by Steve Wands
Truly extravagant and full of imagination
Blades of bright green grass glisten in the light
It really is a wonderful night
NO ONE BELIEVES IN GHOSTS ANYMORE
The odor permeates the room
The stench of death crawls across her skin
Its sickly sweet scent lingers
Nudging her nose and licking her lips
Caressing her throat with hands made of smoke
She feels a tight tickling and coughs to clear it
Her nose picks up a scent
A perfume that's not hers
She knows it, but can't place it
Across her soft pale shoulders a cooling breeze
She shudders and then realizes
The rumors were true
Her dream home has demons of its own
...and now, she'll never leave
THE RUINER, WELCOME HOME
All things break in your strange hands
I'm quite taken with you, regardless
Despite the mess you make of things
I know you think you're harmless
So, I'm sure it's quite the shock
That, in fact, you are not
Its been a long time but nothing has changed
You, me, we're still the same
Two birds on an electric wire
Two kids who played with fire
We walked away with scars
I left mine behind
You carried them for us both
You didn't mind
And I didn't ask you to
REFRESHING GLOOM
The storm moves in quickly
Running over the city with giant spider legs
Its webs falling over the city in thick, wet droplets
Oversized umbrellas protect the insects walking the streets
The morning colors turn a muddy shade of empty night
The bums are singing and stumbling, and mumbling for something
Taxis race by in yellow blurs of noise
The smell of cattle hangs in the air
Prepared and hurrying to the slaughterhouse
The newspapers are getting wet
Just below the clouds, the spiders cry
I GOT MY EYES ON YOU
Don't be afraid, you won't feel a thing
A fly on the wall, nothing more
Let me in, I'll stay out of the way
We both know you've got nothing better to do
I know everything about you
I followed the clues
Waited my time, now pay me my dues
I just want to breathe the same air
I want to feel the same things
I could use a face that's uniquely me but looks like you
It's not an invasion if you just open the door
We can sip coffee and talk about nothing at all
I can watch you fall asleep and be your nightmares
Time is on my side, though unkind he may be
We know the same folks and eventually he'll help
I got my eyes on you, and soon you'll see
Soon you'll sleep and when you wake a nightmare is all I'll ever be
SYNTHETIC BURDEN, PART ONE:
THE BROKEN DRONES
Today's nightmare becomes tomorrow's truth.
Waiting for the lotto to level the playing field.
Hope turns to disgust, and that's all we have in common.
A mirrored expression followed by nausea.
We've gone too far.
Existence compared to consumption, we consume.
Rather than experience we pay others to do it for us.
We watch them intently on the television.
We sing along, half knowing the words.
With your last breath you try to buy another.
It's useless, you're lifeless, and I'm over it.
We've gone too far.
SYNTHETIC BURDEN, PART TWO:
REPAIR SHOP
Oblivion, we find our own ways there.
I usually go there alone, the back roads.
Don't let them lie to you; everyone goes.
Even the stiffs occasionally visit.
To hell with the brakes, I wanna go faster.
To hell with the stakes, I wanna disaster.
The road disappears into jagged pieces.
Every building a blur, street signs as bookmarks.
The stark images in my mind never come out right.
The words always slur and get caught on my tongue.
I'm making a fool out of myself again.
Filthy drunkard stumbles out of control.
This is the only way I can stand myself.
SYNTHETIC BURDEN, PART THREE:
CATHARSIS
Running out of room, Human in the inhuman
Results not typical, Try not to be cynical
Without a view, Emotions appear alien
Don't be deceived, Try to be relieved
A pit stop before
The non-stop surge
A cleansing; purge
Renewal at last
How can you love with a heart so full of hate?
Why do we wait till death to celebrate life?
How can you think with a closed mind?
What are you looking for? What do you expect to find?
Words stir across empty spaces
Men with dead hearts grasp
All the women dressed in black
Red roses adorn wooden homes
You'll never be alone
forever surrounded by
the dead and the dirt
kept alive by the past
names carved in stone
Renewal at last
SYNTHETIC BURDEN, PART FOUR:
TRIGGER-FINGER SUNSET
What have I become?
Am I the bullet, or the gun?
The clouds, the rain,
or just the bastard sun?
A storm without a course,
soldiers without names
marching to the beat
of a long dead heart.
I'm changing for the worse,
a maggot in bloom.
Creation in reverse.
Howling at the moon.
I'm the monster,
you're the hero.
The scenes are only filler.
The end is always the same.
A single silver bullet to my heart.
Kiss the girl and fade to black.
ALMOST CINEMATIC
Waiting for all this to disappear, pull the curtains open.
Allow the cast to reveal themselves, they've done one helluva job, I want to clap and whistle for them. One in particular, she seems lit by a spotlight but every scene she was in, the streetlight dimmed. The story made her sound like a whore, always out late, always smoking cigarettes, but the way she smoked them made it seem almost elegant, as if I were missing out by not lighting one up in my chair. She had a steady man, but they did things in the street that the others had not, kissing in the rain against the wet brick of the alley just past the bus stop bench. I'm not sure what the story was even about. Maybe it tells you in the pamphlet.
