Talk to me. Tell me all you have to give. Intone your desires. Spew your needs. And then,
present your very self. Your soul.
Gesture your heart.
For the sake of love.
To me.
For what is the alternative?
It is the personification
of nothing.
writing
Fishin’ Pole Blues
Inching toward the prize, I’m almost there. I can see it. Hell, I can smell it. It’s almost within my grasp.
It’s been a long road to get here. Years I’ve toiled; miles I’ve traveled and hours I’ve spent thinking about it when I haven’t physically striven to arrive right where I am. Right now. Right here. Just another…
It’s…
Gone.
“Mom! That other horse ate my carrot!”
Shadows
I stand here on the porch in the lowering gloom of dusk and I look upon my creations, pondering on what will become of them when I’m gone. I am the last of my generation. My children have passed, stricken before me by the cancer that now takes my air and presents me with fire in its stead. Fire like that which has recently vanished from the western sky, only blacker – poisoned.
I have one grandchild, too young to understand the ramblings of an old man. My notes and journals – they are part of my creations. They are dinosaurs awaiting an excavation that may never come to pass.
I close my eyes and wonder if they will ever again open. My eyelids are tugged by an uncontrollable weight. It’s all right though. My creations will linger here for me. They will see the light of another day, perhaps without the gentle touch of their creator.
Five Denying Mother
A single shard of crystal twinkles red, a bloody star in the sunlight. Strip your eyes from this pretty corner. Home wraps its arms around like a cool gray blanket. You are the fulcrum.
Perspiration drips from mother’s brow and lands on her skirted knee as she scoops up the last of the broken glass from the kitchen floor. She wipes her forehead with the back of her wrist and turns to the small shadow in the doorway. Mother gazes up at her eldest child. Brother’s stance, in nothing but cotton boxers, belies his vulnerability. Mother thinks that at thirteen he is trivial for his age.
“Where is he?” asks her son.
“He went back to work,” answers mother.
“And…”
“Hospital,” mother yields.
As mother stands she picks up the cat’s food bowl. She makes a mental note to go to the pet store. With a heavy thunk! the bowl impacts the inside of the black plastic trash bin, the lid closes, the sun gleams from its surface.
Brother shields his eyes and runs to get dressed.
For part six, click here.
Ask
I shall lay naked
upon a bed of white snow
and watch it turn red
with the blood of my children.
All you need do is ask.
That Which is Everlasting
Clever, this mode of communication. I can speak without words and you listen, from farther than sound waves carry. Across vast distance we converse, sometimes shouting, sometimes secretly whispering, or jesting delightedly, our smiles never faltering. I am laden with unmanageable sadness when we misunderstand.
Today I find myself weary, though never too weary to blow you a kiss.
Or push the door closed with the sign for ‘I love you.’
Originally written August 5th 2013 for my son, Alex, who is Deaf.
LGHill
Perhaps
Sometimes I don’t even feel human. Perhaps.
I am the extension of a spirit. Perhaps.
I am the shell of another being. Perhaps.
I am a fish swimming in a sea of air. Perhaps.
There are intelligent fish at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle who keep people in air tanks just to watch them run around and bang up against the soundproof glass. Perhaps.
I digress. Perhaps.
I am the figment of someone else’s imagination. Perhaps.
I am someone’s guardian angel. Perhaps.
I am the chips at the bottom of someones chip bag. Perhaps.
There are chips at the bottom of my bag screaming and hugging the chip beside them, just waiting to be consumed. Perhaps.
I am stoned. Perhaps.
I am the flame on top of a giant’s birthday candle. Perhaps.
I am a particle of sound rising from my speakers. Perhaps.
I am the scent of roast beef. Perhaps.
I am about to be inhaled by an even bigger giant than the birthday cake one in the waft coming off his Sunday dinner. Perhaps.
I need to smoke another joint now.
Ahh that’s better. Perhaps.
I am my own recurring dream. Perhaps.
I am an aquistion of Alice’s restaurant. Perhaps.
I am a goddess and all my dust mites pray to me. Perhaps.
Goddesses surround each and every one of us constantly. No Shit. They also surround the birds and the bees, trees, rocks…dust mites… Ok I made that up. Perhaps.
I should stop forcing myself to write by telling myself it’s the only way I’m going to get my hand out of the fucking chip bag. Perhaps.
I am the essence of my aloneness and my creativity. Perhaps.
I am my own memory of another lifetime. Perhaps.
I am the nameless, wordless Tao…
Ok, perhaps that was an excuse to roll another joint. Sue me. Perhaps.
I am a poem created by a four year old. Perhaps.
I am art in the eyes of some beholder. Perhaps.
