So, I realise I haven’t posted in…well quite a while. Here’s something for you all.
As the stars slowly fade, in blazes of light beautifying cosmic death, their dust breathes life anew on barren rock.
posts tagged "Writing"
Foil
The crisp blue sky burned his eyes as he drew back heavy curtains. Blinking tears not wholly caused by the bright light, he watched as the world ticked by past the window. He saw an elderly couple with time-wrinkled skin and purple spots of age walking slowly down the cracked pavement hand-in-hand, choosing not to look at the violent graffiti and broken needles. A group of small children looted through a mothers bag as another helped to pick up the babies dropped bottle, shame forgotten and morality as dead as God.
Pain, sudden and sharp, struck him in the chest. Blood oozed from crusted nostrils, and electric flashes blurred his sight. Vaguely remembering falling, but not quite, he lay for a while listening to the ragged drum of his heart. Groping the floor, he found his saviour. Into distended veins, corrupt and diseased, he plunged his sweet release.
A last breath, as surprising as his first, left a ravaged throat; as dreams of eternity flowed as liquid into an unreceptive mind.
Map of your life
Have you ever felt completely lost? I’m talking standing at a crossroads with no signposts, being adrift in a sea of emptiness, waking up and not knowing where, or even who, you are. It’s a strange feeling, and not one of utter desolation and dread. Although you feel scared, unsure and anxious about what the hell you’re going to do next; there is, underneath, this wondrous emotion of adventure. A build-up of caged independence. Like a young bird unfolding its virgin wings, the possibilities of what road, ocean or location you take are laid before your feet. Yes, being lost in your life can, and is, a terrifying experience, but don’t get dragged beneath the roiling waves. Make the direction your own, unguided by the desires of others, and fly away into the horizon of your choosing.
Through the explosive maelstrom a green blaze flares across the horizon. The colour crashes over the land, dousing the fires of red and pushing the ash away. The silence of beauty overcomes all on the field. The voice of the Gods puts love in their hearts, as the leviathans of creation drink deep of the spilled blood from ravaged bodies.
Awakening
Dawn broke across the horizon filling the valley with liquid ruddy gold. Birds awoke as it lapped around the trees and recruited them as heralds of the new day as they took up their songs. Denizens of the jealous moon retreat from the advancing glow, taking refuge from the glare of day until their world is returned. Trees creak in a growing morning wind, ruffling their leaves and beginning their eternal struggle to grow tall enough as to ensnare the sun itself. The river carving the valley floor turned from treacherous darkness to sparkling glory as rays of light dance within its turbulent flow. Renewed is the vigour of the valley, and the day holds infinite possibilities. Today will be a day of wonder and joy and adventure; I shall drink it all with a smile upon my face.
When you hear the wind breathing know that it speaks with my voice, that I am always by your side, and I’ll blow the sadness away.
Ebb
I just want it to end. I exist merely on the breath of a hope. A hope that one day it will end. That the voice in my head, that I know is mine, ceases its unrelenting torment. I am trapped within myself. A prison constructed by my own conscious; walls of flesh made real and welded-shut bars of self-loathing contain and constrict me. The rise of awareness, the destruction of naivety and the inevitable loss of innocence has coalesced into a writhing mass of inward-focused anger.
I cannot remember the feeling of hope. I can state words to describe it, cold and orderly straight from the pages of a dictionary. Hope; dream, security, utopia, endurance, ambition. These empty words form in my mind and fall from a worthless tongue, hollow. If there was ever a light in my life cast by the feverish glow of hope, then it has long vanished. In its wake was left a pit of unending depth. A black hole lurking deep inside me. All that was once good and beautiful died in its dreadful maw. There was never any chance of escape, no gleaming beacon of redemption, a way to save my damaged soul and enter sweet oblivion peaceful and at rest.
Many stars above my head are reflections, the dying memories of a once-bright past, the light dead and cold; as is the light that once sparkled in my eyes.
I wonder how far that dead light will travel? How many visions of a happy past will traverse the ether of space and time before, without grandeur or actinic flash, the light disappears, returning to darkness.
