What's This?
Below you will find a new assortment of various writers on DeviantART who are worth getting to know. All of their respective galleries are packed full of tremendous works that I enjoy and hope that you will too. And, if there is a writer that may not be listed in this edition, you
may wish to read the first eleven articles in this series.
Let’s Meet A Few More of Them:
*
Anatopist
PyromaniaI want to see a light show in ochre and dancers
two thousand degrees in heat: I want to watch them
all traipse across my bedroom floor with their
encore in grey.
Blistered fingers flicking cigarette lighters
to see an orange pirouette turn for me,
my parents worry that I smell of smoke but they
don't know the reality.
Well.
The truth is that you can find me weaving
kerosene trails around the moon and Saturn's rings
telling acorns and oak leaves to enjoy our
favourite disease -
So I flick the lighter once again and speak
to the blackened walls and singed floors:
'Don't fear the kiss of the flame
don't let them douse the burns y
Hummingbirds (the heart's song)Her mind is a hummingbird and her irises are wings, flitting from point to point, a shrill whistle coming from lips, overflowing with lily-nectar. There are bare brick roads beneath her feet but she does not notice. Birds don't need feet, and she is a bird. Small, light, the girl with stars in her eyes who sees herself with peacock feathers tucked into her pockets.
His thoughts are neat little boxes and the hummingbird has unpacked them with frantic fluttering. He is more of a stoic magpie, the sort who is labelled as 'sorrow' but will still sing a song for those who recoil in the hope he can reunite Pangaea. He is, nonetheless, distracted b
RebeccaRebecca sees beauty in outlandish things -
the squares on the pages of her maths book,
sunken ships at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean,
and ivy trellises that snake up her bedroom wall.
Her friends say she's jealous of shipwrecks
because she hasn't got the courage to be one
and trust her life to the tides and the moons.
Rebecca says she's not one for envy
but I've seen the way she looks at the magazines
lining her floor, because shiny paper is
better than what she draws on -
and what Rebecca says is that she is
destined to become a shipwreck anyway,
but less of a gentle midnight sink,
more of a headlining national disaster.
~
Barnaby 
BirdcageNothing ever happens the way you read in the history books. In war there are never two armies, there is only a field of men. Never a number of dead; but individual lives snuffed out. That is what the subject of history is, years shelved and decimalized. Birth and death, graphed to the simplicity of lines. Great wars a footnote to the next great war. The achievements of men and women plotted out against the bookmark of day, month and year.
And somewhere amongst this, my mother breathed. Somewhere danced in now long-closed nightclubs, laughed at jokes told by a younger version of my Father. And then the unpin-able moment she fell in love with
re-assembled in an abstracted forma woman meets a man and says,
'oh, Dick. i didn't recognise ya!'
there are some people who never change
and others with a face like coastal sand.
Picasso had it right.
you can't rely on a nose being
in the place you expect it should be.
i want to put my head up a woman's dress
with my eyes closed, because I'm not a pervert.
anyway, i think it looks like a nice place to sleep.
my ears on her warm thighs.
my teeth gently nibbling her labia.
nova smile
6am: Rising to crackled reception,
I breathe,
stomach rising
and falling,
this, the mimicked serenade to sunrise,
performed the whole world over.
8am: In the kitchen,
stale bread
and a coffee cup
invite me to breakfast.
Reading headlines,
I count morning on both hands,
four espresso ribbons,
draped over the pages,
filling where ink cannot.
12pm: I lie on the small square of grass
look
~
chadwood
Silent Was The Mightiest SoundShe drove in the morning in
veil-like fogs, hair whipped like
slick, black snakes in a stream
from windows cracked, leather
skin of days and days and yet
more days, with a cigarette lit so
her red embers glow in the dimness.
A puff from her nostrils, another
from her lips, her trembling hands
subside on the wheel, save for two
fingers with a smoke-stick stuck
between them. It wasn't the hum
of the engine, nor the rasp in her
breath. No, it was the silence
that taught us in the end, ours and
hers alike. When days and days and
more days had passed, silent was her
sound, and it was the mighties
The Opus Of The Everythingthe ocean floor, the twisted sea and
all the flying jacket bees, and all
the flying birds and he, the one who
caught the glint of spring, who laid
it on the downy dew, the crispy green
of May fescue, who saw the plans of built
up lights that burn to light a thousand
pools of dripping rain and puddles lay
on any given night or day, the brick by
brick, the mortar spread, the snap of sugar
sweetly felt, the brine that made it
through the cloud, the opus of the
everything, the great and wide, the heat
of flame, the sun in cold but sunny sky,
the sound of when a child laughs,
the opus of the everything
Out Of AshesHe awoke in a tidy room, lights on as
well as cloths though disheveled, tired,
and worn. It was nothing fancy, nothing
dramatic, only a deep breath in and then
his eyes opened without the spinning
and the forgetting and that heaviness of
heart. In that instant, things were
simplified. The tightness in his muscles,
the aching of joints and feet and
this drudgery - miles and
miles and miles and miles, countless
miles. Infinity is what it seemed like before,
that number that isn't a number,
unimaginable even though we try to come
up with words and familiar phrases. "Infinity".
