Tales of Dread: Stories and Poetry from the Darkside

[Xtian]

Please feel free to post what you think is appropriate to this thread:

HOW COULD I BE A BITTER MAN

Every three seconds, or is it seven, I forget which
I think about death,
Or is it sex
I always get the two confused even after all this time

In fact
Even as I typed the preceding sentence,
I fantasize big Bozo dreams about my great demise
With endless tears, ropey scars that were left and torn by the tendons
After all, I wanted to meet the man who first named the orgasm
“le petite morte”
Or if you prefer Little Death
In my dreams
I am often found by strangers, stone drunk on cheap tequila whores,
Screaming naked and alone under my brand new sheets
We bought on sale at Target last month
I did hope one day to share
The comfort of their crispness
Yet, as usual I wake up after a hard night blabbering to myself
Alone, finding myself with a morning hard-on wishing you were here
Sometimes in the morning
When
I awake in my living room bent over last night’s work
My forehead pressed to the keys of my keyboard which leaves
A mute indentation of
A S D F G H J K L : ” ENTER
Often
I am aware of the endless stream of emission which drips out every night
With a stream of gibberish flowing across a fresh crisp white page
I wish
You could understand
My stillborn impressions that
Were buried deep at the beginning from their conception
Where no one bothers to look

Even in my fantasies
I feel
I am often ignored
My inane words as impotent as the dead limp flesh between my legs
It would be laughable if it were otherwise
But , I say to you
I am not a bitter man
I am not a bitter man because of my faith
In the inevitable reign of sadness
Like those sorrowful men who came before me on this earth
Who’s path I try to follow even though it travels to the grave
No wait
That slipped out
That’s not at all true
I have no faith
In mankind or
Womenkind
Or any kind of kind for that matter
This is the faith of a bitter man
Yet, I am not a bitter man
However
It seems that in my over eagerness to prove myself as un-bitter
I’ve said something’s maybe I do not mean at all
There might things I’ve said
Things I do not mean at all

Please allow me a few moments to think

In the meantime, a mathematical equation proving
Beyond a doubt, the world will never
Ever
Under any Republican circumstances, to be dominated by sadness:

Sad Man + Sad Man = 2 Mildly Disappointed Men

Explication:
The 2 Sad Men upon meeting will engage in a competition
For the crown of who is the Saddest Man on this or any earth
Recognizing similar sadness in one another
Soon, they
Will begin to doubt their respective sad nesses and their resolve to adopt it
As their own
Until neither sadness remains
But unlike me
Their sad nesses will be replaced by mild disappointment
That neither one is king

I’d no idea there were so many others that felt this way
I mumble to myself a lot or so my friends tell me
I guess, after all is said and done
I am not all that special
All sad people believe their sadness to be unique


Perhaps
If I divulge some other flaw of mine, it would take to long to divulge them all
And I just haven’t got the time
You have reason to believe me or not
When I tell you I am not a bitter man
You will see
I am open and honest concerning my defects
My selfishness, for instance

When I discovered I had distant relatives who helped those
Who died in the Holocaust
I felt vindicated
I always thought my family had run away
Even though, my great grandfather was a hero to the Kaiser
A medal for Valor at the Battle of the Somme

I felt that in my need to prove my un-bitterness
I had found an excuse for my past, present, and future failures
Finally, I had personal ties to a tragedy, not just a tragedy
But the true
Ultimate tragedy

Finally, I had a claim to real suffering
Even though I touched the hand of a man who died at the Trade Center
And there I gained a new understanding with the world

So I
Planned to get a tattoo, that would show you
Just as my Prince Albert once showed, I forgot her name now,

It could have been something for us to share as by getting a tattoo
I could claim to the entire world I have a right to my suffering
It was my news

You see
When I try to use all five of my senses to do their work
My bi-polarized brain performs only the important task
Of discovering how sensory data relates to me or not
With 97.6% confidence of being true

I know
You are the same way
Though I try to care less about you
I got a tattoo on my arm thick enough to cover my scar

I knew an old man who had a tattoo
It was, a smart black number along the thick vein of right forearm:
At first I thought it to be his old phone number
A-174278
For whatever reason I still remember it as if it were my own social security number

I can remember that very afternoon
When my father told me the fates of my relatives that dared to stay behind

