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From the Old to the New

2012-02-03T22:37:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure how many people actually read any of this stuff, but in case you didn't know, bloodredtales is no longer. It has been no longer for a long time now, obviously. So, instead, I will be moving over to wwwbrandonberntson.com, which is more up to date and will cater to more content, newer writing, and all that cool stuff. So, in case you've been here, come along and join me over there. I will be shutting down the bloodblog soon. The newer website isn't quite finalized, but we've been working on it. Stay cool and be at peace.

The Dome of Heaven

2011-11-12T15:41:00.008-07:00

Another precious angel come and gone, an acute stab of pain piercing his breastbone, and he bows his head in shame. Another chance to be a gentleman, to prove his worth, his courtly demeanor, but to no avail. Opportunities wasted on himself. Perhaps he was not as courtly as he thought himself to be. Everything was imagination anyway. If not for imagination, he would not be radiant and beautiful. He would not be strong and valorous. If not for imagination, he would not know love in its purest, most resplendent form.

These scars run deep. They are only dreams, fairy-tales, imagining what it would be to be a man wrapped in those arms, laughing with that face. 'Sing to me again,' he would say, and her smile would spread wide, issuing warmth that moved over his head, his scalp, and along his back. Let her weep upon him a thousand tears, broken, wail in anguish and fury. He would be everything she needed. I could be what she needs, in every way, he told himself. I can feel what you feel, see what you see, dream what you dream.

Susceptible to every hurt, to every woe and jab. Men should not be allowed to be this vulnerable. Men should not be made to hurt like this. What happened to armor, to the steel breastplate of strength, able to withstand every affliction and scar? What happened to valor, the courage of the battlefield, that thing that should make him feel stronger, but instead made him whimper in defeat? Was there strength in this? Something to be proud of? Was this what other men had that he did not? Why he spent his days alone in these mountains, buried in caves, while everyone else lived happily ever after?

He heard that she'd gotten married, but did it matter? He would've never known a star like that, a famous singer, gotten the opportunity to make an impression, and what would she want with a creature like him when there were so many better ones to choose from? He'd come down out of the mountains and saw her on one of the televisions, a music video, in the store-front windows, and fallen in love instantly. I see the way you really are through the sound of your voice, through the lyrics, and the passionate way in which you sing. Can't you see that this must mean something otherworldly? He told himself her husband would never see her the way he did, love her the way he did, think she was beautiful the way he did. That must count for something, right? That must mean they were meant to be together.

Beauty going far beyond this, deeper than the surface, more than physical. Lasting beauty, so intense, so powerful, he recognized it in himself, the reasons he wanted to reach out, knew they were perfect for each other, if he could just find a way to communicate it to her. Thick, black curly hair. Pale eyes set in pale skin, looking deep into his, through him, and beyond. They rest on something far away and behind him. He doesn't know what, but he wants to be whatever that is she is resting her eyes upon. A dream turned to dust, turned to shame, turned to hurt. Open to hurt. Open to pain in every way, he is a vessel, a magnet to pain, and on and on it comes, because he thinks about what it must be like to love someone, to love something, and to have something love him in return the way things are meant to love, but he can only imagine it.

Her songs run wild through his brain, over and over, a ringing fire stirring blood, making him warm and torn asunder. I can see, he wanted to say. I can see beyond this surface, beyond everything everyone tries to be. I can see. Please. Dear God. See me. See me here. See me now. I am throwing the inside of myself back at you, so you can see me, too. But you are not paying attention. Maybe you cannot see like me. Can't my anguish travel to you? Can't you feel me, despite this distance, crying out to you? Surely, you must know I'm there. You must hear these words on the wind traveling louder than your lover's do.

“Just don't breathe, do not climb up. Do not pay attention to any of this inside of you. There must be a reason you are made this way, little Gollum, little gangly arms and legs. Simple paper to write your notes upon, professing all your shame and weaknesses to someone who will never love you, whom you will never meet. Your too-vulnerable heart. Do you think people actually care? Do you think they want to see this side of you? Can't you see she wants someone stronger that doesn't reveal this side of themselves? What is it, really? Just another name for another degenerate weakness? Proof you are no man at all, just another tepid weakling in a world of mighty Super-heroes. They are all stronger than you. Every one. Handsomer More intelligent. Successful. Stronger. Don't forget balanced. That's a big one. No up and down roller coasters for them, not like you, no crazy voices, screaming in your head, temperament to set off a volcano, tear down the strongest dam. And still beautiful, you say. Outshines all this, you say. Hope, you say. They are more romantic, too, sensitive in a way that actually counts, sensitive that is actually a strength. Not like you. And sense of humors, too. They have real skin to touch, can take them out to nice restaurants. They don't want something that has just been skinned alive. Run, run and hide, run far, deep into those hills where no one goes but you, feast on things with four legs, hide in your damp, dark cave that smells like death, mold, and decay. These are the better places for you. All the others have important things to give, not like you. Everything you are not. They are healthy through and through.”

Uncover all these black feathers, giant black feathers that have been raining down for centuries, and see how crystal clear it is underneath all this? See, this glow, this shining, blinding sun? Know this is how I was made, born for some knightly status, made up of dreams of chivalry and of noble race.

But still, unprotected. Alone. I know what it means to be alone. I know aloneness like no other, which is why I can be what you need, the patch on your pain. The hand you can always rely on in your time of need. I know the silence that echoes back no matter how hard I scream. I know the touch of my own hand to soothe me. I know all the imaginary games I play, and know they are more unreal than anything, but still I try to make them real. I know my mind is the only refuge I have, that keeps me company and creates all these friends I have, all these beautiful friends that love me and want to be with me, and tell me about all the beautiful things I have inside that no one cares to see. Someone else's voice, some voice I cannot mimic, that is not just another timbre of my own, making up things along the way. To walk with someone besides myself, through a jungle or two, share this patch of wilderness where you can see every star in the sky, if you just lie down right here and gaze upwards. And have you tell me, “You're right, Gollum, you can see every star.” But I would not be able to handle that. It would be too much for me. I would want to bring you the highest summit, and show you the land all around us. I would want to put these feathers on you, so we could see it all from a better view. But my mind plays all these tricks on me and I can't tell anymore what's real and what's pretend. It all gets mixed together.

Heavy is the burden he carries; it bends him to the earth, breaks his back, makes his spine a curve of jagged ridges, painful to behold. He wears a mantle of rusty metal and broken glass, and this he carries with him wherever he goes.

My mind is my worst lover, he thinks. It does not transcend time and space. I cannot go vertical. I take this walking stick wherever I go. I see the conditioning of the world, how people are raised, what they are told their dreams should be. I have dreams, too, to be a beautiful bird someday, but all these shards get lodged underneath my skin. I live in the thoughts of an impossible future, going nowhere, always elusive. Everyone trembles at the sight of me. Nothing makes sense. See, my pasty white skin shines through this transparent shirt as I crawl around on all fours, trying not to see myself as a beast, but I know better, slavering drool making huge pools between my feet. Confrontations with my own reflection that terrify me, send me screaming and running for safety. If only I could exchange my head for another, wash it all out, scrub and scrub until it shone better, shoot a firecracker into a star.

A worthier name, a worthier calling beckons. He pants and breathes, laboring on, mainly for breath, trying to break free, trying to understand anything, mainly why. That always seems the best of questions, and the shortest. One word. One simple, short, three-letter word. Why? But he has no answer. He wonders if he ever will. Too many things keep getting in the way.

A beautiful face, parted, moist lips whisper in his ear. The night descends. But it is only pretend. There are no stories left in here. It is just a hodge-podge of disenchanted images, scrapings off the bottom of some sickly floor. Caked dirt begrimes his face. Beautiful, he thinks. Beautiful in here. Something beautiful is in here. Someone. Something. Something can love me. Something. Even me. Still.

But he just tells himself that to make himself feel better; he isn't sure he believes it. He lives mainly through the memories of others, things he creates out of basic imagery. He sees them together, hobbles and scurries from the mountainous terrain, and peers at them, watching from behind thick trees, or high up in the branches. He watches them walking hand in hand, and his imagination takes flight, like it did with the music video. He wonders how they met, what they have in common, and he daydreams about how beautiful and perfect it must be. He stays in the shadows, hidden from view because he does not want to frighten them away. He puts all these things together, the best way he can, and creates a beautiful story he can go home with and tell himself over and over is real. He is a wretched, miserable creature banished from civilization because he wanted to love something and he is a hideous creature, and this is his only contact with the rest of the world, but dreaming all the time. He spends the majority of his time picking flowers for someone he can never give them to. His cave is packed with mountains and mountains of flowers he wanted to give to someone, anyone, but they are all dead now. He would not make a good household pet. Claws pluck at his sleep. Long, slippery wet tentacles tickle his chin. In his dreams, he is beautiful, strong, and handsome, and he holds an inspiring, lofty position above the earth. People are clamoring to love him, hear his story, and he gives them everything they ever wanted. It brings tears to his eyes. Everyone loves him. He has a thousand friends. They never wished him away. They always wanted him near. They want to help him.

A beautiful thing holds him close, hands soft and warm, delicate, and tells him he is beautiful, too, and it makes him cry. He has never felt this. He never thought it possible. He had given it up long ago, despite the way he dreams.

And then he wakes, and the dream is so vivid in the real world, he really does cry, because this is something that happens every day. He should know better by now, but it doesn't get any easier. He whimpers and kicks his legs. He tries going back to sleep to recapture, to go back there, but it's too late now. He wonders about the cruelty of it, and why, but he still doesn't have any answers. It is cruel, he thinks, brutal, heartless trickery, a black and bitter betrayal. But what can he do?

He cannot go back to sleep. He knows these cold wet rocks better than anyone. Fancy again comes to life, something pretend, walking side by side something, anything, as long as it's alive. He doesn't care. As long as it isn't cruel. He doesn't want cruel. Alone and cruel he knows. Alone and cruel he knows better than anyone. He dreams that someday it will liberate him. He doesn't know when, or if, but it's a dream he has, and that is what he knows. Loneliness and dreams. But he sees it. And maybe that is all that matters, this thing he sees. This clarity, this ray of yellow silver light, penetrating everything, warming his skin. He never knew what that felt like either, but he likes it. He has never had warm skin before.

He climbs up the rocks, higher and higher, grabbing hold, his hands and feet made for this, steep, jagged rocks that disappear into the sky, blanketed by clouds, and up and up he climbs. Up and up he goes, stopping once to look behind him at the rest of the world, a sea of mountains, trees, rivers, and clouds as far as his beady eyes can see. There are lights far off, the rest of civilization at the edge of the world where he falls in love every day, and every day has his heart broken. So, thinking this, he turns and continues upward, not knowing where he goes, not knowing if it matters, not knowing if he cares. It is just something to do, something to put more distance between he and the rest of the world. Enough distance and maybe it will disappear. Maybe he won't have to worry about it anymore if he just keeps climbing and climbing until he can't climb anymore. It will all be erased from his mind the farther up he goes and he won't have to worry about anything anymore, about the black feathers that cover the private song he sings.

From the distance, he is a lone light in the darkness. He doesn't know it, but he is. Anyone and everyone from the world he leaves behind, from the edge of civilization, can see him clearly. They watch him carefully as, like a star, he moves up toward the dome of heaven.

My Language Is Yellow

2011-10-28T11:30:00.007-06:00

The yellow sun warms my cheek as I walk along the bike-trail beside the water. I look up, trying to bring the deep, unbroken blue of the sky inside me. I will be a marble, I think. I will change colors as I go, and I will be space and crystal September sky. Crisp, cool blue sky high up in the air overseeing, overlooking, seeing all. I will take all this inside me, and it will turn my skin the same shade of blue.

There is not a single cloud in the sky, the perfect autumn day, late September, mid-seventies, on my way to the library for another translation of Ovid, because I simply can't decide. Who can bring that original muse to life in its most dreamy and poetic form? I could always learn Latin, perhaps, or Italian, the thought I had while reading the Divine Comedy, but I guess we'll see how it goes. It's just a phase, I know, but one I appreciate. This is what I do, after all. A writer reads. He is a greedy, avaricious reader. He is a gluttonous, always hungry, insatiable reader. He is a beast of a reader. He is a monster with what he reads. He is a rapacious, slavering beggar with every damn thing he can read.

The Divine Comedy, I think, in all its original glory. I almost feel like a schmuck for not reading it in Italian. If you love to read that much, why wouldn't you learn another language? But that's for later, after I read everything first in English. I'll understand it as much as I can first before taking that step. I have a lot I still don't understand.

I'm always transfixed by the rich, velvety green of the leaves on the trees against the blue backdrop of the sky. The contrast of the green on blue says: Life, light, and color. Maybe I should've worn yellow.

Yellow marigolds in bunches occupy a huge clay pot on the top of the bridge as I walk under. Yellow cornflowers, also in bunches, branch off to my right. There were sunflowers before all this by the other bridge a while back, like bright yellow signposts telling me “Here you are again.” Bright yellow smiling face.

I never really thought much of the color yellow. One of my brothers likes yellow, but I never saw the attraction until today. What is yellow? Even the name, after a while, looks odd. Yellow, for a bright, almost obnoxious banana, taffy, lemon yellow. Everyone knows yellow. Even writing the word looks funny. Yellow. Like it could be someone's name. But now it is standing out everywhere, and it isn't clashing with the bright blue and rich green, but adding another dimension to it. You'd think it were spring instead of fall with all these natural shades of color. Sunshiny bright, warm yellow blue, strong rays of the sun, rejuvenating yellow. I picked a good day to walk.

The clear running water to my left, now as I look, only adds to it, a crystal transparency where you can see its coldness without having to touch or taste it. Smooth, polished stones shimmer bright under the water and the sun, and me, going in and out of the shade of the trees. I am wearing black (nothing unusual there), more smiles along the path than I am used to seeing, maybe because today I'm paying attention. Smile reflects smile, reflects smile, reflects blue and yellow sky with rich tapestries of green. Yellow is the armor of the sun, the warm plates I use to shield myself against the smoky black of hardship, confusion, and dark clouds. Yellow mixed with incandescent white and blinding silver can penetrate anything.

Here, little yellow ball of the sun. Reside inside me, warm my chest, my bright, sky blue arms. Overpower this oppressive, poisonous black stain to white. I have had my fill of pain and sorrow. Now, I can see the strength and beauty in yellow.

I smile, my cheek is warm. A biker rides past, all business in slacks and a bright yellow shirt and tie. Another signpost, as if in confirmation. Warm yellow armor slips boldly, nobly into place, and my skin turns bright, September blue, some poetry of some new language I long to speak without someone else's translation.

Born Broken

2011-09-08T12:26:00.020-06:00

You tease me with your sacred silence. I had forgotten how hard it was to reach out and hold this tiny ball of the sun. It warms my skin, dries all the tears on my face, and makes the leaves rustle and burn behind me as they spiral out of control.

I go deeper inside. I cannot care anymore what the world thinks of me. Have me or destroy me. It’s not up to me anyway. I’m out there for everyone to see, but I’m met with walls of shadow. I think I must be deeper than I realize, which is why I spend all my time here. I can’t conform to shallow routines. I'm simply intensity too hard to handle. Anymore, I think it must be a curse, the role I have to play, all this pressure inside, a deep, unbroken sea, while the games wage war from up above. I can think of you no longer. It simply brings too much pain. I cannot pretend, or breathe your face, wish you into existence, pretend you’re real, have you there when I need you most. It’s like trying to hold a shadow, a puff of smoke, and I think about how much time I've wasted, how much got away from me, trying to believe it was all real. My heart alone is more than I can take. I wrap it up on a daily basis, trying to stop the bleeding, but nothing helps. I go deeper inside, hiding inside me, curl into a little black ball that blots out the sun.

I used to want to make it sing, louder than anyone could hear, deafen your ears, make your heart soar, change you as a person, make you think and be something you never thought you could be before. Maybe I could write poetry that moved easily, like water over polished stones. I am my own deception. I create the lies, all the situations that make me think there’s hope out there, but I get in my own way. I didn’t know there was more than one of me. All this talk and crazy voices, drowning out the life I see, and they won’t go away. They speak and make mouths on the table, on the walls and counter tops. Eyeballs watch me from every which way. It is just me in here, with all this going on, worlds upon worlds, and I haven’t touched the one I really live in. I wonder what my fate must be. I don’t care if I never make a million dollars. I realized that was never the most important thing, just another reason to be a prisoner to a materialistic regime. I don’t care anymore if I meet the woman of my dreams. She’s brought me too much pain that I can bear, and I haven’t even seen her face.

The leaves rustle, burn like crimson, and turn away again, unable to stop these tears on my face. Odysseus cried a lot, it seemed, and there was never a stronger man. This does not make me weak, I tell myself. But I’m not sure I believe it. Odysseus was, after all, a king.

I wanted to write all these sonnets for you, little poems about love, how much you mean to me, change the face of art as we know it, save a life or two. I figured that was a noble dream, but too high a delusion, and it just made me insane. Between these two demon voices waging war with each other is my twisted face anyway, nothing more than a lonely, haggard visage, haunted by everything and feeling too much. I adopt other people’s pain. It seeps inside and won’t go away, makes me feel I’m being generous at least, performing some selfless, charitable deed. Do they feel better after they give it to me? Or maybe I take it without asking. Helps me forget who I am. That is not a bad thing. I am a ghost to myself. My whispers bear no weight. Cry on my shoulder, but try not to fall through. I am not substance. I never have been.

Cut me here. And here. And here. And there. Sever everything that ties me to you, and watch me float away. Part of my fantasy was dreaming in space, beholden to none. None of the pressure now to be so perfect all the time, this impossible challenge, this quandary I gave myself. A belaboring issue warns. God, I just want to be rid of you! How long must you follow me around with your sad little eyes and your puppy dog tail? You make me so damn furious! What is this even supposed to be? Expression? Madness? Pain? I’m just tired of the same old things.

Lament and drop this heavy stone on me, my marker of repose. Leaden those skies! Burn my face with fire! I just need a really good excuse to not go out anymore. I guess my heart has shattered. Nothing surprises me anymore, gets me excited.

There is water in space. Pretty water, like silver, has bubbles. From there, maybe I can just watch the rest of the world go by. I can have my own silver bubble, just for me, just my own, something outlandish, like a fairy-tale, that finally makes sense. Hope, I think, would have been a good thing to go without. Hope creates want, and want creates pain. If only I’d never had hope, I think, I could’ve learned how to live, learned how to breathe. Hope is a devil of a thing. All this wanting, all this longing, human ache opened up a wound here, a wound there, watching my blood spill out all over the place. Angry voices telling me I’m not good enough, reminding me I’m not a movie star, that everyone has wants and wants and wants, and the things I have to give no one cares about, so get used to it. They want football stadiums, fancy meals, and travels around the world. I’m just another poor and lonely man among the rest, a heart twice as big as his chest, and not a single confession can I utter that means anything. I'll take just one soul who cares.

I’m trying to let them go, trying to forget them. I’m not sure what that means. I put my hands to my ears and scream and scream and scream. Shards of broken glass lodge in my throat. Just to think…Something still…something broken…something beautiful. Beauty is different for everyone, I guess. This is okay. This is beautiful to me, despite what you think.

Something soft…a rose petal maybe between my fingertips, satin against my cheek. Left out here in the middle of the highway with my guts spilled out all over the place and only a needle and thread to stitch me back together. Born broken. Two demon horns lodged into my chest, driving me up against the wall. Confessions and honesty that amount to shit, that amount to shit, that amount to shit. My face staring back at me in pity and shame. All I can do is shake my head. Maybe there’s something more important than dreams coming true. More than just a movie star. Loathe to live with myself, sick to read this drivel and blasphemy. I know that’s you Death, creeping around my door. What the fuck are you afraid of, you pansy-ass piece of shit?

Hold that pretty porcelain face, cupped in my two hands. Stare into my eyes. Look deep. Deeper still. Beg. Plead. No. No. Don’t cry. I need you to see something beautiful inside. What a fool I am, with only myself to blame.

I shatter another glass in two, look behind me and cry some more, wondering how all this happened, who made me what I am. Was it me? Was it you? God above? A choice I made? Not sure why. There must’ve been a reason. Because it simply seemed like the right thing to do. I look behind me, demon’s at my heels, a horde of them, laughing, grumbling, garbled voices, claws like teeth, teeth like knives. Sometimes there are simply too many wounds to heal, and there I take on the wounds of others. Lessen your pain. Make you smile. Put myself on hold for a while. It’s okay. It takes me out of myself. That’s the best gift I can give. Helping you while helping me. “Could someone pick up my arm and put it back in place? I can stitch it back together myself.”

There is a child there, sucking his thumb, his back against the wall. He is terrified, too afraid to even cry, to speak. We all have one. I step close, bend down, but he doesn’t recognize me. His eyes are sewn shut.

Tiny sun. Little ball of white. Fill my hands, warm my brain, give my heart a golden plate. Satin between my fingertips. Rose petal on my cheek. Going deeper. Deeper still. Always deeper. Suffocation. Under water pressure. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Deeper still. I have to do this, uncover as much as I can, despite how much it terrifies me. I tell myself this makes me brave, but I wonder…I’m starting to think this is a full time job in here, and that’s just the way it’s gonna be. All those dreams will have to wait a while.

I whisper to myself: Demon Slayer. Knight of Honor, Truth and Chivalry. Poet Prince. Golden Warrior of the Sun, to make myself feel better. I know they’re in there somewhere. I am good for something, something for me, something for you, even if you’re not there. Wanting just got in the way. Painful wanting. Bitchy, horrible, asshole wanting. You got in the way of all the good things, all the things I tried to do that meant something beautiful. None of them with you. How I wanted. How I prayed. God, at least, gave me a heart, a spirit strong enough to endure it. Does being alive mean I obtained a victory? I can hurt. I can bleed. Thank God for that. Some cannot. I can make my emotions count for something, for someone, even if only for pretend. Even if for me. It’s about time I put myself at the front of the line. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

Silence echoes through my den. My pen falls and writes again. I have nothing new to say, nothing to change any lives, just another confused muse trying to get through, wanting to make sense out of something senseless. Why not through me, I think? I needed something to do anyway. There’s still so much I don't understand, after trying so hard, after coming so far. Did I think a reward would be given? That I deserved some Nobel Prize? That I was entitled? Was I really that naïve? I deserve to be humbled.

Something’s clawing at my window. Best to leave it be. My footsteps fade and echo along the street. I walk by couples holding hands and utter to every one of them, barely above a whisper: “May you always be in love.”

Nothing Broken

2011-06-19T12:51:00.003-06:00

I have walked along the trail of fire, no longer composed of shadows and screams, nightmare visions, ripping up through my spine and into my brain, shattering me in two, like it used to do. This softer, newer place is more like a quiet lullaby, fireflies between the trees, every dream I have shared with another, and every other sharing their dreams with me. This boldness allows me to see things from a higher plain, clouds all around me, where I have to stand on my tippy-toes to see over and above and into everything else. Everything as it really is, as things really are, which is sometimes better than pretend. These aren’t illusions anymore. Hope swells here, my chest burns bright, and I feel like flames from the sun. Precious diamonds make my skin. I am a spectrum, a prism of light and color. My eyes turn everything magical. I begin to think of words that never existed in my vocabulary: Glory, Mighty, Awe. An angel hums in my ear, a clarion call.

All things mesh together, realizations of light-colored eyes, reasons for the way things were that have easy explanations now. Forgiveness held more power than I ever imagined, a chain that reacts to love, that reacts to joy, that reacts to bliss, that concludes with Freedom, which makes it all go round and round again.

It’s funny to walk on two feet, to be on solid ground, and feel like you’re flying. My heart is a lance, penetrating every breast I walk beside and encounter. Nothing broken. No shadows. No torture chambers. No permeable darkness. No laughter mocking me.