~
ColonelFitz 
I -don't- understandI (don’t) understand
you,
the silhouette of my neighbor’s
husband, sleeping on hot cement;
the egg that fried, sunny-side-up,
before the pool deck burned my
desert soles
drink,
collecting diamonds dropped
from the back pocket of a setting
sunrise, the moon-drunk Isis shares
your disgraced comet eyes with the
haughty Rhine
drowns,
my salient disappointments
buried in the question of the sea;
I am Dr. Frankenste
driveall pigtails and freckles,
bubblegum and denim jumpers,
you’re too young to know what
the letter D, U and I stand for,
but you’re already
driving me up a
Disney-princess pink
wall
an ocean of stonewe are not the sea, seething, cold,
drinking homes and spitting
dust, wet, cohesive
we are sediment, layered on the hands
of our ancestors, who faces turned,
saw the stars drop behind mute eyelids,
bathed in lightning and fallout,
drank the night
we are the foundations of the Earth, lightly
balanced on the foundations of the sun and stars
we sleep, warm and rough beneath breathing
life and birth through quietus, stomach rumbling
with dreams of food and history
we grasp the mountains in our teeth and
straining against the whispers of Elijah, we
pull them down, swallowing the
~
deviantkupo
Baking Through Suicide
"Suicide," I say, "is the easy way out.
"No," she says, "the front door is the easy way out. This is a lot more difficult."
I hear the wind down the phone I'm speaking to her on and I wonder where she is.
"Suicide is not the answer," I continue.
"Who's asking questions?!" she retorts, getting angry.
I'm cradling the phone on my shoulder as I stir the cake mix. Even my sister's imminent suicide can't stop cake.
"I think you need to talk to someone," I say, trying to calm her down.
"Well I'm talking to you right now and all it's doing it pissing me off," she shouts, "I don't think talking is doing a great deal of fucking good right now."
A Crab Eyeing A Tourist
Find out what you are,
Where you are headed.
Find your own moon and land on it.
*
A chair scraped across a vinyl floor and made an embarrassing sound.
"My name is Alex and I have a problem."
Someone waved their hands. "Does this problem involve an actual child actually being raped?"
Alex thought about this. "No," he decided.
"Then continue," the group leader said, bowing her head.
"But this child who was definitely not raped, and not by me, his name was Thomas."
All around the circle, a gentle ripple of applause broke out.
"Thank you, Alex," smiled the group leader, "that was very brave. You can sit down."
Alex sat, being careful
Dealing with IT - Part 1
Simon Taste arrived for work late and without his ID badge. On mornings like this he vowed never to drink so much the night before work. He had consumed a bottle of wine and several beers and as such, he had forgotten to bring his ID badge and put his shirt on the right way round.
He approached the reception desk of his building slowly.
"Good morning!" one of the security guards said.
The building was open from seven a.m. which was two hours ago. They had drunk their coffee, chatted with their mates and generally woken up
~
dweckie
Curvature.The snow-globe roof is night and the decoration is
a golden ratio of stars swirling over and over in two clock spins:
true and anti-true. Lie down and see the curvature of the earth.
Sky is a blanket highlighted by solitary pins of light - it doesn't twinkle
it shines with a million potential wishes. Spine curves
sky cu
Fireating.Your showcase act,
she who
toes the line between
safety
and
stupidity
tightrope-catwalking,
straightline-kerbstalking
distance edges closer as her
heart rate stalls.
Your glitz girl,
she who
knows the time it takes to
trust
and
practise
horsetrot-swordthrowing
actgets-crowdgoing
her balance was performance but she
fell for you.
IntroducedNursery, their hands collide;
Finger-painting side by side,
A big crude mess of blue, red, green
Most beautiful art their mums've seen
Circle time, they sit together;
Sing songs 'bout rain and stormy weather,
His eyes latch on, hers look away
He notes her iris'; hazel-grey
Dress up game, the two pair up
King and Queen of childish scrubs,
Tiaras sparkle as swords smash
He knows they'd be a royal match
At the end of Tuesday's play
She asks if he walks home her way,
As mothers chat and peck and fuss,
They pinkie swear each other's trust.
Twelve years later down the line
He knows her smile and pretty eyes-
They hold hands and w
~
ella-vere
Love and War: PrologueThey were seven years old when they first met.
The boy was squatting in the dirt and watching a beetle as it flailed on the ground, stuck on its back. He prodded it gently, turning it over onto its feet as the girl came up behind him.
"Whatcha looking at?" she asked. The beetle flicked its wings indignantly, and sunlight flashed off the iridescent green. "Ooh, that's a pretty bug."
She reached down to scoop it up, but he grabbed her wrist. "Don't touch it!" Sensing the danger, the beetle began to crawl away.
"Hey!" the girl exclaimed. "Let go of me!" She yanked h
The Stepmother's TaleI found a man in my garden bed,
Picking herbs for his wife, he said,
For she was hungry and heavy with child.
"For greens, your daughter is mine," I smiled.
So after the birth, I took her away
To a tall, doorless tower where she would stay.
I was her mother, she my one care--
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your fair hair!"
But then a prince came and stole her young heart,
So I cut her long locks and let her depart.
I took her tresses for my own
And saw how beautiful I had grown.
Then I wondered: could I, too,
Find a prince so valiant and true?