You might declare me a monster if you knew
Even though I would never support a man like Hitler
You could rant at the injustice of it all
You would rave about how something needs to done
You immediately get caught up in how this or any nightly news might affect you
Just as you might delight in your own proud morality or
Your own mistaken humanity

In my easy superiority, I will wait
As you contemplate all my clever words
So that you might later say to acquaintances of yours
About the history of my strange tattoo

The one I didn’t dare get in front of you, and may never have to show you
At least it’s better then my scar

I had hoped that
You would follow with happy imaginings of how those self same friends
( See, you’ve all have been promoted from acquaintances already)
After all it is all of you that read
My thoughts I so carelessly splattered on this stained page
Of electric day monitor
Sometimes I react strongly
To the elaborate description of the odious action my relatives might have taken
Or the ones I’ve taken
Often
When I’m finish my legs shake with pleasure and I should wash my hands
Of all the thoughts of solidarity
That you and I
And maybe your best pals unified in the just ecstatic judgments of me

You would not think my suffering
Is that of an innocent
I am anything but innocent
No one really is I guess
Nor has anyone truly touched my mind for that would be impossible
Even though, it’s what I want so desperately

Please note, now
Just how openly and honestly
I can discuss my true and so human selfishness

While discussing my selfishness
As a thought festering in the back of my mind
(the only region of my mind that’s worth a damn)
I’ve been thinking about something altogether different
Something all together different,
It’s just another death-related fantasy
I think
I would like my girl take me to an execution
(I said that death is equal to sex)
At least Larry Kramer thinks so
As he defined silence equals death
She’d be the reason I would get moved to the top of the waiting list
To step before the guillotine
I find it ironic she knows somebody
Who knows somebody
In the death penalty crowd

She seems to know everyone, from my point of view
Like peasants during the Great Rebellions of the world
We’d bring some take-out to the observation area to wait my turn
I always felt that a bucket of chicken would make an excellent last meal
Most likely, we’d lick our lips and catch the juice dripping from our fat fingers

She might offer some to the family of the doomed man
She would never offer any to that of the victim’s
This is doubly cruel the family of the doomed man would not have an appetite
The family of the victim would be starving for something
Anything, be it justice or some crappy fried food.

The girl I’m with or should be with
Would stand up and say,
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God
In the presence of these witnesses to join this man and Death in holy matrimony, behold the head of a traitor

I would start breaking up
She would because of the seriousness of my situation
Chuck a well chewed chicken bone at me and the black hooded sweet killer
The grease dripping from the last bits of dangling meat
Would be misting over double-thick glasses my sweet executor wore heavy
Like bad breath

My sweet Kill would not go softly
He would have just liked to have killed a pregnant woman
And he screamed, since he knew this is a double sided-kindness.

Having read his lips and wiped off the grease from an old chicken wing
I’ve always wanted to repeat his words for the rest of the audience
Who might just be to deaf to truly hear them

I would knew it would be my Sweet Killer
Who like me was dead before the doctor could swing in to save the day
While the doctor would wait for a silent heart
I’d continue to watch the lips
As I’d see them part and go limp.

And that brings me to the crucial point which had eluded me
A brief moments
Or a few minutes ago:

No matter what occurs for the rest of my dwindling existence
I have come that final breath and shudder
I know I will be joined in the honeyed blankness of eternity
I will be where I’ve always wanted sitting in my lonely room
While waiting for the pills to take effect
That is my faith what little there is of it
So, How could I be a bitter man?

[Logos]

Is this your own poem or someone else's?

[Xtian]

My own written two days ago after finishing a class on research statistics

[Adolescent09]

Is this your own poem or someone else's?

Now that's what you call a compliment :D. I guess it's so good that she mistook it for the work of someone famous and I may concieve why...

I think it's pretty great Xtian ! (I've read the first part up to ENTER) and will read the rest. I'll try to post a more valid opinion with a critical review if I have the time.

[Logos]

Well, it was originally posted in the "Poets, Poems, and Poetry" forum, not "Personal Poetry" so I was just wondering :)

[Xtian]

I am sorry but I am still just finding my way around the site. I thought it was a proper place to post it if not please let me know where it would be more appropreate. SO here is a newly worked poem, I posted it last night as my intro but I think this works better let me know what you think.

