Poetry

Separated.

Words fail me.

My voice seems a weak, discordant thing.

Mangled, quiet, confused.

Echoing in my head repetitively.

Betrayed by words

Frightful things

Can kill you

But never in your power

A source of deception

Self-deception

Delusion

To own a thing by naming it

To capture its essence in a sound

Reduced the sound to abstract symbols

And train your mind to think the word was greater than the reality.

----

Alone.

I live a life with a cardboard cut out.

A place holder.

An imaginary friend

Who I forget is there.

I lie in bed at night with pillow on either side of me

Large pillows that feel like another body next to me

Which ever side I want to sleep on

I have a pillow to hold.

I can't sleep without the sound of a running ceiling fan.

It drowns out all other sound

Like a heart beat or another breath.

I never cook

But I love to cook.

I love to experiment with cooking.

But when you don't have much money

And only yourself to feed

There is no need to impress anyone

And I don't feel the same sense of satisfaction

From delighting my own taste buds.

I take a lot of pleasure from the emotions of others.

I live vicariously through them.

I love to watch TV shows or movies with friends.

Their laughter makes things funnier

Or maybe I'm just laughing at how hard they are laughing.

Women get more emotionally involved with films.

It is fun when they become emotionally attached to entirely fictional events.

I'm a little too detached, I think.

Without company, television and movies aren't much fun.

The conversations I miss most of all.

Our conversations seemed to go on forever.

Or is my memory wrong?

Were there many uncomfortable silences

Or periods when we were just plain boring?

I don't remember it that way.

I remember long-winding conversations spiraling to and from every point

From irrelevant pop culture to social observations to spiritual philosophy

Nothing left unexplored

And no end in sight.

The mornings are always disappointing.

I never remember a dream

But wake with my mind racing

On trivial things

The same things I think of when I'm awake.

Morning wood tempting me

I sometimes resist.

But usually I lie deep under the covers

My sore eyes struggle to focus on the alarm clock

I wake up way too early.

I always wake up way too early.
Waking, like sleeping, is a waiting game.

Staring at the clock for hours

Negotiating the minutes in my mind

But I always wait as long as possible

Gathering the blankets close around me to protect me from the morning air

Finally, I crawl out of bed frozen and with a haze in my brain.

I stumble into the bathroom

My eyes adjust to harsh white light.

I try to focus on the tub

And spot the daily trail of ants seeking water.

I try to drown as many as possible with the shower head.

It's an ugly way to start the day.

And I spend the time thawing

Trying to prepare for a new day

And knowing that when it is over

I have this to look forward to the following morning.

Showers are a much better thing to share.

A cramped, awkward, and dangerous shower shared

Is far better than a spacious one alone.

Someone to wash your back for you

And tweak your nipple when you aren't expecting it.

Warm, wet bodies.

Nothing quite like the sensation of a warm, wet, naked hug.

And is it my imagination

Or are people more beautiful in the shower?

----

Vanilla girl

She's a good girl.

I love her deeply.

The sweetest laugh.

Adoring eyes.

The brightest smile.

She thinks the world of me.

And attributes to me wisdom

That I doubt I have.

She holds me with affection

And fears I'll one day leave.

I hold her closer.

Protecting her like porcelain.

But all I want

What I really need

Is for her to hold me down.

I don't need much.

I don't want much.

A word.

A whisper.

Not a slap

But a tug on the leash.

A subtle reminder

That she holds me

Owns me.

Not because I let her

But because my heart does.

Only then can I be free.

That she would but think to claim me.

That she would choose to have me.

If she could only know

The power she possesses over me

If only she would claim it.

I long for the strength of surrender.

The feeling of purpose and dedication.

With the love that such a close bond must engender.

But I can only love you as a father does

Protecting but never nurturing.

Always guiding, but never guided.

Always responsible.

Always carrying the burden.

----

Floundering

What a wonderfully descriptive word

Like a fish lying on the dock

Desperate to return to the water

But not possessing a single muscle capable of navigating the alien landscape.

By chance alone

His floundering might enable him to reach the water

But when chance and strength fail

The fish stops struggling

Only a few flips and flops

More instinct than ambition

Until it is just trying to breathe

Eyes open

Always.

Fantasy Comics

When I was a kid, I loved sword and sorcery tales... or "fantasy" as it was referred to in an overly simplistic way. (Really, aren't they all fantasies?) Maybe it was growing up in the country with acres to tromp across and sticks to act as swords, or maybe it was the hero's journey and exploring the world.

In any case, I would rarely write any similar stories, but mostly worked in science fiction or superheroes. But there are a couple ideas I've had bouncing around in the back of my head for a while...

The first is the story of a child hero who used to travel to a magical world of war and wonder (i.e. Harry Potter, Alice, or the Narnia kids). However, after puberty hit, he found that he could no longer return to that world and was stuck in his normal boring life where nothing he did really mattered. He tried to convince people of his childhood adventures, but all that came of that was being put on medication. So now our hero is in his late teens/early twenties and plagued by depression when the barrier between worlds starts to come down and evil creatures from the other side invade his world.

I'm not sure how I want to tell this story. I was thinking about having a different protagonist. Possibly a young girl who finds the young man and he acts as her guide. So his sub-plot would be about trying to reconcile who he was with who he is.

I was also thinking about how this world crosses over with ours. I was watching a special feature for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus when Terry Gilliam said something that interested me about how the villain of the piece corrupts the beauty of the fantasy world... and in the sketches, you can see a great staircase leading down to a beautiful river where a beautiful girl in a gondola is slowly floating down to an area in the river filled with scum, a tire, a shopping cart, and assorted other junk.

It occurred to me that the story could be about a battle between the fantasy world of childhood and the corrupt pragmatism of the "real world." Sort of "what it could be" versus "what it is." In that sense, it would fit the theme of the male lead personally and the story becomes something of an attempt to recapture the imagination he lost... possibly through the girl, if she is the protagonist.

The other idea I have falls along similar lines, but not so similar that I could combine the two. I've often questioned why the creatures of the fantasy genre are confined to medieval history and wondered what would happen if you followed such a world through the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Wild West, and straight into present day. I imagined elves confined to reservations and "integrated" elves forming gangs in inner cities or just becoming bums. Then you would have dwarves, trolls, ogres, etc. When teenage girls get into magic, they really can fuck things up. There is a black market for things like unicorn horns or dragon's scales.

The protagonist of this story would be a cop, but in this world, the cops are like paladins. They look pretty much like a normal cop, but they know magic and carry enchanted items. Their badges have been enchanted with powers of protection, so when they refer to it as their "shield" it has a double-meaning.

Like the other one, I'm not sure where this would go, but I'd like to keep it in the crime genre with tongue-in-cheek fantasy references. The villain I imagine would be a sorcerer either collecting ingredients or carrying out a hit list. Maybe there would be an FBI investigator stepping on our hero's toes.

Anyway, I think these would both work well as comics and I'm surprised there aren't more fantasy comics. The genre lends itself to the medium very well with visually distinct creatures, heavy doses of action, and the ability to include lengthy exposition or character development.

Food for thought.