I married a king, to my delight,
With one daughter named Snow White.
Though his age w
eleven o'clock p.m.at eleven o'clock p.m.
we sit in the barn
silent and nervous
listening to the panting doe,
waiting after
five months of waiting.
when will it begin?
she heaves
pushing longer and harder
than before.
it has begun.
we stand ready
hearts pounding
in anticipation
hands clenched tight
around the towels.
a bubble appears.
is that a nose
behind the membrane?
we do not have time
to wonder.
a small form writhes
in the sawdust.
we dry it off
and hold it out
to the mother
who murmurs proudly,
so immersed in her first-born
that she does not realize
a second has come.
she is now standing up
so we catch the kid
before it hit
~
Hesperie
Hindsight
No one ever calls me. They text, they email, they leave notes. Calling is a very unreliable way to get in touch with me; I normally will not answer. It's nerve-wracking, carrying on a conversation with someone whose face you cannot see. Things can be misunderstood, and feelings can be hurt if you aren't careful.
This is why I ignored the insistent buzz of my cell phone as I sat in that dim little café. The place wasn't the easiest to find, and the coffee could get a little expensive, but it was good enough that the price was justified. It was a nice place to relax, and that's why I refused to pick up the phone. Usually I turn it off c
Perfect ContritionIn a proper Catholic church, everything echoes. Any sound uttered within the building bounces of the floor and the walls and the high, vaulted ceilings, so much so that I imagine that they could easily reach the ears of God himself. It's a rather poetic thought, the voices of mere mortals ringing towards Heaven with the help of good acoustics, but that thought's tempered by the fact that it includes every single noise: the coughs of emphysemic old men, the rustling of an impatient young girl's dress, and the taps of even the softest rubber-soled sneakers are no exception. On rainy days like this one, those shoes tend to squeak, which probably
87. HungerHe decided one day that he no longer needed his heart, so he plucked it straight from his chest with the intention of ridding himself of it. As he cradled it like an infant, he realized how frail it was, so young and unready for the world outside.
It grew quickly under is erratic care, eventually becoming something quite beautiful for all its eeriness. Soon it became able to aid him in his work and threw itself into the tiny tasks he often neglected to complete on his own. With increasing frequency he'd look over to find it staring at him with a burning gaze, but he simply brushed it off as an inevitability; it was a heart, after all.
Somet
~
ixykix
*
jahg
Climbing Everest
reach out and touch joy.
stretch higher to attain it.
feel the mountain-top.
Astronomical Love
Astronomical love the girth of planets
the magnitude of galaxies
flowing like water, star over star
the years magnified in glass
to rub shoulders with posterity
glaring like ravens, fit for monsters
law's a fickle brigand clear of sense
ever blooming detail like mould
stringing enormities, strange glorious mushrooms
life in the microcosm
the weight of small society's beaded realm
floating like beacons, bracketing passion
so tickle the pen eager to drip monuments
weaned so recently to solids
teaming like salmon, baited and knowing
clumsy stab and thrust to prick a life
the organic levitant smoothes shyness
blaming like youths,
Summer's Girl
I am gathering flowers for my girl.
She waits beneath the cherry tree,
couched among the leaves upon the grass.
Her beauty is no small thing,
and through the shady boughs
Summer's breath turns the twist of her braid.
The sun is sweeping clear the morning,
turning over slowly into midday
before expiring into unseeing darkness.
These garnered blooms still hardy though,
despite the shortened moments of their existence,
they will colour the chestnut hair I love.
In truth, I cannot stem this smile,
this attitude of quiet pleasure;
she has distilled it like music.
I am gathering flowers for my girl.
She waits beneath the cherry tree
~
joe-wright 
Far-fetchedAn elf lay in a tree, comfortably as if it was a hammock. A dwarf stoked their campfire and lit his pipe. The forest was quiet but for the rustle of leaves and the occasional hoot of owls. The night spun lazily above them.
'Do you ever wonder who lives in the sky?' said the elf after a while.
'Birds,' grunted the dwarf.
'No, I mean the people up there.'
'All the poor buggers who fell up into it, I would imagine.'
The elf sighed. 'Where do your gods live?' he asked.
'Our gods are wrought in stone,' replied the dwarf. 'What would they do up there, there's nothing to do, nowhere to stand.' He paused, then added 'Nothing to hit with an axe.
The Undeath and Death of Yves CarabinYves Carabin was kind of undead. It was a complicated situation. He was also a private detective. That was complicated too.
He left the bar a little wiser than he'd been when he walked in half an hour ago. He was also a little drunker and his knuckles were a lot sorer. His trenchcoat whipped in the wind. A few drops of rain came down sideways to herald the gathering stormclouds. Yves turned up his collar and lit a cigarette with his eye socket.
There was a girl he used to know. A djinn. One time he got himself shot in the eye. She mended him with smokeless flame. Resurrected him. That was the first time. A couple of glowing scars on his bac
35mm black and whiteNestled in the vignette gloom,
Cross-legged in a stranger's room.
Upon wool carpet you luxuriate, your feet bereft of shoe,
Façade of soberness betrayed
By the bottles there arrayed,
Dilated eyes look through the lens, a glint of mischief there imbued.
