A Story of Awkward Loneliness

As they gathered on the outside

She stood plainly in their sights

Directly beneath a spotlight,

A street light, extended above her on a post

In the middle of the room

And under foot the grey and cracking stone of a sidewalk

That followed her where ever she went

Like a storm cloud set aside only for her

The people did not notice her

Or so it seemed to an untrained eye

They stole glances from their peripheral

At the corner of their eye

As it darted back and forth

As they conversed with old friends, and new ones

Chit chatting away with little of the lady on their minds

With little of her sidewalk or her light,

Or the little black heels she wore under foot

Or the sequin cocktail dress she wore, 

All sparkling blue under the waning light

As they gathered about her

But were not about her

They kissed one another under mistletoe

Mistletoe's strewn in tinsel

As the holiday lights grew like snakes around the trees

As their breath was apparent before their faces

And she,

She in a dress with exposed knees

Shaking violently in the breezing freeze

To the people she would have called

Had they not retired to the inside

Leaving her and her personal light post,

Leaving her alone on her sidewalk.

And so it went on for a few more hours or so

The awkward lady in her awkward black shoes

Wishing away that the people might care

Hoping that someone might journey a stare

Or grow curious what was behind her made up smile

For she had kept her teeth just barely visible

Just barely visible escaping behind her lipstick spread lips

The blush on her face cracking on her skin

The mascara runny and graying where tears began spreading

That golden brown hair draped lovingly over ears

That were beat red and freezing in that unforgivable cold

She the lady in the awkward black heels

The blue sparkling cocktail dress,

Under the flickering of a high up light

Through the windows and the silky curtains she watched them

Through the glass and through the cloth she could see

Through the barrier and through the comfort she pondered

Outside the hall with but herself and her sidewalk

Her perpetual hell like a perpetual cloud

Cold and freezing, hardly feeling anything

But the harshness of absence

The absence of acknowledgment that she shouldn't have come at all

Her hands over one another 

Fingers interlaced

And grey streams of mascara running down her canvas,

Down her painfully woeful face

When once she was young and full of brightness

She grew older and dingy grey

And the people all around her danced in the summer light

As winter had come and gone 

Several times

and severely too fast.

The heel had shattered on her black left shoe

and the black right one was wearing away

Though she hadn't moved at all

There was a boy

No more than fourteen

Who ventured on over

and stood beneath her light

And he squinted through it,

Maybe perceiving the ghostly image

But she didn't think it so

But then he grabbed her wrist

A gently immediate sort of grip

And he pulled her forward

As she was removed from the light her heel stuck back on

The wearing of her clothes diminished

And she aged in reverse

The mascara rushing back up to its darkened place around her eyes

And she no longer shivered.

The rest of the people went in rewind

Moving ten times to fast

Till the snow was falling again

And they were safely and preciously inside

But she did not care,

She was young again

And he was the same

He'd always been there wanting to dance

He just never knew her name.

What I Heard

I once knew a man

Who wanted to have the world

He strode forth atop his shoes

-with feet comfortable inserted

It was a mask he wore

That's what caught my eye

There were eyes where they should be

And a mouth as it should have been

The nose was a bulge of tissue

-but just as they should see

In all matters before the naked eyes

He was as was needed

But that was the trick

That was what the clown 

What he wanted them to tick about

To ponder on

There was of course no make-up

-but there mine as well have been

This man was normal as normal as normal can be

A relative term if stated myself

But he is what he was and he is as he's not

Punching in and punching that

That which had to be

And upon his wounded and battered knees

-only worn from waking

He bent and squatted

Cracking a joint in place

Re-positioning slightly into socket

And a twenty in his pocket

That is even useless in the soda machine

He talked to me but once

Before he exited the stage

And he said this,

"Go and be fruitful,

Go and multiply

Screw them all mercilessly

And get screwed in return

Bare idiots upon the land

Raise them with your careless hands

Let them decide the fate of the masses

When they were late for all of midsummers classes

Hark! Unto them,

Upon their little shoulders

Little toy soldiers

That they cannot share with anyone"

Then that was all,

-except what he muttered under his breath

as he passed me at the door,

Not sure what it all meant

Not sure at all

After all, 

I'm just a clock on the wall.