Will the universe care?
As waves crash around us, forever at war with the stubborn land, slowing wearing away this righteous rock on which we stand, I see eternity.
Alpha and Omega
Rolling grass flowed across the horizon lit by the vermilion rays of a dying sun, with shapes of extraordinary proportions and impossibility morphing into existence from the boundless reaches of her mind. Out of nothing, using only her limitless ability to create, a whole universe took shape. At the centre was the genesis of purity. A world of her own laws, void of pain, tyranny and oppression. Happiness was not sought like a lost chalice whispered by barbaric, bloodthirsty tribes, it sprang from her very eyes, surging across the plains of her reality. Her needs were simple. To be left alone within her magnum opus was all she asked. The alternative to her paradise was an idea that darkened her mind, causing ripples of destruction across her star-strewn universe.
She never wanted to wake. The waking reality was a poor comparison to the wonder envisioned in her minds eye. To open her eyes would be to die a slow death filled with struggle, disappointment and fear. To live within her own mind, to see the birth and growth of all that she dreamt unfolding mesmerically as a flower that blooms once a millennium - nothing could beat that.
Anguish filled her heart, pumping through her body in rhythmic pulses, her veins and arteries becoming corrupted with the mundane. She was waking. Across her sky, the stars died. Supernovas of vast proportions, each one adding to the chain reaction of devastation, tore and burnt the fabric of her creation. In a bright burst of pure darkness, a black hole appeared at her feet. Its immense hunger ate everything she had so delicately formed.
There was nothing she could do. Once all was gone that she loved, she too was consumed by the unquenchable thirst of the waking monstrosity. Her eyes opened, and she saw a world without reason. An uncaring expanse of energy and mass, utterly oblivious of her existence.
Why can’t we dream forever…
Drums
Fire and ash choked his vision, sweat fell from his face in rivers, and the rising smoke ate away at his lungs. The drums of war beat with rhythmic reverberating resonance, stoking the flames of his anger and hatred. Blood flowed as a river around him, feet sinking deep into the red-stained earth. A bestial scream, as primal as the first caves and kindling fires, tore itself from his throat. His brothers and sisters in arms rose up, standing shoulder to shoulder, taking up the cry. Hearts danced to the call of the drums, and minds long oppressed saw a road of possibility leading to freedom.
Tyrannical rule shall on this day die. The chains will be broken, the weight lifted, and out of the fires a new age will dawn.
The Long Road
The memories of days gone by have never left me. Remembering the past, those particular moments in my life, good and bad, that have been etched into my memory, are all gilded and coated in nostalgic excellence. Each precious instant can be replayed within my head, never failing in causing my lips to curl into that special smile of remembrance. The glorious past stands triumphant and welcoming, whilst the unfathomable future lies grim and hungry as a ravenous vulture. Perhaps by walking backwards I can enter the dark embrace with light in my eyes.
Remembrance
Gilded trees rose above my head, clashing with the suns light and showering me with the battle’s golden debris. Leaves, iridescent and broken, fell with grace, landing serenely into the welcoming embrace of a flowing carpet of soft grass. Natures silence was absolute; the whispering of the wind, the subtle susurrus of a steam, the mournful birdsong. A parting of ways was at hand. This peace, so wonderful and exquisite, was to be the last of its kind witnessed by all the livings entities present. A time will come when peace will return. When the forest can endow its tranquillity upon others again. But that time is a distant star, its pure light shall face the astronomical expanses of space before it can bathe this world in warmth. Until that time, all of this shall be lost. The earth shall forget the forest, and all its goodness, replaced with hate and scorn and blood.
A flower, vivid yellow flecked with orange, sheds its last petal. The last to fall on the hungry earth whilst it still knows flowers, whilst it can still recognise their natural beauty.
Fire comes, and all the forest burns.
There are times, of increasing frequency, when I sincerely wish that I simply never existed.
“But what, my dear, of love?”
“A fleeting sickness that scars the heart, stains the soul and starves the mind of reason.”
