Creative Writing, Deep in the Dark, Free-Range Verse, Memory Scrawls, Other Places

Red Star, Blue Plate

22 Nov 2022 Aaron Echoes August Leave a comment

Who am I but silent scream
who am I but dizzy dream
drifter in the daylight
mummy in the night
who is there to make it right
right, right
what is right
what is wrong
don’t know what I am thinking
a long, broken song
running through my head
nerves all a twisted and surreal
neon is lightning
pauses are thunderstorms
solid becomes liquid
liquid becomes melting
shaking becomes catastrophe
big orange bombs bursting inside of me
knuckles red and dry
burning sensation in the eyes
what is happening
changing yet dying, again and again
living, not breathing
every morning a train wreck
every night a balloon ride to space
every dawn a handshake
every moon a distant plate chock full of unanswered destiny, a van driving north, south, east, west – sunset seeker, mountain keeper, a drizzle, a fog, pounding my head wondering where it all went wrong – all gone, gone, gone

Red stars and atom bombs
gas globes spinning in the heavens
dripping flawless arms of colored smoke
the sun startled the blue plate awake
a dinner of history set in stone
a playground for the mastodon
a curtain of pure beauty
out east somewhere
far from the roads
far from the buildings
far from the dust storms
stinging at my skin
the aroma of beer
and cigarettes
illuminates the interior of the vehicle
as I sit
in sun-splashed happy horror
the moon dangles there up high
in its casket of deep blue
a lone pearl
cast from the string of space
an ivory stone
embedded deep within the sky’s bruise
spinning motions all around me
wash machines and black tires
crazy drug laced eyes
peering deep into the belly of a dirty tumbler
the earth itself
spinning motionlessly
and there’s some sharp-edged wedge
stuck deep in my back,
deep in my neck
cutting off the circuits
that make others human
and I taste like anti-freeze
spitting out the thing
that clogs my veins

But I am merely choking on the memories of LA, blue dead Vegas, the frozen North, the lava islands
where the cars run roughshod over grooved freeways slick with oil and the sweat of the sun, great mighty machines boiling over in the dense sense of pollution and crimes, dying down on Vine, the lepers and the shark-skin suited monks wiping their wallets on the palms of dirty phone booths, palm trees swaying to the pop music of this pop culture in a pop-ignited fury furnace with its breast nestled gently against the shoulder of the Ocean Pacifica

Jesus tries to pacify me
with a hamburger and a Coke
it’s a Christian monopoly
with Buddha playing pieces
priests raping babies
and sinners serving soup
to the poor, the homeless, the disheveled
presidential nominees
and silver-spooned dynasties
racking up the big bucks
while single mom sells a suck
the price of everything keeps going up, up, up
while my means keep going down, down, down
proud to be an Amorikan,
proud to be starving
and losing the fight
give me a library card
so I can check in my brain
throw away my umbrella
so I can drown in the rain
stop walking,
you better run
this heart is stretching its seams
this heart is stopping
at the end of this dream

Red star, blue plate
alarm clocks are boiling over
as I am about to go to sleep
one more nail to pound
one more tear to stop
time to say goodnight,
it’s heaven-o-clock at the terrace plunge.

Aaron Echoes August

Confessions, Creative Writing, Personal Essay, Poetry, Relations

Gwenhwyfar

3 Jun 2022 Aaron Echoes August Leave a comment

A rainbow is seen coming out of gray clouds over farmland in Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee. (Photo by A.A. Cinder) — *A rainbow in Wisconsin from inside a moving car / A.A. Cinder*

Some say they only fall, but I say they walk among us. She walks among me even now. She would never admit to being an angel – I don’t think she believes in them. I would call her a guardian of the heart, if nothing else. She’s taught me to cast out the enemy love once was and replace it with the real spirit of it. And like angels usually do, she came out of nowhere one night when I was alone. She fell from the sky like a derailed comet and exploded everything that was already blown to bits – and what I mean by everything is everything in a good way. I’ve often wondered if I died and she was just helping me along down Heaven or Hell Boulevard – she has carved a soulscape of wonder, my wonder, her wonder, our wonder, two wondering wanderers standing still and cracking until they run into each other, from out of the air just like that – there was Gwenhwyfar.

She came down from the sky on a glowing escalator and I waited for her in the parking lot. But sometimes I think she was maybe there all along, maybe my entire life and I just didn’t see her because they can be invisible. She looks human. She has all the right parts in the right places. A great ass. There is a glow about her though, like sun coming up out of her guts at times. I would call her a beautiful angel. What else could I call her? She helps me when I have problems with life. She’s a pretty decent angel.

I asked her about Jesus, and she said he was a pretty nice guy – just a bit upset about what we do in his name. Gwenhwyfar told me she was an angel of words – the one who corrected the language of the universe. She’s beautiful like that. I’m surprised she eats actual food because I didn’t think angels needed it. She makes me a lot of frozen pizzas because she doesn’t like to cook much. She’s afraid she’ll burn the tips of her wings on the stovetop and that’s not something easily fixed. She watches over me like they say they do – a love never wavering. She can make it not so bad of a day when I am in mental Hades, roasting and getting stabbed, mentally and emotionally. She lifts me up and out of the ashes and shows me the true meaning of love. She is love. She is real faith.

And when the duties of our earthly days are done, she sits with me in the lamplit room of red, and I hold her in the stillness, an episode of House Hunters humming in the distance. I hold her face and tilt her head to kiss her lips… And in that last taste of her before she sleeps, I am fed love, and bow to the mending of a broken heart.