I am a song written by the artist who I love. Perhaps.
It’s time for some Yellowledbetter by Pearl Jam. How can you not LOVE that song? Oh, and to smoke that j. *hwhwhwhwhhhh*…here…
(If I am ever going to understand the words to this song it isn’t going to be tonight. Perhaps.)
I am silence and all the energy that surrounds me is noise. Perhaps.
I am the centre of the universe. Perhaps.
I have the power of hell at my back and yet I am a meek little mouse about to be stepped on by a giant freak. Perhaps.
That was a little spooky. Perhaps.
I am nothing but my memories. Perhaps.
I am whole only as a matter of my own perspective. Perhaps.
I am the realization of my own thirsts. Perhaps.
I am thirsty for some Baileys. Perhaps.
I won’t be driving anywhere tonight. Perhaps.
I am the heart of my own desire. Perhaps.
I am the desire of my own heart. Perhaps.
I desire a man I can never have. Perhaps.
I am human.
Linda
@January 15, 2006. 1:11am
The Words
A story in two sentences.
“Your words are like a damned river!”
“But when I’m around you, my words are like a dammed river: can’t you hear the difference?”
There’s a Hole in my Bucket – A Contemporary Version
Liz and Henry were as childless as a couple could be, meaning they’d been trying for years, but according to the doctors, Henry’s ‘swimmers’ just weren’t up to the task. They’d been living on the farm for a few years, raising goats and chickens, but as the years passed, so did the chances that they’d be raising young ‘uns.
One day, as Henry limped over to the trough that held the goat’s water (Henry had twisted his ankle the day before when he slipped in goat shit) he noticed that his bucket was getting lighter as he walked.
“Shit,” he said out loud.
“What is it?” Liz asked, making Henry jump. He hadn’t heard her sneak up behind him.
“Would you please announce yourself instead of scaring the bejeesus outta me?”
The tension between the couple had been rising like an snail on a year long sabbatical meaning to get up a mountain, but Henry was almost at the peak. He was this far away from dashing back down the hill.
“Sorry,” Liz mumbled. “So why’d you say ‘shit’?
“There’s a hole in my bucket,” Henry grumbled.
“So fix it.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know. A straw.”
Henry stood, water dripping from the leaky bucket onto the sock which encased his sore ankle, and glared at his wife.
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“I don’t know, I heard somewhere that you can fix a bucket with a straw,” she shrugged.
“But it doesn’t make any sense!” Henry took note that his voice was reaching a soprano pitch and made the effort to bring it down. “How in the hell can I fix a bucket with a goddam straw?”
“I dunno. Here,” at that point she pulled a paper wrapped McDonald’s straw from her back pocket and handed it to him. “It’s all I’ve got on me anyway.
“Fold it over or something and stick it in the hole.”
“Whatever,” Henry grumbled, plucking the straw from her fingertips and heading back to the barn with it.
“What if it’s too long?” he called over his shoulder.
“Cut it!”
He could almost hear her eyes rolling around in her head.
Bitch, he thought.
Five minutes later Liz came into the barn. She stopped by him to see what he was doing.
“How’s that cutting coming along?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
It was a McDonald’s straw. It shouldn’t be taking five minutes to get through with a hammer.
“Um… no. Why don’t you use a knife?”
“Oh for fuck sakes. The knife is dull!”
“It can’t be any duller than a hammer.”
She was staring at him. He hated it when she stared at him that way. It made him feel stupid.
Liz sighed as if she was tired. Of him. Yeah, well he was getting tired of the whole, ‘Make me a baby or I’m leaving you,’ too. She whined it in his head at least fifteen times a night while he was trying to get to sleep.
“Why don’t you sharpen the knife?”
Henry felt the blood pressuring up in his veins like someone had pumped a shitload of heat through his pores and inflated him like a balloon.
“Because,” he growled, turning on her with his eyes bulging from their sockets, “the sharpening stone I have here,” he held the object an inch from her nose, “is too fucking dry!”
She looked him right in the eye. Without blinking, hell, without batting a friggin’ eyelash, she said, “Wet it.” Just like that.
Henry lost it.
“Wet it? FUCKING WET IT? I’LL FUCKING WET YOU!!!”
Nine months later their son was born.
Puppet Master
My mind is a playground full of weird and wonderful toys. People. People are my toys to play with. They are my puppets. I am the puppet master, that’s what I am. My control is complete and the utter trash that I spew is unrivaled.
I am not God. I’m not a deity of any kind. I am Lord of my self-absorption. My will encompasses millions upon millions of souls and they aren’t even sure I exist.
I am a ghost. I have no empathy for the living.
I am Ouija. And I am bored.
Linda G. Hill 