SONGS FROM AN UNFINISHED LIFE

This is
As bright
As I get

There
Are no twinkle twinkle little stars
Are there in my blue eyes tonight?

The city street lights
Which I thought
I left behind me long ago
When I moved away from Hell’s Kitchen
Three years before the Twin Towers fell down
I had quit working at the Palm, although I loved it
Found the call to strong

Although, I miss the friendship
I also stopped drinking two X Guinness
Followed by Bushmill’s Black Label shooters at Kevin’s
Across from the China Club next to McDuffy’s

Yet, still
Light
Reflect
In the broken glass ground into
The street to make the blackness of the streets
Turn all glittery as if they were paved with
Black top
Diamonds

To save money on recycling
Aren't bright enough
For me to see
Through the
Usual blindness
I never had before I turned 35 or so

Headlights flashing
The honking of a horn behind me
Sounds like
A man bludgeoning his wife to death with an axe
That’s a line from I play I did in another life and two degrees ago

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing
Neon signs
BUzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzinnnnnnnggggggggggg
Dying out at the end of the word
Just buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzedddddd
Flickered out
Like a burned out firefly caught
In the window of the liquor store
Where I used to buy cheap wine and return the empties
For five cents which then was added up to a new six pack or 40 oz.
Which was
Equal
Only to the occasional emotional cocaine fueled flare-up
Damn we had a lot of nickels

I have always wanted
To render down the night sky
Until
It’s fats and juices boiled
Down
To lovely flavorable clear stock like Gordon Ramsey would have made
If he had the time

Invisible

Just thoughts
While
Sitting for ten minutes or was it 20,
Somehow it always feels longer
When
Waiting
Under
The never ending glare of a red traffic light
With it’s endless, Endless
Metronomic single tone
Rhythmic pinging to let the deaf know the light had changed
Or like when you need to change the battery in a dying smoke alarm

On 50th and 8th
Where just near to where that great famous dive bar
Siberia used to be
Under the streets and out of sight within the bowels of the subway system
He used old back car seats as couches
And the best punk rock juke box this side of 20th or
West of FIT

I loved that bar
Hidden deep with the bowels by the N train
And that barber shop which never seemed busy but
SO buried
New York’s worker bees could not see us come stumbling out
Into the blaring light of day
Eyes red from stale cigarette smoke
Bleeding dry cracked nostrils from thick lines
Cut on the ancient Addams Family pinball machine

I always forget to
Wait for the left arrow to turn green

I
Often find myself wishing

I could be like the stars
And
Disappear completely
From view
Whenever I don’t feel far enough from
The ugly side of my past one hundred and two lives

I know
In a crowd
I can be most conspicuous
With my skin translucent
Smooth like marble
With not a mark or a line
The immense physical and moral presence;
Defiant
Yet, yet amazingly never without a touch of conscience
Amazingly long delicate fingers, finger nails almost clear due to the anemic lack of blood
And feet that do not ever make a shadow sound

The very mirror of patient inhuman misery
Soft-voiced and so so sos o so soso very human
Unable to read minds, or to levitate
In spite of whatever Cris Angel might tell me
Never should have listened to David Blaine
Then I wouldn’t be so locked in ice
Naked in front of everyone

A new kind of night creature who hovers
In deep shadows at the Avery Fisher Hall or
In the alley behind the Royal Opera House
Just to listen to the whispering notes of
Phillip Glass’ last piercing irresistible note of dissonant song
But mathematically perfect

I am long past questing for a God I know is dead and has been for along time now
Or seeking out the true meaning humanity or the Devil
Or Truth
Or even love

Once
I thought there was someone in my life who thought it
Sweet I would read the poetry of Keats by the light of just one candle
So as not to disturb her sleep
After all it was only fair, she did her graphic design homework one drawing at
A time
I am so glad she got married and fat,

Or once when I was found standing
In the rain on a slick downtown street right outside the Angelique
Watching through the store window the young actor
As Romeo kissed his tender loving Juliet
On a television screen some salesman forgot to turn off, thankfully for me
There was Tompkins’s Square just up the street
So we could make love in the gazebo, I love summer rain sometimes in the city

