Manifested Writing

[shaktichu]

I cannot forgo the wonder of the universe

the fundamental human problem

seems to be

the love of the material world.

[manifestedwriting-blog]

There's a buzzing sound in the old library, after they turn off the lights for the night. I heard it once when they forgot to check the top floor for pesky little girls too caught up in their fiction to here the closing announcement. It's a buzzing like flies on a summer night and it starts after the last hard click of the circuits. Electrical discharge, the janitor who found me said. Nothing to worry about, he said. Don't mind it, he added too quickly. I didn't. At first I didn't. But then I heard it again in my grandfather's library. I heard it in the computer lab. I heard it in an empty study room my freshman year of college. Buzzing like flies. 

"Do you ever hear it, Joe?" I was drunk, drunker than I'd ever gotten and not liking it. It pressed on my brain, making some facts hard to get and pushing others out far too fast. "The buzzing in the air when it gets real quiet?"

"It's just your brain. Filling the silence. We learned it in Neuro. Weird shit."

I've listened for it in the fields and in the kitchen. It's never there. I only hear it near books, near computers, near where people learn. I didn't know what it is, but I tried listening harder the other day. Slowly, the buzzing thinned, sorted itself out. I couldn't make sense of it. I don't think it was English, but I know it was words. Thousands of words spoken quickly and quietly, blending and unbending in the air.

I stayed and listened until I fell asleep, and the words turned into colors in my dream, strings of light jumping from one point to another, forming a web. I flew threw through it, the colors, the light. I watched as the light danced against the dark of my dream-space. 

I woke up when the janitor can to clean the room for the morning.

"Do you ever hear it?" I asked, "the words that hang in the air?" I waited for him to shake his head, for him to call security. He laughed.

"Of course."

"What does it mean? What does it all mean?"

"I never bothered to care. Material words can only teach you about the material world."

He left then, like a fevered dream, and never came back. I don't know what he meant. I don't know how he could let something so beautiful, so mysterious, so lovely float above him and not sit and listen. I don't know how he could know they are there and not care.

One day, I will learn to listen. One day, the books and the computers will speak, and I will listen.

[mostinexhaustiblesourceofmagic]

Prompt #65

Without using color names, describe a tree.

[manifestedwriting-blog]

My tree is my haven. Lost in the forest of so many trees, he is mine. Not taller, not thicker, but mine. The way the bark dipped and ridged, I pass my hand in and out of every crevice, finger tips reaching, reaching in. If only they were narrow like a twig, ever narrower, like his fingers, dancing along the sky, touching everything, hearing the wind whisper.

In the winter he is bare for me. He shows me his skeleton, his frame. He is elegant in nakedness. There is nothing pretentious about my tree. He lets the snow nestle in his knooks, and lets the squirls and bird make nests in pits and joints. He tells me shhh as the wind whips by. Don't be jeoulous for I have so much to give. You are still mine. I am still yours.

And when the spring comes again and tiny buds force their way to the tips of his skin, I bristle. There is a soft fuzz everywhere as the seasons change. He is still my tree, even in so many changes. And in the summer, in the explosion of rustling and bright, he is still my tree. And in the autumn, he is my tree as be becomes bare once more.

My tree swings with the wind and the seasons, I swoon with his branches and his bark. My tree grows with the decades, grows slowly. I grow too fast. But still, my tree waits for me, if ever I get lost in the forest.

[manifestedwriting-blog]

They used to call us Daemons

I have a magical power. It's a secret, like most such powers are, but I'll tell you if you promise to listen. You don't have to keep it to yourself, though you may as well. No one will believe you. No one ever does.

My power, you see, is to watch the world move.

Please. You have to let me finish. You promised.

My power is to see the world like no one else can see it, from the outside in, as opposed to from all inside out like most folks do. I can float just outside the scrambling and exist, briefly independent of wheres and whens. From there, I can see lines that you cannot see. I can see deeper and farther. I can see more clearly. There is a mathematical proof that says nothing within a system can understand that system fully. I don't know the proof. I'm not a mathematician. I just have this power.

There. I knew you wouldn't believe me. I told you. No one ever does. No one likes being told that they are missing something, or that they are part of something they do not understand. No one likes thinking they are not the smartest person in the room. But, you see, it's not about smarts. Not really. It's a magical power that no one ought to have.