The Criminality of Nonsense

It was atomically consussive
Obnoxiously suggestive
Cast Iron Gates sprouting up like spear heads
Nothing to do but fear and loathing in your heads
Desperately attacking the nexus
Developing a skin rash sitting next to us
Laying out the brick work
For a show about shit work
Calling all cars and ambulances
A police bulletin that sings christmas lullabies
And a degenarate inn keeper and his wife
Who only know how to fuck and spread strife
Debilatating stomach cramps
Cancerous infections on the roof of your mouth
Spreading like fire on toilet paper
Consuming the gasoline soaked masses
Teleporting the oritory to the outer rims
Deciding to leave the way open for more time
Casting the roles in reverse
The dick head on her lady purse
Pastors slicing open festering wounds
And filling it with nano bots
That spread filth with their disease ridden programmings
To the top of the hill
To the bottom of the bottle of pills
Where only orange transparency rests
Till we all face uncertain deaths

Another Opening Version of The Misfits

Clive

I wouldn’t be honest if I said the big hulking mess of flesh next to me doesn’t smell to high heaven.  His names Ward, about six years ago he had the misfortune of being in a house fire, burns to ninety percent of his body, but he still has his eye sight so that’s a blessing.    The other guy on my right is Moriarty, don’t know if that’s his real name, he doesn’t talk much.   He’s scrawny, and even though he’s wearing a pitch black pea coat he still looks like he weighs the same amount as an anorexic swimsuit model.   There’s one distinguishing mark on him and thats the none to subtle scarring along the length of his throat.   Maybe he learned to shut up because someone made it a personal trait of his, maybe I should learn by example and get this over with.

The three of us are what you might call a motley crew.   We’re the lost and the damned, the misplaced orphans of a criminal empire who no longer had need for us.  When you’re worthless to the lowlifes we worked for, then you’re expendable.   So its either your dead, burned, cut or broken, or all of the above.   I point my arm forward and the blade that’s there where my hand used to be points directly at the son of a bitch we’re here for.  He’s scared, as he should be.  If I had to face a trio of misfits as ugly as us I’d probably be pissing myself by now.   I checked his leg though, no darkened stains on his pants, I’d say he’s holding up pretty well.

“Let’s get this over with.”  Ward says, he has a raspy way of talking, and his sentiments reflect my own, but there’s something entertaining with toying with someone who has it coming.  Not that we’re heroes, but we are taking out underworld trash.  Like Mr. Quaking in My Boots here.

“I’m sorry.”  The frightened little so and so says, and I’m sure he is.   “I can get the money back to Mr. Valkov, I can.”   He thinks we work for the mother of all mafia kingpins, the mad russian called Dmitri Valkov.  In a way we all did at one time or another.  But not anymore, now its been our goal to disrupt the party, cut down his organization and free this city of the stranglehold he has on it.

“We don’t want the money.”  I tell him, but it’d be nice.   “You spent a lot of time managing the personal finances of that bastard, and we want the records you’ve no doubt kept.”   He pauses a moment and stops quaking, thinking he’s safe if he does what I ask.  Then he says something that I didn’t expect.

“Go fuck yourselves.”  

I have to hand it to him he’s ballsy, apparently he’s been skimming off a profit for himself on the side, and he thought we were here to “deal” with him, but now that he knows were not he’s grown a backbone, his loyalty to his employer is concrete.    Also, he doesn’t consider us a threat.

I’m about to move in on him myself, my blades haven’t done their work in a few days, but Moriarty draws and fires before i’ve taken one step.  The man is pissing himself now, you can see it pooling on the floor as he lays there grimmacing through the bullet that pained through his kneecap.

When he wants to Moriarty can speak volumes.

“I won’t hurt him.”  Ward tells us.   He hangs back why we move forward.  Its typical of the big red giant to not want to get involved more than he has to.   After all if memory serves he wasn’t directly harmed in his predicament, only discarded.

The man has a gun barrel pressed against his other knee and Moriarty presses it in hard, while I tap the tip of my blade on his open palm so that he’s got the hallways carpet underneath.  “The books.”  I apply a little pressure.  “The books.”  I say again with another ounce of pressure, I’ve broken skin.

If he wasn’t annoying me with his silence I’d admire the prick, but as it is I don’t have time to waste with the slow approach.  The blood pools around my blade as I poke through to the carpet.  Moriarty pulls his trigger.   “Do you want your limbs or not?  Because I’m okay with you having nothing but a pelvis and torso.”