I know
I once had a soul
That may have been beautiful beyond description
As immortal as Lucifer
Too bad I was
I was or am, I never can tell which Compelled to do some very cruel things
As, a tormented outsider Always ready, to transcend gender or
To dance on the bar at Korova
Or to just
To speak from my heart or soul about different matters
Of life and death
Of Love,
Of loneliness
Of guilt and
Of pain,
Yes of pain,
That bitter pain I’ve tasted over and over
AND over
Until
I learned to love the flavor and couldn’t live without it
With self-imposed charm, humor, and invincible innocence
Which at the time

Maybe I should have cherished more
All of my beloved heroes
I brought
Alive to carry
All my guilt and suffering

When I walked these same silent streets so long ago
In my black evening clothes
High frilled collars
High cut boots
With sweeping waistcoat that Silkie once designed for me
When
I lived someone else’s life

So even
As, the light changes
From red to green to yellow to red

I alone
Again blaze
Out of the city towards the expressway to the road

I have to take home

Down Jericho Turnpike
In my deep green GM
With the Northern Irish sticker which was once on my American Classic motorcycle
That I rode in Antrim

To rush past the slow burning fires
Of the dying Bar-B-Que crowd from Hobbard’s Beach

Past
The densely-packed Target shopping center
That sometimes gives hope and
Meaning to late night shoppers like myself
Who can’t stomach the late night food at Applebees
Though I sit there almost everynight

And
Who like me
Find themselves
Craving a very rare and bloody steak with sizzling hot fried onions at 5 am


I Love to drive into
That long lasting ever night that once belonged to me and only me

Yet this night, on my drive home
Images
That always seemed to lie and burn before me
I know my cell phone will ring
To fill my heart with false hopes and searing
Because I cannot admit I love
And still love one I cannot have or……………….

Long
Before I ever reach my home
Before
I pour myself
A fine old Port or ice cold whiskey
I keep for special nights such as these
When I can’t sleep

And gently lift myself into that solitary abyss of sleep
That awaits my gentle fall
With a little help from Seroquel

I guess this
Is as bright as my darkness is going to get
Since I am
Forever trapped in my happy little corner of hell
From where I can see heaven just beyond the thin curtain
I find I cannot ever reach my boney little fingers through

It's easy to understand
Why I,
An overly thinking and somewhat irrational emotional man
Feels nausea while
Contemplating
The spinning of the whole world on it’s right slanted axis
As the polar ice caps get smaller or are they simply
Shifting following a cyclical path like green icebergs

By confronting all the brute facts of my own existence

In all of my hideous, bloody juicy half undead glory
I find the taste of my own heart horrid but it is, after all, my heart
A taste of my own fetid emptiness
Which is always waiting
To be fed
In the bottomless pit
Of ego where
I once saw the effects curse of Telmachus or Stephen Dedalus
And
Knew once and for all

I was the biggest fraud of all
A Romantic who claims he cannot fall in Love

(but we all know that is just a lie)

While all my words seem to paint
A picture of that which is always unattainable

and

The sweet searing scarring pain of regret
When I know I missed the prize
I feel you wish
You'd never won the face of beauty
That bewitched and ultimately betrays the wildflower growing in my heart
The one
That I saw back in spring long after
I should have won your heart with ease

But from the dunghill in the back garden
Where only weeds and fancy white tipped dandelions grow

Somewhere I think, As an Artist
I have all but lost my sight
Because of what has been offered
And relished with delight

Hatred,
It’s roots are too deep

I always try to remind myself, not to or
Don't make that mistake again and again and again
Yet somehow I always remember to hold my nose
To bear in mind what lies beneath the surface

I thought I remembered where

Old Nicky-boy
My golden retriever who has been for a long time now
Used to sit always
Vigilant at the side door
Waiting for me to come home with a fresh bone from my kitchen that had been used for stock

Like me, as he got older
Cursed and squinted at the harsh light
Of a single 40-watt bulb which stares into the stale
Cold void that leads downstairs to the place or cave where I dwelt
Beneath the sounds
Of tiny footsteps, running,
A television playing loudly to cover the sounds of lovemaking
On the couch

This is
Where there is no sun that stares
Back, glaring

I know I haven't eaten yet today
In almost 24 hours or maybe it was more
I forget the last time I was home,
The last time I was truly home
And it’s my stomach that's growling
Just as my heart does now
Yearning to curl up and be fed