A stubbl'd man nuzzles your neck,
In camera flash, he's caught mid-peck,
His face obscured but for his jaw, slight smile upon his lips.
Your hair reads strawberry red despite
The rendering in black and white
Of the party you're enjoying and the boyfriend you eclipse.
The ghost of you considers me
And smiles quite adorably,
And seems to find it funny, but I can't say I agree.
=
JoeyLiverwurst
Coyote EnvyJeremy Driggers didn't just love coyotes. He envied them. He wanted to be one, and gradually grew less and less guarded about it. He drew coyotes in his notebooks in class. He watched Warner Bros. cartoons and rooted against The Road Runner. He wrote letters to the editor defending coyotes going through garbage cans in suburbia.
Jeremy wasn't very outgoing in or out of class, so no one paid much mind to him or his coyotes. He wore coyote T-shirts to class and even put a tail hole through a pair of pants, but no one asked him about it. At night, rather than socialize, he would lie outside and stare at the sky, obsessing about being a coyote.
Looking UpAaron fumed.
It was his day off, and here he was at work anyway, two hours to close. He hated training people, but tomorrow was a big day, and he would pay for it in the long run if he put it off. He had been home alone, wasting time, but the principle of it still bothered him. He practically lived here these days.
He exited the car and slammed the door. Then he noticed a young man, probably a college student, standing at the edge of the parking lot. He was on the grass, looking straight up at the night sky. A full moon gleamed overhead.
In his funk, Aaron had forgotten the full moon! It almost always cheered him up. He smiled and called o
Five Misconceptions
I'll warn you upfront: this isn't glamorous.
At first, I thought I was in a car or on a plane. I woke up in an uncomfortable chair with an incredible headache and no idea where I was. My eyes slowly adjusted to the sickly yellow light, and I saw a ceiling with water damage. I didn't recognize it. I smelled mildew and smoke, which would've startled me if not for the headache.
I started to rub my head, but I couldn't move my hand. I looked down, and my wrist was stuck in something. Actually both wrists. And ankles. I didn't like where this was going.
Ugly laughter erupted from across the room. "About time you came around!" someone shouted. I
=
Kazali :thumb151385811:
Good IntentionsThe tiny brown mouse, identified only by the bright orange 47 tag on its ear, trudged through the cedar chips toward the water bottle attached to the cage. It nudged the spout twice with the tip of its nose, and droplets oozed out onto the mouse’s forehead. With a soft grunt, the mouse jolted backward and collapsed in a heap in the opposite corner, its chest trembling with exhaustion.
“Amazing,” Victoria Krell whispered, scribbling notes onto her iPad. The fluorescent lighting flickered above her, and she began writing faster; Craig was getting impatient for his bed. She scratched out a side note in capitalized, red letters to remind herself to bring Star Lab’s oldest night security guard a big batch of Boston creams tomorrow morning.
Victoria leaned closer to the lone cage perched on her workstation, watching 47’s wet, blank staring eyes. The brown mouse was only one of twenty in a three foot long cage. It was not particularly interesting or unique,
Strange FruitThere was no way Carol could be more hot and bothered than she was now. She only wished it involved a sparkling Mai Tai and a four star hotel instead of the fucked up fixer upper with the skinny little lizards crawling all over her sandals.
The Arizona sun blazed high and bright in the noonday sky, the frantic chirping of cicadas filling the air. While she sat on her new porch under the meager shade, she could hear her husband rifling around in the U-Haul in the driveway. Something large and heavy crashed, and glass shattered. Brian let out a vehement curse.
Carol mopped the sweat from her forehead with her T-shirt. "You all right in there,
~
kingmule
FlyingWe swam through the sky
and when we landed
we felt higher
than when we almost reached the
Sun.
You kissed my neck and your lips
still burned
and the fire in my hair went out
and you sighed.
I hate this part of the song where I can't hear you anymore.
When you woke me up
I remembered why I used to love you;
why the ash on your tongue
used to taste so sweet.
mermaidswimming in my salty sheets,
not unlike the ocean.
i undulate with back pain and
in the water i'm seen.
i wrap my tail around his wrist
and kiss, but he only notices
bare breasts on me.
the jewish daughterThe dispatched current of
his discontent;
the greater twin daughter - his relish -
divides an entire nunnery
of bogeymen
between her legs.
And it's almost mean -
that antic dress,
that endless body,
richer than rancidity;
exhausting.
~
Limbs-of-Osiris
PearlI dive for pearls of dissonance
when the surface of things is too damn
flat and placid;
too many things knocking me into
Christmas stocking holes, stuffed
deep and warm where
the light gets dimmer.
Too many voices planing the peaks of me,
sanding me down until I shine
and glimmer gemlike and
polished.
I want peaks to scale
and troughs to navigate;
want fat and gristle
to chew and my own grit-strewn
trail to stumble along;
I want to smart and bristle,
flicking opinion from my skin
like dew off a nasturtium,
and punch holes in blank pages
like bullets.
In summer we all burnThe summer is coming,
I hear the beach roaring from here,
can see shirts hung over shoulders,
sunglasses, arms round waists,
can feel the earth's purrs,
breaking hibernation,
pollens tossed up at us in fanfare.
Ants are walking over me
because we're sharing a tree together.
Back to back, we're trying to
make our winter's pallour a warmer shade.