Someone told me I created all this, but I never thought I could take credit for that. But now, I see they weren’t lying. Several conscious efforts put me here, standing tall, proudly, surveying the scenery. What do I have this sword for? A spiritual dragon cannot be slain by such superficial means. My hair is blowing in the breeze, and all around me—vineyards, farmlands, sheep grazing, rolling hills after hills of lush, deep green. The sky is a perfect, cerulean blue with huge white clouds lazily moving across the sky like giant spaceships. Tiny cottages dot the landscape. A cliff overlooks an endless, unpredictable sea. Birds call, seagulls. I think I see a sea-lion or two. I could stand here all day. Nothing’s stopping me. Maybe I will. I have this valorous duty to defend the land, my King and Queen, rise in the face of wrong-doing to set things right, be a strong and noble man to some fair maiden, and tell her chivalry is an honor I practice every day. I’ll invite you to my castle, and we’ll read poetry by candlelight and you will see a side of me far from the battlefield. No, my dear, please. Do not get up. Let me…

To capture all this beauty in ink is impossible. How do you capture a feeling on a page? You can paint a picture, see a knight in armor, feel the warmth of the sun penetrating my breastbone. Some come close. Truth is all there is here. Truth captured. Truth fought for. Some naïve nobility I laugh at, but I cannot help but be me.

Radiant smiles leave an impact like a cannonball. Keep that fire burning. I want it never to leave me. I put it in an unbreakable jar for safe-keeping. No one can touch it then.

Pretend, imagine, go away to some lost paradise, some fairy-tale creation, a perfect fantasy of my own making and watch it come to life. Someone tells me I created all this, and it turns real. It was real all along.

I burn like fire. This trail is easy to follow once you get the hang of it. I am like a lost treasure waiting to discover myself, and amazed by what I find. You mean all that was inside of me?

There are no shadows here, and nothing is broken. Love burns with blinding, white incandescence, knocks on my door, and by God, it wants to stay! It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

If you’ll excuse me, I have to set the table and get dinner ready. Playing a good host is one of my favorite things.

If Not For All the Screaming...

2011-05-15T09:48:00.000-06:00

Here's another little horror tale in the traditional sense. Available on the Nook for only .99 cents. Don't have a Nook, no problem. You can download the app, too, my friends!

If Not For All The Screaming...

The Truck Driver

2011-05-02T22:20:00.001-06:00

One of my very first horror story ideas, available through Kindle or Kindle apps. For a measly .99, you can't go wrong.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YEZB8E

My Little Golden Bell (For Cookie)

2011-04-24T22:31:00.006-06:00

What was once silver, turned brown somehow, sometime back long ago, amber, blonde, platinum with streaks, pieces of white, then turned purple if you looked close enough, sometimes silky black, then chestnut brown, depending on the light. Looks perfect with the curl, wavy elegance, I think, long, lacy sleeves on that blouse you wear, floral skirt, and I always think, Lady—with a capital L. Do you see what I see?

Fair, like alabaster, white marble, the milk you drink so much, only smoother, with a pink blush, something you probably have to touch to believe, make real. Know what I mean? Probably not. Makes me wish I could touch it freely, run my finger down the length of your pretty white cheek and tell you, “This is only one of the things that makes you beautiful to me, that stirs my blood.” The rest…well…I’ll try to get there eventually. This is just the beginning.

Sometimes, too, like a porcelain doll, healthy and flawless, skin that can’t be real and you wonder how such a pretty girl had that miasma of personality that shot through the roof. Gonna meet a superstar someday, make the devil blush. What a lucky bastard someone’s gonna be. Brings a tear to my eyes, sometimes more than one. It often does.

Don’t be afraid to cry. I see sometimes the hurt you go through (It’s hard not to with those puffy red eyes.), knowing there’s nothing I can do, but let you let it run its course. No hug will do, not for this girl. She needs something more, a magic word, fairy dust, to make her feel better, a carpet ride or something. Did I tell you you look like a princess today?

I wish I could be younger sometimes with a chance out there, or you could be a little bit older, and we could run, and laugh, hold hands, and play like two little kids always getting into mischief. Turn the kitchen into a den of flour from floor to ceiling. You got it all over your face. Smear the chocolate syrup in your hair and think about the beating our parents are going to give us for what we did to the kitchen and not care at all. Open every single cookie jar. For some reason, there are a million, make sure that loud laughter of yours continues to ring and ring and ring. Change your name and call you My Little Golden Bell, tinkle like a snow chime, watch the lights at Christmas time, open up a jar of honey and say, “I made this special for you with all the bees’ cooperation. You should have seen the looks on their faces. Bees smile. Bet you never knew that, did you?” Take you back to a land of lost chivalry, let you ride upon a handsome steed, because I always have to throw in some romantic fantasy to make it complete. All the townsfolk are throwing flowers at you. See, the blush in your cheeks.

Carry you up to your tower at night, put you to sleep, and stand guard by the window, watching the stars come out, making sure all is safe, no monsters, no dragons, no villainous creeps, nothing to harm you, watching you sleep, peaceful little princess girl with all that drool on your pillow just makes you look that much prettier to me.

A Honeymoon in Outer Space

2011-04-07T10:51:00.000-06:00

I can be a killer, too, as I watch it progress into outer space. I took your hand and told you not to be afraid. You don’t have to worry about breathing here. You trusted me. That was a good thing. This was just the beginning of the adventure. We would see things through and through like magic. Take this bus ride all the way home. Paint it pink and send it off like a sling-shot into outer space.

I saw, at least briefly, the way it was supposed to work between us. Some caricature of me I had a dream about one day like a flashy, bold cartoon. I imagined Thor, because he was the only super-hero with hair like mine. That wasn’t conceit, just a way to build my self-esteem. I would’ve mentioned the Silver Surfer, but he doesn’t have any hair at all, despite traveling at the speed of light through space, which I like. But I’m getting off the subject.

You were my courageous little princess. The funny thing about you was I just needed that smile. You gave it to me many times with those big brown eyes of yours, so that was all the strength I needed. You were my little hammer, like Thor. I was strong, plenty strong, I thought, but not nearly as strong until I could hold you in my hand. So, that made me want to be your provider and protector, a champion, here like every little myth and archetype history created for man and woman to be. We had a step above them, though, because we had our own definitions of each that we were living up to. That was the key. I had armor made from steel and sun beams. Still, I couldn’t do it without you.

“There,” I said, pointing to the night sky. “Look.”

You followed my gaze while my cape billowed behind me. You put your hand to my shoulder, and we watched as every star imaginable shot across the sky.

“That,” you said, “is a lot of wishes.”

“Aye,” I said, nodding.

These rivets were just the shirt I was wearing. I didn’t need armor at all. We can confuse ourselves into thinking the silliest things. So, I told you to hop on the back of this dragon. I was never meant to kill such a big, cuddly thing. We could train him, make him a household pet.

“Good,” you said. “What shall we name him?”

“Leprechaun,” the dragon said, and winked at us. All three of us started laughing.

“Hop on,” he said. “I’ll take you for a ride.”

“How’s that for agreeable?” I asked.

“Pretty cool,” you said, then asked Leprechaun, “Where are you taking us?”

“Past the sun and three times around the moon. I want to show you the rings of Saturn, too. And Uranus has these huge ice cliffs. I thought we could have a barbecue and watch Neptune rise in the sky. It’s pretty far-out.”

“I think this dragon is tipsy,” I said.

“Never been more sober in my life,” he said.

“In that case, lead on Leprechaun.”

He nodded and took to the sky.

“This is gonna be one hell of a honeymoon,” you said.

“But I haven’t asked you to marry me yet.”

“Well, what a better time to propose, on the back of a dragon, soaring into outer space. What girl gets to say that?”

“She’s got you there, champ,” Leprechaun said.

“We’ll have to stop at the store first and pick you out an engagement ring.”

“Can we try that pizza place on the mall first?”

“Of course. What do you say, Leprechaun? You hungry?”

“I love pizza!”

And that’s how I imagined our fairy-tale to be.

If Only I...

2011-03-26T13:27:00.002-06:00

It’s funny how sincerity is not always a good thing. You think being honest is what it’s all about, but it must have to do with the people you meet. You hear that all the time, being honest, being sincere, because it’s the right thing to do, but you meet the wrong people to be honest and sincere to. I’m no stranger to irony.

I would tell them, let them know the truth, everything about me, because you think it’s the right thing to do, the right way to start it all, but the world is a funny place. I’m here to let you know about all the realness I have inside me. The last thing you should be is ashamed, you tell yourself, but you end up feeling that way anyway, at least sometimes. I laugh about it because it’s the only way I can get past it. To think all that honesty and sincerity would come back to bite me. It’s like your heart is talking to you, telling you there is no other way to be. Is my heart wrong, I think? Is my soul lying to me?

I put her up on this little white cloud, held her beauty there like the sun, wondered all the time if she was just that beautiful inside. I think I said that to someone once. It’s part of the mission, I guess. Part of the quest, the one thing to get you past all the rest, that everything I thought and felt was real, genuine through and through. How could you fail, you think? Everything I wanted to say, knowing it came right from the heart. Some had to do with honor, even. Unbelievable, you think. Old fashioned approaches, authenticity. All dead now. To think none of it was pretend, and that’s what you were trying to convey. All these men are really little boys, and there was a measure you were living up to that said otherwise. You were trying to tell them you were worth more than that, that you were worthy of them, good enough, when really, it was just the opposite, wasn’t it?

I wasn’t just talking to amuse myself, to give you all the things you wanted to hear, to sound like every other guy who just wanted to get what they wanted at your expense. There’s just so much suspicion anymore, it seems. I guess the right person would know better. You wouldn’t have to convince them of that, would you? They would know. That’s the difference between the right ones and the wrong ones. They didn’t believe you anyway, despite what you felt inside. They couldn’t feel what you felt inside. You wondered where this role reversal came from. Little boys and their video games, their lack of responsibility. Women without a shred of sensitivity, colder than a drill sergeant. Something happened along the way and this, today, is the catastrophe. Frightening. I would kill to find a girly-girl, a shred of pink, a bright color, a laugh like a lilt. You can cry at everything. I don’t care. Just cry on me. That’s all I ask.

I was always putting the perfect personality to the pretty face. You can imagine my disappointment. Someone who actually cared about the way I thought and felt, saw the world. Supported my beliefs and ideas, stood beside me, said they wanted to come with me on my pilgrimage, because they believed in me. What was the point otherwise? That’s what made it work. But alas, it was not to be…

I wanted her to know I could listen to everything she had to say, let her be who she was, good and bad and love her for it. Be sensitive, thoughtful to her every need, acceptance, without judgment, protective, honorable, and all that old-fashioned crap people don’t care about these days. Seems the world is in short supply. I was just trying to create a little balance. But some women don’t need men at all. They have all those qualities anyway.

It was your femininity I liked best. Old time movies, your girly nature, soft-batting eyes, you little coquette, coy looks and laughter. Girl through and through. Radiance when you walk through the door. You make the sun blush, a beacon through the cloudy haze. Eyes that smiled, too, charm—virtually villainous. That is how you seized my heart. You taught me more about love than I taught myself. If only I…I thought. If only I….If only…

We’d have these late night conversations, pillow to pillow, every subject covered, every secret revealed, every word like a bridge of conviction, a dawning solidity, confirmation that two identical souls had come together and set the world on fire. We were the dawning, second by second, moment by moment reality. Proof that sometimes things were meant to be. A grand scheme, a design, a compliment that we could be part of something that bold, mysterious, and beautiful. A play, a poem, a sonnet revealed, a song, a Victorian novel, or some damn thing. I wanted you to be my Jane Eyre, my Anne of Green Gables. She deserved someone more dark and mysterious than Gilbert, I thought. I could love her more than him. I built myself from the shrine of ashes, everything like new, but still scarred and somehow that made you like me more. Even boys can have fairy-tale dreams, like you girls do. But some girls turn into men, and let them die. Boys turn into girls and do the same. That’s why some dreams never come true.

I wonder what happened when we both built for ourselves the perfect each other, conquered demons, slaughtered dragons, only to find the tower empty. Created myself for myself and you to be everything I could be, I thought. Unrequited love, and there was never even a lover. Go figure. Just a thought in my head I didn’t want to be the only one to uncover. Words on a page. Bitter irony. Alas, a dragon slain. And for what? To walk the streets alone in wonder with myself as my own company to keep me company. Do you meet the same dead ends I do? Why is it always a destination I’m trying to get to, as opposed to understanding this is enough here now, the way I am? I am missing the moment otherwise. Do you wonder why just being you left you so frightened and alone with no one to talk to but an idea I might be out there? That’s how it is for me here, finding my own solid ground to stand on. But still wondering…If only I…

Fallen Echo

2011-03-02T19:53:00.003-07:00

I wonder if there’s something beyond all this. More than words can describe, nothing I can capture here. Colors you can take a bite out of, something sticky and sweet that drips down your chin. I wonder if I can be a constellation someday. Look, there in the sky! It’s me in a constellation now!

I embrace the cold, empty air as if it were a woman, holding tight, my arms wrapped around her, breasts pressed tight against my chest. See me. Touch me. Feel me. Like that song by The Who. Hear me run. There, as I move my head back and forth, a slight lingering aroma of subtle perfume in her hair. Copper curls, maybe. That’s what it was last night. Black. Brown. Platinum. But it’s all pretend.

A different road leads off into deeper solitude, tall trees on each side, blocking the sun. It’s barely a road at all. Pretty little cloudy day anyway. There must be something beyond all this—here, this road never got me anywhere but the same old wandering. Leads me back to where I used to be a hundred years ago.

Just on the edge of my vision, something black flickers, a shadow moves and breathes like a whale. It snuffs out everything. I see redemption and mercy in fire sometimes, enough to put a smile on my face as I soak in tepid water with more than water going down the drain. My face doesn’t blush anymore. Flames are loud enough to consume me on their own. I think about them on the ceiling. Shadows are black enough to hide me. I have no excuse. But I’m still looking. Sometimes, it just gets this way in here.

Everything you ever wanted to be, everything you ever loved decided not to show up one day. I take my walking stick and begin my trek across this land. A pilgrimage, I tell myself. It’s necessary. Almost forty, still trying to be a man. Wish I had wings so I could fly away, a boat that could sail around the moon. There’s more to it than this, hollow prisons shaking the fruit from my tree. I keep telling myself maybe I have some gift I can offer, something I can wrap up, put in a little box, distribute to all my neighbors, family, friends, something everyone can have a piece of. Rejuvenate the world, one piece of cake at a time. I don’t mind suffering for a good cause. Dying’s nothing new. I know what’s going on here, but it’s funny how it still surprises me.

These eyes I see with are not my own. This lonely feeling is alien to me, but it’s been around for a while. I just pretend it isn’t there. This pain I feel isn’t mine, either. I know there’s something to learn from all this, and when I do, I’ll share it with you, so you can avoid all these stupid pitfalls I put myself through.

I want to stand alone on a clear, beautiful day, on top of a mountain, and gaze in silence at the world all around. I just want to see hills and hills and more hills, no city, no people, no anything. Just the earth and the sky and the clouds. Maybe get lost at sea for a day or two with nothing but the sky, the ocean blue, and whatever mammal wants to visit me. Anything to clear my brain, take this cluttered confusion and just iron it out with clear blue water. Nothing but me and the vastness, so I can see the vastness, understand how tiny I really am in all this. But wonder and hope, as beautiful as they are, seem to create nothing but pain.

I let the world fall away on both sides of me. I don’t want this same old conditioning anymore. I want some new skin to wear, someone to lift me up for once and tell me everything’s okay, that everything is perfect just the way it is. That maybe there is this crystal shard, this golden, unbreakable thing inside that cannot be touched, and it is the most beautiful thing in the world, in creation, that has every existed and will ever exist, and it exists in no one but you. Know what I mean?

I miss those sunsets, no matter where they are, behind mountains, lakes, the sea, the world going down, like a slow-blinking eye, stillness, just the sound of my heart beating. Makes me sad in some way that’s beautiful. I know that feeling. Turn it all into a cloudy day. It’s okay with me. There’s no reason it’s there. It just is. I can’t explain it.

My whole life, I dreamed all these big, impossible dreams. That I could be a super-hero and fly around the moon. That I could live like a cartoon character, a vampire, or smash a dragon’s skull with my bare claws. They were good company for a while, but I need something I can feel and taste and touch.

One day, I tell myself…One day…I will be the captain of a beautiful ship, and I will sail light years across the sea. I will war with Vikings, own a planet, a distant star. But I know better. I can’t base my life on tomorrow. How come that ocean isn’t here now? Why can’t it be?

My quest begins with a solid pair of shoes and a good walking stick. I used to cling to all these ideas, images, something to make me happy, and I realize I’m not so lonely anymore despite what my heart tells me. You can only make so many changes in one lifetime. Just who do you expect yourself to be? An invincible, flawless, warrior poet?

I look up into the sky after the sun’s gone down. It is just night and stars, but I don’t see a sign of me, not where I can draw those stars together and make them do what I want. What kind of puffed up ego is that? Self-absorption? Narcissism? No more than a speck, a tiny, easily forgotten thing. Barely makes a mark, a scratch. When it talks, it doesn’t breathe. You can’t hear anything. Even the slightest whisper doesn’t make any wind.

My voice is all the company I have, an echo that fails to return any of my calls.

I Am Night, and I Am Made of Stars

2011-01-13T20:22:00.001-07:00

He held his hands out on either side of him and turned his face toward the sun, warm rays upon his face. Above, the sky was a cloudless, winter blue, no breath of wind, but just this cold air, clean and crisp upon his skin. He was not hampered by it. He loved winter.

Beneath his feet lay shards of broken glass, twisted wire, jagged rocks and steel, rubble, like a mountain of broken dreams, hapless beginnings and detours. The light there at his feet was the dark obscurity of confusion. Charred hands and fingers grasped feebly at him, but he ignored them, paid little heed. His attention was turned Heavenward at the great blue dome of the sky.

There was only this, only this and nothing more, fullness encompassing his heart, his mind in synchronicity with all living things. He smiled. He didn’t need the warmth of summer to remind him, he could do this at will. His level of focus was like a bead, dead-on, aimed true.

I am night, and I am made of stars. I am day, and I am made of blue.

His fingertips hummed, his eyes glowed. Even his hair seemed a cascade of crisp clear water, glimmering with light. It seemed to him that he was standing at the crux of the universe, as though every living eye shined through him, saw through him. Time ceased to beat. White and stars and light exploding, an ever enfolding, expanding tapestry of the universe, black silk, almost transparent, with no edge, no crease, no ripple or ruffle. It had no seams, but it had all things in it. It had no beginning and no end, like a giant blanket unfurling with no end to unfurl.

Still this, he thought. Keep it in a little box and hold it in your hand. You can see the way it vibrates, hums with energy. Every living thing is in it, and then another box, and every little thing in that, and so on and so on. Blinding, glorious, bursting radiance and warmth. Triumph, victory, and trumpets. Beethoven would be proud, he thought and smiled. Glory in his sound. Vibrant intensity, but stillness, too, quiet like deep space, not even the sound of your breath. Not a thought, not a single hum. Just this. Not a picture, not even a pin drops to shatter this quietude. Space, fullness, emptiness, darkness, and light.

Here, I see only this, and Light moves through me, and there is only Beauty and Truth. I am a staff on a blank page. Write your music on me. I see myself in the sky with wings. Did you judge me for the tears I cried, worse than I did myself? I laugh about it now because I never felt this strong before. Mountains upon mountains I see. The world is my kingdom. Love breathes into your eyes. Now, do you see? I was born for all this romantic poetry. I thought this was for Gods alone. How blind I’ve been in my simplicity.

Armed to the hilt with my pen, I slay every dragon before me.

The horse’s hooves crushed every skull and broken bone, shattering them to dust as you rode. A playground, a battlefield, tempests waging war on the sea. One dimension, then two, then three. Have you ever seen the likes of this? There’s a diamond in you, too. Here, just brush off a bit of this dust, spit-shine and polish that pretty little sucker, and watch you come to life and shine! They can see you from outer space. Here, you are Everything, needing nothing. Your fullness is complete. You stand alone, healed, happy, free, and whole. You’ve been cured of all your wanting. In that moment, Divine Love reached down and touched your face. Now, you have a revolutionary mind. You found it on your own without reaching forward, reaching out. You went against the grain. You conformed only to yourself, you rebel you, with your arms out on either side of you, eyes closed, seeing Everything, feeling Everything with nothing at all left out. The air streamed through you and touched everything, and now you can be a child forever. How does that feel?

Champions of the Night Sky (A Christmas Musing)

2010-12-01T14:31:00.002-07:00

“I’m always warm when you’re around, something I would’ve never imagined, not on a cold day like today. But it’s true. You warm me by the sun.”

Her eyes sparkled in the winter night when she smiled. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were rosy from the cold. Snowflakes fell slow and lazily around them, like tiny discs of white.

“Cliches, though, my dear, have only so much merit in today’s world. Nobody’s original anymore. So, when I tell you, you are warm like the sun, it’s not as though I’m the first person to have said it.”

She scooted closer, their thighs touching. “Can you taste the peppermint in that cocoa?”

“Yes,” he said, taking a sip. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

They were downtown, between the festive, taller buildings of the city, everything decorated in some shape, form or other. Lights, lights, and more lights. They were everywhere, white lights, multi-colored lights, on the trees, along the eaves of buildings, lampposts, and store windows. Giant wreathes and red ribbons hung from streetlights. There was a giant candy cane on every corner.

The man and woman were sitting on a bench. In front of them, a small ice rink was packed with skaters of all ages, couples, the elderly, children and families, teenage boys and girls, most of them slow-going, stumbling awkwardly, loping, looking as though they were running in place without really moving at all. The man and woman laughed as they watched them. It was festive, comical, joyous, and enchanting at the same time.

They sat for a while in silence before she said, “Like the sun, huh?”

He nodded and smiled. “Not very original, is it?”

“Why is that so important to you? To be original?”

“Probably because I want you to know you are something more to me than clichés, than words unspoken, than things I dream about, certain lines from certain poetry, all the things guys try to say to woo the heart of their ladies fair. Some say it for a million different reasons, because they want to win those fair hearts. Some say it for selfish reasons we all know about already. I read in this book about a guy who said, ‘You are the sun and the moon,’ and he thought he was the first person to say it, and the woman replied by rolling her eyes, emasculating him with a huge, ‘Oh, please, I’ve heard it all before.’ So, when a man meets a woman he truly loves, truly likes, from the bottom of his heart, and knows she is special, unlike anything he has ever met before, he wonders what he can do to prove he isn’t a selfish ass with only one thing on his mind, because in today’s world, it seems that’s the first thing a woman thinks when a man confronts her. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. And who can blame them? He’s trying to tell her he doesn’t want her for one simple reason. That he wants her for the romance, the poetry, the emotional commitment, the beauty, the crying and the pain that comes with it. All of it. That he wants her to know this, that she is more than just a girl, just a woman to him. But that’s what all the guys say, so what happens when a guy actually means it? How can she believe him? He tries to say it differently. Poets get accused of using their words prettily to get what they want. They use their talents to woo the ladies. Musicians are only using their music. Painters, too, and so they don’t really mean it. They’re just using what they’re good at. But what about the man who knows none of that, who only has that one means to express himself? What about the man who is just a man, whose dreams are dead or maybe never had a dream at all except to love someone and be loved? Maybe he realizes he isn’t going to change the world, that he isn’t going to make a difference, or save the planet or even be remotely known or successful in any way at all? Maybe he’s just trying to be real and honest with himself and feel and be unafraid of all and everything. What about the man who is just an honest, good man in his heart and has only his honest, good heart to give? Today, that doesn’t seem like enough. It’s not an excuse. It’s truth. What if he isn’t rich or has a nice home or is well known in any way? Does that make him less a man, less able to love and be loved if he has only found the space in his heart that matters most? It’s like a man just wants to be believed, accepted, appreciated for what he is, a thinking, feeling human being because it is just that and nothing more. He does the best he can, and he is true and noble and honest with himself and everyone he deals with. Because that’s the only thing that’s true. It’s the only thing that matters. In the end, what else is there? But sometimes it seems like you just can’t win or nobody cares about your intentions or what things mean. I am not famous. I am not rich. I do not live in a mansion by the sea. I’m lucky to have a job, a home, and food to eat. And I just know it’s warm. I just know it’s comfortable when you’re around and that I want you to be happy. I know, even when you’re not around, the thought of you is enough. It’s nice to think about. I like just thinking about you. I have this smile on my face without even knowing it. People ask me all the time, ‘Why the hell are you smiling?’ And I say, ‘I didn’t realize I was smiling.’ I just don’t feel cold. Even now. Here. Frozen to the bone as I should be. You know it’s cold. You can see my breath. But not cold at all. And rich. Rich inside because everything is in this moment. Everything that could ever be and ever was is right here and that’s all that matters, all I care about. And you. Making sure you are happy, wanting you to be happy.”