“He’ll kill me.”

He isn’t wrong.

“Can you protect me?”  He asks, there’s a deep seeded fear in his eyes.  He has immediate pain, or imminent death to choose from.

I lie.  Moriarty shoots a glance at me, but I don’t look back.  I do my best look of sympathy and reassurance.   I do my best to look heroic while my blade stings at his opened hand.   I lie again then remove the blade.

Ward is directly behind me, I can feel his lumbering presence like an elephant, I’m amazed he can even fit inside the building.  He’s not happy with my negotiating tatcics.   Thinks that being honest makes up for killing lots and lots of people.  As if one moral attribute makes up for a platitude of immoral ones.  Who am I to say otherwise.

“Under my desk.   There’s a flap of loose carpet.   The safe combination is 18-24-2.”  There’s no time for more promises, before Ward pushes passed me and slams his foot on the poor saps throat.  You can hear the bones shatter, and see the breath leave him.  The pain is momentary, then he’s still.

“Better this way.”  Ward says, he lifts up the poor sod and carries him to the nearby bedroom.  The body draped over his burned shoulder.    He may not feel physical pain, but the big guys got a soft spot for victims of circumstance.   It was a means to an end I suppose but if we hand’t gotten him to fess up the location and combination we would have tortured him.  And though he had he still would have been tortured and then murdered.   I guess you could say Ward is complacent with our actions, but I think he’s more clean up than anything.  Some of these people used to be his friends, he was the closest to Dmitri - between the three of us.  He’ll judge me for this, but I can’t do the same to him.  

Not sure what Moriarty thinks, he’s already out of the hall and back with the ledger book before I’m standing at the bedroom door watching Ward tuck the corpse of some crooked accountant into his comforter like he was his own child.    The guys a conundrum.

Gods Above Us

There was a beacon of hope that terrified the vile

It shone forth like a great fire

Burning and terrifying

Like a blight, but pristine

Terrorizing the wicked

And comforting the willful

Not the good but the content

Not the saints but the ants

An ordinary people guarded by otherworldly light

For the saints march on with their swords and their shields

And the evils press forward with their teeth and their claws

Tremendous strides not unlike giants

While the insects pass by one another

Under foot of these behemoths

Protected by the flames of some time else

Moving to and fro unabashed

Not deterred by the warring of the factions

Simply simple in the simplicity of the simpleton

Their mindsets pleased to be freely going with family

To safely interacting with friends

While the monsters and gods swing forth hunks of steal

Scratch with protruding bones

And tearing each other a part

There is a red mist that flutters down upon the bugs

Coats them once in a while

And distracts them like the first droplets of rain

And then they pause and they ponder

Contemplate the blood rain

Unable to see the tops of the hulking masses

Unable to see like the canopy of a thousand trees

It is a truth though

For the unfortunate

That in all the gnashing of teeth

And blows of swords

That the feet move about on those giants legs like redwoods

And a few of the critters are squashed underneath

So that others ponder the pain on the ground

Not the great big thunder flailing overhead

The clanging of steal

The shattering of backs

The cries of defeat

The death tears of the broken

As the blessed and the damned

Bleed out on the land

There are those on the ground who never look up

Who only tend to their wounded

Slain in a cosmic struggle 

That had nothing to do with them in the first place

So much for otherworldly protection
So much for divine intervention

Appropriate Cause Then Effect

I was afraid of what it meant to be in the dark
To find myself sifting through the endless piles of my life
The miniscule details that I failed to care for
Like the minute hairs that stood on end upon my arms
It was a given that it'd be taken for granted
But I'd be damned if I didn't try just a little bit
Helplessly I heed to no one
I garner myself a lost cause and beckon back the path
Caught in a time warp that repeats in reincarnated garble
To spit out obnoxious slang that makes absolutely no more sense than it ever would
I am at a loss
Imprisoned against my own magnitudes
Do not give up on me
Do not cast me away
When I am thus broken like the bow of a ship against the cliff face
Slipping back into the tide
Where water wants me to hide forever
Lost and drowning
Suffocating in the liquid that once gave me life
And now takes it away
The first god, the last god
Life bringer and gone.

The Misfits, Episode 1 or Chapter 1 rough draft. (I put this one on hold for now, but thought id at least share the finished opening)

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