Is it some sort of personal sign
when you let your shoe-tongues fill with tan bark,
when it's driven you mad your whole life?
Or when you eat ice-cream in public (the sticky
fingers a mere afterthought)?
These trees though, they're not changing.
I can't help thinking they
SloughCaught myself looking at myself,
my own self-knit frown staring down
the angles our shadows burn into the wall –
that frozen floorboarded hall of mixed metaphor
and a portal between today and yesterday.
Staring through the marks and cracks
that delineate the look of me
toward the back of a head where the past lurks –
full of its own regrets and quirks,
and "let's find out what works";
those dares that beckon,
darts of stares loaded with lightly-packaged suggestion,
they are at the roots of all the stems
poking out of coat collars,
bobbing on their pedestals
like wool spools rocking off their bobbins.
The
~
monstroooo
LateSammy paced.
This had never happened before. And tonight, of all nights! He glanced at the clock, grimaced, and paced some more. Where was he?
Behind the curtain, he heard the chatter of the crowd, the beat of the music.
Marv the Magnificent, the "compere extraordinaire", strode up to Sammy and gave him a questioning look. Sammy answered with a shrug. Marv looked at his watch, wiped his brow, sipped from a tin hip-flask.
"It's now or never, Sam. Do or die. I believe you can do this on your own - but he'll be here yet."
Seeing the fear in his star attraction's eyes, Marv put a hand on Sammy's shoulder. "He'll be here yet", he repeated.
S
The Ballard of Eiy'ra Haiz
Call him drunken Ira Hayes, he don't answer any more.
Not the whiskey drinking Indian, the marine who went to war.
A beaten up jukebox played old country songs in the corner of the bar. Outside, the mid-afternoon sun beat down on the cracked clay floor. The rocks surrounding the small mining town of Cripple Creek almost seemed to glow in the heat, and the horizon was half-hidden by haze. The township went about its business under the watchful eye of the local Dominion garrison.
But those in the Pink Moon sheltered from that world. The barman, Townes, was an old war veteran with only one arm. In place of the other was a crude robotic substi
The Gunslinger
"You mean you ain't never heard of the Gunslinger?"
The bar was almost dead at this time of night, and the question seemed to echo around the room - emphasising the sudden silence, rather than masking it.
"No, boy, I ain't."
Only a handful of stragglers remained, the dregs of the evening clearing the dregs of their whiskeys. The lights shone dimly, and everything moved lethargically in the warm Texas night.
"Well I'll be. I thought everyone 'round here knew the story of the 'slinger'," said one of the stragglers – a tall, skinny man wearing a pale cowboy hat. A battered guitar rested on his knee.
"I'm new in town."
They sat at the
*
lombregrise
L'OMBRE GRISEL'Ombre Grise.
Méchée de gel atone la prêtresse dépèce le squelette
Des vallées mortes
Ses longs silences blancs de sel
Calcaire
Hurler le ciel catastrophe aux reliefs d'éthers froids
La bouche offerte aux serpents
Paralysée de suicides rêches les béances
Impavides
Massacre des autels ses ongles d'acier glace au cœur de cannibale
Le vent du vide déroulait les draps du carnage
Sur sa face de pierre
Déserte
Elle a rincé l'Épire noircie aux foudres du chêne silence
Où broyés de bronze ses soleils creux ensevelissent les vestiges du double
Mor
TONNERRES ET DESTINS - THUNDERS AND FATESTonnerres et destins
Flot de foudres
Passent comme une lame
Sur l'océan.
Thunders and fates
Flood of lightning
Strikes like a blade
On the ocean.
Frantz, 2006. En mémoire de mon père / In loving memory of my father.
J'AI VU TOMBER UN EMPIRE - I SAW THE FALL...(English version below)
J'ai vu tomber un Empire.
À Marie.
Cité désagrégée par les vents de la guerre
Murs d'airain éventrés
Coeurs froissés à la peine un espoir comme cendres
Par-delà les tertres froids
Dialogue d'un être et d'un néant
Soi contre moi
Te bercer dans les bribes balbutiées
Fils d'argent d'un discours sur l'or de ton coeur lourd
La feinte d
~
nonamepsalmist
UnkemptEvery other day
you shook the
smell of sweat and coffee
from your skin.
You kept yourself preserved-
hairless as a sphinx cat-
wearing control as natural selection-
calling in the honeybee
to buzz round your neck
and your knees.
Full of cream
and tiny hairs,
the razor's matter-of-fact tears
ManuscriptI have written us down, typed us up, and sent us out.
they will edit us, and say some parts are no good.
but I want your run-ons, your lack of punctuation; and you are so easy
on my weak binding, my damaged spine.
Outer SpaceI have constructed a canyon.
( it will be an addendum to the dream )
Not a U.S.-Southwest-redrock-dayhike-national-park canyon.
(it's the sort of place you go to die
and so it is too tempting to pass up)
Before you go, I
will have to strip you of your juju.
Whatever it is
~
ohgravity
CharlieI had a stalker.
I didn't know his name but I'm sure he knew mine.
I called him Charlie.