“I have never been happier. It’s the same for us, too, you know? When you want to express something and you just don’t know how. When you want to prove you’re a good woman to the man you love. When you want to prove to him how true, how loving and supportive you will be to him. No matter what, no matter where, with everything. All you can do is feel it. So, you feel it. You let yourself feel it. And it’s the best feeling in the world. There is no feeling like it. There never will be a feeling like it, you know? You just go with it. You embrace it. You dance, you sing, you celebrate this feeling and prove how much you love. Like now. You hold it. You still it. You celebrate it because this is what it’s all about, Charlie Brown.”

He laughed.

“I think it’s neat they have Christmas music playing while they skate, don’t you?” she asked.

He nodded. “I do.”

He loved the sound of the skates on the ice, the laughter and the jeering, raucous shouts from some of the kids. He watched a middle-aged couple with their arms locked together, skating as though not a single person existed, oblivious to everyone else but each other.

“So, you’re not cold, either?”

“No,” she said. “But it is dang good cocoa.”

They giggled.

“I’m trying to turn it into something magical, maybe, something cosmic, like I want it to mean this great, perfect thing where everything gets answered, the questions to life, the miracle, all of it starts to make sense. In a moment like this, in the moments we’ve had, I always want to turn it into something supernatural. Something out of this world. Maybe I ruin it by doing that. You try to capture what it means to you, I guess, in a way you understand. That you just want it to mean something to you, too, the other person. You worry it won’t mean anything to them like it does for you.”

“So, let it mean something,” she said. “And let it be cosmic and magical. And if that’s what it means to you, then let it be that. I’m the one who feels lucky, you know? That you tell me these things, that they do mean that much to you. Do you know what that means to me that it means so much to you?”

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her. “Well said,” he told her. “So yes, it means the world to me. It means everything to me that we can just sit here, not thinking about anything but this, the kids skating, the music playing, that it doesn’t have to make sense or be explained, because it’s night and it’s cold, and the snow is falling, and my head is crisp, clearer than it has ever been, like what the night sky must look like above all these clouds and there isn’t a single break in the sky except for the stars. That’s how I feel lately with you. And my heart is this giant round ball of vibrating white light. I know it’s crazy. But that’s how I’ve always felt with you. And if anyone turned this into a little story, or a little vignette or something, all the guys would throw up over the complete mushiness of it, and maybe some of the girls would, too, because of all the tenderness and stuff just isn’t in these days. The trend is shallow, no meaning, men being weak and women being strong. It’s all reversed again for the wrong reasons with no balance and it’s still creating havoc. The trend is for women to be sword carrying warriors, like what you see in video games and movies, and men…well, I’m not sure what men are supposed to be anymore. I don’t even think men know what they’re supposed to be. Why can’t people just be the honest people they are? I want you to be the beautiful woman you are with the setting we’re in, with all the Christmas lights, the music, the snow, the holiday cheer everywhere, as though your heart were bursting with magic and fortune. As though the Three Spirits—the Past, The Present, and The Future—were striving in everyone, trying to keep Christmas all the year, and not just one day of the year. That’s what it is, and that’s how it will be, and even this moment has a touch of magic, something surreal about it, and I just wanted to say that because that’s the way it is.”

She laughed at his ranting, then was quiet for a time, closing her eyes. She heaved a heavy sigh, smiled wide and looked at him. “You are my champion of the night sky, my warrior prince and poet. You are my happy ending. The world is not made for archetypes, though they are used often, if not always. But I think people think they are supposed to be a certain thing, and that’s when it gets all messed up. I think times are changing, and we are supposed to be more than that, more than what we have all been, all of us, man, woman, child. You make me feel strong and beautiful as the woman I am, no matter what, and it’s just because you are the man you are. Do you realize that? It’s not something you go out of your way to do. It’s just who you are. People are strong because they are weak and tender. This is an age where the heart and soul are put to the test, where the mind is fragile but all powerful, where it is bravest to embrace every vice, fear, and weakness, and that, to me, is the sign of a true champion. That is the hero I want to have save me from the castle, love. Only through vulnerability can you see how invulnerable you really are. You are not afraid of yourself or the world around you. You see everyone as beautiful, as having goodness in them, a warm heart. Everyone is just fine the way they are. Everyone’s point of view is right. There is no right or wrong. We all think and feel the same things. We just do it differently, because we are different, if that makes any sense.”

He smiled and nodded. “Spoken like a true philosopher, my dear.”

She snuggled closer and leaned her head against his arm. “It means a lot that it means so much to you. Does that answer your question?”

“It answers everything.”

“Merry Christmas, love.”

“Merry Christmas, my dear,” he said.

Snowflakes fell like tiny suns, like tiny moons, silver and white in the Christmas lights. Children laughed and played. Bells chimed from nearby. A warm glow spread throughout the city streets and the night sky looked down upon it all and smiled.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Silence in Prose

2010-11-17T11:26:00.002-07:00

He was friends with silence. He understood its glory, like a lullaby, what silence could be. He closed his eyes and breathed silence, the passing quiet of an undisturbed ocean. It seemed impossible sometimes, that so much could fill silence, but silence did not seem like empty space. It could move and change and turn in any direction, lighting the way. Sounds could fill his head, he supposed, if he wanted them to. He could imagine sounds. Scratches from a pen, maybe, or the wind rattling the window, imagined instruments, distant traffic, but even then, silence lived. Silence breathed.

You know only this, he thought. Only this between sounds, between and over and above, and below melody. To the side here. There is silence there. Even the wind makes silence absolute. Birds make silence when they sing. Everyone stops to listen, and that is silence. Church bells, too, along and between rivers and streams, across the town, know nothing but silence.

Sometimes, it just worked that way, and there was nothing but that without trying to make anything, because everything already was. A single moment lapses into eternity. It stretches from the base of one kingdom to another.

Live in every moment. Learn to watch each person breathe. Carry a storm upon your back. Stretch a cloud here and there. Watch a comet fly. Rain. Pour. Cleanse my soul. Make a giant walk the earth. Pass back and forth and into silken sand. Make a holiday out of me. Torture me with your warm embrace. Smother me. Let me get you something to stir your blood. Let us toast this radiance!

I connect and reconnect. I race around the globe a million times or more, never seeing the same thing twice. I like to see if I recognize my footprints anywhere. But so far, no. For once, my heart actually belongs to me. My thoughts are my own. There is no torture, no memory of ridicule. It fades into the background music and turns into silence. A jewel lights my way along the shadows. I turn it into thoughts of Spring. I close my thoughts and run around and play like I did when I was three. I catch a hummingbird by its wing.

A thousand drums take to the sky, echoing a beat across the galaxy. I stop for a while to listen, and then the rocket-ships, too, take flight. I see those rocket-powered jet-packs, lear-jets, space shuttles. Meteor showers, setting suns, like a time lapse, move forwards and backwards any way you want. I hear the heavy steel guitars of loud rock-and-roll music. Wind to blow our troubles away, uplift a skyscraper, push the moon a meter or two so it’s a pendulum swing. Chaos is only a challenge, a barely perceptible beat upon my breast, someone tapping annoyingly to get my attention.

Through it all, a smile spreads from one end of the gloomy day to another. Stillness makes its presence felt, and says loud enough for everyone to hear: “Nothing can faze me.”

Unbroken Blue

2010-11-03T12:51:00.003-06:00

He walks upright and stands alone, surveying the hills around from all sides, towns and villages, valleys, country sides, mountain peaks, lakes, rivers, and streams. Ocean views, panoramas of a million sunsets, tropical islands, palm trees, stretches of flawless, golden sand take up his view from every side. There are endless miles of wind-swept sand and desert hills. Thick, dark forests, jungles, fields, meadows—sea, air, and sky stretch on and on until he can see no more. But he can see. He can see everything. There is no limit to his vision. His vision penetrates. It goes into the trees, into the leaves, into the sunlight, the moonbeams. It passes down and through frozen, suffocating, deep black oceans. Structures as well he can see, man made skylines, cityscapes at night, neon lights, noises, people, traffic, resounding, reverberating in waves rising and falling through it all. All things are visible—tall buildings, skyscrapers, pyramids, landmarks, stop signs, barbed-wire, winding, snaky stretches of road, highways, parking lots, traffic meters, bus stops, walkways, and grocery stores.

He stands, and at all points—all junctures and angles—blinding, incandescent light streams through him. Every cell and molecule is illuminated, bursts forth with radiant, warm energy, pillars of white. Spectrums shoot off into every direction imaginable. There is nothing untouched, no shadow. He can see the night and the day at the same time. Dawn and dusk enter his view. Incandescence is infinite.

He holds his hands out on either side of him, and to him, it seems as though he is standing on empty air, in the vast, great center of the universe. He is on the highest mountain peak. He is everything, and everything is around him. There is no stone unturned, no shadow unpenetrated. Water moves through him, lakes, rivers, ocean sand and shore. Waves break and crash under his skin. Stars emanate underneath and on top of him. He is the mirror of a riverbed. He is glass, transparent. The wind, too, is here, hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, tornadoes, erupting volcanoes, tidal waves, cyclones. Thunder booms. Lightning rips across the sky. Rain and snow cloud the air. He is ice and fire. The smell of autumn leaves, woodsmoke, marshmallows, cocoa, peppermint, coffee, tea, baked bread, pies, succulent, mouth-watering dinners warm his senses. He is all the changing seasons. The air turns robust, vibrant green, moist, warm again, bright, blue, unbroken. Spring and summer flowers emerge, rosebuds and new leaves. The trill of birds fill the air, bees, and dragonflies. It moves through him, is him, and he creates it, lets it go, surrenders to it at lightning speed. He is the melting snow, the drying rain, the rain again, the wind-swept pile of leaves that gather in corners. He tilts his head upwards, letting the stars, the light of the moon move through him. He sheds tears. These are tears of joy, richness and emptiness because he knows how full and devoid everything is at the same time. His emotions, his heart is tender, easily flexible, pliant, and he opens it wider, further, making the gap impossible to bridge because he is unafraid. This is nothing short of bravery. This is boldness absolute. Every emotion gushes through him, makes an overwhelming, dominating rushing sound. It is the whine, the shrill of a jet engine, only louder. It is a rainbow. It is fissures exploding, supernovas, and the sun detonating to and out of life. It is the gentle, steady rhythm of waves breaking on the shore. It is life and death, beautiful and devastating. It is catastrophe and sadness, tragedy and color. Melody, silence, and clamoring bells. It is annihilation and song, whispers and poetry. It is total destruction and purest joy. It is a resounding, humming, electric balls of blinding yellow white energy. It’s a cosmic symphony, stardust, miracle, magic, and wonder. It is awe.

For a second, he could fly. He sees all this. He has wings and shoots like a bird across the earth, into the atmosphere, deeper, higher, longer. He goes into space, and he can breathe just fine. He questions nothing. He doubts nothing. He believes, knows, soars through radiant creations of all and nothing. Cheering crowds fill his ears, a stadium of fans screaming, wailing, crying, cheering him on, his name, every name he has ever had, all his names, every imaginable living thing from one end of the universe to the other encouraging him, patting him on the back, telling him he should be proud, that nothing could be more beautiful than this, that beauty is defined in this moment as this moment. Everything has purpose, meaning, and meaning and clamoring joy is what he has found. He knows it; they know it, and they are celebrating in the dance. He smiles and waves to each and every one of them. All he has to do is take one step, and yet it’s even easier than that. It’s not complicated. The melody turns back upon itself. Shadows become light. His perception, his mind reaches out, expands and does not break. It’s light, too, and it touches every corner of the globe, the galaxy, other galaxies and continues on. It moves and moves and moves, and yet, seems to stand completely still. He is traveling at light speed, yes, and not moving at all. It is everything else moving by him, though him. He has never seen, let alone, experienced anything like this, yet he knew it was there all along. Light continues to penetrate his being, and moves, emanating outward in every direction and back into him. He is gentle, soft, oceanic breezes. He is peace, tranquility, and the setting sun. He is whisper, soft melody, a rustle here and there. He is the touch of an incandescent lover. He is the moment they met. He is loneliness, loss, and isolation. He is pain, turmoil, and confusion. He is trauma and fear. He is shaken, freezing cold. He is hopeless, death, and despair. But he is the unbroken blue as well. He is lazily drifting white clouds. He is the birds in the trees, children laughing, and playing.

He spreads his arms out wider and tears continue to fall. He smiles suddenly as everything sheds off of him—years past, automatic conditioning, ritual, habit, routine. It is filth, carrion, an old crust, lice, degeneration, and decay. It is mold, mildew, and heavy stone. It is rank, offal, madness, violence, and vibrant hatred. It is broken bone, withered, rancid skin. All this has its purpose, though. He does not condemn any of it. He pockets it, in fact, stores it in a safe and sacred place and makes sure nothing can destroy it. All that old, previous waste and disease still manages to shine like a flawless jewel, he thinks.

It is amazing to be here. He has never felt so fearless, so unafraid. He has never experienced this kind of boldness, confidence, unwavering conviction. It is as if his soul has taken over the throne of his flesh, given him a trophy, first prize, a kingdom, Heaven, and kissed him fully on the lips. There is no trepidation, nervousness. He smiles, anxious to begin, to see what happens next. Could it be this is only the beginning? Amazing.

Spectrums race against time. He decides to challenge it. This ever constant, unflinching universe is no match for him. He cannot fail. He befriends it, listens, molds, and here it is now, responding to his call. He reaches out and they hold hands. All things he can do. All things he has done. There is love everywhere.

See the sun. Tuck the moon up under your arm and take to the sky. Up, up and away! Put on a cape and fly away!

The possibilities were endless.

Become a light year, a season, a fairy-tale bridge. Make everyone a shooting star, a comet across the sky. A golden treasure. I am a katydid. Follow my lead.

He laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the thought and brought himself back to earth. He reached down and pulled a handful of golden sand into his palms, holding it up to his face. He breathed on it as though he had magic breath, and said, “What kind of life do you see?”

Flesh and Bone

2010-10-17T15:54:00.012-06:00

Flesh and Bone, featuring In the Dark Kingdom.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Flesh-and-Bone/Jessy-Marie-Roberts/e/9781617060014

The Pace of Roses

2010-09-17T11:51:00.002-06:00

The man stood alone late at night and watched the world go by. The same old thing without him, he thought, at least that was what he normally would’ve thought, but not these days, not anymore. He thought about a lot of different things, all the time. He liked to think a lot. It could backfire, easily—thinking. It usually did. But he was creative by nature, so it made sense. In order to create, one had to think, but more importantly, one had to feel. He was not in short supply of either. Creation was based on thoughts and feelings.

He had changed a lot growing up. That was natural, too, he supposed. He had felt a lot, hadn’t realized until recently how pessimistic and cynical he had been, how he had spent his life wrapped in such negativity for so many years. He had always been slightly melancholy, perplexed, prone to sadness, confusion, even despair. For years, those hopeless emotions had ruled his life. He knew what it was like to live without hope, to want to die, to bow out and just be done already. He didn’t want to go there again. It was a bleak and terrible place. He was not a bleak and terrible person was the funny thing. He thought he had been, but that was the delusion, the self-deception.

Inside, it was as if all the pieces had begun to slip into place. If he were made of metal, they would have made locking noises, all those pieces, like a giant machine. He noticed it a lot lately, mainly as he walked at night by himself. He felt good, and he passed a lot of people that might’ve made him feel sad before, empty, lonely, even envious. Nowadays, he could look at them and wish them well. He knew this and he could feel it in his heart, since it was the only thing he understood. If you couldn’t feel with sincerity, with the genuine authenticity of feeling, what was the point of living? He knew this, felt it, accepted it, and now every moment of his life was based on this one principle.

It was as if someone had dipped him in silver, or gold. He felt that solid and sure of himself now, which was a relief after all the years of tumult and screaming. A soul could scream in defiance. He had learned that recently, too. But when it screamed, it must have something pretty important to say, and the man had listened. He thought of it as alignment. Things had worked themselves out, found their proper place. Everything, it seemed to him, was right with the world—the planets, the stars, the breath in his body, the way he saw things. Maybe he had simply changed his perspective. But yes, even his own heart, his own mind, seemed one with the stars, the sea, the sun and the sky.

Despite it all, despite how beautiful, it was still strange. But he liked that it was strange. It was new, and he liked the feeling of new. It kept a smile on his face, and it felt good to smile. Looking back over the years, he would’ve never imagined this possibility. It was amazing. It was miraculous. He liked to think of it as sacred. It was simply life. As he looked back over the changes, it was amazing—miraculous—he had managed to live through it. A million times he could’ve died, and maybe should have, but he didn’t. He was still here. He was walking these streets, and he could’ve been bitter and sad about a lot of things, but his story was his story and no one else’s. Someone told him recently that his past was precious and he had never thought of it that way before. He had been too open, reckless with his history, and he saw the repercussions of that now. He had been taken advantage of, even betrayed. These days, he treasured it like the miracle it was. Because it was a miracle. It was his miracle and no one else’s. So yes, he had finally accepted his past, his beautiful, wonderful, magical, star-filled past, brimming with growth, knowledge, sounds of the sea, harmony, life, and even death. He had learned a lot. The misses, the failures, the frozen plights, shadows, obsessions, even madness. All of that had a purpose, and he would’ve never believed that before, either, that life had a purpose, that he had a purpose, but sometimes, you had to stop fighting your own beliefs, your own opinions and surrender to the sacred. So, that was what he did, and the results, once again, were miraculous. Ease could be miraculous. Simplicity could be magical. Breath was sacred. Not a bad way to spend the remaining years, which—if he were lucky—would be many still.

As he walked, he noticed another form of alignment that had to do with his body. His spine was erect, his head held high. He observed everything and everybody without judgment, and that alone seemed amazing. Everything was amazing. Jesus, if he wasn’t careful, he would make himself sick thinking how amazing everything was.

Walking, the man laughed to himself at the thought. But it was true, he watched everyone, observed the way they were dressed, the way they talked, the way they lived, the city life, the night music, the traffic, the revelry. It was simply what it was, nothing more, nothing less.

His step was slow, easy, as though walking any faster would make him miss it all. This was the pace of roses. This was the slow, idle curiosity that never rushed, never hurried. This was taking it all in so he wouldn’t miss a beat, so he could remember as much about it as he could. It was fresh air, the night breeze, the beautiful summer night and the laughter and gaiety all around. His thoughts, too, were the same. There was no fighting against himself. No screaming in there. Just the simple quiet thoughts of a placid mind, a heart beating its gentle rhythm. No wind, no rain, just the easy soughing through the trees. That was all.

It was everything he wasn’t used to, so vastly different than what the previous years had taught, that it took some amount of adjusting to realize it was real. It might take him his whole life. He was fine with that.

Could it be over, he thought? Could it really be over, at least the worst of it? All that cloudy black, that confusion, that neutral gray plain of nothingness and despair? All those things that had tied me down for years, scratched and clawed at my heart and soul, my mind, all that self-inflicted suffering and tumult…Could it really be over? Finally, after all those years?

It wasn’t a question, really, was the funny thing, just a statement, one he had to adjust to, like life, accept, and eventually he would, he knew. The answer, he supposed, if it was a question, was in the simple breath, the deep, infinite space in his mind where everything was easy, like a sibilant hum. It was, in fact, as if he had never been able to catch his breath until now. As though all this time, he had been trying to catch up with himself. He had been running too fast.

Enjoy, he thought. Slow down. Live. Love. Watch the water flow. Simplicity is magic, and magic is real. That is the sacred at work. That is the path I’m on, the path I follow.

He spent the next few minutes walking away from the busier thoroughfares and toward the park, the creek. He crossed a bridge and found a quiet bench under a lamppost by the water to sit down. Under the lamp, the water was black in the dark. He listened to the water, the distant traffic, a siren in the distance, watched a pair of lovers across the river walking hand in hand along the path. Even the street sweepers were out, the yellow lights brightening the trees. It was a busy night, but he was by himself, and he liked watching the water move along in the dark under the lamps, the sound it made over the rocks. His thoughts were quiet, except when another piece slipped into place, and the sound was like metal, like hydraulics, a vast and powerful machine, well-oiled and strong. He was in no hurry to get back home. He could stay here for a while, forever maybe, he thought, until the weather changed, until someone told him he had to go, just listening, just breathing, watching the water go by.

Head On A Plate

2010-08-18T18:28:00.005-06:00

I see the way it really is, all of us reaching out for the same old thing, a chance for happiness, love, to connect to something sacred or magical. I walk the streets late at night and watch the people come and go. There are some like me, wandering, alone with no place to go. They have no schedule, no agenda. I wonder what their thoughts must be, their hearts and needs. Most are in groups of twos and threes, all the younger ones. They laugh, heedless, careless of the world around them, the sham and drudgery, all the things that make the world full of pain, lies, and deceit. I remember when I was like that. Was I ever like that? The same thing, I think, all of us, some touch of human skin to tell us we're in need. "It's okay to be what you are, right here, close to me. I accept you. No, truly. I do." So, you reveal a little bit more of yourself because you believe in connection, too, but this connection is different. You want more than touch. "You are safe today. You are not crazy or freaking out. You are a beautiful thing still, everywhere you've ever been. Everything you've seen. I see all the things about you you are ashamed of, and you have no reason to feel that way. It makes me want to know you more, in fact. Put your head here, just rest and take it easy. You've been through so much. You don't have anything to worry about. Just let it out. Just let it out."

Millions upon millions, I think, billions upon billions really. Don't we all have the same kind of pain inside? No one knows why. I cry to my mother, condemn my father, wonder what I did wrong with my sisters and brothers to be walking these streets so late at night. All alone. All the time. I wonder why that can't be me over there, holding her hand, her laughing at some joke I tell. I must be too different--too scared to hold onto anything magical. I frighten them away with too much honesty, a commitment too quickly wanting to prove my loyalty to you already. My dark past is like a monster to them. I thought it proved my strength of character. That's what I get for assumption. How can they trust me? Still learning, I think, how to live, how to breathe, what a need must truly be. How to communicate. How to survive and not go crazy. Please, dear God, don't tell me I'm crazy. That won't help me. It won't make me love you. I see your head on a plate.

Maybe I have some disease I'm not aware of. I'm a leper, a Jonah, a pariah, a sleaze, a big black monster with claws and teeth. Tell me the worst, most horrible things about me you can think of so I can be blacker. Kill my heart with one ruthless blow. You can do it. Here, just pick up this axe and do away with me. It's real easy. Don't be afraid. Label, judge, crush and destroy me. Tell me I'm a pansy, I'm a baby, out of my head, that my behavior is abnormal. Watch me squirm and hop about. Let me crawl back to you on my hands and knees with tears in my eyes, begging and pleading for you to just come back to me. This could be good, I say, if only you could see it my way. You can insult and offend me, hurt me all you want. I know I'm not worthy of more than that. I'm lucky just to have you. Yes. I know. I know. Yes. Will you hold me now?

I'm too sensitive, like a girl. You've seen me cry a thousand times already before you even knew my name. You're more like a man than me. In fact, you have no girlish qualities at all. Hmm. Guess that's not important. All I wanted was to hold your hand, reveal my deepest sincerity to you, but instead, you took a knife to my chest, stabbed me repeatedly until my soul turned red. Now, I'm bending over, picking up all the broken little pieces of me you scattered here and there, set on fire. Obviously, it was wrong to trust you. It's going to take me a long time to put out these flames.

I lay by the road squaking like a toad, the tires running over me, breaking my spine, but I'm still here, though gasping my last. The things we do for love, I think, the lost and the suffering.

