Category Archives: solemn

That Feeling You Get

Posted on by under experimental, short stories, solemn

That primal feeling you get when you’re walking back to your bed from a nightly trip to the bathroom or the kitchen. Sure, you know that one. We all do.

You are a rational 21st century person who does not believe in supernatural terrors, who doesn’t check for monsters under the bed, who ain’t afraid of no ghost. And yet, you cannot help but slightly look over your shoulder. You cannot help but walk at a slightly funny angle so you could jump around more quickly to fend off that small sliver of hell that lurks in the dark corners of your eyes. That beast, that terror, that formless torment that you somehow know is coming at you any second now. 

I mean, you know there is no one and nothing there. Never has been, never will be. And you know, beyond any reasonable doubt, beyond any instinct stirring your soul, beyond any synapses silently misfiring in your brain. You know all of this.

And you also know that even if that nothing that lurks there would one day be a something that lurks there, it would in all likelihood be something wholly unmenacing. Something listless and undangerous. 

A timid little mouse. A faint breeze from a window left open. A feeble wraith, risen from a tepid well of some mundane malice. Casper the friendly fucking ghost.

And yet. 

In your mind, you know something else as well. You know against your better knowledge; you hold a conviction you cannot let go. Your lizard brain is screaming: it’s saying there’s a threat to your life and soul behind that slightly ajar door that you pass, that unseen and dark corner of the room that you must walk by. 

It is the night, there might even be others living with you in the building… and still you cannot shake that primal fear.

You know.

You know what I speak of. Don’t you, my friend?

DON’T LIE to me. You know goddamn well what I speak of.

Feast of All Hallows

Posted on by under artistic, non-rhyming, poetry, solemn

Industrial frights, smiled-through scares –

as if the night’s not dark enough as it is.

Boo, how scared are you?



Do we suffer so much

that we must 

quench our fear with laughter?

Trick or treat or have you ever wondered

how one day 

all of it will end?



I fear no puppets jumping out of boxes,

but the springs that coil inside us.

I fear no faces clad in plastic masks,

but what skulks that hidden shadow’s ring.

I fear no night that lay in October’s end,

but the terrors our new world brings.

Mutiny in the Middle Class (Snowdens of Yesteryear)

Posted on by under poetry, rhyming, solemn

Did the brute of Neanderthal,
as he lay awake in dark of night,
pray for mighty mammoth’s fall
so he’d rise in ranks and be paid more
in higher rocks for higher walls?

Did he think, the Viking man,
as he plundered England’s shores,
of team cohesion, project plans
or the hurt his raids might do
to the image of the brand?

Did that Templar Knight of yore,
as the pilgrim road he trod,
heavy find his shield and sword
and fret if he’d make enough
revenue to please the Lord?

Where have the Snowdens of yesteryear gone?
Where’s that whistle which once was blowing?
Who stifled my protests, once sharp and shrill?
And where’s the hero I longed to be,
standing true on highest hill?

Such questions make poor company
to the weary and worn, little me;
and beyond my door they stalk, sickly and sore:
all my hounds, crying for war.

None the Wiser

Posted on by under non-rhyming, poetry, solemn

I wrote down your names on paper scraps

and still felt none the wiser.

Like a child, I wait

for the better day

they promised me.

.

The Future is a fever dream,

a majesty, the Sweet Supreme:

and we’ve endured in silence,

trudging heavenward

to salvage what we may.

.

If longing was water, I’d be the ocean

and each day is one closer

to the melting of the polar caps.

For My Friend

Posted on by under non-rhyming, poetry, solemn

Guns don’t kill people, suicide does;
you sold your eyes so long ago
that you’ve forgotten what Detroit looks like.

Well, it looks like a ruin
and we leave it at that:
we kings and queens
of digital thorns in digital sides
in computer space where limits are lost
and I have lost my remote self-control.

My inspiration comes from here and there
but mostly from here.
Let’s open up like empty coffins,
let’s not fold like a 2-7 offsuit
but play this hand even when we fear the end is bitter.
And no end is as bitter as the one you enter willingly
or who knows?
Maybe you do now.

Coming to Terms (version II)

Posted on by under poetry, rhyming, solemn

White were the walls and the thoughts so loud,
as white as the writing on that wall;
that one last line I can never make out
of how temporary is all.

I set cups on the table and I watch them fill
with wine and water, with truth and time;
and truth is that one day each cup will spill
and that’s what was written on that last line.

This Is Gonna Hurt

Posted on by under non-rhyming, poetry, solemn

Ain’t this life just a Trojan horse?
Soon as you let lax, second you give go
it opens hellgates
and thousand-strong they pour out

pouring you out of time, of water and wine,
of reason and rhyme, of matching lifestyles,
of hatching hope, of music too loud to talk over,
of lightless corners to take shelter in,
of purpose, of choices

POINT BEING they pour you out of you.
Who do? They do. We do. I do.
We each guilty as fuck. We all filling in for someone better.
We all just playing the part. We all faking. We all giving, none taking.
And no offence and none taken. We all static noise.

There are no weekend addictions:
you either need something or you don’t.
Gathered in your arms
piece by piece
as I throw myself into a scream.

Life can go one of one ways.