He always had a camera hanging from his twig thick neck and he cradled it in his hands; a wispy finger stroking the shutter release. His dark brown hair was a curly mess and his shirts wrinkly and thin. He had the most perfect eyebrows, sweeping and gentle. He must have the most captivating eyes, I thought every time he'd glance my way. We'd never made eye contact. Charlie preferred it that way.
He came into the bookstore once a week, not to watch me leaf through the used books or reach high to shelve the approved ones, but to actually browse them. He
The Waste WorldShe said create the world, so I did. I made it dark and dusty, coughed up from my own black lungs. I gave the trees an ashen hue and the ground a color to match the starless sky. The creatures were murmuring oozes, globs of drying acrylic that inked across the orb of my bubbling imagination.
Repulsing, it was in fact the product of an industrial mind. I was born from man's smog goddess and, if memory serves me, her breath was laced in exhaust which I inhaled nightly with her songs. She was soothing and complacent, her voice smokey like a hazy bar. No one could deny her features were hideous beyond belief. Her skin dripped pollution like morp
~
poetries:thumb328545607:
petrichorhear the rain radiating from rocks sub rosa.
we percolate unspoken words, unwritten truths,
condensed particles of what could be
rolling off intangibles, but not the tongue
made of roses. we are playing the rain
over susceptible skin and i am fading
through your stomata. enfold me in your petals
before i evaporate away from you.
i am transpiring through leaf-lined avenues
to weight the air with leaden cloud ready to weep
at the pressure of lips, the press of hands enfolded.
your slightest breath hints at a heat wave;
i can't handle your humidity. everything you
are to me is soaking through my bones and
i am helplessly, hopelessl
WarriorsWarriors, unite!
Warrior, fight!
Yes, yes,
Unite !
Unite for our glory, for our honor,
And for our price.
We are invincible,
We are gods of war,
Gods of the field,
Heroes of the battleground,
Demons for the ones that cant see our glory.
We are here for all of you,
Protecting you from real demons,
With our hammers,
With our sword,
With our power,
With our glory.
We stand against evil,
We stand against the ones that don’t pay.
They are waiting in fear,
They are scared of us,
We will destroy them all.
Brothers and sons of warriors,
Be proud of what you may be,
And fight for what is real,
And destroy everything that
~
projectilewordvomit
Hydrofluoric AcidWe called it the sparkling city, the castle on the other side of the world, but it wasn't until much later that I found out it was just a glittering oil refinery pumping toxic gases into the air. We wondered at the way it glimmered against the stars like a just out of reach mirage. We were safe, 6.7 miles away, lying in the grass underneath the weight of invisible radiowaves and unspoken thoughts.
-
Now Dad tells me about my sparkling castle; the jagged, smoking tiers that pierce the skyline and cast a heavy glow outside of his new apartment.
"So there's this toxic gas they use to make petroleum in the refinery. It's fine for no
AutumnSomething happened in autumn. Besides the leaves turning, anyway. They weren't very pretty this year, to be honest. The trees changed unevenly because of the lack of rain in the summertime. The sky was gloomy for most of October.
I wanted to take photos of the trees with you before they turned. You know, cliché nature shots. A hillside lined with red and umber foliage. Maple leaves sprinkled over the patio after the unexpected snow in October shocked them. Milkweed spores detaching from their pods and drifting away. Things to line the inside of the photo album I was making for you.
We drank too much of the summer sun in July
InscribeOnce I knew this boy
who stopped knowing what to say,
so he took all of his problems
and left them on a page.
So I'd read between the lines
of different quotes every day.
Sometimes lyrics, or sometimes
Vonnegut, Neruda or Hemingway.
"So it goes" he'd quote,
and I never knew what to say
Instead I read the words he fed me
until they'd eaten me away.
He took all of his troubles
and stacked them on a shelf,
Too high for me too reach,
too far for me to help.
Now I'm reminded of him when
I hear a book or movie quote,
or when I see the delicate
lines and marks of music notes.
So I took all of his words
and kept them in my head.
All the work he'd written
and mostly everything he'd said.
I put him down on paper,
as he did with me,
And painted him on canvas
for everyone to see.
So to all, I show that I recall
his fading, far off face,
That only with paper we can
keep a person in one place.
~
ravenofroses
that quiet little struggleYou exhale and let the nic fit slither down your spine. Your hands tremble—not that you're paying them much mind when there's a fresh pack of Marlboros on the desk in front of you. It's been how long, now? But looking at the little tab in that clear plastic wrapper, it's like the first day all over again.
You can already feel the soft weight of it between your middle and forefingers, drooping a little from the density of the tobacco. Hear the click and hiss of your lighter and the crackle of embers. Feel the warm sweet-bitter smoke settle in your lungs as you inhale and escape from your lips again when you breathe out.
And you taste th
the editorI make bad things go away.
Hit man? No, it's nothing like that. No, not organized crime. Christ, kid, where do you get these ideas? I bet it's television. Or those goddamn video games you people are always playing. What? So now I'm being judgmental? Do you know what I could do with one scratch of my pen?
No, forget it. I'm a little tired, that's all. It's hard work, you know. If you'd just listen for a moment, I'll tell you.
I'm a city editor. Not like newspapers, no. You have to train a lifetime to do the kind of work I do. And even if you do train a lifetime, not everybody's got the brains for it, you know? Imagination, that's what I'm t
Change.“I’m sorry.”