Intermission comes and everyone goes to the lobby, I stay where I'm at, I can see her just past the curtain in the back, still in character, she's lighting up another smoke and I want to light it for her, but I'm in the empty audience without a lighter or a match. Her lips sticky red stick to the end, it hangs off her lower lip I watch her breath in the smoke and realize I'm not breathing anymore. The empty audience has returned, popcorn conversations, sodas and slippery palms, these maggots missed the best part of the show. A secret show.
I wondered if they were even acting, perhaps this was life to them, and we in the audience were really on display, we were the phonies being quiet and polite, dressed in Sunday's best even though it was the middle of the week. She hasn't been onstage in a while, I'm more than a little concerned, I do hope she has a spea
king part coming up soon; her voice was a little raspy, not too high and soft around the edges. Finally, a bus stop scene with no bus, she sat alone waiting, smoking, kind of nervous but in a subtle fashion. A new face on stage walking toward the bench, she looks up, blowing hot smoke into the misty air, he stops, they talk, says he's going to catch a flick at the cinema, she should go, he fishes around in his pocket for a smoke, she lights it. They walk. A narrator is speaking; I don't hear what he's saying. I watch her walk off stage as they close the curtain, everyone stands and applauds. I clap at a pace three yards behind the crowd. They've really out done themselves this time, especially her, lady like the wind.
PICKING POISON
Buildings of crude design, a city curved as if viewed through a fishbowl of filthy water. A fish lies at the top, it is a goldfish, but appears more silver than gold, also appears to be dead. At first glance, so did the city seem to curve in warped comic perspective, the fish swims again, perhaps catching a bit of fresh air, the murky water welcomes the not-quite-gold fish back into it's filth.
Out past the sill of the window in the cool breeze of November, papers scatter at the feet of a drunken trio, maybe one's singing as another belches melodies of good days gone goodbye. Certainly there must be a third if this group is indeed a trio, but he or she is quiet, quite content to drunkenly sway in the wind just below the radar.
Unscrewing the cap to the fishes food and knocking a few sprinkles of god-knows-what into the tiny bowl of wet dirt I think is this youth wasted, is it youthful indiscretion? Midian doesn't answer, that's the fish's name. Not like he would know anyway, he's in a dirty fucking bowl and probably hates me. Rightfully so, if I do say so myself, and I do. Now where was I? Ah, yes fetching another bottle from the fridge, a bit of cold inspiration.
Now if I could only figure out how to end this perversion of words.
Three folk, two of a kind and one odd for variety's sake stumble on their way home, though they look warped through the fishbowl so must I, a young miser typing, drinking, painting, escaping, at least they know where their going. They've finished their drinks and I've only begun.
THIS TIME EVERYBODY DIES
Drawn in by the lure of purpose,
extremists sign in here and please note the time and date.
It is two minutes to midnight say the experts,
armed with silver bullets and wooden stakes.
Even their Poland Spring has been blessed by the pope himself.
Did I mention that at midnight the monsters come out?
We're having a new cold war without the cold,
this time around we have vampires and werewolves,
some of them live next door.
RED OBSCENITY, A LOVER'S SONNET
Composed, quiet, the gentleman caller,
Calls her obscene, calls her murder. Closes the door.
Murderer, murder her, so obscene, red love on the floor.
Focused on the now, a perpetual white noise, hold her.
She kissed with a liar's tongue, fucked like a whore, tell her.
Tonight, she spreads for the last time.
The gentleman's been drinking gin, without the lime.
Good guy gone bad says goodbye forever to his lover.
They have a good time, dinner and dirty sex on the table.
Small talk and cigarette smoke fill the air.
The gentleman, gentle no more.
Round two with teeth, pulling her dark brown almost black hair.
On her back breathing hard, hands on her throat, he'd kill if able.
The gentleman loves the whore.
SPITTIN' VENOM
Travelin' down a dirt road,
To where, I don't know
Gettin' lost in oblivion,
Thought I passed it an hour ago
Down in Asbury with the ghosts
Two-dollar drinks and a million stories along the coast
The dirt turns to gravel,
And the gravel shifts
Seems I'm not so alone after all
We're all travelin' down the same fuckin' road
Singin', singin' the same sad fuckin' song
Ridin' along the coast, looking for a dream
Burnin' bridges down, turnin' bread in to toast
I know what ya mean, son, I'm not a ghost
Don't remember me this way,
Soon it'll be you instead of me
* * * * *
THE END
* * * * *
That's it, its over, there's nothing more to see here. If you enjoyed this then share it with someone else who might enjoy it, if you didn't I don't care I did this for myself.
Steve Wands lives in New Jersey with his wife and son. He's a comic book letterer for DC Comics by day, and an artist and writer by night. He drinks massive amounts of coffee, and sleeps very little. He can be found blogging semi-regularly at: www.stevewands.blogspot.com and www.pleasestaydead.blogspot.com
If you liked Words Like Daggers so much that you want more then pick up Stay Dead: The Stranger & Tunnel Rats by, you guessed it, yours truly or Dark: A Horror Anthology of which I Co-Edited and contributed to. Coming soon you'll be able to find my work in Daily Bites of Flesh: 365 Days of Flash Fiction from Pill Hill Press, and Rapid Decomposition from Library of the Living Dead Press.
* * * * *
Table of Contents
Words Like Daggers: A Poetry Collection
Midpoint