Sometimes, people ask me to teach them. I'll tell you know that I can't. Even if I could, I never would. It isn't glamorous, like some powers are. It won't make you famous, and it won't make things easy. And even if it does make you rich, it won't make you happy. It will never make you happy.

See, once you drift out there, once you see it all from where I've seen it, it's hard to go back. Books look limp on the shelves, now. Static flights of imagination, trapped, and unenterable. You are always trying to look behind things that have no other side - behind smiles, behind offers, behind silences. Sometimes, even when you want to be inside, you end up on the outside, watching. Things play over and over in little loops of time, people run on tracks like trains - and you can see it all.

That's my magical power. To see things the right way up when the whole world was built upside down. 

[manifestedwriting-blog]

On the Corner of Fourth and Hemming Way

He watched the leftover raindrops fall from the roof's edge and on to the steel toe of his boot. He didn't move as the smaller man approached the corner of the old factory and leaned against the wall.

“You came.”

“You knew I would.” The smaller man had a hood on under which the bottom of a bandage was barely visible in the lamplight.

“I knew you'd get the message. I'm honored you accepted the invitation.”

“Don't pretend to flatter me.”

“And here I thought you'd praise me for finally learning my place.” The man took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and tapped it against his palm.

“I expect you want me to thank you.”

He flipped the pack open and pushed his greasy black hair from his face with a sweep of his arm. “I know you too well to expect something like that, Ian.”

The other man laughed briefly before trailing off and clutching his side.

“And I don't expect forgiveness either.” He moved the pack to his lips and pulled a cigarette out with his mouth. “You know, if things had gone differently-

“Spare me the formalities Ace, for both of our sakes.”

He lit the cigarette. The flare of lighter cast sharp shadows for a second before dying down into the cheap plastic. “Right. Guess there's no need for those anymore.”

In the distance, a siren seared passed. Ace took a deep drag. “So this is goodbye, then.”

“That's a funny way to put it.” Ian tilted his face towards the sky. “I mean, there's nothing really good about it, is there?”

“There is nothing either good or bad-”

“But thinking makes it so. I never knew you were so well read.”

“I'm full of surprises.”

There was a short silence. Ian pushed off the wall and shoved his hands deeply into his pockets. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Or, perhaps more aptly, why didn't you do it?

“Dunno. Guess I didn't feel like it.”

Ian took two steps, paused, then continued into the dark of the city.

Left alone, Ace dropped the half smoked cigarette onto the damp ground and watched the ember die. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and laughed.

[manifestedwriting-blog]

His Breath Became the Ocean

When they finished, she would roll over and kiss him, his breath already growing long with sleep. She'd gently brush her lip up to his ear and tell him she'd be right back, don't go anywhere, I love you, and he'd answer in a breathy syllable that meant nothing - which is nothing more or less than it ought have meant. She'd slip out of bed and off to the bathroom. Some nights, she'd just clean off and sit still on the closed toilet lid, letting the memory wash over her. Some nights, that wasn't enough, and she stayed a little longer, reliving it all again and again.

Then, she'd sneak back and wait outside the door until she knew he was asleep. Quietly, she'd get back into bed. His breath rolled and purred. It was even, safe, and calming. She'd pull herself close, so they were almost touching, and close her eyes, and his breath would become the ocean, licking at the edges of her being. His inhales and exhales became the tide, the tiny line of white foam dancing up and down the beach. She'd let it lull her into a trance, let it carry her off to sleep.

[manifestedwriting-blog]

Existential Loneliness

We finally found intelligent life forms. Or rather, life form. The planet had somehow become a giant brain, and, when we finally made contact, all it wanted to do was wax about the philosophy of existence. No new technologies or medicines, nothing to save our dying earth, nothing but an existentialist philosopher floating alone in space that wanted to write five incomprehensible books and a memoir.

[takingstockofwhatmattersmost]

sins eat at the scars of past sins

the cycle of deceit is a vicious one indeed

soon there will no room for more scars

or more sins

[manifestedwriting-blog]

Lovely sibilance in that first line. Almost like an ocean wave. I think the poem would have been even stronger without the second line, but I do like it. I'm a sucker for metaphors made physical.