I watch these people on the downtown streets, wondering if any of them feel like me. We all reach out, wanting the same, in a sea of angry, voracious predators who claim to love you unconditionally. The lies they tell. I want to laugh again in carelessness like teenagers do. My darkness turns red, like the songs in my head that no longer sound like a lullaby. I'll always remember this for the rest of my life, just by trying to reach out, to connect. This hasn't been the only time. I need to learn to spot them better, the heartless, proud, unforgiving, and righteous few. No, they are many. If only they had signs.

Of course, of course, I love you, too, baby blue. I would do anything for you, which is why I'm here, left with my last breath. Can't you see you mean everything to me, baby? Haven't I proven you're all I've ever wanted, every dream come true? It's why I cry so much over you, beg and plead, ask your forgiveness. I promise I won't do it again, ever again, if only I knew what the hell it was. I know you're never wrong baby, you've never done anything wrong, which is why you never say it, why you have to remind me that I'm so lucky to be with you. You need to teach me a lesson, show me what it is I did exactly. It must've been during one of my blackouts. You might have to put my head on a plate.

Fallen Gods (A Revolution!)

2010-04-30T12:07:00.018-06:00

I miss the days when people had new things to say and they were actually important, and moved you, went inside and rearranged a few vital organs, shifted things around, and left you a changed person, feeling different, like you'd experienced something special, even sacred. All those movies that come out of Hollywood anymore are products on an assembly line. They're not good products either. They're like the shallow, empty people you meet sometimes. They have nothing inside, no soul, no life. They slap them together and throw them out into the world, but they are anything but memorable. I don't remember them, not the way I like to remember things, thinking on them fondly, enjoying them the more I think about them. I'm trying to forget them. Will anyone else remember them a hundred years from now, even? Doubtful. By then, they'll be remade a million times anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Is anyone paying attention? Does anyone care about immortality anymore? And I'm not taking about the fifteen latest vampire romance novels that have infected the nearest bookstores, either. How about horror movies where no one in its mindless, shallow cast is over the age of nineteen? Is it so hard, honestly, to make a horror movie with an adult character who cares more about where their next fix is going to come from, their next beer, or some one night stand because the carrot is louder than the soul? Does substance even come into play? Thankfully, we can turn to Independent films, or Sundance, even Foreign Films. Some people do care, thankfully. I know I'm not alone. You're there with me, aren't you? The artist who pens with passions, who creates from within. Maybe I'm not giving them enough credit.

The publishing world, the publishing houses, the big names, the New York conglomerates are no better. They are the same empty, sludge-churning factories with diseased shit on their assembly lines for another vapid generation to consume. They have no flavor, no taste, and at the rate it goes, it's amazing anyone can keep up or remember the latest, soul-killing trend. It is more than sickness. It is more than disease. It is Lucifer holding the contracts, the pen for you to sign with. And we are giving in, selling out for the merest sake of momentary, even monetary pleasure. Lifelessness is what it's all about. Entertainment with no purpose but to satisfy a selfish, sterile need. It is the death of the writer, the artist, but more importantly, the visionary.

Have you seen these ungainly, unattractive mass market paperbacks, the ones taller than the average ones that go for $7.99? They throw $9.99 price-tags on them, and you open them up, seeing more white space than black ink. Makes for more pages, thus the higher price-tags, and this, they will tell you is adult fiction, but they are more like a kid's book. I feel like I'm reading a teen novel whenever I open them up, and they put all the big names on them: Stephen King, Lee Child, David Baldacci, Nora Roberts, Jim Butcher, and James Patterson. People will buy them and the publishing houses know that, and they do. I work in a bookstore, so I see the crap coming in, and these days, it's just Disgust with a capital D. How much was Rowling's Deathly Hallows when it came out in hardcover? $40.00, which is higher than my electric bill. If you love to read and you can't afford to read at the publishing house prices, and want to feel like you're actually reading a novel, you go to the library or the used bookstore. The taller, ungainly mass markets are the example of the sickness breeding through the publishing world. It's the reason King's books have bigger print than most of the others you see, if you haven't noticed. For the last ten years or more, every King novel has been puffed up with more pages and bigger typeset. (Don't get me wrong, I love Stephen King, but they are taking advantage of his popularity, like every other best seller's popularity, and they are doing it at the expense of the consumer, we all know that.) It jacks the price up, and people don't care because it's Stephen, and the publishing houses know this, and people are going to buy him. Now, I understand perfectly, that some people can see it better, the larger print, the elderly for example, and this is what they will probably tell you, but we have the trade paperback sizes at $14.99, so I'm not really buying into it (no pun intended). Hardcovers are plenty large enough to read. I'm just saying.

For example, when was the last time you saw a really great cover, an artistic cover, an imaginative, thought-provoking, soul-stirring cover on the front of one of your favorite books? It doesn't happen anymore. It's all photographs now, or a brush stroke, a blend of color. Nothing says imagination and fantasy like a great contemporary photo. Don't you agree? A pair of feet because the word 'Standing' is in the title, for example. That's pretty clever, if you ask me. When I look at it, I think, "Wow, now there's a publishing house who cares about their author, who is really going out of their way to represent, support, and describe this entire story by a picture alone, not to mention all the artists who must not have any work because of this cheapskate concept to market new fiction." Well, we're all starving anyway, so we should be used to the shaft. So, if you're looking for great artwork to represent your fantasy or horror novel, or let alone, anything remotely imaginative on any level whatsoever, you will have to look to the shelves of yesteryear. "Just run outside and take a picture of some random person walking down the street of the city." "Sounds good to me, boss. I'm sure at some time during the novel, someone must be walking down the street in a city somewhere in the world, so as far as representation goes, we're fucking nailing this shit!" It's bound to happen. I personally like the photos of faces, which is basically like saying, "This is exactly how the main character looks, so don't imagine anything different, even though the author said she was blonde, and this girl on the cover has black hair. That's not important. So don't think it." At least that's the message I'm receiving. Why do I want to waste my time imagining people and places, when I can have the cover do that for me? That's what I'm reading fiction in the first place for, after all. I get it. Not too difficult to understand. This is what you're telling me, by your assembly line, and your Publishing House stamp. You have sold out. Your authors have sold out. Hollywood has sold out. It's a cheap, empty, soulless, yet all consuming business. And each and every one of us is buying into it, granting it power. Yes, we, the little people, the forgotten, the few, the voiceless, the unheard.

It is the same with the injudicious, romantic vampire trend. I must see fifteen new vampire novels a day come into the store. Some of them are good bakers now; they take care of the kids, walk the dogs, have supper on the table when you get home, they have dating advice on how best to spend a night on the town with your vampire lover. They are all so fashionably dressed, too! Why wouldn't you show him or her off to all your friends or mom and dad? Isn't that sweet! I miss the days when monsters were monsters. Nowadays they are nothing more than sappy, overly sensitive fairy-tale beings, who just happen to have a fetish for blood. Sure, I'm sold. They are anything but monsters. They make me want to blow my nose with magic tissue paper and ride bareback through a field of pansies on a unicorn while sprinkling magic powder behind me. Does anyone have any glitter from the 1980's? I'm thinking of using a curling iron on a werewolf's hair, because God forbid, it is just so snarly and tangled and dirty, and why don't we just put a few ribbons and bows here and there, blow dry it to give it fluff and volume, and give you a nice warm bath, because, face it, you stink, you big, hairy oaf, and why do you have to eat people on top of all that? You can get just as much nourishment in the produce isle at the nearest grocery store. We are all vegetarians now, and we need to set this example through vampires and werewolves and the walking dead. "But mom, he's really nice! He doesn't eat people!" "Oh, that's nice, dear. We'll certainly have him over for supper then!" And, oh, what about love! This girl here just happens to have a thing for the undead and hairy creatures with bad breath and blood under it's fingernails. And, of course, she's drop dead gorgeous. Talk about luck! What a coincidence that is! Does anyone have a lollipop? Maybe we can hold hands and skip down the street, get some cotton candy at the amusement park. My friends are great, they'll accept you, because after all, being different is okay! Even where monsters are concerned!

I have my own tears for the readership that is America and what people consume as far as entertainment, but I know I can't speak for everyone. Vampires are the biggest sissies to grace the pages and movie screens anymore. And werewolves are a close second. Zombies will be next, if they aren't already. Oh, wait, there is the Jane Austen zombie books, Jane Austen Vampire Killer, and a million other dark, and bloody, stake-driving versions of Jane Austen eating someone's brains, or something like that, so yes, I think that trend is covered, there, too. Point being, monsters are now the good guys, and I have never been more repulsed. That is the cross that frightens me, make's me retreat to the crypt and my own earth-laden coffin. Was this the evolution of the horror story we were hoping for, we had visualized! Maybe, like all trends, it will die, too. I hope to live to see it. Or better yet, be a part of it!

Prose is dead; poetry, too. Vision has gone black and cold. It's a farce anymore. Some of it, granted, is intended, but not all of it is. Even serial killers have turned moralistic, killing the Evildoers, much like Rice's vampires after a time. Isn't that sweet, that all these nefarious creatures are making our world a better place? I think it's sweet. I think it's like one of those Valentine-heart candies you give your sweetheart for that special day. I get warm and fuzzy inside when I read about them or see them on television. "Oh, look honey, serial killers are now setting a great example for our children! The world is now a perfect place." Sure, I get the message. I get it loud and clear. That doesn't mean I have to like it. And if money is all that's important, and selling out for your own sake is the key to your success and happiness, then more power to you. You are rich and successful at the expense of taking advantage. But that's the kind of world we live in, isn't it? Drive that yacht, sail that boat knowing no one in a hundred years is going to remember, let alone care about you, what you created, or who you were. You made your quick mil, now go lie down and die like the rest of them. James Patterson can do it. Why can't you? Literary thought will revolve around all this soon enough. They'll be teaching it in schools. That's how frightening it is. After all, James Patterson just pays people to write his books for him. I think that's pretty cool. I think if I could pay people to create my work for me, so I could go off in the sailboat fulfilling my own trendy needs, I would know true bliss, too. There is no such thing as value or principle. Get yours when you can at anyone's expense, even your own. That's the motto. That's the message! Where are the true artists anymore?

I return to writers no longer living: Poe, Hawthorne, London, Hemingway, Dickens. You remember? Of course you do. Some were fortunate. Some died broke. Did that stop them? No. Though, I will defend some contemporary poets: Peter Straub, Jonathan Carroll, Elizabeth Hand, John Crowley. M. John Harrison, thankfully, who are traditionalists in their own right, and true artists of their craft. These people are saying something and it is beautiful. And, of course, to all of us, the smaller brethren, this band of brothers and sisters, who believe in the same! You know who you are! I smell a revolution. Art to move, to change the world, to inspire, to evoke beauty, because beauty is available and experienced in every shade, light and dark. I miss the things it used to say, and every now and then, through a song, a movie, a piece of artwork, or literary prose, you can catch a glimpse of it, speaking through someone new, but it gets harder to see these days. Tear down the walls! Bring Hollywood to its knees! Make it pay for its depravity, it's stentorian insults to our empathy and intelligence! Burn down the walls of the publishing houses and rebuild them with walls of passion, creativity, and new things to say! We need raw, brutal honesty, fearlessness and your shame! Truth! Some of us still have values and children to turn to, to hope for, examples to set. It makes me dream for another time. What Hollywood and the publishing conglomerates represent, in the position they're in, is a disappointment at best. To have all that power, like every feeble-minded tyrant and king before them, makes me hang my head in woe. I see a future of fallen gods! Can you hear the people sing? Are we nothing more than fucking slaves?

Publishing, Movies, Books, and Reviews

2010-04-11T20:13:00.003-06:00

I think my posts are getting a little too emotional for my own good. But that seems to be the case, these days. Fact is, I spend a lot of time writing in the journal, and sometimes after a heartfelt entry, I always think, "That would make a good blog." So, I retype it, polish it up a bit, and well, as honest as they sometimes are, I really don't mind sharing. A friend of mine said everyone feels that way, I just voice it aloud, so maybe I'm speaking for a lot of us. Who the hell knows? I have nothing to hide and I'm not ashamed, and I've always prided myself on at least being a fearless writer. It goes back to that--being honest with yourself, unafraid, and express from the heart, and chances are--whatever comes out is going to be beautiful.

With all that said, I thought I'd steer from it a little and mention some things I've been up to. Lately I was able to join the Horror Writer's Association, because of Donny's Day, and nominate the little bugger for a Stoker Award. That was pretty exciting, and I'm privileged to add one more thing to the resume. Also, there was this review, which was very nice of Michele, so thank you Michele. Donny's Day Review And yes, I would rather be on the eclectic shelves as opposed to the trendy ones. Fact is, I never think about plot. I think it's a waste of time. And personally, action scenes never do it for me. It's a yawn. I like thickness, depth of emotion, heavy atmosphere and detail. But...that's just me.

Also, I'm always a little late on books and movies because I usually wait til they come out on DVD or until I can get the books from the library, but on the literary front, Just After Sunset (Stephen King), A Dark Matter (Peter Straub) and The Grin of the Dark (Ramsey Campbell) were all a nice getaway. Three of my favorite authors and all with new work I hadn't gotten to yet. Great stuff, and I will gladly single out Peter Straub--only because I'm biased and I love the man's work, and this one was not a disappointment. Not as thick and descriptive as most of Straub's work, but it's nice to see him return to the darker supernatural, which he has done lately. Ramsey Campbell, of course, has got to be one the most incredible horror authors in the business. The man never wavers, never lets down, and always delivers, no matter what. Unsettling, just like all his work. Personally, I don't know how he can keep delivering the way he does after all these years. It's really quite amazing. Also, he just came out with another, Creatures of the Pool, but I haven't read it yet. And only King can create an asshole villain and still make you giggle and laugh about him, while somehow, making you like him at the same time.

House of the Devil was not disappointing, either, for those traditional horror movie fans--a period piece made about the '80's, but done in 2008, which sounds so odd to think of the '80's as a period piece, but the movie is quite good. Some may think it slow and doesn't take off until the last half hour, but I personally liked the buildup and didn't mind it at all. The atmosphere and the sense that something awful was going to happen was worth the wait. Also, rent The Fourth Kind, and Chasing Sleep with Jeff Daniels. This is good, maddening stuff, and if you like dark, the descent into the precarious abyss of lunacy, then you might enjoy yourselves here.

Aside from that, crypt dwellers, it's life as usual. Writing, reading, watching movies, the hockey playoffs around the corner, baseball season begun, and the transition to the warmer climate, announcing spring. Not a bad way to begin the warmer months. Stay scared, friends! Like always, I wish you well, and hope you are embracing your vision, your art, and treating yourselves kindly. We'll see you next time.

Keeping Me Company...

2010-04-08T21:12:00.009-06:00

I still miss you and think about you all the time, whoever you are. I am still here alone, and sometimes, every day, I fall in love with someone new. It happens, sometimes several times a day.

I think about the imaginations of all these other people and the worlds they have inside their heads. These days, things just feel bone dry to me. I'm lucky to think of character names. I want to create something beautiful again on a fantastic scale. I don't know what else I can write again, sometimes. I think about the art of Michael Whelan, the prose of Jonathan Carroll, the pure innocent love of Dickens, and I know there are worlds in there.

I wonder what the truths are these days. Maybe I muse too much. My quiet solace, my time here with no one else but me and the words to keep me company. Do I think I will actually experience love at first sight? That she'll have everything I dream, compatibility, something vital in common--another shade--and something will happen and we'll talk and see we were made for each other? How many fantasies, how many worlds of pretend can I live in? Maybe I should do fantasy dreams come true instead of darker tales, but really, they are all kind of the same, aren't they? I like to mix and match. I cannot talk to every girl I fall in love with, and why must you all be so beautiful to me anyway? What a killer beauty can be! You have faults, too. I know that. It's what I want to accept about you, but you aren't listening, or you simply don't care. There's more material out there for you to gain, I know. I guess I was just looking for someone with a little more depth to their personality.

I interpret my real world here in this chaos, my over-thinking, over-dreaming. Demon shadows. Haunting every hand I long to hold. Usually it's just something in your eyes, I see, a familiarity, like you're speaking to me through telepathy, telling me it's okay to talk to you. A smile here and there. I wonder what would happen if I acted on them. But I need your help. I can't go into it alone. I need you to encourage me, give me something to live by. Hope for. Get excited about. Jesus, I'm just another lonely man in here! Can't you see that? I know this softness inside me, this sensitivity, this lonely pain I feel is very real with you near. You think I like it that way? Why do you think I medicated my dreams for so long, a haze I'm still trying to pull myself out of? A person can only handle so much, and I feel what you do, too, is the funny thing. It's twice the pain. My scars make all my dreams a reality, but that's not poetry either. It's just another unlucky line, another way to express my sadness--more acute. I keep telling myself that something good will come of all this--experience makes the artist, makes the writer, makes the man, and without pain, what would I write about? You're making progress, I tell myself, and it's sometimes scary to me, that I'm so open, so willing to lay my guts out here for all to see--to do with as they please, judge and criticize harshly. I could care less about you, is the thing. How's that for apathy? Only that you see in this, a reflection, and maybe then we'll have something to fucking talk about.

There are ladies of traumatizing memory--how horrible a person I see you now, the worst I could see, worse than my worst memory. Any demon I've created pales by comparison by the light of you--or should I say the 'lack thereof.' How do you justify such vile, empty, selfish behavior--evil--other than evil? Your needs at the expense of everyone else? Has the world taught you nothing? Are you still blaming your actions on the past, because of what mommy and daddy did to you? Disillusioned. Mad. I thought I knew. But evil is nothing compared to you. You take the cake, baby. You proved me wrong.

Luckily, I know there's something beautiful in all this--and it has nothing to do with you. I have the power here to immortalize you in the wasted, dying light of hatred and pain. You are known for hurt alone and nothing else. I guess if that's good enough for you, what you aspire to be, then your work here is done. There's no need for you anymore. How sad, really. To aspire to nothing more than what everyone longs to forget? I thought we had transcended to so much more, advancement, evolution. May you be happy in the soulless, loveless life you have chosen, Ebenezer Scrooge. My, what a ponderous chain!

I guess the sadness comes with expectation and disappointment, because you try to be honest and sincere--for no other reason than because it's the right thing to do. There's nothing wrong with focusing on the right thing to do. It has a role, too. Can you hear me?

I've been embracing vision, art, prose, stylists, beauty, and expression, which is why we're here now. Sometimes, it gets harder to reach deep down. All the time, I try to go a little further. No remorse. I do not repent. I've paid my dues. It's time for something more.

The energy spent on love is, ironically, filled with nothing but heartache. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I keep thinking this is a crucial element. My dreams, however, are still. And sometimes, I still like to take the time to write to you (the one I dream about) in passing. In thoughts. Whenever I see a couple strolling hand in hand, and I wonder sometimes if I've ever really loved anyone at all. After all, the older you get, the more the definition changes.

I've been writing stories about you again, who I think you are, letters penned...because you are the opposite of everything I've ever been with, the most supportive and unconditional girl, and I try to reach out to you with ink, thinking there's magic in those words that will one day make you real, another refection--if you will. But I know there is no such thing as the perfect girl. I'm not that naive. Perfect for me? And me for you? That's a different possibility, maybe.

We don't care that we're poor. We are richer than we ever dreamed because we are who we are. After all, who else can make us laugh and smile like you and me? Every eye I see, every smile turned to me, brings you a little more to life, if only for a day. Do you accept my proposal? Or maybe it's a challenge? Just another fantasy, too, writers, poets, painters, musicians. We all have our ideas and thoughts on what it could be. Worlds in here. If only for pretend, something to write about, to keep me company before I fall in love again tomorrow or tonight--before I go to bed. I'll go turn on the t.v now. Maybe I'll catch a glimpse of you then.

Words, Unspoken (For A Very Special Girl)

2010-03-12T23:46:00.002-07:00

Sometimes, these days just hold everyday sounds. It is always just an ordinary day until you come around. Miles mean nothing for all the things in between that separate us. We seem to bridge it easily where distance becomes meaningless. Funny, don't you think? We penetrate the indestructible, all the trivial things that bar our way.

But it's funny to me how these words we exchange back and forth have so much power in them, at least they do over me. I feel my fabric shifting, changing, because they have more substance and weight in them than a wrecking ball. They are like daggers and swords, sharpened to perfection, making the smoothest cuts, going deep in ways I never dreamed. The funny thing is, I would have it no other way. Bleeding for you? Willingly, my love. How else can my love be proved?

I have lifted my tear-stained eyes to Heaven, and I think about how this intimate relationship has blossomed through the simplicity of gentle words, poetry. How can the sincerity, the honesty of words shift all these jagged mountains inside me, hold more power in compassion than any touch I've ever known? How can the words I've heard audibly--just next to my ear--be so weightless next to the worlds that appear, here, before my very eyes? The ones you write me. The ones I respond to. The ones that are more eternal, because they have no end. Yours soften me, take all the rugged scars away, smooth out every coarse edge and trauma. They make me smile and cry again. And I'm not sure--if your words are so powerful--what your touch would actually do to me. Is my fabric, my make-up strong enough to withstand it? There, my own strength would be put to the test. For this chance, and the intensity of what could be a perfect romance, I am willing to take. It is not a sacrifice, love. It is the reason I am here. It is the pinnacle of experience. It is the only thing that has ever meant anything to me. Not everyone gets to feel this. Not everyone knows what it means. I wonder if some even know it exist, that it's real? But I would tell you over and over, through every word, through every gesture, that it means everything in the world to me. That nothing has ever meant anything until you wrote me. The bleeding is what I live for. The cutting deep and every scar. The words you write that smooth them over. Your words, unspoken--still louder than sounds.

Unworthy Substitute

2010-02-17T22:54:00.013-07:00

I think sadness has no end, unless it's just my inclination for tragedies, prone to sadness like Hemingway, or a Shakespeare play. Maybe it's just a sad tale that compels me because of my fascination with sadness as emotion. But yes, I think sadness has no end.

They are just the same old daydreams anymore, wild little fancies that only confuse my brain. They think they're real is the funny thing, trying to convince me they have a home in there because they always paint these romantic, elaborate pictures. I never know what to make of them except, There they are again. They are pictures of perfection. They always are. They have no flaws, like a girl in tight jeans, or a cover-girl smile, one that impales, like a pillar of light. It can change the way you see and think and feel. I see these things next to what is only now my aging face and mind. I never realized how vain I was until recently. There's a touch in here, I guess, a thing that just keeps coming and going, and all the real things that happen, the seeds that get planted turning all those real things into pretend. There really is such a thing as time travel. It happens to me all the time. Wait. Listen. See? I imagine perfections, maybe that's the trouble, the things I care most about, dream about, long to be outside all the ghosts who live in here, making things more complicated, more confusing than they need to be. See, here, they have no end. It will go on and on until the end of me.

Sometimes, she'll pay me a visit at work, and maybe I'll just be on my way out the door to lunch, and the timing will be perfect. Or I'll come home and she'll be there, waiting for me, just to surprise me, say hello. She never gets mad or frustrated with me. She's always glad to see me. It's just that romantic black magic that has swallowed my life lately, but sometimes I keep thinking I'm just getting old, poor little mouse boy, and I have had a hard time making beautiful memories these days. I don't want a new one to replace an old one. I just want the walks, the talks, and the sharing, the sharing, mainly. It's all meaningless otherwise, a whole bunch of containing nothing. Not me, not the way I am. I don't have time for that. No more invisible memories, barren lifeless memories. Who has time for that?

I'm not as sad and lonely as I used to be, despite my fetish for tragedies. There's still stuff to do in here, better alone, sometimes, but still alone, with no one to talk to but you. I touch you, see, and you are not flesh and warm. You do not make my heart skip a beat. You just lie there flat, with the ink on your back, waiting for me to fill you.