As I ponder what a masterless life would be like
I only wonder what lies behind
The half-empty jar of Hellman’s mayo
Or the lone frozen longneck lying on its side
Maybe I’ll drink it later
When I think no one is looking
Or maybe I will wait till tomorrow after I cut the lawn

As I wait
For good fortune
To appear like some magic tidbit
Or the stray catch of a lotto number
Like I did a few months ago

Old Nicky’s old ears would twitch
At the sounds
Of my last hangover
He groaned
And wooden shuffling
Down the hallway
Towards the sounds of vacuous chatter
In the background of my ever playing
TV portraying once again the pains and sorrows
Of yet another neglected spouse

His cold nose wrinkled
Recoiled at the unseen molecules of yesterday’s perspiration
And beer-battered
Flesh who’s smells are ooozzzzzzzzzzzeed
Through stifling air of a dead apartment

He would look up, at the kitchen entrance
Me, a familiar figure wavering once more after
Another night long battle with a bottle of Stoli’s
I keep in freezer
In case you ever stop by
But
Since you never do
I felt it was a waste to just sit there and collect frost

He, that old dog, who I should have been put down long ago
I just don’t have the heart
He watched

My then, once upon a time, 125 lb wiry frame, now doubled over
Wondering where my life went and what ever happen to
The glam-punk rock star I always wanted to be

And a half-digested volley from
The remnants of a late night greasy diner breakfast spews
Onto the dirty vinyl floor
Now I have to mop it

Now I am older and a little fatter then perhaps I should be
I waddle across the room
In my memory
Sniffed at the yellowish brown slurry
Once the contents of my stomach
His headlamp eyes reflected and
Lit with hunger

Tilted his head
Toward me, the pitiful man
With a wrinkled canine brow
Humbly pleading

"Is it okay, now?"

His tail
Wagging with indifferent gratitude

[quasimodo1]

POETRY...SHAKESPEARE

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
Oh, if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay.
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

[Xtian]

You can't beat the greatest writer of all time. But some how we all try to copy his style, grace and imagery only to find ourselves wanting.


By darkness,
Departed horizons dilute my way
To my alien home
My neighbor's freshly bloomed
Stargazers stank of long dead decaying angels, reminding me
Of old perfumed funeral parlors where they once laid my Grandmother out
I thought I had lost my way until
Quite remarkably I found my porch
Where a stray dog from down the block sang a foreign requiem,
With his hackles raised.
I remember we were sitting in the theatre when
You whispered something, I couldn't quite hear
Considering you sat on my left side where my useless Beethoven ear was stuck
So I didn’t realize how much you hated the movie
How I wanted
To complete my burning thoughts
As
I felt your head tilt up…. to hopefully meet my lips to taste a luscious kiss
What had you said?
Maybe, you wanted to walk out?
Maybe you wanted to go in?
Maybe you wanted the same thing but we are both to embarrassed to ask
...Well...it doesn’t matter
You didn't repeat it.
"If I touch you," I thought, I'll know… but… then the pause
Absorbed in the thick velvet darkness,
Which had swallowed me as I realized then, you whispered:

"The sun is soon to rise."
Like the slums of India, I thought we might visit together
Your elusive spirit, falls onto a chilly breeze

You wear always seem to wear a mask when you speak, no matter what the subject
Your silence barely hints at the undeniable divinity of your educated wounded soul.

The night is cold, and it shouldn’t be
As I dropped you off after another night of sharing everything but love
I know your doors are barred
The shadow of your soul may fall across a thousand fields
Yet it is hidden towards my heart,
As you might think I would have grown wise with age

Nothing

The endless blackness goes by a million miles from the world
Your soul’s
Silence makes me scream or die, there is no difference really
Living heartbeat to heartbeat, pulse to pulse
Orgasm to orgasm
So on to so on

To heartbeat

Ill winds that blow up from the past blow very cruel
Very cruel indeed my dear friend, very cruel indeed
I know they blind and deafen you
As they frustrate me in my foolish clichés of romance
Become so embarrassingly vivid
Good thing I’ve timed my
Memories to grow nameless in the darkness, like a wizard’s pensieve

Until, I can face the mirror of your soul.

[Julius Caesar]

Does a single hero or villain exist in Julius Caesar? if so, who?

[Xtian]

Does a single hero or villain exist in Julius Caesar? if so, who?

Interesting question, Brutus is the obvious answer, but he was murdering a tyrant.