Enjoy the Trailer to Book One of Melody and the Pier to Forever!

Kye created it in 2011; the cover to the

book has since changed several times.

Download it here, or subscribe
and get access to my entire library!

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Enjoy Selected Poems from Fractalverse: Volume Four!

Download it here, or subscribe
and get access to my entire library!

Note: If you would like to see the associated fractal that goes with each poem,

please do me the honor and buy the book! Thank you!
One more note: the formatting for each poem may be messed up,
depending on your browser and its settings.

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I pull over onto the thin shoulder, turn off the headlights,
and roll down the window.
I’m on a hill. The city spreads out before me, glittering and sparkling,
light-years away.

I wish I wasn’t sixteen years old. I wish I could stay sixteen forever.
The pulse in my ears sounds like electricity. It throbs in my heart and groin.

Cool, sweet air. My shirt still smells like her. It mingles with sleepy breezes.
I’m not remotely sleepy, and I’m dangerously far from home.
There my family dies slowly in bed.
She’s worried about me. She thinks I’m going to get my heart broken.
I am, but the pulse pounding through me is too strong to stop.
It’s inevitable. It all is.

I’m years from the precipice. I’m standing right on it.
I’m sixteen. I’m ravaged. I’m a fool.
I’m just a stupid kid. I’ve got no idea.
The stars twinkle above in steady, silent patience.
They’ve seen this before. Many, many times.
I’m nobody special.

I turn down the heat, turn up the Bob Seger, and drive down the hill.

❧

If it matters ...

Well, perhaps.

Can one person’s thoughts change another’s behavior?

Can a stranger’s? 

What changes people, then?

What do the gatekeepers look like?

Why are they all-powerful?

The soul beyond their post is dark

because they refuse to let light in.

The soul grows darker, ever darker.

And then it dies.

But those gatekeepers refuse to quit their job,

even when it is pointless to continue. 

That’s how billions lope through this tangle called life.

That’s how those billions define “critical reasoning.”

That’s how those billions justify the wholesale

destruction of this infinitely lonesome and precious world. 

Almost all the words I’ve written or ever will write

will never make it past those gatekeepers.

So I must find another reason to write.

I must find another reason to press on, push on, persevere.

For those gatekeepers, with respect to those sad, dying souls,

are omnipotent. They are God.

And one never blasphemes against God, does one?

❧

The soul prehends the oncoming moment;

the moment comes and passes into the next.

The evolution rarely becomes the revolution. 

Value. Disvalue. The tree of humanity is mostly dead.

It’s like one of those sad trunks you see with a single living branch

somewhere up it. The rest of it is falling apart. 

Adventurers: Who shall sail with me today?

Why does it always have to be sunny, the seas smooth and untossed?

Where is the spark in the gray, the kiss of grit, the burn of the rope as it

slides through my grip?

The salt water is icy.

I’ve got my sea legs, and piss and vinegar in my veins. 

Sweat. I smell like work and anger.

This shell I inhabit has been a marvel.

It lasts almost no time compared to the sun.

Dust to dust. 

But the soul inside it ...

How deep can it go in this mortal spark of a life?

Deeper than any of God’s fiery stars.

❧

How far we have fallen.

The Statue is crumbling.

There won’t a Charleton Heston,

and there won’t be any damn dirty apes, either.

There will only be the kind twittering of birds in the far-off trees,

and the soft roar of surf,

and the hazy blue sky above,

and the radioactive sand below. 

Spiritual death is real. It’s actual.

It’s here, all around.

When truth is rejected,

when reason is abandoned,

when flags become more important than those who hoist them,

when the words in the moldering tome become more important

than their meaning,

when the robes of the Savior become more important

than the imperfect flesh beneath,

when crosses burn and swastikas are painted on gravestones,

when lies become official policy,

when hatred becomes doctrine,

when war is called peace,

then our doom is real and looming, if not already here.

Deservedly so.

❧

Paris was abandoned today.

The world was abandoned today.

The fact-free herd is celebrating today. 

Here I am, contemplating my mortality.

I do that often. Perhaps it is commonplace once you

race by your fiftieth year.

Perhaps it’s a good thing. 

I never had children.

I never had the means with which to raise them.

I never had the weakness of spirit needed to give up

my wishes and desires in order to gather the means

with which to raise them. 

Even so, I can’t help but look at other people’s children and wonder:

What kind of world are we giving them? 

How is it that I, a childless man, care more about children than

those herd animals who had those children?

How can those herd animals, who voted for bloated and orange,

even look at their children today?

What kind of person could do that and wish to remain alive? 

What will happen when those children grow up?

Those children ... who were raised by bloated-orange-voting herd animals ...

Will they, like their parents, also turn their backs on the world that gave them

their very existence? 

Will there even be a world to spurn?

❧

“Life is a militia against malicia, or malice,” so says my favorite aphorist.

For too long I have fought the wrong war and the wrong enemies.

It wasn’t that they weren’t enemies; they were.

Just the wrong ones. 

My evolution has been slow and many times regressive.

I devolve, and then must trudge through familiar mud once again.

I see my own blood under my feet. 

Again and again

I end up re-fighting those wrong enemies

before wising up and moving on. 

I’ve finally come to a place of acceptance:

Life is a war.

It is. 

But I can choose which war to fight.

I can fight worthy enemies,

not the unworthy garbage I have for decades. 

I can see the world each morning with fresh eyes.

I can write—even if no one is reading.

I can speak out—even if no one is listening.

I can laugh—even though I feel like crying.

I can cry—even though the rest of the world plods numbly along.

I can thrust both middle fingers defiantly at the creeps and maggots

and leeches and abusers and horrors that have swarmed over this planet

like a disease, and I can fight back.

I can fight back!

~~*~~

Join the Liberal Creative Appreciation Commune (TLCAC) on Reddit Today!

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This little community is for artists and non-artists alike.

It's free to join.

It's a cozy digital space where you can post your

fiction, poetry, photography, music, or art,

be it professionally crafted or not.

If you're not an artist, you can still peruse others' work,

or chat with members, or ... whatever! It's up to you.

It's strictly moderated,

so you don't have to worry about being trolled or spammed.

Trolls are not welcome. Neither are spammers.

At present, there are two active members,

myself and my partner Kye.

We'd love it if you joined

and swelled our ranks a little bit!

We hope to see you there soon!

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That Girl Is

That Girl Is

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