Lost

2010-02-05T18:48:00.005-07:00

It is sometimes better here, alone, in this quiet peace without my heart belonging to anyone but me. It's like that now, so maybe that's something. Aren't you supposed to be okay alone first, comfortable with yourself, complete, before moving on to the next phase? These are just images anyway, shades that mean nothing at all through the tears I cry. There seems to be a lot these days. I think I've mentioned that before. I can't always handle this going away--but I like the distance from all my harsh judgments. It get so tiring, trying to make sense of it all. Here. Here, but trying not to be scared anymore. So, I walk along the day, all these faces coming and going. Some pleasant enough to smile at. Tears of tomorrow and of today. It is not the laughter anymore that mocks me, all these dying religions I could give or take. The mantras I constantly speak to myself that everything is okay, that I'm okay in here. That everything is going to be okay in and outside of here. I promise.

Sometimes, I tell myself I'm okay, and I believe it, that there's nothing wrong with me, even though I do all this to myself. It doesn't always feel okay. This crazy day is here inside my chest, dreaming about you all the time. Anymore, I try living against the grain. Everyone else is doing the same thing. I want to believe in something else, so I believe in something else, better for me, here. There's a deeper calm, a sense of peace now, even though a tear drops to blot the page. Where does all that come from? Long ago? Far away?

It's always moving, speaking differently. Every day, it says something new. So, forever, I guess, it will always change. Passion turns into this. A heart that's full for reasons unknown. Even now, here, it's strange to see this world outside and how it moves so quickly. It's a wonder anyone can keep up at all. No thought too disturbing to enter. Nothing perverse today, just these mantras over and over. They haven't done me any harm. Just the opposite, I think. And you are always in them, because I try to bring you closer. They are like magic words I try to turn into love again, hoping you'll see them someday, know who they're coming from, written in secret messages across the sky, or carved in stone, maybe sand. Even here in side me where all the wreckage is, etched into the muscle of my heart, where I know they'll always be.

Hello, here, another pretty face I see, always, or usually accompanied by some other gentleman I never notice until later. It's ridiculous to think pretty girls are alone. But still, I think sometimes--or maybe always--Is that you? I try to speak to you through telepathy, the look in my eye, a smile if I'm brave enough. It hasn't worked so far. You obviously can't hear me.

It's a matter of balance, how you can be brave enough to open your heart so freely, incapable of judgment--it hardly seems you at all with the way this world is made. Another wall, a fortress towers high. It blocks out the sun. I think, "So that's what it's like to feel no pain. No wonder no one can get through." So much for you. So much for me. I know there's more to it than just this surface area, which is why I came calling in the first place. Someday I will ask you what all this means to you, and you will answer, "It means everything to me."

It is not so lonely here when I try to make it otherwise. There is power in the thought that propels beautiful creation. It wipes away everything dirty, better than the best of pills. It's just a matter of seeing things differently, smiling more. Gravitation. So, I make my own pull, going where I want, when I choose, more versatile than a pendulum swing. Do you see what I mean?

Nothing ever really has to end if you don't want it to. You can raise, resurrect the dead. Find more interesting things to say.

This other voice is trying to break through. It drowns out the sounds, the pestering of all the others. I'm teaching it how to ride a bike now, how to swim, play kickball. Practice makes perfect. Every hurt is some kind of lesson. What if it's always about hurt? Shouldn't you learn enough not to hurt anymore? Isn't there another teacher? Some deeper understanding. I should have learned all this at sixteen. Not here, not now. Better late than never, I guess. To not want. To always have what I have here inside me, in this heart of mine, I'm determined to turn to gold. Maybe it's gold already. It's my mind that needs adjusting, better clarity, renovation. We'll work on that a little more, piece by piece. I'm saving all that anyway, all that good stuff, reserving it, you could say, especially now, only here, only for you. Whoever you are. A dream come true, a song I hear on the radio late at night, driving over the broken bridge of time, a word my pen makes, a sound I utter, a picture I imagine coming to life in my head only you could have put there, like children playing on a swing. Enough is enough already. We can go back to the way things used to be.

I turn sweetly into this hour long embrace of all the many sides of me I used to be ashamed of. I'm tired of fighting. I think it's braver to let go. I can catch myself if it gets too dangerous anyway. I have to to get myself out of every mood, every jam. Resilience and reliance. Then, I can finally devote myself to every part of you--because I can selflessly, finally, give all of me. That's my goal.

It's telepathy I sing. Silver in here, like bright lights on a stage. Have you received my message yet? These words are finally here for you to read. I finally had the chance to carve them into a place they will never wash away. I'll leave a few others just in case. I might need them later to go back to. I don't remember things so well. I have been devoted to you long before I knew your name. I just can't live any other way. There is no other way to be. It's a good place to get lost in, though, don't you think? Just ask anyone.

Donny's Day Print Version

2010-01-01T11:39:00.001-07:00

The print version is available now at Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Thanks, friends and family, for all your support!

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/donnys-day/brandon-berntson/e/9781615720583/?itm=6>

Donny's Day Ebook

2009-12-01T09:12:00.004-07:00

This is the ebook for Donny's Day. The print version will be available in a week or so, so if you're anxious and want to get your feet wet, this is a good way to get a sneak peak, and it's fairly cheap this way. Otherwise, don't hesitate til you can hold the little bugger in your hands. I'll send the link to the print version when it's available. Thanks for all your support.

http://www.damnationbooks.com/book.php?isbn=9781615720590

And don't be afraid to write a review, if you so desire. And yes, it makes a great gift for you or your loved ones for Christmas!

Soul Experience (Another Perspective on Life and Lessons Learned)

2009-11-21T17:26:00.005-07:00

There's life in here now, stirring, vibrant, filled with color, unafraid. I only wanted a little belief in myself, the time that got away from me, made me lose direction, like bad religion and my individuality, trying to make people happy, giving them the benefit of the doubt, when none of it mattered, only what you thought, what you felt, how you cared. People will tell you a million different things, how to think, how to act, what you're feeling. Everybody is on their road -- the experience of the soul and how far it has to travel. Feelings are the language of the soul, or so I was told, or read somewhere, and I believe that. People can tell you what they think of you and that's their opinion. Why do you have to defend yourself all the time anyway? You don't have to. Everyone has a different definition to what selfishness is, strength, love, God, mortality, even being a man or a woman. That's what's beautiful. It's what makes us different. Six billion viewpoints. My god, that's a lot! It doesn't have to gel with your own, of course. Like minded individuals are out there. There's plenty to go around. And if you're always changing for the better, that should be enough. Recently, someone, a very dear friend, mentioned how pain comes from a lack of acceptance. And I believe that, too. It is the way it is, the way it goes, and people are the way they are. So, despite what your opinions are, suck it up. Love them and yourself, despite how you think, and you have traveled light years. Right and wrong are only defined by perception. It's different for everyone. Forgiveness and acceptance are in short supply. We are not on trial here. We don't need our attorneys to defend us, despite what we're accused of. Have you ever felt that, that you were being drilled to such an extent by some stranger, you suddenly felt you needed your lawyer present? Our hearts are our deepest reflections of ourselves, and everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, has something inside that makes them beautiful in ways others cannot be. It's the talent to see it that matters and means most, I think. If you are taking the time to look well beyond and into the soul of someone, how can you not see them as beautiful? I don't think people are genuinely bad. Misguided perhaps, but not bad.

I had an experience with my therapist the other day that was insanely intense, like nothing I have ever felt or been though before. Talking to him, I mentioned, in a joking manner, something about the Demon Voice that has been haunting me my whole life. My therapist mentioned how I'd brought up that Demon Voice more than once, and he wanted to talk more about it. "Would you like to try an experiment?" he said. I raised my eyebrows. "I want you to be the Demon Voice, play the role, and I want you to talk to yourself, and say everything the Demon Voice has said to you over your whole life." I was already terrified. The very thought was enough to rattle my cage, but to make a long story short, I agreed. And I have not felt the same since. I sat in a chair and pretended I was facing myself, me, Brandon, who was sitting on the couch, and I delivered every hateful, vicious, vindictive, bloodthirsty thing I have ever heard that voice of self-destruction say. My heart was pounding, palms sweating. My therapist told me to pay attention to what was happening to my body. I tried to breathe. Then I switched roles, sitting on the couch, addressing the demon from my own point of view, disagreeing with everything he said, of course, banishing him from my life, and telling him to go away forever. I did this role reversal several times. The experience was so intense, it took me almost half an hour to calm down and catch my breath. But not just for a day, but for days afterward, I felt it all slip away, the anger, the pain, the turmoil, torment, sadness, confusion, all right there. My heart felt solid, my entire body, my posture, the way I walked, saw the world, everything was different, like someone had given me an I-beam for a spine. What a relief after all those years! This may sound funny, but I felt indestructible, strong in ways I never had, as if the person I'd been trying to be my whole life finally broke free. I did not cry in joy. I smiled in self-assurance instead. I had never been so thankful for anything in my life, had never experienced anything so terrifying and so beautiful at the same time. I almost wish I could do it again. When it was over, it was like waking from a very long dream. I had certainly taken a trip. Anyway, I wanted to share that for those of you who follow my blogs because it was such a powerful experience. Thanks for listening.

It's always about so much more than writing, and art, and reading great work, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Those used to be the most important aspects to me, and they still are, to an extent. But, as you get older, your perspective changes, and the things that used to be important to you are not so much, and things you never thought much about became more critical to your overall peace of mind. I heard this a million time growing up, and the teenage angst rolled its eyes. But here it is now. It is experience, that life blood that maims, heals, and forces us to grow, that guides us. Experience is our teacher, Love, our best friend, Strength and Forgiveness the weapons we wield for peace of mind. So, that begins to sound a little sappy and cliche, yes? I have delivered my share of pain, and been hurt in return. So, no surprise that old friend Karma rears its head when it does. The past is in the past because that's where it belongs. Don't dwell. Learn form it, and move on. (I can't believe I just said that, a man who has lived his life dwelling in the fantasies of yesteryear, but it's not doing me any good, not here, this moment, not tomorrow. The oldest cliche in the world, and maybe that's why.) So, I let go, at least I tried my damndest, after a lot of years, though I still feel a slight tug of pain at times over things said, not forgotten. I guess that's natural. I'm still learning, experimenting with letting go. I'm not here for revenge or vindication, except for myself. I'm looking for redemption outside death, right here on the planet. That's part of my goal, I think. Redemption, here, now, at some point in my life. I think that's a noble pursuit. My heart, my thoughts, my experience, are all that matter, and by those things am I defined. But how I have responded, learned, and felt along the way is what's important, too. At least to me. The painful things can be great teachers. You hear that all the time. And yes, sometimes those old cliches are cliches for a reason. Sometimes, I think I'm the only one trying to figure it out still, that everyone else has done this long before me. Does it feel like that for you? I'm not saying anything, in other words, you haven't already heard or figured out on your own. But maybe just reaching out and acknowledging all this can help someone, too, as much as it is helping me by writing it. I've told people, dear friends, in fact, that I am writing a self-help book for myself. One that never ends, apparently.

So, reluctantly, and taking a deep breath, I walk into the light of day, not knowing what will come or what will happen, but knowing I have the confidence to survive, because nothing has killed me yet, and I am still fighting, my heart still beating, and for the most part, pretty damn optimistic, smiling, and confident that everything is going to be okay, and that's good enough for me. Jesus, I look back and would've never imagined the things that have happened, did, in fact, happen to me, but strangely glad they did. Who I am today would be different without them, I know, and I don't like that idea. I'm pretty damn happy knowing I am who I am these days, and I wouldn't want to be anybody else. For me, and for those who know me, that's saying a mouthful. It has been endless miles of failures, rejections, and self-deprecations. Ah, that ugly beast, finally slain! Stay down, Beast! I look over the words, and yes, I believe them. I can't believe I believe them, but yes; and I laugh, because I do believe them. Maybe this is part of the goal, one of the massive hurdles, the giant leap. I will try not to condemn myself for wondering why it didn't happen sooner.

These have been the best two years of my life, easily. All emotions, feelings, good and bad, have been brutal, raw, and very very real, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Sensitive, yes, thank God! I've had a lot of years of pent up emotion waiting to come out, and finally it has. I have lived, loved, lost and cried and felt those things the way a man should. I have been lucky to have the experiences I've had, despite how painful. At least I was able to feel and love, and that is something I can be content with and accept. To hold someone dear to you, and know you adore them with every fiber of your soul, that you have never loved anyone as much as you love that person in that one moment, that you know it, without a doubt, coursing through your veins like electricity, wondering if everyone gets to feel this, and for those who don't, how unfair, how sad, and how you wish you could give everyone a piece of that! It's funny to see the hurt and the sadness, but still know you are a better man because of it. That is the lesson I take from pain, that everyone takes, I suppose. I have embraced every sadness, every hurt, every glorious, mounting joy, and I recall the best of those times, mountain peaks, laughter, and the ageless, timeless mind, those moments, defined by the electricity moving through me, mounting, knowing I am more truly alive in those moments than I have ever been, and that more of those moments are possible. So, forgive me, if my posts fail to coincide these days with art, writing, the darker genres or literary aspects, in general. I guess, I feel like this is more important, at least to me. I find my biggest strengths these days are truth and looking myself in the eye, knowing what I see is real, and that nothing can sway me, and that it doesn't matter what others think of me, because in my heart of hearts, truth cannot and will not be ignored. Humanity is experience, and experience is a series of wrongs, mistakes, and the lessons learned from them. But it doesn't always have to be like that. You don't have to have pain in order to learn anything, grow, and thrive. Joy is just as knowledgeable a teacher, and thank God for that. Love reminds us what we're here for. Anger and hate are the beasts that destroy. Strange, coming from a man who spends most of his time penning horror, or at least darker tales. I've decided that just because I enjoy writing about suffering, doesn't mean I have to suffer myself anymore. There's a story in there somewhere, I'm sure. :)

I have been confused along the way, we all have, and our stories make us unique, and if we piled everybody's wrongs in front of us, seeing what everybody else had to go through, I think we would easily take back our own. We were made to climb out of this, to be strong enough for what we have to deal with. It's easier to say that now, of course. I guess, I love that life is such a beautiful teacher, and that expression helps us define and understand our errors, ourselves, others, and even our own pain. But the part I always forget, is just the opposite, how experience can teach you about joy, truth, and love, and how the soul and the mind can experience that just as easily, just as often, that it is capable of it. That it is real. That has got to be the most beautiful thing in existence. I look back, astounded by how many changes I've made, and the people I have been over the years, and at times, I am spellbound I managed to survive at all, being those people so easily influenced, beholden to the basest weaknesses, and unable to resist every vice and temptation. I have never felt more lucky, more loved, more human in my life as I do now, and I owe that to the choices I've made and the people I've surrounded myself with. And I guess, what I'm trying to express, is that no matter what it's been like, or how hard, that gratitude is the main thing that comes from it must mean something. That despite all that, what you went through, that you could still be glad it happened, and thankful for it, for whatever your reasons may be. That has to be part of the goal, too, I think. God would have to smile down at you for that.

So, I think I've stood on my soap box long enough. I just felt it, and well, these days, I have to take advantage of every opportunity to write, no matter what the material may be, and I think it helps me understand easier. and I am always looking for understanding. Of course, I never mind sharing. I am sincerely indebted to the people who have listened and helped me, who have been my backbone, encouraged me along the way, taught me lessons, gave me their insight, and they all know who they are. For the lessons I have been taught, and what I learned through every relationship I've had, and how those special women have only made me a better man, I am also thankful. If I hadn't felt so much pain, despite what we went through together, it would mean I hadn't loved so much, either, and I like the realization, the truth in that statement. It's true, you cannot understand true love without true pain. It's a hard one to swallow, but I understand it, at least. Those lessons, whatever they may have been, and what I had to face, might have been hard, but face them I did, and it wouldn't have happened otherwise without those experiences.

So, with all that, it begins to blossom. And each day, holds a promise unlike the one before. And I hold the sacred heart of experience close to my chest, like a lover, you could say, and I look up, not so much wondering why these days, but just wondering in general over the beautiful mystery of it all, waiting for another perspective to change, and what new understandings may come, and how the longer I keep this close to my heart, and live for these precious seconds, it can only get better. Not a bad way to go about it. To think that the longer you hold true to yourself, the more precious it becomes, the more you will love yourself, the more peace of mind you will find, the more you will love. I think the soul is here for its own experience, and we are the vessels that allow it to feel and reconnect with God, so God can experience the joy, the pain, the sorrow, and love though us again, and the cycle goes on. How else could He know Everything? Stop fighting it and learn to embrace it instead, I guess, is another lesson there. I think I must be getting spiritual again, or at least trying. I have read a few of those books lately, and maybe this post is the result. Maybe that's my lesson to myself these days. Expect nothing, accept everything, and you will always be pleasantly surprised and without pain. Embrace everything about you and outside you. Well, it's a nice thought, and maybe it's about time...But like I said, you might have figured this out long before me, so kudos to you.

Stay safe and enjoy the Holidays, Everyone! May this season treat you better than you have ever been treated. By God, you deserve it!

Scars Revisited

2009-11-15T13:43:00.003-07:00

I woke up to face the demon and saw him standing there at the foot of the bed, drooling. I looked deep inside myself and tried to care about everything I saw, but I wasn't sure any of it made sense. I am so aware of this constant feeling, confusion, this place inside me. I don't know if it's hollow anymore. I don't think it is. But it's there. Does that make sense?

I look behind me, unable to comprehend anything I see or why it had to happen, and many times, those painful memories are only that. Scars revisited. You wonder what all of it was for, if anything. Bad luck, bad choices, bad people? Desire moves and is easily stirred, and phantom faces learn to smile at all my weak spots. I can't close my eyes to all of it because of hope, so I linger longer on the ones that matter most, that stir, and make me close eyes, and smile, so I can at least pretend those beautiful things exist, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, reminding me that there's still a child in there.

Some of it wasn't worth it, like poison, but it's over now. I can go back to the earliest part of it all, trying to understand, but it doesn't matter. I'm the one keeping all those things alive. I see this newer sight now, glad I made it this far after everything behind me. There were a few close calls. It's funny, sometimes. I never really thought about it until now.

But the worst of beasts was yet to come, and I faced him with only a little trepidation. I looked him in the eye, ten feet tall, both of us now, and told him to give me his best. I was slightly disappointed. I expected so much more from him. Maybe it was because I'd seen it all before. Nothing surprised me.

He whimpered as he walked away, and I almost felt sorry for him, but I was proud of the fact, stronger, even free. Now, I walked hand in hand with the only thing that mattered most, myself, and the child beside me. The only things that ever made sense. Because some things are just that meaningful, that important, and they always will be. Finally, I didn't have to prove myself to anyone, no justification. I've been quietly at peace, and that's okay.

Only the drool at the foot of the bed remains. The demon has gone away, this time, for good. He won't be coming back. Not here. Not anymore. I look again at the foot of the bed, but it doesn't look like drool at all. Its water, slush, the frozen snow I tracked in before I went to bed. I forgot to wipe my feet was all.

I stare out the window with a new pair of eyes, and yes, things look differently now. It's about time. I know something is different in there, and that my life will never be the same. I smile at the thought. Word is getting around. Someone asked me to be on a radio show to help broadcast my new book. They want to do an interview. I laugh that such a thing could happen to me.

So, the next day comes, and the world assaults me, but I'm prepared. Unmoved. I have bigger and better things to worry about. It's the same on both ends. Nothing ever ends. And the demon, if he isn't dead, can go bug someone else for a while.

Donny's Day

2009-10-16T21:02:00.003-06:00

Two optional covers for Donny's Day. Artwork by Jinger Heaston! Don't forget to look for it in December by Damnation Books!

Like Glass (An Inward Reflection)

2009-10-04T21:16:00.007-06:00

I used to have big dreams, still do, sometimes, but they're different now. Believe it or not, I had enough ego and conceit to think my mission was to be a great writer someday, the best I could be, and the world would know me, and call me by name. So I struggled to do just that at the age of fifteen. God, that was along time ago. I was faced with adversity along the way, and I was humbled more times than I can say.

Things change, and people, too, and I was no exception. No one has changed as much as me, I think. Throughout my life, I've been a drug addict, an alcoholic, overdosed when I was sixteen, put in the hospital, stomach pumped, told it was a miracle I didn't have brain damage. If they'd found me forty-five minutes later, I would've been dead, they said. I was so hungry at the time when they told me, all I could think about was a cheeseburger. But still I couldn't let go of addiction. It's not a fly by night thing. It becomes you, even in sobriety, it reminds you. It's always there; it's always a fight. This is why I drank and used in the first place, not to feel. And now, I feel too much. Ah, the irony of sobriety. How does that sound? It makes so much sense, though. I hunger for that cold taste of numbness and nothingness, but I'll resist. I've put myself in rehab after a near death experience, relapsed, lost my home, and my job. If I was a cat, I think my lives would've been used up long ago. I've been abused sexually, verbally, but that seems to be the norm anymore. Everyone knows what that's like. I turned into a religious fanatic, thanks to the joys of Mormonism. I sacrificed my entire life of art, that darker trade I loved more than life itself, to a pit of flames, in the name of God, because a bishop told me to. My life didn't belong to those dark trades, he said. I was a warrior of light now. I believed him. Fool I was. I lost my identity completely, heard the voice of Rationality say, 'You no longer know who you are anymore. You're identity has taken leave.' I started writing dark fiction again, much to the chagrin of my wife at the time, and got divorced. I've listened to the voices of reason and anguish, and succumbed more to the latter, listening to everything it had to say, and suffered under its stentorian command. That battle back and forth still wages today. Sometimes, I don't see an end in sight. I wonder if it will ever end. I have become a man enraged, grabbing my wife by the throat while drunk one night, and the guilt and horror of what that did to me, despite my apologies, taking my hand away a split-second later (no it's not easy to admit, but it happened, and no amount of remorse can take it back) doesn't make it right. I have succumbed to the beast of rage, even today, fallen prey to the basest of weaknesses. I have become irrational, out of control, childish, no man at all. I have become sensitive to the point where every word is like a sword, penetrating deep the most vulnerable cavity within me. I have become, at times, so emotionally over-wrought, that I have cried in pain and anguish for days, curled into a ball, wanting nothing more than to disappear and wink out of existence. It happens a lot these days. I've been depressed, manic, loopy, seen the doctor, gone to therapy, seen a psychiatrist, put myself on medication, anti-depressants, then weaned myself off again, only to be tortured by the brutality, the reality of my roller coaster of emotion, wondering what the point was of it all. I have pleaded and prayed to a God I no longer believe in, to just take the pain away, the confusion, the anguish. To no avail. I have managed, luckily, to love more than I thought myself capable. And I have felt pain I never knew existed. I've hated myself with such intense loathing, all I wanted was to die, to set my body on fire, if for no other reason than to end this unending, grueling nightmare of pain. I have despised this planet with every fiber of my soul, constantly wailing, wondering why, what the point is of my existence, when I see no point at all. I have seen those moments where life loses all meaning, and I wonder if there's ever meaning in anything. Does anything have meaning? What is meaning anyway, and why is it so important to me? I have yet to see meaning. What I am doing here?--I've thought. My family and friends will be fine without me. They'll understand. They want what's best. I will convince them the end is best. They'll see. I've thought of every way I could justify suicide to be unselfish, how I would do it, the gun I would buy. I've pined and longed to have what I see around me, what others have, the deadly envy, that crippling pride, which has done nothing but ruin me. I've made mistakes, and paid dearly for them. Still do, for some. Sometimes, I feel like I have lived and died a thousand times, loved and lost. I have created and destroyed. I've said the most poisonous and hateful things a tongue can muster. I have felt guilt to the point of self-destruction. My whole life, I have wanted to have a single dream come true. I have, I admit, pined greedily for love and fame, the universal spotlight, a daily glow. Just once, I thought. Just once in my life. I have felt the wracking torment of total anguish, and tortured sobs. I have nearly drowned three different times, with the same person there during each episode, eerily, to save me. I have imagined my name in lights, an interview on the David Letterman Show, my tales in all the most popular magazines, seen my stories turned into movies. Story or novel by...and then my name, the grin that painted on my face. I've imagined the interviews, the flashing lights, but I never wanted that, just the quiet fame, a writer's life, whose life speaks for him, through the words he creates. These days, it's hard to find that muse at all. Originality is not like it used to be. My head is not so easy and calm to allow those muses to get through. Is that how it works for you?