[3ian3glass3-deactivated20120324]

sometimes you want to sleep

but your head is muddy and your heart is wooden

[manifestedwriting-blog]

I like the second image. Wood feels hollow. That was my first thought - that the heart is hollow, but this is a less cliche way to say it. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. Wooden implies made from dead wood. Trees are not wooden, they are wood. Land covered in trees isn't wooden, it's wooded. So wooden implies something that was once a tree, with all the symbolism attached with a thriving, growing, providing tree, but is now dead, and used to build this heart. Wood also burns. It is the quintessential burning thing, other than the cliched heart. A wooden heart is hollow, dead, numb perhaps, but also vulnerable - easily ignited. Even passion will destroy it. 

Or maybe I'm reading to far into your metaphor?

[writingprompts]

396

[manifestedwriting-blog]

Show your lowest standard

Bear belly bag: for when NO, JUST NO

This product is made with no synthetic parts

A whole new kind of leather

A whole new meaning to the phrase Love Handles

Stores up to three six packs of beer or one all you can eat rib night

Okay, I'll stop now...

[manifestedwriting-blog]

Observations at a Train Station

He was still at the age where everything brought marvel and no opportunity was passed up. A trip to the edge of the bench was an adventure that he was determined not to miss. He counted the bars that made up the seat, though he had to start over after ten, or sometimes seven. He was amazed the numbers went so high.

He pause and looked across the way. His small arm snapped out and he pointed with enthusiasm adults reserve to the miraculous or macabre. “She has the same computer as mommy, with the apple on it!” His dad smiled, tired, but enjoying every minute. He gently pulled the small boy back and his body tumbled into his fathers arms and over his shoulder. His giggle was shrill. It was perhaps the only sound at such a pitch and brought joy instead of annoyance.

Across the station floor a phone rang. It had the ring of their home phone and the boy put his hand to his ear. His father missed the obviousness of the play thinking, instantly thinking of the horrible ear ache the child had had last year, and the three doctor visits it took to get the right medication. “What's wrong, Kai?”

“Hello” Kai said, into his tiny wrist. “What's up?” The father's brow relaxed, just as his eye caught the time on the wall.

“Time to go, Kai,” and up he pulled the boy by his middle. The boy giggled again, and briefly the father wondered if the others got such joy from the tiny creature.

“What's happening?” The young child called in the direction of the phone call. And together, father and son vanished down the stairs to the platform.

[manifestedwriting-blog]

Absolutes and Infinities

I refuse your arbitrarity.

I refuse your anything can be.

I refuse your historical guilt and your previous precedent.

I lay out my axioms

I tattoo them on my skin

with a sterilized needle

sharpened by a laser

guided by a mind in a machine.

I stand not naked

but prepared for the storm

with maps and models,

predictions and extrapolation,

the speed of the wind,

the seasonal algae blooms.

I refuse your intuition.

I refuse your face value.

I refuse your gut feeling.

To understand ones own delusions,

To grasp the mind's tools

and their pitfalls

and still stand on two feet

is to move forward.

I refuse your cycle.

I refuse your glorified birth.

I refuse your Eden and your Ragnarok.

The cliff is not so terrifying

after a century of flying machines.

We've been to the moon

and she is no goddess.

We have seen into the stars

and found so much.

We have found ourselves.

I refuse the eyes that can

look into a mirror

as well luminous as the cosmos

and fail to see a reflection

but see it instead

in the perversion of pain

and the clever twist of words.

I refuse a pure relativism

and give you relativity.

I refuse absolutes

and give you infinities.

In fact, I've already given them to you.

If only you'd look.

[manifestedwriting-blog]

On letting go of language hang-ups

I'm one of those obnoxious old-schoolers who twitches when the world "quote" is used as a noun. I'm the one filling the "quotation" tag on tumblr. I think "quotation" is a lovely word, I think the "-ly" deserves its place at the end of adverbs. I get confused when "they" means just one person (though I think a gender neutral pronoun is a great idea). My writing is riddled with "one might" or "one could" because of it. I love the subjuntive, I think "whom" is lovely.

But language evolves. And "quote" is a noun here on the internet. Even I don't capitalize "internet." Because language evolves.

Between thou and I, that ain't no sin.