The words barely register; she’s already slumped against the tree and clutching her elbows with bone-white fingers. Something cracks in her left arm, but the pain won’t come until much, much later. Her breath catches, falters, ceases for longer than she would have believed possible, until her vision dims and she sucks in a rush of air that triggers the tears already threatening the corners of her eyes. She should have expected this, of course.
The moon, obscured by fog, casts little light on the deserted park, and her stomach lurches when she realizes that she won’t even have a clear memory of his
~
ryante ~
SCFrankles
Musical ChairsThree women.
Three bladders.
Two toilets.
Colourful LanguageThey talk blue. You see red.
Fan FicJohn punched Sherlock.
Sherlock detected animosity.
~
Self-Intoxication
Ephemera.Try turning a gun inside out. See what happens.
Perhaps you will find love there, around the bullets,
or a story about love in a way you've never experienced,
but you somehow know exists.
Try turning a paper crane inside out, or a thousand.
See what happens. Reversed, they just make other animals,
butterflies that refuse to eat for an entire lifetime,
wounded elephants, and spiders that feast upon sunbeams.
Try turning your house inside out, like it has an eating disorder,
and purges your books and CDs and unwashed laundry onto your lawn,
the neighbor's lawn. See what happens when you try
Depressing Russian Literature.Guilt is a piano on top of you
instead of a man. Street noises
drain you like bleach on a rainbow.
Indecision becomes a washer & dryer
you can't stop putting things into
& taking things out of all through
a painful fluorescent night. The
brain becomes smoke, a hidden stash
of dark red cigarettes, dipped in
formaldehyde, waiting for you.
Depressing Russian literature
becomes your best friend & you
can't remember what it is like
to have a flesh & bone best friend,
a soft voice at the other end, someone to cough up
pounds of dirt and flashlights and floods with you.
Fun becomes self-destruction in the for
I want to write.At 4:30 in the morning
I race on my bike to your house.
I wear your T-shirt and sweat pants
so I don't get raped, and because I want
to bring your belongings back to you.
I crawl through
your open window
and think that someone could easily kill you
with a silencer and a black pillow and
you wouldn't even have time
to open your mouth to scream.
Then I say:
I love you.
I want to write a love poem about you.
The moon sparkles
behind the blinds
and I want to reach for your
dead hands and put them on
my throbbing sweating chest but sometimes
I fear that they are maybe made of clay
or are someone else's entirely.
I want
~
SugarHeartedGirl
Piano PlayingI am a pianist
And you are my piano, dear.
I play minuets along your ribcage,
Write love songs on your arms,
And press your vertebrae like keys
To let soft chords fill the empty space.
Your hairs are the resounding strings,
Your lips are polished brass pedals
That make everything loud and soft at the same time.
Kissing you makes the whole world shift up an octave.
I am a pianist
And you are my piano, dear
So let's write a duet in the dark.
Rock Meautumn blunders in, clumsy
stiff fingers frosted still
by early winds, rocking trees
back and forth
red leaves splatter the ground
paint drops, hanging from drooping
branches, rotten fruit still litters the sidewalks
i head south for the fall with the ducks.
the train creaks like aching joints
there's a crow on
my windowsill, ruffling his feathers
the trees flash by
red -yellow-red
my ticket's got a hole in the middle
from being folded over and over
the crow says "summer ain't that great, Peach Girl."
i watch the sky and ignore his clicking black beak
"the autumn's gonna follow
right behind ya
'n turn the whole world re
The Memory BoxShe locked her heart in a box as summer ended
And tucked it under her bed, in a nest of cobwebs
Waiting for winter to frost her eyes closed
For her long hibernation until heat spilled again
Through her bedroom window.
But as she lay down on silk sheets,
Hair cascading across her shoulders in an overflow
Of spring flowers and memories,
He appeared, standing over her,
Holding the box in his palm.
"Summer isn't over yet, my dear." He said.
"Autumn is turning the world orange,
And there's a butterfly waiting on your windowsill.
So let's pick sunflowers till sunset comes."
He reached out a hand, she took it.
The box clicked open, s
~
TransientTopHat
HarvesterHarvester of Lost or Possibly Forgotten
From you to the sky to the
Beast to the floor, we are
All one endless string.
All is the lost hound's shiver
Trotting down the city street. All is the grieving
Master, alone in a foyer chair—his
Loneliness
A headless man who stands in autumn leaves,
Tapping on a windowpane.
All is the reunion and the warmth of the fireplace.
At night, or if overcast is thick,
I reach into the Skulls and pull out the
Lost,
And imbibe the murky time-forsaken
And daydream a day
When I'll need be a glowing stain on someone else's tongue.
Photographing a ScreamPhotographing a Scream
I don't know how to close
The straps on a Kevlar vest.
Or how to kill a man
Across an ocean with slick dead
Thump of humming drone, or upclose stab
His soul out or how to keep my
Mind in heavy Afghan heat.
But I know this photo
Of a severed leg is a photo of a severed
Leg. The caption at its side: Nameless body wasn't found. Only
A leg was left behind in a tattered pants leg.
Next photo.
I know that children are
Children with
Happy teeth in open
Gap smiles and open
Minds to a bright world. Caption:
Here children smile
Beside the Killteam—helmetheaded creaking
With guffaw.