These were the dreams I used to have, still do sometimes, but I'd trade it all for some peace of mind. Some light inside, that special place that burns brighter than any smile I've ever seen before, these tears I cry. An end to all this pain, I'd trade it all, this fortune's paradise for some calmness, some quiet, the tumult to end, the waging, raging sea.

I've seen bodies of water that look like glass. And I've thought, "That's what I want my soul to be."

The Lost Works Of...

2009-09-22T20:10:00.000-06:00

Rumor has it there's a Publish America book going around out there with my name on it. The title is My Little White Geraniums. Yes, that's me. It's an urban fantasy horror novel that got butchered by a POD publisher after I fell for a scam by a shoddy agent. Lost money, ruined book. Great combo, but lesson learned. I'm over it. It was funny because a year later was when all the scam articles came out: what to watch for, things like that. I was naive and wanted to believe at the time, so an acceptance was an acceptance. Anyway, I highly recommend staying away from it. It is poorly written and not worth the read. Besides, I rewrote the entire thing word for word, added a couple hundred more pages, and retitled it Snapdragon. When will this might epic be released at 250,000 words? That's a good question. Seems first time authors and large books don't mix very well. Anyway, that's the story behind it, but it as a true tale I sincerely love, and definitely a brighter side of me. Believe it or not, it has a happy ending, lots of them, in fact.

Also, for those who don't know, I will keep you posted on the updates of Donny's Day, a novella of mine that will be released in December 2009 by Damnation Books. If you like demons, this is the story for you. I'm partial to the little buggers myself. Anyway, that's the gist friends, and we'll see you next time. Leave the lights on, but only if you have to, my little crypt dwellers. Nighty-night.

Empty Space

2009-09-05T17:46:00.001-06:00

I am just a ghost, flitting across empty space. Nothing matters here. Nothing lives here. I am the face you see, the haunted one, the one with the long, hollow expression. I used to feel, I think to myself, I used to be. You cannot see me. I do not matter.

There was a life there once, a time long ago, when beautiful things happened, but I don't know what happened to them anymore. Like a dream, one that started just seconds ago, and is already over. I keep thinking I must've gotten in a plane crash, a car accident. That could only explain why I don't understand anything, why I don't see anything anymore, why I can't feel.

I haven't eaten all day, but I'm ghost. It doesn't matter. There is a sickness there, though, a haunting. Yes, ghosts can be haunted, too. Haunted by thoughts, by visions, the worst kinds, keeping me here, rooted to this spot. I couldn't eat, even if I was human, I think.

I do not touch the ground, not anymore. I flit across the walkways, the streets, parking lots. I see people everywhere I go. Happy faces, down by the creek, the library, the Creek Festival. I watch the couples hand in hand, heads on shoulders, laughter, and I cannot stop staring at those hands. I keep looking and looking and looking. I do not turn away. I used to have that, I think, a hand to hold, a girl to call my own, but none if it matters anymore. I lost her along the way. What happened? Does it matter? Didn't I try? Did I fail that badly, despite the love I had? Didn't love mean anything? Didn't my love mean anything? Doesn't Love mean anything at all?

I walk (or float rather). I watch the couples, and see the strollers, the children, the pregnant wives, and all I can think is, "How can you? How can you? Don't you see? Why would you bring something so precious into such a cruel and hateful world? What are the chances really of success, of love and happiness? Does anyone else have it that you know of? Why would you do that to them? Why take the chance they will come back, years later, not loving you?"

But it's useless. My words don't matter. They have no weight. They make no sound. They come echoing back like thoughts. It's even hard for me to hear them. I shake my head, what there is of it, but nothing matters. Nothing ever mattered. Nothing meant anything. Beauty didn't mean anything. Love didn't mean anything.

It's okay. I can see the blue sky, the green in the trees, but I can't tell what the temperature is. I cannot feel the warmth or the cold. But I can see the blue, and I'm glad for that. At least I can see that. What if it was black and white, what if--as a ghost--you saw in black and white? It wouldn't have surprised me.

You can't cry here, either, so just be warned. You can't feel, touch, or know much of anything, except why you're here. You came all this way, defeated, conquered so much, only to feel like this. It's not fair. And that's where you are trapped in the limbo of unfairness, the cruelty, the savagery. Life doesn't care about you. What made you think you were so special anyway?

So I flit through the empty space, and I scream to myself because there is pain here. That's what the empty feeling is. It's constant. It won't ever go away. Maybe in time. Maybe when the kids come home. Maybe when the dream begins again, if it ever does, if it ever will, and something makes sense again. Maybe when she leans over and lightly touches me, tells me she loves me, that she never wants me to leave, that she needs me there.

But that seems too much to ask. It might've never happened to begin with. Maybe it was just a dream I concocted in my head. I never had love at all. I never had anything. Nothing ever mattered. Nothing ever did, what we had, what we did, the things we said, whatever they were, whoever she is.

Armor Enough

2009-09-05T08:45:00.000-06:00

What an erratic bunch of posts. And this one is no different. What a fool I have been! the old adage: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I might've been cynical, pessimistic, and reclusive for a lot of years, but I've learned some things along the way. You know them, too, but not everybody does, and not everybody cares. The world is a dark, horrifying, unloving and tragic place at times, but it doesn't have to be, not you're little corner of it. I've been working with people, the public, for a lot of years now, and the challenging ones come and go, but there are the rare, the spirited, the loving and caring, the magic, the gifted, the genuine. I've been writing dark things for a while, but I certainly don't adopt it into my daily routine. I've had my share of issues and I've conquered them one by one, and still have a few to go. At least that I'm aware of. I've prided myself on being someone who can appreciate and want to understand the dark and still be genuine and sincere in their daily routine. It makes me see myself in a brighter light, balanced. I'm okay. I have a lot of great friends, friends who don't judge, criticize, point their fingers, accuse. They would take a bullet for you, and I would do the same. It tells you a lot about yourself as a person with such an army on your side.

Life is too short. That's the next thing. When you're doing your best, being as loving, patient, and understanding as you can be, and receiving nothing in return but harshness, hostility, and coldness, then it seems the next thing is just to move on. Some people are just mean-spirited. They don't care about you, despite what they've said. They've typecast you perhaps as being just like everybody else. You know who you are, and you don't have to prove yourself to anyone. There are plenty of beautiful people who are loving and kind and wanting to share it with you. You shouldn't have to spend a single minute trying to prove yourself to people. You are who you are and that is a beautiful thing. That's it. I know who I am, take me or leave me, and I'm worth a hell of a lot more than someone's doormat for every time something goes wrong. That's okay. Mark another one off the list. My point here: It's sad, heartbreaking, insulting, even rude, that people would think otherwise. Sorry, but I believe in politeness, that old fashioned, dying ritual. We're all in this together, but we can also help each other along the way. Our own pain and tears is enough. Some have already made up their minds, the stubborn cruelty they've allowed to consume their lives. That's okay, too. We don't need them. You can't persuade them one way or the other. And that's sad, heartbreaking, but folks, that's the way the world is. Don't waste your time. There are a a million kind-hearted, beautiful people out there just waiting to shower you with sincerity, love, and acceptance. We just have to find each other. Leave the mean ones to their own devices, their own islands. You deserve better. I deserve better. We all deserve better. There is a huge, bright light out there if you want to be a part of it. You are not a doormat for the demons of life. As the bumper sticker says: Mean People Suck. And it's true. You shouldn't have to go through life having to endure them. They are not worth it. You have your self-respect, your pride. Your hope, your generosity. Believe me, my friends, that's armor enough for this mad world.

A Few Thoughts on...Several Things...

2009-06-25T11:03:00.000-06:00

Well, friends, I've been watching a lot more movies, reading some non-fiction (Because I feel like I don't know much), and watching lots of baseball. When I'm not doing that, I'm hanging out at the library or down by Boulder Creek, walking the trail. It's a simple life. I've been running across a lot of great reviews for Twisted Tails III, which is encouraging. Here's a few to share with you, if you're so inclined to check them out. When someone takes the time to read your stories and says the kinds of things they do, it is music, to say the least. Here's a couple I've run across in my "surfing" expeditions:

Bitten By Books

Sable Lit Review

It was fun to share with several really great authors and friends as well.

On the movie front, here's another list of recommendations: The Hunger, which I know you've seen. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen this movie yet, but I thought it was impeccably stylish and the dialogue was well written. The Red Shoes is a Korean horror definitely worth the watch. Teeth is a great date movie. Watch it with your sweetheart (hee-hee), you won't regret it. Or will you? Can you hear my sadistic laughter? Good, it's meant to be sadistic. Also, I really enjoyed Pulse, another Asian horror. This is a great example of the kind of horror I really love: thought-provoking, darkly atmospheric, and very satisfying.

On the other hand, I also just watched the remake of Friday the 13th. Here's my review I posted on Netflix. I know, I'm rather opinionated when it comes to the genre and art in general, but I love this stuff and take it very seriously.

Two stars. The first twenty minutes was impressive. After that, it was one predictable bunch of downhill disappointments after another. The horror genre deserves better. I had high hopes because Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween kept the tradition alive, while adding some dimension to the original story. Why is getting laid and getting high the only thing characters care about in horror movies? It's an insult. Is it too much to ask to have characters who have a little depth and emotion to their personalities? Apparently so. This was just sadness with plenty of potential like the original. The only difference: this one should've never been made. I was cheering for Jason the whole time. The whining, namby-pamby characters were more than I could stomach without actually throwing up. Shallow, soulless, one dimensional cut-outs who deserve to die anyway for being so insipidly shallow. Why do I care? I don't. In this version, I couldn't wait for the characters to die, just so I wouldn't have to listen to them anymore. Did I mention the insanely predictable ending? But you probably guessed that already. I'll stick with the atmospheric, thought-provoking, stylish horror. I actually like to be mentally stimulated.

Why mix words? I'm just warning those of you who are looking for something besides the same, rehash of tired cliches and the same old horror story. And yes, I'm a little tired of the typical college co-ed horror of "lets get high and laid," syndrome. Could I please just have a horror story with characters who have some layer and depth to their personalities? That would be great.

As far as writing goes, I've been sending a lot of stories out again, which feels really good. I've gotten some encouraging replies already, not acceptances, per se, but not rejections, either. I do a lot of journal writing these days, and vignettes. The notebook pages are filling up. Sometime, I look back on all the "closeted" material I have, and I stare, bug-eyed. "Jesus," I think, "I have a lot of time on my hands." Or maybe I just love to write no matter what the material is.

My beliefs, these days, turn to simplicity. Anyone who knows me, understands I'm quite the philosopher. I'm always looking for a better way to learn, live, and grow. I go to therapy, see a psychiatrist, because I have a tarnished and reckless past. But I guess everybody does. I spend a lot of time by myself, thinking I'm the only one going through it, so I just need to connect to realize I'm not alone. Talking always helps. For my closest friends, it must get slightly obnoxious. I see myself a lot like a problem child. What about this? And what about that? This is what I'm going through now...Sometimes the questions only create confusion. I try to be good to myself and realize the moment is now, and that as long as you have a healthy, positive outlook, chances are, you'll be just fine.

Summer's here, and the sky is bright. It's working miracles on my psyche.

And here's to the Pittsburgh Penguins! Congratulations on winning the Stanley Cup! Being from Colorado, I am, of course, an Avalanche fan. Anyone who beats Detroit in game 7 at Joe Louis Arena is aces in my book.

More Movie Suggestions

2009-05-20T12:11:00.001-06:00

For the most part, here in the land of the Rockies, Spring has arrived. Right now, as I write, I have the front door open and the sliding glass door leading to the balcony for a perfect cross breeze. The trees are in full bloom, green upon green, bursting colors and a deep, cerulean blue sky. You could take a bite out of it. Feist is on at the moment, that soulful songwriter, so I thought to myself, "It must be time for another blog." Things have been good lately. I think spring is making its optimistic mark on my psyche. Something about that beautiful blue sky, warm air, and people about. I'm lucky to live here, because the creek is not far and the path, if you take it west for long enough, goes all the way into the mountains. In Boulder, it is not a long trek. I did this on Monday, taking a huge loop up and around town, and back down through Pearl Street Mall, which is always good for some entertainment and new sights to see. My goal this year is to get out of the house more and take in nature's splendor, pen more in the journal, I think. Something nice about those personal reflections and how good they are for the mind and soul.

Still, despite not reading much horror as I have been, I'm still watching some great movies. After some time, reading fiction enough can be fine, but I've been craving facts. I have a few years of college, but it's amazing how uniformed a person can feel. I started with Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. I'm still catching up because the book is a few years old now, but it's a great history lesson from the beginning of the universe until the present. I forgot about the joy of learning for a while because I get so wrapped up in the beauty of language and fiction. Not that this doesn't teach, but I think you know what I mean. I'm hoping I'll be in this mood for a while, and we'll see how things go. Plus, I'm hungry for ideas. My writing has changed over the years, as it does, I'm sure, with every writer. I'm ready for a branch in yet another direction.

Aside from the facts, on the movie front, I have some recommendations. May, is among the first. One thing I've always loved is a demented love story. They might be my favorite. Madness has always been a fascinating theme for me for many reasons, and I use it a lot. Love, of course, we can all relate to, and obsession, is not a far cry from madness. It's a thin line between madness and love, but the combination works beautifully when done right. May is just such a film. Comical enough to make you laugh with that sick sense of humor, but demented enough to make you cock your eyebrow in disbelief. Another great example is The Isle, which has had some mixed reviews, but I highly recommend it, as well. Korean horror, my friends, is great stuff. A doorway has opened for me I never thought much about until now. Also, I recommend A Tale of Two Sisters, if I haven't mentioned it already. Ginger Snaps is another I recently came across. I thought it was one of the better werewolf movies since An American Werwolf in London. What is it with werewolf movies I find hilarious? Beats me. From Within, one of the HorrorFest III movies, wasn't too bad either, though I also watched Autopsy and was extremely disappointed. I have this theory in horror literature and movies. If you have characters who are that naive and stupid, then they deserve to die. Come on, people, don't insult us viewers! We've seen it a million times. Time to move on. If you run out of gas in your brand new SUV in the middle of nowhere with no around for miles and your cell phone is dead, then you pretty much deserve to get axed into little bits and pieces. The directors are no better for creating it. Literary and serious horror, I think, is on the rise. At least I hope so. It is time to build and create, so it becomes a beautiful art form. Also, rent the French film They Came Back. This is a thoughtful, tense movie that will get your mental wheels churning. Some people didn't like it. You'll find out why, but I can't say.

Other than that, I hope all is well with you and yours. And here's to you tapping into the best of your creativity, open mindedness, and originality.
Cheers, my friends!
Brandon

Philosophy, Emotion, and Just Damn Good Art

2009-03-31T13:55:00.000-06:00

I've been devoting a lot of time to Art and films these days. I've accepted the fact this is all I really care about most of the time, being a single man of thirty-six, and searching for beauty in both light and dark places. I feel lucky in that I've gone through some interesting things in my life, to say the least, and can express these things through writing, knowing it not only helps, but works on a therapeutic level. It doesn't matter if anyone ever sees it. I do it because I love it. I feel a lot, too, which (I don't often know if I'm lucky or unlucky because of it) means I can express a lot. I heard the other day in the bookstore, someone mention, "Every writer is a philosopher these days," and I'm afraid I'm part of the same ilk, for better or worse. Tales of exposition, inner detail, and turmoil, with some sort of resolution (In my case, usually sad. Sue me, I love a good tragedy.) It's just me. I like books that are the same, and I like writing the same sort of fiction. Tales with meat and potatoes, as I call them. These days, my focus has remained in the dark, the creepier side of humanity, the fragility of the human mind, people who are generally good, but battle inner demons who won't go away: alcoholism, child abuse, obsession, or madness. These demons usually manifest themselves in some form or another, take shape, and eventually destroy. Though, I don't mind a happy ending, as long as it's believable, I'm not sure its always for me--at least all the time. Silly Girl has a happy ending, despite the horror I put Amanda Dear through. Realism through the pain of characters and the interminable suffering. Kind of like, "Why not take that suffering and manipulate it, make it grow, then add a bleak winter setting on top of all that, just for effect." The catharsis through writing, the therapy of taking your own inner demons and exaggerating the hell out of them. From the dark core of the soul, comes truth, and from truth comes great art.

But there I go again. I'm not trying to say anything you haven't already heard before. It's one of the first lessons we learn, but I still believe there's some truth in that. Hemingway said experience makes the writer, and I have to agree. I don't think philosophy in art or writing is so bad, at least not the way the customer said it at the bookstore. John D. MacDonald did it beautifully with his Travis McGee series. Usually, when I face a hardship through life, I ask myself, "What would Travis do?" And I haven't been disappointed with the results. Of course, I will never be Travis, because he's the size of a linebacker, spends all his time on his Florida houseboat, wooing the ladies with his charm, sense of humor, and respect. Philosophy never bothered me in writing, because I always felt you were getting something extra besides a story. If a story can teach and edify along the way, then it's done a bit more than entertain. I call that a successful, memorable, even immortal story.

Along the way, I've run into some good stories and movies. I have some catching up to do, so with Netflix, I feel I can delve in beautifully and experience some things I never had before. Let The Right One In, for example, by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I'm reading the book right now and the love story is amazing. I got it because I saw the movie about a week ago, and I fell in love with that, too. I just needed more of it. I've read some of the mixed reviews, but I ignore the negative ones. From what I can say about the film--not enough good things. Stylish, artsy, beautiful, dark, and smartly done. A true original. Rent it or read the book. I don't think you'd be disappointed. With all the vampire craziness these days, I try to steer from vampire tales, but this is the exception to the rule. I think I must be a getting a little opinionated the older I get. Hollywood films seem the same old thing, a formula we know too well. Granted there are exceptions, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, things that are truly entertaining. Don't get me wrong. I think it's fabulous these kinds of movies are coming out. I saw Quarantine as well, finally, and absolutely loved it. Traditional horror, like Cloverfield, original, even simple, but packing a wallop. The truly good films have soul, a personality of their own, whereas some of the major blockbusters or films coming out of Hollywood seem rushed. It's as though you can feel the rush. Popular book! Quick! Let's make a popular movie out of it!--the hurried script, the quick casting, the sense or lack of dimension, the lack of soul from the book. Hollywood has been pumping out movies at an un-recordable rate for years. For, of course, money. Well, that makes sense. I wouldn't turn down a quick 10 mil, either. But through it all, I find it insanely disappointing. Characters are being butchered, story lines as well. Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, for example, not Bram Stoker's. (I know, years ago, but honestly.) If it had really been Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dracula and Mina would've had separate agendas. One movie I thought Anthony Hopkins shouldn't have been cast in, because the comic relief, was, well...not Dracula. Donald Pleasance was a much better Van Helsing. And Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker? Surely, you jest! Winona Ryder as Mina? Still shaking my head? On top of that, a stellar performance by Gary Oldman, which virtually clashed with Keanu and Winona. Gary Oldman, was, however, one of the better Dracula's to come along in years, I thought. And for those who haven't read the book, let me remind you, Dracula was never in love with Mina, let alone was there an immortal love story between the two. Not a single Dracula creation, it seems, is technically accurate to the book as far as the love story goes, because the only love story was between Mina and Jonathan, and of course, Lucy and her suitors. Dracula was simply a creature of the night who wanted to take over the world, not reunite with a lost love. A disappointing remake, to say the least, which for me, has grown staler over time. The Silver Surfer deserved better in the second installment of The Fantastic Four as well. Talk about your tragic stories! His was at the top of my list growing up, thanks to my older brother, who introduced me to Surfer as a kid. But hey, this is just one man's opinion. Dracula and the Surfer are opposite ends of the spectrum, but the same rules apply.

I'm relieved there are people out there proving the immortal band on film and literature. There are still directors who care, who want to share vision instead of making a quick buck, writers who believe in the power of language, in real storytelling instead of the current, hottest seller, actors who sacrifice their souls for their performance and put everything they have into it. Let The Right One In made me realize this. So did Magic. Yes, I know, the one starring Anthony Hopkins, Anne Margaret, and Burgess Merideth, 1978. I saw bits and pieces of the movie as a kid, but never knew exactly what it was about, let alone had I seen it all the way through. Finally twenty-some odd years later, I sat and watched it, blown away by Hopkins' performance, especially when he's arguing with Fatz, and Burgess Merideth is standing in the doorway without him knowing. I haven't been able to say this is in a long time, probably since Cronenberg's The Dead Zone, based on the King novel, but these two films (Let The Right One In, and Magic) might be at the top of my favorite movies list. If you want films with beautiful pace, with lives of their own, with personality, these are great examples. Of course, I'm no pundit on movies, whatsoever. I go by how they make me feel, what it did to me on the inside, and if this were a review, I'd probably be castrated. I'm just saying, I'm passionate about what I expose myself to, and I loved to be emotionally moved, mentally stimulated for both light and dark reasons. Don't you?

Better Late Than Never

2009-02-17T20:16:00.001-07:00

Hello, Friends. Sorry, it's been so long since my last post. Since the year has begun, things have been a little crazy, to say the least: appointments, legal matters, doctors, lawyers, and many other household extravagances to make you realize life is here to stay, whether you want it to or not. That can be good or bad, I guess, depending on your frame of mind. Me, being the splendidly morbid character I am, find myself saying, "Hmmmm."

No biggy, really. I've jumped through most of the hoops, and thinks are back on track. I feel like one of those injured players on the bench, watching life go by, or the team playing without you.

I hope everyone is well, and I want to take the time to thank everybody who has posted, commented, and read my blog with the nice things you've said. It warms the heart, my friends, and I thank you.

I've recently found myself on Netflix. Long time coming, maybe, but what a discovery! Does anybody remember the movie Alice, Sweet Alice? What a creep fest! Get it, turn out all the lights, and watch it. I saw this movie at the drive-in when it came out. I was five years old, and all I remember is everybody in the car being "creeped out," as well. (Yes, growing up, the parents loved horror, so I was exposed to some very creepy movies at a very young age. It explains a lot.) It still gave me a good chill just the other night. I've been into the Omen Trilogy, too. I can't believe how good this stuff is and how long it's been since I've seen it. My new addiction is trying to build the ultimate "Horror Movie Collection," and I'm proud of the titles I've accrued along the way.

I'm happy to be back in "Horror Mode," as well. That old familiar love. Darkness and madness with a little dab of blood really makes me happy. Ahhh. I took time reading the classics for quite a few months and not writing a word. I think I needed the break, and I was glad I took the hiatus. The words that come now feel crisp and brand new. Suddenly, it just hit me: "I need darkness and madness. I need...creepy." I think creepy is among the better categories. If anything, I look for creepy wherever I go. Plus, it helps with my funky frame of mind lately, which has been tried.

Things have been weighing heavily on me. Is it okay to get that personal? Years ago, I might have lost myself in booze to forget it. These days, I pop of bowl of popcorn, put in a good scary movie, then make a milkshake. I might have an apple or orange afterwards, just to balance out all the salt and butter. Still, I must be the moodiest sonofabitch in the world, the reason I see the doctor and live as quietly and uncomplicated as necessary. Sometimes, I think I want to be this eccentric hermit who buries himself in the dark and words, writing about loneliness, isolation, about the sadness of broken dreams, the paradise we all want for ourselves, and how it often comes back to haunt us whether we obtain it or not. Writing and art, like in its mirrored reflection called, Life. It takes a long time to see through the years, to come out of the broken paradise, and accept the fact you're no more special than any one else. We only deserve what we create for ourselves. Sometimes, some of us have a little more luck than others, if you believe in that sort of thing.

I've enjoyed writing about the seedier side of life lately as well, the repellent, the horrible, the destitute, the soulless, and the lifeless. I like the realness. Broken, lost, and disheartened love. I've been working on a story I really enjoy, which is about that very thing. (115 pages. I'm doing a lot of novellas lately.) The dementia that lives in obsessive love, the distortion many of us have on how we perceive life, the world, and ourselves.

