees me in my dreams
I can never quite escape him
Whenever I go to scream
He peels off my skin
Tangled up, perpetual twisting
Gazing at the gray horizon,
The silent sky falls and
Blankets me, as we always knew
It would, as it was predicted
By preachers of parasites.
When the sky falls, all is one –
stars ignite the Earth, and I am
The last man alive – but this
Is only a recurrent nightmare,
My analyst says,
We snake thru the glorious night,
red lights shining in angry eyes
searching for honey that’s in the
blood-fields, the tundra that’s
thawing as spring comes upon us
like hell-fire visions –
Continue reading “Night Terrors (a poem)”
Here’s another graphic art piece I created on Canva. The original photo was taken in Philly in the spring of 2020 when the pandemic first hit. I distorted the image and shapes to turn it into a “Nightmare Alley.” I like how the image in the center almost looks like an alien spaceship or something you’d see in a science fiction movie.
Here’s my attempt at a scary short story about what happens when you infiltrate peoples’ nightmares – and the consequences that come from doing so.
“Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.” – Sigmund Freud
I.
Dylan yawned, leaned back in his chair. It was another late night at the Nightmare Center, but at least he was collecting overtime. The entire year had been full of late nights, for obvious reasons. The election had peoples’ unconscious selves falling apart at the seams.
“Still here?” Amari asked, bags under her eyes.
“Unfortunately,” Dylan said. “I’m working a double.”
“It never ends.”
Continue reading “The Nightmare Center (a short story)”
watching from the fire escape
I breathe in daylight, fresh air
a blue jay lands in a dead garden
her colors brilliant & offensive
dried leaves rustling like
fading nightmares
an urge to suck in colors before me
& vomit them back out
like the Destroyer God who
crushes galaxies in his hands
(Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash)
After reading Franz Kafka’s complete short stories last year, I was determined to read the three novels that were published posthumously. I find Kafka to be a tremendously interesting writer and literary figure, and after reading most of his work, the recurrent themes became evident.
Continue reading “Book Review: Amerika by Franz Kafka”
The faceless woman chases me through vacant city streets –
lights on in every home, but no one’s there,
just us, running in dreadful silence
my heart beats so fast it feels as if it’ll burst
from my sunken chest, plop on black concrete +
continue to beat to the rhythm of the pulsing ground,
as a brilliant moon looms above, hangs over us,
shines blinding light on my ghostly skin –
I’m living in sin + if the woman catches me,
I’ll surely suffocate + gurgle black blood
from a wicked mouth –
No! my mouth is gone, covered by slimy skin,
+ I’m gone, in her cold grasp at last,
the world collapses inside of me +
I wake as a newborn in some
distant jungle landscape.
(Photo by Gabriel on Unsplash)
