Wholly Holy

Alphabet smog, fog-thoughts, and other reenactments of Babel. Main blog is @ towertopdance.tumblr.com

[the-poems-of-ryan-wilbur-deacti]

Were I the ruler of the world, I’d execute a poet everyday in public, then insist that someone write a poem in honor of the execution.

-Ryan Wilbur

[vasilinaorlova]

poetry machine

[theveryworstthing]

I don’t think I’ve ever been a good dog.

Good dogs protect their families without hesitation, but I always ran when He came home. I never knew how to act around Him. The bad times could happen at any time and even though He mostly ignored me no one else was that lucky.

I thought about biting him. I growled once, before I learned to never do that again. After that I hid, only coming out to follow the sounds of crying and nose at the bruises. Pathetic.

A good dog would have fixed it. A good dog wouldn’t be scared.

When we moved into the new house there was something already living there, something that good dogs chase away. A thick shadow thing that stood in the halls at night, making hungry sounds.

It watched Him.

I watched it.

We had been living there for a year before I saw it move. I followed it down to the living room where it crawled up the couch and poured itself into his sleeping mouth. He gurgled and twitched and I hid under the big chair until he stopped clawing at his throat. When he sat up, he smiled and tried to call to me.

I stayed under the big chair for three days.

It’s been inside him for a while now, constantly writhing under his skin. No one else notices. It’s hard for humans to see I think. Seeing is a dog’s gift and if I was a good dog I would tell them.

But.

No one has cried for so long. No one hides. There are no more bruises. I let it sit beside me and scratch behind my ears. It’s voice is so nice and calm.

It calls me a good dog.

the micro fiction i wrote for Alice X’s march prompt of “ super friendly but misunderstood parasites” over on patreon. its not a traditional nice parasite story but i’d written a traditional nice parasite story years ago and i didn’t want to repeat myself. plus, i don’t know if anyone else’s family holds this superstition, but i’ve been taught all my life that if a pet won’t go in a room or walk over a particular thing i should just follow its lead. so the thought of a pet willfully ignoring whatever it sees is both interesting and spooky whether the story is about shadow demons or human robbers.

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Think, now: if you have found a dead bird, not only dead, not only fallen, but full of maggots: what do you feel - more pity or more revulsion? Pity is for the moment of death, and the moments after. It changes when decay comes, with the creeping stench and the wriggling, munching scavengers. Returning later, though, you will see a shape of clean bone, a few feathers, an inoffensive symbol of what once lived. Nothing to make you shudder. It is clear then. But perhaps you find the analogy I have chosen for our dead affair rather gruesome - too unpleasant a comparison. It is not accidental. In you I see maggots close to the surface. You are eaten up by self-pity, crawling with unlovable pathos. If I were to touch you I should feel against my fingers fat, moist worm-skin. Do not ask me for charity now: go away until your bones are clean.

Fleur Adcock, from Advice To A Discarded Lover (via violentwavesofemotion)

[90degreeangels]

God is 1; bifurcated

Creation does not speak, she sings;

a shaping serenade set to the beat of a life-giving heart,

each ebb of protean blood, a thump or thud,

sparking eternal muse.

The beat is a language in itself, but its words have no meaning.

That doesn’t matter to her. She’s an artist,

her trade is interpretation.

She listens to the cosmic pulse,

the palpitations become a metronome for potential,

from which she, in a thousand different cadences,

croons forth a two-word lullaby:

yes and no.

From this polarization comes rest for homogeneity,

and an awakening of the Wheel;

a space where a conceptual hub,

can bleed out a concrete flood.

A place where coagulated spokes,

reinforce the binary.

These ruddy pillars, in their perforated glory,

make a crude divide between what “is” and “is not”,

and fuel her inspiration, a desire for a new tune,

a ballad called “maybe”.