Lately, too, I've been thinking a lot about commercial fiction. Some of it just doesn't do it for me these days. Maybe I'm just being an ass. So much of it seems one-dimensional, that is a lack of character and substance, fiction for entertainment's sake, instead of emotional satisfaction. Though, I understand this is where the money lies, I can't bring myself to conform, not that I'd find a big fat contract even if I did. I guess it depends on what kind of reader you are. I know what kind of reader I am, and I know I'm not the only one. Tradition with language and the people who built that for us. Some of today's fiction seems like a cardboard cutout. Whatever happened to that blocky, beautiful prose of years gone by: Nabokov, Hawthorne, James, Hemingway? Feeling, emotion, description? Not all of today's fiction is that way, of course. I don't mean to sound like a literary pundit, let alone an asshole. The History of Love was a best seller, and that was nothing but layered emotion upon emotion, and beautifully written description. I work at Barnes and Noble, and have it on my staff recs. I hope Nicole Krauss appreciates how many copies I've sold for her, at least two a week. I'm not looking for anything in return, you understand. I just like sharing a beautiful story. And that was one among the many. Thank you, Nicole, for that. If you have some suggestions for me, I'd love to know. Make a list of some of your favorite literary works.

How this all relates to anything I've been talking about? Who the hell knows? I guess this is kind of erratic post. I'll clean it up later, maybe. I guess it goes back to the same thing:

I find life most enjoyable through art and experience, which are a perfect fit, like what many of my posts are about. Experience through shame and turmoil; through darkness, comes beauty. Through experience, comes knowledge. I know enough to know what makes me happy. Reading beautiful stories, no matter how dark or light, and writing from the raw core of my being. If I don't feel it, why create at all? Writing, what I hope, are beautiful stories, filled with language and heart. I've noticed lately that when I write, I don't feel so much like a writer as an artist. This is one the most beautiful feelings I've discovered lately.

And, of course, hearing the responses, and thanking you, in return. So, what if it took me thirty-odd years to understand it. Better late than never, right?

And a great hockey game, but that's no surprise...Maybe it's time to go skating...

See you soon, light and dark dwellers.
Brandon

Tradition, Change, and Holidays

2008-11-10T12:29:00.001-07:00

There is something good about all seasons, and this, of course, is the beauty of fall, the pumpkins burning, the decorations, and the coming of good food, family, cheerful holidays, and the snow, which transfixes, hypnotizes, and sends me into a trance. Sometimes, I think something very bizarre and magical happened to me as a kid in the snow, and now, though I can't quite remember it, has left some long-lasting, subconscious effect. I simply love it. There is magic in all that white powder.

Aside from all that, though, I've been in a bizarre mood lately. Mom gave me word today that there is no longer a trace of cancer remaining in her system. Everyone has kept their fingers crossed, worn their pink ribbons, their pink bracelets, and prayed. Though, she still needs to be monitored, there is music in her voice. She is laughing like a loon. This has nothing to do with my own mood, though, I'm extremely happy for her.

It has been an interesting, odd year. How many of you can feel the changes as life moves by, the shifts in the air? It seems, for me, there is always some new perspective, some new thought to grasp, a new understanding about life, the universe, people, and all its little mysteries, nuances, and understandings. Sometimes the past can be a treacherous place, a reflection where very little shines, and it's not difficult to remain wedged there, stuck like some helpless child. Some of us need a little push in the right direction, and I am no exception.

I'm always on the lookout. That is, it seems hard to go through life without comparing yourself to others, resenting the past, or wondering why God put you here in these shoes instead of some one else's, things that could easily drive you mad if you aren't careful. It's hard to be grateful the things you have, no matter how little or how great. I guess a lot of that has to do with simplification, and understanding yourself and your life as much as you can. Accepting yourself, your position in society, and being okay with it. Everybody always wants more than what they have.

In writing, like in life, we express how we feel, and I have a tendency to get philosophical in my own pompous, pontifical sort of way. Maybe its the religion from years ago (which I fell away from), but still has a tendency to linger. Maybe it's the battles with personal demons, and the hope that I've conquered them to live a better life. What a better way to express the darkness of the past than through a dark tale? What I do know is that what works for me doesn't work for everybody else. You go through life by trial and error, and learn enough about yourself to understand what works for you, and what doesn't. Whatever it is, doesn't matter.

Lately, a new focus has taken shape, one I hope has a little more clarity than others before. Things don't seem as problematic, let alone, as dramatic as they used to, perhaps because other peoples problems, or the problems of the world seem vastly more important than mine. It's a good life here in the institution. I use that line comically, because I used it in one of my tales. But it is no longer, nor has it ever really seemed an institution now that I think about it. The prison I lived in, like for everybody, was of my own making.

I haven't been as disciplined sending out submissions. I sit here and think about all the novels I have behind me that have never seen the light of day, the short stories, the genres, the cross genres, the fantasy, the horror, even some coming of age, idyllic tales more of a wholesome quality. I think about the years I've gone over these novels and stories, the rewrites, the editing, the polishing, the pain, the rewards, the satisfaction, the tears as well. I think about my divorce, the religion, the failed relationships, the personal demons and hell, and I feel like I have a strong foundation to base a lot of ideas off of. I've been lucky to have this driving force to continue to express--for no real reason than because I love it. I do it for me, like you do it for you, and I put everything into it I can, like you do, and nothing makes me happier. It is--as perhaps a poet would say--a place among the stars.

Nevertheless, the tales that get penned now are not anything like what are at bloodredtales. Sure, they have their darker moments of emotion, their sadnesses, even their mental imbalances, but things change, and sometimes new perceptions allow room for newer ideas, perhaps bigger, grander, more emotional, meaningful, or long-lasting ideas. The dark is always home, a place I can go, love and appreciate. They always have room for me there, and often, when I've been away too long, I'm anxious to get back to some traditional roots.

Speaking of tradition, I've gone back to writing by hand, an intimate, virtually romantic way of getting closer to the words and the art. Purer, too, I guess. I've been reading Dickens, Poe, Hawthorne, James, even Jane Austen again, which I love because these people are our models. For people like you and me, it's hard to imagine life without them. I can't believe I forgot how beautiful A Tale of Two Cities was, or Dracula, not only as good as I remember it, but even better the second time around. Poe always has something new to teach me. There is simply abundance in each of his tales. This is why we keep the books on the shelves, I think. We don't want them, quite literally, to ever leave us. I could go on and on. For me, it's these classic stories and the language they are told in, something we just don't see these days, except by a talented, chosen few. The authors who pen lyrically, (Jonathan Carroll, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub--just to name a few) seem to take us back to their original love and appreciation for these writers of old. They do it in a contemporary way. What poetry! I think it's vitally important to remember, especially as writers. Of course, I'm just assuming here.

But back to the mood-thing, and why I'm writing this. I guess I don't feel the same as I do, say, five years ago, or even as short as a year. This is change in a good way, though. I might not know the exact reason for it, but I do know that. Still, it seems strange, like I'm always scrutinizing myself, always on the lookout, trying to figure out more about life and how to get a better handle on it. The American Dream...? I work full time, come home to a bachelor lifestyle, watch all the hockey I can ingest, read all I want, and write when the true inspiration hits. Not a bad way to go through each day, if I do say so myself.

The reason I talk about all this is because I fail to see it sometimes. I think about all the other things I'd rather not go into now, but the most important things are there. The writing, the reading, the leisure, and the relaxing time a body needs to recharge. Publication has opened a little door, and though rejections still bombard me, like I'm sure they do you, I always find the energy to send one off at the post office, or click the button, via email.

I want to thank everybody who has spent time at BloodRedTales and read the stories. You have no idea what this does for me. Many of you have contacted me personally and said some very nice things. Thank you for that. I might be shedding some tears after all this, because I am rather sensitive to this sort of thing. So thank you.

Also, I know the tales here have been up for a while, and its probably time I posted some new ones, but the fact is, I never realized having my own stories on the web was considered published until after the website had been designed. That was just me being naive. And, of course, now that they're up, no one will publish them except as reprints, and even that is hard to do. So, though I have maybe a hundred other tales, I thought it best getting those into other avenues. Besides, these tales are only a very, very small handful. Maybe you have some suggestions. If so, I'm all ears.

Anyway, now that this it's done, I realize it was something I needed to get off my chest, something I needed to express in order to bring us closer. That was my inspiration. I feel better having done it whether I came to a conclusion or not. I come to my own. You come to yours. I think that's good enough for both of us.

Here's to you and yours during the upcoming holidays. Be safe and festive!

We'll see you next time, friends, and thanks for stopping by.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-14T20:24:00.000-06:00

And so the Halloween season is upon us. Here's to hoping you had a fabulous summer and all your schoolwork is going well. The house is decorated with goblins and ghouls, and the horror movies or coming out a little more often at my house. I like to let them play as I write. I'm not so distracted by the screaming. Makes me laugh, actually. Monsters growling, girls screaming. Is there a better form of entertainment?

I want to take this time to thank Professor Delphinius "J.C." Tucker, for the kindness he showed me and the kind words he said, which can be found at:
http://delphinius.atwaz.com/Conservatory/archive_jul08.php

What kind words! Thank you, Professor, and Cheers!

I just wanted to say have a safe and Happy Halloween as well, and for the Anthologies who published me this year. I'm proud to be a part of it, and hope for more publishing success. It's been a good year. Here's to you, horror fans, music fans, artists in general the world over. Keep expressing!

Some Time Away...

2008-08-26T12:17:00.000-06:00

I just got back from eight days of fun in the sun in Sun Valley, Idaho at Anderson Lake. Ever been there? It's beautiful. Part Hemingway country, and the lake is massive, almost three hundred feet deep in some spots. My mother has finished (hopefully) the roughest part of her cancer treatments. God bless you, mom! She looked rosy and healthy and a few pounds heavier. I mean that in a good way, mother. I'll hear about that one later.

The kids got together for mom's sake, waterskiing, dirt biking, good food, camp fire, full moon, plenty of stars, and lots of laughter. It was good to get away. My first few days back to work, I was still on the lake. We saw a bald eagle, chased it in the boat for a while as it flew over the water. Deer ran everywhere, even a couple of bucks. My brother, being the snake charmer he is, went hunting snakes and had some luck.

The water was perfect, 74 degrees. I got on the wake board for the first time, and when I wasn't feeling cocky, switching and trying to cut the water, I made a few face plants. Ouch! That'll jog you back to reality. But I was ready to go again when the boat came around.

It definitely recharged the batteries. I feel a little calmer, not high strung like I did before I went. (Mainly because of work. Whoever said working in a bookstore was easy? The phone rings constantly. I can't believe how many people don't know where Mark Twain is) I had some personal demons to face on my own, I suppose, and it wasn't really an effort. One night, I took a walk out with my Uncle, who'd come down from California, and we stared at the full moon while standing on the dam. I loved the way the moon illuminated the hills to every side. Scorpio was barely visible to the south. I'm a Scorpio, so I notice things like that. I had some private moments, thinking about life, where I was then, and where I am now, and if anything was perfect, it was then. I had no qualms. I was just glad to be with my family, my brothers and sister, my nieces, and my mom and uncle. Even my sister's boyfriend, George, came along. He introduced me to some Otep. George is a great guy. Everyone likes him.

As all was said and done, like all vacations, it went by way too fast, and the next thing I knew, I was home again, back at work. I started a new story, relaxed in to the lateness of summer, and gradually watched the college students come back into town. It was a great way to end the summer.

Here's hoping you had similar adventures and great memories this summer!

Blood Red Tales Gets A Makeover

2008-08-07T11:43:00.000-06:00

Since Blood Red Tales has been up, lots has happened. I don't know where to begin. I've met some great people, had some great help, got published in a couple of respectable anthologies, and heard from some fans. Blood Red, in that time, has gotten a makeover. Some of the tales could always be better, but not only have the tales been polished since, I've been fortunate to talk with some great and very kind artists. Their work is displayed, with links on my About The Author page, as to where to find more. It has been an exciting year. And I'm still trying to get more exposure, more publications, and meet new people. For everyone who helps, you have to help someone else. That's the rule. Blood Red Tales is not just about fiction. It's about great artwork and spreading light in dark places. It might be dark and bloody content, but that doesn't mean we can't have some laughs and help others along the way. After all, a dark sense of humor is healthy.

Check out some of the prints, if you are so inclined, and drop those artists an email. We're all in this together. Bringing passion to life.
Later....

Art As Teacher

2008-07-28T10:41:00.000-06:00

The funny thing about life and its relation to horror...Or, in this case, art, which we all know reflects life, and vice-versa. As artists, honesty is essential. Without it, where does your art go? Does it fade into the shallow confines of one dimensional expression and fail to skim the surface of catharsis? Without the pain of honesty, no true creation can touch another's life. Of course, there are artists who do not create for others, let alone show the world their work. I create for myself, but still want to show the world my work, so I would like to meet these people and have coffee with them. We could chat about our inner demons, our life-long quest to create, to learn, to pursue. Maybe we could learn a few things about each other along the way.

I'm not talking solely about horror, of course, but art in all categories, genres, and sub-genres. The canvas, music, sculpting, photography, along with writing, and every art form imaginable reflects. It's a mirror. I think as true artists, those who are unafraid to say how they feel, express their honesty no matter how detrimental it may be to them as people or their state of mind. They could care less what you think of them as people. They want their art understood, appreciated. They want you to see them as artists, learn about them through their art. Of course, being a decent person isn't bad either. Hitler was an artist, too, and well...you get the picture.

Artists provide us with something sacred, vital, allowing us to see inside them in ways they can only express through art. This is not only catharsis, in my opinion, but the definition of beauty. Artists are accepting this risk when embarking on the quest, and it's a risk worth taking, at least for the artist. You sacrifice for the sake of the art. Hemingway said "Experience makes the writer," but of course, it applies to all artists, and not just writers. So, this little spiel (not that I know what the hell it's really about, I just felt compelled to write) is something along the lines of honesty, acceptance, pain, and creativity. So, to teach, to learn, we experience pain, the coldness of bleak isolation, the sorrow and anguish of wracking sobs. Yes, it's the old cliche, ladies and gentleman--or underground dwellers--as the case may be. Pain is the greatest teacher, but luckily, as artists, we have an outlet for the confusion, sadness, and turmoil. As to it's relation to horror or art, well, that's where I begin to move this little exercise into a darker abyss.

Like any level of catharsis, some of the greatest work speaks louder through darkness, pain, and sorrow. At least, maybe this is why it reached me on the level it did. Horror made me realize I wasn't alone, and at the time, that was just what little Brandy-boy needed. And let's face it, growing up, we experience nothing but pain. In order to express, I thought loneliness, pain, sadness, and emotional anguish were best expressed through horror. And why not throw in a bleak winter landscape, maybe some freezing rain, just for effect. Ah, now you've got it! The point, I suppose, is that horror--like anything dark or evil--can be therapeutic, thus the catharsis. The blacker the tale, the deeper the understanding; at least I always believed this. Life comes at you hard and unexpected. Sometimes, it can be rude, humbling, and humiliating. Sadness moves, it wracks the body, but it can cleanse. And when it does, there might be enough space for clarity to shift the mind into another perception, or dimension, depending on your preference. Maybe you learn. Maybe you don't. It's a theory based on trial and error, and even as people, (you don't have to be an artist) we're able to appreciate and understand that. The beauty, I supposes, lies in the fact that art, like life, is our teacher, and, of course, vice-versa. We are all artists, in some way, in the painful throes of expression. Life humiliates, shames, pains, and confuses us. So, we cry, but no one hears us. We ache, but no one cares. Until some fateful occurrence, where the possibility presented itself that we touched someone's life. Maybe it made them cry, laugh, or shudder with fear. It doesn't matter. Emotion was evoked. The song had been sung. The tale is done.

As people, as artists, we've bowed as we've left the stage. We've poured our gratitude out and back again. We might be smiling on the inside, but, also, we are weeping torrential currents of light and tears. Life and art hold power. Fearlessness is part of the ingredient, I think. To be unafraid of where your mind takes you. Such a fine fine line, my friends, and perhaps dangerous. Are you willing to take the risk? Well, isn't that why you signed on in the first place? I think it has something to do with sharing the blackest part of you, and not harming, but helping others because of your experiences, pain, and vision. Some have brighter visions, some darker. Both are just as capable of teaching us something new.

I guess, that's enough of a soapbox. Can I get a pompous cheer? Like an evangelical tirade through blogs of horror. That wasn't my intention.

With life, comes pain. With art, comes redemption. Or so we hope. (Maybe a better title would be Philanthropy Through Art. And horror, too.) We learn through both, as painful as it is. The risk you signed on for when you made the commitment. Lessons come in all shapes and sizes. But you don't have to be afraid. Imagination as a lie? A fairy-tale? For shame! I don't think so! There's more realism going on under the shadow of fabrication. Does this mean--as an artist--you are allowed only pain? I don't think I can answer that. All you can do is build a kingdom. We have worlds inside us. Make it real. Teach us what we need to know...

LAST DRESSER DRAWER

2008-06-30T20:38:00.000-06:00

Here's a complimentary tale that was published in 7th Dimension, but apparently, is no longer alive and well. 7th Dimension, that is. Hope you like it. It's a short, flash read. And I would love to hear what you think.

LAST DRESSER DRAWER

I come into my apartment and notice the smell, like wet pennies. I flick on the light. It’s small, my apartment. I go to the drawer and open it. There are many drawers, and they are all the same. I open the drawer to Confession and Lies. I see one of my eyes staring at me as it floats in a pool of blood. I didn’t know their eyes could float, now mine because I own them. It surprises me every time. Some of her black hair is in there still, too. The strands make scarlet webs on the outside of the drawer. People think it’s just the way I’ve decorated.

I can’t let anyone see this! What if they start to suspect? My friends are loyal, however, and I trust them.

I dip my hand in the blood and bring a mouthful to my lips. The lights go out, and I am enveloped in total blackness.

I take the mouthful anyway, tasting hair between my teeth. I rub my face in it and close the drawer. I hear the blood slop over the drawer and onto the floor, splattering my feet.

In the dark, I wipe my hands on my coat, adding to the other bloodstains there. I go to the bathroom, turn on the light, and look at myself in the mirror. I smile. I take the black ink out of the bathroom cabinet and paint my eyes and teeth.

I can’t live this way with anyone else. I am all that I can live with. That is enough.

“Villain,” I say to my frightening reflection. “Look at you with blood on your lips.”

I smile, painting my face, wondering when they’ll catch up with me.

Panicking, I finally remember to go to the door and lock it.

“Did you put her body away?” I ask.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Where are her toes?”

“In the silverware drawer. The one above your favorite.”

“That was the one I was just at.”

“I know,” he says. “That’s why I put out the light.”

I look around, shaking my head. That was close!

“What did you do with her teeth?”

“I ate them.”

“Amanda? Susan?”

“In the cellar behind the wall.”

“Here,” I say. “Help me with the others.”

He helps, and we get the rest of them downstairs.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Someone’s pounding on the door!”

“Don’t answer it!”

“What if it’s the police?”

“Tell them you’re in the shower.”

I run upstairs to the bathroom. I paint my face black, rub blood on my hands and face, adding to the color from one of the many drawers.

“Police!” I hear through the door. “Open up!”

I stamp my bloody hands on the cupboards and walls, the refrigerator as I go.

Don’t panic! I think. Don’t panic!

I open the door and put on a winning smile. Blood drips down my chin.

He’s standing there big and authoritative. He’s all dressed in dark blue like the rest of them.

“’Heard about a disturbance down here. Everything all right?”

I nod, pretending to be puzzled. Disturbance? Harmless me? What on Earth could I possibly do?

“What kind of disturbance?”

“Loud noises. Things like that. Bumpin’ and thumpin’. You been jumpin’ up and down?”

I shake my head vigorously.

“No, sir.”

He narrows his eyes.

“Hmmm.”

He looks around, eyeing the apartment.

“Just who are you trying to be, anyway?”

I shrug.

“Little obsession of mine. Like to paint my face. Sometimes, I…”

“Yeah yeah. Just keep it to yourself, buddy.”

I nod.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well,” he says, eyeing the apartment again. “Just try to keep it down, will ya?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looks at me, giggles at my make-up, and shakes his head. He turns, walking back to the patrol car, which is parked under the street lamp. I shut the door.

“Whew!” I say, locking it. “That was close.”

“What did he say?”

I didn’t even know he had come upstairs.

“Nothing. Just to keep it down.”

I look around.

“Well,” he says. “I thought you had a date?”

“I do,” I say. “I was trying to get ready before he knocked on the door.”

“What are you going to wear?”

“Something nice. She’s taking me out, she said.”

“Lucky you.”

I make sure some of the drawers are empty, but I find only one left.

“I thought you were going to buy another dresser. We need another dresser.”

“I’ve been busy. Quit hounding me!”

“Sorry.”

I look through the closet, push a body aside, and find something nice to wear.

“Oh, she was nice,” I say, reminiscing.

“Janice,” he says. “Her name was Janice.”

“Hey, is this okay?”

I turn around, but he’s gone. I go to one of the drawers, finding something to tie around my neck.

“Where the hell did he go?” I ask myself.

New Tales Available!

2008-05-25T10:21:00.001-06:00

I'm pleased, proud, privileged, honored--you name it--to announce the release of Twisted Tales 3, and the Abominations Anthology. Both are featuring tales I'm rather proud of and have worked hard on over the years. When I first dabbled in horror, I was bombarded with short story ideas I thought were original, exciting, and literary. I fell in love with a lot of these ideas and tried--over the years--to hone my craft around these tales. In other words, I tried to find my voice through these particular horror stories. We had been through a lot together, and I always thought of stories, especially the short story, as children. You nurture them, shape them; you get them ready to face the world and send them off, hoping for the best. I'd rewritten, lost, resurrected, and rewrote these tales probably hundreds of times. And as many times as I wanted to let go of them, I knew there was more work to do, so I went after them all again. Each time, it was like reliving something special that I loved. I loved these stories, and I didn't--in some aspects--want to let them go. Each time I worked on them was a special time for me. I loved being there; I loved getting to the end, and I loved feeling the proud, fatherly satisfaction of what it may be (I'm just assuming) to be proud of one's children. In a span of fifteen plus years, I grew to love these tales in ways I'd never thought, saw them gain shape in ways I never imagined. Some of those tales like Richard Korbett, Barriers, and Silly Girl were among the first. They were difficult and challenging, at times insanely frustrating, but always worth it. What child isn't? I wanted them to be the best they could be. The Ghost of Korrim McKarthy (Twisted Tales 3) and Mosquito (Abominations) were among these original ideas. I can't tell you what it means to me to see them in print. The rest of the original horror story ideas are still hidden, waiting to see the light of day. I'll just have to be patient, but we're working on it. Anyway, if you were so inclined, the links are on the www.bloodredtales.com main page, if you haven't noticed them already. Of course, any support is always greatly appreciated, and I am open for you to tell me what you think. Just drop me a line.
Signing out.

P.S. Twisted Tales 3 is available as an ebook and a paperback. If you want the paperback, you will have to click on the Amazon link. Thanks again everybody. Hope you like tales!

The Latest from the Front Office...

2008-04-11T22:11:00.000-06:00

It wasn't easy getting rid of the St. Patrick's Day Girl. I'm a sucker for pin-ups, though, so Happy Spring Cleaning, Everyone!

Also, it hasn't been easy keeping these posts updated the way I should, either. Between work, writing, submitting, and playoff hockey, I get bogged down. I know I'm not the only one, and who knows how many people really read this anyway. I've been working on another novel called Castle Juliet, which is anything but horror, dedicated to a very dear friend of mine, Diane Evans. Through lives and worlds away, sometimes we imagine living many lifetimes with our closest friends, and Castle Juliet is no exception. It is the story of a boy and girl, both ten, and both the best of friends. I wanted to get away from horror for a bit and try something bright and more uplifting, so I spent the winter reading Dickens and working on this novel. It is about 99.9% completed without a publisher. I'll shop around for it a bit more later, perhaps.

Anyway, the Twisted Tales III anthology is soon available. Here is a pretty cool link where you can check out an excerpt from one of my tales, the cover of the anthology, and anything else that might tickle you in all the right places. http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-567-3

I was pretty excited they used my tale for the excerpt. I recommend reading the story out loud during a camp out, in the middle of the dark, silent wilderness with all of your friends.

