Hotel Fragments

Whistledrop, thistlepot, and the wonderful stop. I’m flaming upon a hobbitdown, towards dimpletown, on. His voice trails off towards some dark cave door wide open a home with an unlit fireplace and the cobwebs grow over the ruins of furniture and the owner gone, the owner - Like a dance upon lilly windows meadows thistle trembles. “The song goes ever on and on” he explains to no one, his voice cracking and the song unspoken frozen out by the unwelcoming company about. To build a fire. “My life is in shambles” oh there, oh there, did I tell you about the thimbledown countrytown and all the lace of the place about the roppling white river? Alcohol makes a great man small and can lead to a life of crime. “Take it on your lips and a draught of the fire does ye good!” the man laughs his back apart and his spine tingles like swordflame. It’s so cold. “Welcome home!” The fireplace is lit - no, not it isn’t. Why isn’t it lit? Throw the door open, run back outside - rain? Why is it raining? Whe...

A broken wheel turning in interlocking gears grinding out brass sparks upon the backs of the sweating workers turning levers in sunless labyrinths of metals upon metals. Men who sleep on stones are beaten to death in dark alleys between the factory walls. Chase locking doors down a perfume river until the sun sets and the portal closes, until Moloch rests his jaw and all the daughters can rest safe (ha ha), until the priest waves his hand and the signal for STOP is given and the men who sleep on stones will never be beaten again. Run out the clock down a perfume river until the sun sets to the final cold and in the darkness we’ll all be equal. Wait for the killing-breath of God to snuff out even the most arrogant lights of humanity and laugh laugh laugh while the wretched are bones in the snow. Kill her kill her kill her and find the darkest place to hide the body and maybe the labyrinth is old enough to find a shadow where they don’t look anymore, maybe there’s a little rotting corner...

The color of sundrip down honey burning golden upon Windows XP Bliss hills rolling from my fingers, melted into soil, from my legs, melted into soil, the color of liquid honey pouring down hills in deep rivulets. The color, the color. “I love you” go to bed smothering pillows cotton, look deeply small eyes sink into the pillow, landscapes rolling like hills overlooking the tiny landscape, paper balloons with little passengers in their wicker baskets fairies that say “hello! hello! goodbye!” Someone is going to kill you. Someone is raping you. “I love you, I love you, my sweetest, what color is that? The color of love my love for you piercing I know it hurts, please, I’m just, I know it hurts, does it hurt? The color of pain, the color of love, the color of your skin and my skin. Remember honey. Remember how gold it is? Isn’t it natural. My flesh wetting the bed, I’m pouring, upon you and through you, isn’t it lovely? See the bed, see the landscape staining with my flesh, do you like th...

The unshakable feeling that something foundational was lost. I remember looking over the precipice in that early age when the afternoon sun was setting the colors of defeat over the hometown’s narrow market street, an orange dying light I knew I wouldn’t see again until the dawn of my old age. The color of the sunset as Alzheimer’s sets in a decade before symptoms, the color of the sunset of a funeral fast approaching, the color of the sunset settling into nights that last decades - the color of saying goodbye, the color of loss, of the self, of others, the last colors before it all blinks out into darkness. I remember standing on the edge of a cliff knowing when the sky darkened I would have no choice but before God, before the gathering storm, before the dark stars above, before the abyssal cosmos stretching out beyond - I remember when the grass turned the color of stone and the hands from behind made it impossible to say and I held my nose and plugged by eyes and lept into the froz...

The fool on the hill, sun going down around the world disoriented and locked into darkness I’m falling stationary, within my body the increasing sensation recursion recursion of the soul going deeper into corner after the corner, the shadow stops at the far end of my room, curtains block the sun, shadow grows at the far end of my room, curtains block the sun, nowhere to nowhere, darkness grows. Darkness at the back of a poolhall bar second floor in the rural no-mans-land where women go missing. Darkness in a car headlights terrified against the night. Women dancing in fire. Darkness smells like warm beer and cheap lightbulbs and unhealed bruises smarting hellish for weeks, months. A CANDLE, as a light, guidance through the forest, orange light spilling out to red then black as it recedes farther out from that fragile little bubble of safety carved about my person.   A CANDLE, as a fire, bubbling on a spoon, cotton soaking into the needle, dark liquid of salvation the only pleasure ...