Next
Bunbury Parisian Apartment: 1900. Banished man of sick beyond repair, Sebastian self-reflects and then Connects with Oscar's sickly stare. Questions abound. Sebastian solely speaks:
I can sink
into recline with seeming
ease, like young Wilde in old
photographs. (Stillness.)
Reading Goal pages spread about my breast.
I sign it all Sebastian
Melmoth.
Wilde
grew blowzy, burst his
eardrum. His body though released
is branded, deeply burned with off-white prison stripe
and symbols of The Crown. Naked, clothed,
the baggy folds
=
Venry
Spray Your Sins Away!It was a scene of utmost suspense, the cliché that often made its way into romantic comedies and commercials. Inside Dick's We-Carry-Every-Item-Imaginable-for-the-Filthy-Rich, two different people reached for the last can of Sins-B-Gone in cinematic slow motion. One hand was French-manicured and wore an ostentatious diamond ring (inscribed "Love forever, to my Richard"); the other had "Vermilion Vixen" nails and was likely to never wear such a wedding ring. Fingers from both hands closed in on the blue spray can like eager vultures, plucking it off the shelf in synch. Both ladies blinked in confusion before they realized the other was th
Crayon ChildYounger Me,
still fending off nightmares
with plastic swords
and MONSTER-B-GONE lights.
I was rarely gentle with you.
I blistered our hands with blacktop;
I choked our sandals with mulch.
Yet you remained untouched
by life's failures and faults,
only marred on the skin
by two frolic-scars.
There are seven chin stitches
from a monkey bar mishap,
and three on your upper lip
from disgruntled floor tiles.
But that never halted
your gap-toothed grins.
I fought by your side
during alien invasions,
where broccoli trees swayed
beneath the 1% lowfat Milky Way.
We cradled dirt-stained snowmen
that lasted weeks in the f
A Little Broken"Oh dear," Worry murmured, "now this is a problem."
She hovered over the heart, peering at the jagged pieces. Ever the watchful nurse, she jotted down seemingly inconsequential details with a meticulous hand. "Heart," she started with hesitation, "I'm sure you'll be fine... Unless you won't be... But you most likely will be. I think. Now, it might take a while for you to heal.. and I'm afraid it won't be the last time you break... but let's get you to the recovery unit first."
She wheeled the little pieces to the ER room, pausing to check on Sadness. She was sniffling in the corner of the waiting room, painting the wallpaper blue with her t
~
WetKakashi
Epistles of A Rising SunTo Nihon,
A crane silhouetted—
Wings against a rising sun
Samurai spirit
.:::*:::*:::.
To Jishin,
Birth to Tsunami
Wooden frames buckled and swept—
My kin, I carry
.:::*:::*:::.
To Tsunami,
Mountainous waves stretched—
Extirpating the people,
The veteran land still stands
.:::*:::*:::.
To Tochi,
Fault lines cut through—deep—
Dismantling, deforming—
You are still our land
.:::*:::*:::.
To Umi,
Our homeland submerged—
Sakura blossoms scattered
I will gather them
.:::*:::*:::.
To Tsuchi,
Our photos buried,
One day, it will sprout again–
Softening our fall
.:::*:::*:::.
To Mizu
Retraction of ChlorophyllLonger nights,
and shorter days,
Sinking towards the horizon,
the sun stretches itself against
pulsating veins – retracting
from margins to petiole
to stems –
unmasking
green
Release Shattered stone vase–
twin dragons among clouds,
thrown into the sun
*
wrheath
Shack Shadowsspring shade -
a shy shroud of snow
shuns sunshine
Thaw spring thaw -
chickadees splashing
in my bootprints
June Haikuthon 30th dayJune 30
shy young girl -
a wildflower peeks
from a windy field
June 29
in no breeze
the slow bend of a grass blade
- ladybug
June 28
just
a flick of the cow's tail
- morning stillness
June 27
horsefly
into my morning shade
- my honey-do list
June 26
bluebells
perfect in the morning sun
-a sunday choir
June 25
an evening fog
fills the valley
- after the quarrel
June 24
my bloated pond -
a poem trickles
onto a new page
June 23
enduring drizzle -
an american beauty
finally succumbs
June 22
morning rains...
everything
sleeping in
June 21
midstream -
the cool splash of ferns
on the path
June 20
riverside
This Article Series Is Inspired By…
An undiscovered gem I found while browsing DeviantART. I took intrigued notice of *
MonsterBrand’s
25 Deviants You Should Know and thought that would be a brilliant chance to spotlight writers I adore in proper fashion. Of course, I had difficulties keeping the feature limited to
only twenty-five writers. I realize there are still a great many deviants who are not on this list, but it is far from complete! I do urge you to take a look and get to know some of these writers listed – as they help to make DeviantART the wonderful literary community that it is – but your journey is far from over.
Enjoy,
`
LadyLincoln
#DevNews
#all-is-acceptable
#OnlyJournals
#VerySpecialArtists
#dA-JournalsFTW
this article to show your support for our devious writers.
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`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
Sta.sh
This article’s deviant spotlight: featuring the talented =DrippingWords. She has offered to answer a few questions as well, to tell us a bit about what inspires her writing and which piece in particular she favors.