Also, I was lucky enough to get another story accepted by Timothy Deal for the Abominations Anthology. Their theme is creatures and critters, so I sent them Mosquito, a little vacation trip to Florida--that, of course, goes terribly awry. My ode to Dracula tale. Anyway, thank you so much Timothy, for accepting the tale! It's one I'm rather proud of.

Also, for this blog, I thought I'd give an idea of what I've been doing lately. For those who haven't read The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, I urge you to do so. Simply a beautiful story. Also Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer is worth the read. I've been in memoir mode lately, too. I've thoroughly enjoyed Touching the Void, Into Thin Air, Manic by Terri Cheney, The Quiet Room, Pete Hamil's, A Drinking Life, Lucky by Alice Sebold, and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, which is simply amazing. Some of these are older titles I'm sure you've read. I'm still trying to catch up on what are popular but worth-the-read- titles. The beauty of literature is that there's always great stuff to read, and you can never catch up.

On the movie front, I recommend Martian Child, the film starring John Cusack. Yes, I know it's not horror, but just bear with me. On the horror front, The Ruins was pretty tasty, too, though I still haven't read the book. I simply couldn't wait. There's a great scene from up above of the town going berserk in 30 Days of Night you might enjoy. I was impressed. Also, The Orphanage, though a while back, was flat out creepy. I highly recommend it, and it won't kill you to read the subtitles.

The main priority these days is writing and submitting, paying the bills, and staying well fed, which I hope you're all doing as well. I've decorated the house with horrifying cinematic movie posters, which is also something I've wanted to do for a long time. "Hello Girls!" I always say to the pin-ups when I come home. (The Elvgren prints, like the Spring Cleaning above. Give me a little credit, will ya?) Hockey corner is by the television, and the gourmet coffee is always brewing. Sometimes, I opt for hot chocolate. Just because it's spring, doesn't mean there isn't still snow in Colorado. It's a good life, and I'm smiling more now than ever before. I'm a lucky man...

With that, I hope you are well, my little underground dwellers. We'll see you next time...

How Do You Like Your Horror?

2008-03-11T15:36:00.001-06:00

The stories here at BloodRed are, I hope, a decent example of my theory concerning the horror story. That's not to sound egotistical. Horror story? End in Horror. I love horror, so I write horror according to my own theories, philosophies, and beliefs. Hopefully, the tales here express those theories and beliefs. And the theory is quite simple: if horror is the genre, then horror it should be throughout the tale: beginning, middle, and end. Pretty obvious, at least to me, but not always the case. And not everyone agrees, as some of my peers have mentioned. But the formula is simple, and usually spot on every time. Horror tale? Make it end in horror? You will be pleased with the results. At least, this is what I tell myself, but it doesn't always ring true in every case. After all, there are a lot of stories in the world, and some need their own genres and sub-genres to classify them.

Over time we've all seen some great horror movies--read some great stories, novels, short stories, only to see them turn bad because of the nice, pretty little package all tied up like a sparkling rainbow under an equally sparkling Christmas Tree. It's like the Care Bears visits Night of the Living Dead. Not a good combo. Usually this happens to satisfy the reader or viewer, who is not always a fan of the horror genre. As a fan of horror, of course, I'm not satisfied. In fact, I'm slightly repulsed. Aren't you?

Let's take the word Horror, what it suggests, the way it looks in BlockBuster Video in that particular section, so different than Drama, Action Adventure, Science Fiction, and Comedy. Horror stands alone. It should live up to its name, that simple one word, so ghastly, so lovable, so capable of making all its fans smile.

There are times the wrapped-up endings (pretty and proper) is appropriate, but a horror story with a happy ending doesn't seem a horror story--a story that is horrifying throughout, filled with darkness, death, blood, and monsters, only to have the main characters fall in love, defeat the antagonist (whatever that might be), kiss...then eventually fade to black. Yes, this happens. We've all seen it. Horror Story? Or Love Story with dark elements and monsters throughout? Hmmm.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King is a great example of the perfect Horror Story. Just as the movie, The Evil Dead, the short story The Tell-Tale Heart by Poe, all fine examples of traditional horror. Granted, there are exceptions to every rule. Jacob's Ladder, for example, starring Tim Robbins--an incredible horror movie,even with the "brighter-salvation-like" ending. It fits the rest of the story. But as far as traditional terror goes, horror, fear, death, blood and madness, all leave a perfect, pretty, bright scar in the end. Scars that warp the mind in a nice way for fans like us. Characters can live, but they must go mad, or lose all hope in order for the ''horror" to deliver. Drama goes beyond drama and compassion when we create unforgettable characters we love, only to have horrifying things happen to them in the end. This isn't a cop-out. This is reality, a lesson in blood. The horror story is teaching us something here, that life isn't always sweet and romantic. For those who love the genre, we already know this. The horror story is a lesson, helping us prepare for the terrifyingly unexpected, a powerful concept in any story, but especially horror. Horror stories fail to focus on character development and instead focus on the horror itself. A great failing, I believe, and thankfully, not true in all cases. Despite how supernatural the tale may be, hints of realism still exist, making for a more believable tale, a more effective and memorable horror story. Jeepers Creepers (just an example) failed at this because the characters were unlikable, mainly the sister (her name escapes me). Why should we care about character we don't like? I remember watching the movie, unable to contain my excitement, predicting when she would die. I hated her, the way she talked, the way she acted, and I WANTED HER DEAD! Imagine my disappointment to find out she was one of the characters left standing in the end. Other than this, it would have been a great movie. Some horror, unfortunately, is a cop out. A sad reality for fans like you and me, who want the horrifying ending.

Traditional horror is on the rise, however; the comebacks are on the way, the dreaded, horrifying conclusions leaving us in a state of breathless shock. This is the goal of the tale. Wide eyes. Paling skin, a nice little scar when we walk out of the theater, or put down that book, making us laugh because we have a twisted sense of humor. Horror becomes comedy for us. The laugh we deliver watching the madness is actually a sound of praise. Do you do this? This is the goal--at least when it comes to that precious art form, "The Horror Story."

Anxious to deliver your two cents? I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this topic, and why you agree or disagree, like or dislike, or have a fetish for both. You can bludgeon me with my own naivete, my lack of understanding, even, but don't be surprised if that bludgeoning comes back to you in another form. After all, the horror tale in the form of revenge is--though a cliche--still running strong.

Our Little Secret...

2008-01-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

Well, a little Bloody Valentine news is here to inspire those horror writers who may be reading this. The article on the woman was found by my good Agent Nelson, who thought news briefs, related to BloodRedTales, might be a good way to keep the sight updated, and I have to agree. So, thank him for the article. Any news you may have on your own blood drinking experiences will be greatly appreciated here. Do I have any of these fetishes myself? Well, maybe I shouldn't share those with you, though, I am working on creating a Dracula-like setting in my own home, mainly the bedroom, of course. Red and Black, oh, my brothers and sisters! But I assure you, I would never drink my fair maiden's blood, nor chase her down the street with a pick-axe should she try to run away. I wouldn't mind if she had fangs and pale skin, however. Besides, I plan on keeping the ladies around, and I think acting like a gentleman is the sure-fire bet to do such a thing. I think the traditional roses and chocolates are the way to go. Then, again, this is the new millennium, and people are getting weirder and weirder by the day. Me? I keep the blood and dementia inside my dark, cryptic brain where it belongs. I write, so I don't have to act out these little fantasies. It's safer that way, and I have an image to uphold. What that image is, of course, well, let's just make that our little secret, shall we?

Some Words From Tiny Tim!

2007-12-12T20:57:00.001-07:00

I was not aware that Nick Bowden had died until today, the feature artist on the front page of Blood Red Tales with his masterful arwork, Somewhere Above and Beyond. To him and his family, my sincerest sympathy and heartfelt compassion. Nick's work can be viewed at Deviant Art, http://www.deviantart.com I recommend you check it out. He was an incredible artist, otherwise I wouldn't have chosen his work for my main page. God Bless You, Nick! And thanks for the great work!

Also, I wanted to thank everyone for voting for the best author website at Fiction Addiction. Seems I placed in the top ten, so thank you all for voting! The lollipops should have been doled out accordingly. If not get back with me, and I will end yours via UPS.

To all my friends, family, horror writers, fiction mags, upcoming anthologies, and to everyone I've met recently, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Just because we are mainly of the darker trade, doesn't mean we can't get in touch with this festive time of year, its childlike spirit, and embrace the resonding notes that makes Christmas what it is. I for one, have been reading the Christmas books by Dickens, have decorated the house with lights, put out the little village of lighted houses, and watched A Christmas Carol twice already, the one with Alastair Sim, and George C. Scott. This is great stuff! And, this is the stuff that gets us in touch with the lighter sides of our vision and art. Don't be afraid to embrace it!

On a slightly less macabe note, as Tiny Tim has been fond of saying:
"God bless us, Everyone!"
I leave it up to you to provide the accent!
Cheers, all!
Brandon

7th Dimension Magazine is Alive and Well and Featuring a Bloody Piece of Madness.

2007-11-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

Well, the mag came in the mail the other day, and I should have posted this sooner, but with moving, hooking everything back up, and having some minor PC troubles, all is well. Knock on wood. 7th Dimension's debut issue has arrived with my tale Last Dresser Drawer. This is a flash piece of blood and madness. What else is new, right?

Seeing your name in print is always pretty cool, but this one holds a little something special for me. It was a random submit. I didn't expect to get published, so when the acceptance letter came, I was pretty excited. And I got paid for it, too, which is always a plus. Anyway, for only $2.50, the magazine can be purchased at http://www.newtonshair.com/7thdimension/ But, hey, I'm not twisting your arm or anything.

The Other "Significant Other."

2007-10-27T17:32:00.000-06:00

So, I got to thinking about alter-egos and wanted to tell a story, but first! (haha)--I want to thank Nanci Kalanta and Mark Justice at HorrorWorld and the Pod of Horror for the shoutout concerning Blood Red Tales. That was the coolest thing I've heard in a long time, and #39 was pretty entertaining to say the least.

Also, I want to say congratulations to the Horror Library for their Stoker nomination. I am keeping my claws crossed and holding my cold breath for you. I just finished reading the Horror Library Vol I and The Butcher Shop Quartet and I was pleasantly suprised, impressed, and glad I'd spent the small dollars. Talk about money well spent! The stories in these two early volumes are well written, original, and very very satisfying. This is real horror, ladies and gentleman, and if you haven't gotten yours yet, I encourage you to do so. http://www.cuttingblock.net/. I am only barely scratching the surface here and am thankful two more volumes await my perusal. It was also something special to read tales by names I have actually talked with, if perhaps, only briefly. So, congratulations on the mention at Pod of Horror as well, and for the nomination. This is Brandon (Buster) wishing you the best! Go HL!

Also, if you were not aware of http://www.gravesidetales.com/, I encourage you to check them out. Dale Murphy, Matt Hults, and Bret Jordan are three very cool cats over there, or should I say werewolves? What a welcome I received! Dale has schooled me patiently on technical matters concerning banner signatures and myspace issues (that inevitable pain in the arse), while Matt told me it was okay to send a story his way, though I am two months past the submission deadline. That alone deserves a loud thanks! So, thanks, Matt! Bret Jordan has some fantastic art work over there, too. He has been kind enough to spend his lunch hours reading from Blood Red Tales, and his kindness will be reciprocated in some fashion or another. That is a promise. He had some very nice things to say about my work, so thanks, all three of you, and I will see you around the boards!

All clear? Okay. Let me see if I can tell this story without sounding like a total wacko. Too late? I thought so. Here goes:

A while back I was working at a nursing home as a night cook. My aunt got me the job. She is a great lady, but not a fan of horror. I forgive her because she is a treat. Anyway, I'm not sure how many other horror writers have this issue, but I know I do. Sometimes, I think because we write about the dark, we make sacrifices and take dangerous risks mentally and spiritually for the sake of the art. With me, it was a trip into borderline madness. Maybe I'm exaggerating here, but I wanted to write horror on such a different level, I felt putting myself mentally into the blackest places I could would be better for the sake of the art and the tales. Foolishness? You bet your ass! So, I risked my mental health as a young teen by abusing my body with every chemical I could get my addicted hands on, finding myself on the verge of poverty, hunger, destitution, hopelessness, homelessness, and despair. After all, what better, truer emotions to work a horror story around than these bleak and terrible emotions and situations? Yeah, well, I'm not too bright, and I will be the first to admit it. I did it for the art, nothing more. I was pretty young and stupid then, more so than I am now, so I wasn't really sure what the hell I was doing, or that the results would have grisly, long term effects.

(I didn't realize this blog would be so honest when I started it, so bear with me, and I hope you don't mind? Honesty is the best policy and all that, right?)

When I was working at the rehab, I was going through some pretty rough times. Some people knew I had issues with addiction then (But I'm happy to say I've conquered my demons. Sober now, I hope for good, for almost three years, and I like looking at life in a clearer, less sickly light. Eating, sleeping, and exercising are all good things, trust me.) A girl worked at the rehab with me--we'll call her Melanie--who was every inch young, obnoxious, yet brimming with vitality. She was a treat, I have to say, though we did have our differences.

I have this little habit of talking to myself quite a bit. "Thinking out loud" I call it, to keep me out of trouble. Writers? Do you do the same? Acting out the dialogue in your head, the scenes, the words, only to realize you're voicing these thoughts aloud for the world to hear? Some of you may be raising your eyebrows at me by this time, but that's okay. I think all artists have this twisted perception which makes them less normal than the common man or woman.

On one particular day, I was doing this "Thinking out loud" thing as I was mopping the floor, mumbling words I knew not what at the time. I could have been withdrawing from several chemicals, and maybe it was beginning to show. Melanie asked, "Who are you talking to, Brandon?" Melanie and I were at war with the radio. I liked to listen to classic rock; she liked modern be-pop, bubble gum music, which moves in under my skin and makes me grow jagged scales. I turn into a slavering beast hungry for violence. It flicks a switch. I was slightly peeved at her and wasn't in the mood for talking because we'd been having this war all day. So, I replied with the first name that came to mind, "Buster," I said. "And Melanie? He doesn't like the way you're acting, so you'd better just watch it, young lady."

Thankfully, she laughed, which helped ease the tension, but I went on to tell this story to several very close-knit members of my family, and soon, Buster grew into sporadic, tangible life. I would go to parties at my cousin's house, and her reply would always be the same: "Did you bring Buster with you?"--followed by several guffaws of laughter. Since then, Buster is now the running joke in my family and between close friends. My darker half, the one who still abuses, takes risks, and victimizes anything innocent. He is still running amuck. No, I don't let him influence me any more, at least my body, but he is alive and well and in my mind. He is charming when he needs to be, but he has alterior motives. He frightens me. So, because of it, I have given him more life by writing several stories about him. Which leads me to my question:

Who or what (if at all) is your alter-ego? Is he or she the same sex as you? Is he or she a darker or lighter side? Do they have a name? Are you the only one who knows about them? How clear and vivid are they in your mind? Do they look like you? Or maybe a better question would be: How did they evolve?

Whatever the case, I would be anxious to hear your thoughts on this as readers, writers, as people in general. We'll call it the Other "Significant Other." After all, this little corner of blood-stained madness gets frigheningly lonely sometimes, and us horror writers need to let one another know that we are not alone in our dark thoughts, no matter how often they may "seem" to betray us. This "darker" side is, in fact, essential, even necessary. Then again, maybe I'm asking this question to appease myself, so that I won't feel so alone. So that you, my little underground dwellers, can tell me exactly what I long and pine to hear...

What Scares You?

2007-10-02T20:57:00.000-06:00

For those of you reading and getting tired of harping on myself and the gratitude I have for others, bear with me a little more, will ya...

I'm very happy to say I will be be published in an upcoming anthology: Twisted Tales 3. So, thanks to J Richards Jacobs for accepting the story. I also want to thank AJ Brown from the Horror Library at www.zoetrope.com/ Sorry, I was talking so late the other night, dude. If you keep replying, so will I. I enjoyed the hell out of talking to another writer, though. Weird, because AJ and I talked on everything under the sun, it seemed, except writing. And yeah, let's not talk about the Broncos/Colts games. Geesh!

Also to Marilyn Peake www.marilynpeake.com/ , Kim McDougall, www.kimmcdougall.com/ Ellen Meister, www.ellenmeister.com/ Richard Earl Linsley III, and, without leaving her out, Lindsay Nicols, for the sound and invaluable advice at www.zoetrope.com/ in the Promote Yourself Forum. You guys all rock and roll. I see a fantasy! Also to Eddie, at www.feoamante.com/ for the press release. Thanks, mahn!

I also want to mention Christina Dunn, my first official and very sincere fan, for printing out all my stories and reading them while you were in the hospital. I think about you and wish you the best! Sorry to keep you in such anticipation for more, but I'm flattered by the demand of my dementia and feeding your own!

My favorite haunts are to the side. (I think I stole that phrase from Todd Banks, or some other forum. Hope you don't mind, Todd.) I'm not sure how to display them without the url link, so it's a little haphazard looking to say the least. I'm still trying to figure all this out. If you have any ideas, let me know. Until then, I'll see...I still have writing to do.

Also, Steel Moon Publishing is officially up and running. There is a contest going on there and the theme is "Fire." Go to www.steelmoonpublishing.us/ for the guidelines, and read the ones already posted. Todd Banks from the Dead Watch Society has a little piece that will certainly make you anxious for your next meal. And WGM has another great editorial at www.writershelm.com/. They're always good for a reality check.

Anyway, I thought I'd ask for a little participation here. The voting is under way for the best author website at www.FictionAddiction.NET/vote.html. You don't have to vote for mine, of course. That would be slightly pompous on my part, to say the least. There's plenty of great looking sites there, but it might be fun, more for me and the authors there than for you. But there is a big, juicy lollipop in it for you if you do vote for mine. So, there's a slight incentive.

Also, I wanted to ask everyone a simple question on the theory of fear. That is, quite simply, What Scares You? What are your worst fears? Could be bugs. Could be death. Could be failure. You can give me an extensive list, or a very small one. It matters not to me, and I think it will help me get to know you.

Until then, my little crypt dwellers...the lights on, the toes under the covers...You know the drill...Oh, yeah, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Hearts and Thoughts

2007-09-11T21:15:00.000-06:00

BloodRedTales.com has been up now for almost seven weeks. Maybe a little more. I remember the day the banner was created when John (Agent) Nelson sent it to me back on June 17th. That day seemed like a long time ago, but the seed, then, had been officially planted, and BloodRedTales took off from there. It has been an exciting seven weeks, to say the least. Since it's arrival on the web, I've managed to publish three pieces of fiction. Angel will be featured at Writer's Helm http://www.writershelm.com/ as a reprint beginning in October, where I have also written a short editorial, titled A Lesson in Blood, about (you guessed it) BloodRedTales.com. Barriers, too (a reprint) is currently featured at http://www.staticmovementonline.com/ and another story, Last Dresser Drawer (not available here) will be published in a new magazine entitled, 7th Dimension. Since then, I've joined countless forums, so I feel another thanks is in order here. Bear with me, folks. I'm just petting my ego...

WGM at Writer's Helm, who has contacted me personally, chatted, laughed, goofed around, and basically just 'shot the shit,' about life, writing, and rejections in general. He's given me some sound advice on the business aspect of writing and editors. He brought me down to Planet Earth when I thought all editors were gods and demi-gods. The realization was slightly disappointing on my part as you can well imagine. Just because I like to read and write obsessively, doesn't mean I'm not a naive sonofabitch. Anyway, thanks for accepting Angel.

Todd Banks, at http://www.deadwatchsociety.com/ for his (in what I like to think as) a sudden, budding friendship. His posts are always encouraging and he welcomed me aboard Dead Watch with open arms. If you haven't been there already, I encourage you to check it out. Todd will answer any questions you have on paranormal activity because that is what Dead Watch is all about. I, as a writer of supernatural horror, am currently constructing a list for him, and I am anxious to see what his answers will be. By the way, Todd, I love your editorial at Writer's Helm, and as Kealan Patrick Burke told me, "Keep up the good write, sir!"

Chris Bartholomew at Static Movement, who was not only encouraging and directed me in several other avenues, but has recently accepted Barriers for publication without a qualm. She was very patient over my tedious, incorrect submissions (actually she never said anything about them. That's how cool she is) and it was at about this time I heard the laughter all the way from Tucson, Arizona.

The Horror Library at Zoetrope has also been a great place to socialize with other writers, though I'm still fairly new over there. That, too has been a great place to go, read stories, comment on threads, and just B.S. Thanks for the advice, AJ and the conversations! And also to Kim McDougall and Marilyn Peake for the info on marketing and promoting, and telling me to JUST WRITE!

It has been fun. Not to mention the chats and email exchanges with other writers. I encourage you to visit Cliff Burns and Kealan Patrick Burke at their websites: http://www.cliffjburn.wordpress.com/ and http://www.kealanpatrickburke.com/. Needless to say, there are some good things going on over there. Charles Gramlich has some very informative things to say, as well, on all kinds of subject matter at Razored Zen: http://www.charlesgramlich.blogspot.com/ Plus, he's a huge Black Sabbath fan. How can you not like him?

Also, Phillip Wise, and Scotty for going the extra mile and giving me my own private forum at http://www.horrorconnection.invisionzone.com/ Thanks for the welcome, Scotty and Phillip!

http://www.deliriumbooks.com/, their message board and http://www.bloodlettingbooks.com/, the http://www.horrorsociety.com/, http://www.horrorworld.com/, http://www.permutedpress.com/, http://www.fictionfactor.com/ countless other places I could mention that I will have to get to later. I hope that's okay, because I'll have been here a long time, and all those website addresses are starting to look a little intimidating, to say the least.

I just happened to update this on September 11, which I don't have to remind anybody about. I went to work today wearing an Old Navy T-shirt with an American Flag on the front. That was not intended. That was just the shirt I was in the mood for. It wasn't until later in the day I made the connection. So, we'll look at this blog as a slightly patriotic piece. Enough has been said on the subject already. I feel I don't have to go there. You have feelings yourselves about it. Hearts and thoughts for all. I think that's all you have to say. And, of course, God Bless this Great Beautiful Country of Ours!

Intro...

2007-08-16T20:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome, Creatures of the Night, to the Blood Blog!

I just want to take a few moments to thank all the people who've helped put bloodredtales.com together:

John (Agent) Nelson for his indelible hard work, perseverance, enthusiasm, and priceless patience when I never seemed to run out of questions. He is a trooper. Thanks for karaoke night! (No, I didn't sing) The site wouldn't look nearly as attractive without your help.

Also, for Emily Katz, for taking picture after picture of me until we found one slightly less creepy than the others, and bringing me up into the world of digital cameras. Technology is wonderful thing!

To the artists, their contributions, kind replies, and the obvious enthusiasm they displayed wanting to be a part of this site. It meant the world to me. They made each story page a little more colorful, to say the least.

The stories here at BloodRedTales.com are only a handful in what is already a mountain of completed work behind me, invisible to the public eye, of course. (Hear that editors!) I like the stories I've chosen for this site, though, and I think it bodes well with the overall spectrum of what I like to write about. These stories have grown and been rewritten hundreds of times over the years, and I'm happy with how they turned out. Horror is my first and true love, and I return to her time and time again. I think these tales focus on my growth as a writer, where I've been, and where I hope I'm going. So, these stories are from me to you. Read them, let me know what you think. Tell your friends. And don't be afraid to drop me a line, or share your thoughts concerning modern horror, fine dining, your favorite NHL team, or bloodredtales.com in general.

With that said, I hope you enjoy the tales and keep coming back for more. There are always new dark things to write about, and the adventure getting there is half the fun.

Until then, my little underground dwellers, leave the lights on, keep the doors locked, make sure those windows are secure, and keep your toes all the way under the covers. Sometimes--in that cold, drafty darkness under the bed--you never know what may be lurking. The dark, after all, is only trying to teach us something. What that is...well...that's up to you...

Brandon