droning

pencils down. beating begins. one! torn papers filled trash disposals. two! smirking mouths with growing grins. three! mile after mile of celebrations that devoured words and engulfed stories into information jammed brains. this is relaxation. this is pleasure. four! doubting futures with uncertain paths. five! aching heads with plaguing questions. what? the mirrors don’t show this.

was it worth it? your life for programs and arguments and ego-driven sensationalists and dull melodies and mud-slinging instigators clothed in righteous indignation? are we dead certain we haven’t evolved? i guess i don’t have enough faith to get what i want.

did your money ask for complacent peers with swollen fingers and zombie eyes? did it demand a recompense of numbness for your hard work? i don’t believe it did. but you received it none-the-less.

and did your money ask for sincere guardians and well-intentioned companions? did it ask for broken reverberations to be filled with a growing harmony? maybe. but you received it none-the-less.

oh to walk the streets of peace and stability. to leave the alleys of darkness where you ring the doorbells of the unknown just to allow its melody to remind you of simpler days. but you’re left blind in the ocean reaching out for something, anything to keep you afloat. you’re on the verge of drowning, you know? the dark shadows of the deep are wrapping around your legs like ivy waiting for the right moment to bring you to the bottom of the seven seas.

the beating stops.

it will start again.

one…

posted by jon havens

rocket fuel perfume

ralph and jules new nothing of mass ratios, or jet velocity or atmospheric pressure, or the men who spent their long lives studying these equations in smokey offices, behind mountains of nasa paperwork. the boys new only that their rocket would shoot fourth from the earth, carrying their heavy hearts, delivering them into the hands of God, on its way to an infinite season of stars and planets. and so ralph and jules spent weeks building their rocket, adorning it with special decals, so that when it did break through heaven, God would smile upon their creation and allow it to continue on, until it was lost forever. beautifully blue and gold, the rocket rose high. trailing fresh color vapor, smoke and dreams, splitting the wide expanse of the sky in two parts, one for ralph and one for jules. each boy claiming his piece like treasure. up through the trees, burning away every last leaf that autumn had yet to kill. it surged hot sparks, pouring, devouring oxygen, fueling its wild greed to go faster and higher. and with it soared the hopes and dreams of the whole city, heaped upon the children like the burdens of men, sins set free in the cold, brittle november sky. the rocket flew, oh how it flew, and how the childrens eyes held their rocket, like a mother holding her newborn child. gently at first, and then slowly, letting it go, watching it with resignation. ralph and jules stood under the grey sky, eyes blazing, heads cocked, squinting furious, smiling wide, while they let the smoke settle on their clothes, like a strange perfume. and when the rocket held their gaze no more, they cursed both the sky and the ground. for the sky had taken away the only thing the two boys ever loved, and the ground for its harsh enforcement of gravity. they would never see what their rocket saw, or feel what their rocket felt, but every now and again, when no one is looking, when its late and night and every street has been emptied, the two boys will put on their strangely perfumed clothes, and return to the launch sight, staring up at the sky, dreaming high and far away.

posted by drew carlascio