Tanka 3

I am lost in dreams
I know not who I am now
Identity gone
The world shatters before me
Then I awake, and it's true

At Least We Have Each Other

I want to ask you a favour
Would you please break me down
Spread the ashes in the wind
It would mean so much to me

Shatter my bones and
Inhale the shards and
Bathe in my marrow and
Drown in my blood

In doing so you will see me
The me without my mask
The me without my lies
The real me would be exposed

Wouldn’t you like that?
To see me before I’m gone?
Drink in my true person?
Meet me the first and last time?

I want to ask you a favour
Would you please push me too far
Watch me crack under the weight
See me break under your love

Then rebuild me and
Try to fix me and
Stand me up and
Fuck my broken shell

In doing so I’ll see you
With your support for me
With your love for me
The real you would be exposed

Wouldn’t you like that?
To have me bow to you?
Bend my knee in your honour?
Meet you once again?

Throw yourself over me
Shroud me from the truth
Pull me over you
Hide yourself from rebuke

Save me
Save me
Save me
I can’t be saved

But still, in my time of need
My want of freedom
From this life of mine
I have to confess to you

I still love you
I still love you
I still love you
I still love you

Is This All?

I see you have found another and you’re gone
Leaving me in my bleak thoughts, confused, alone

I am falling into mind-consuming pain
As I turn and see the falling of the rain

I am lost in my guilt, filled with great self-doubt
I’ve lost what I’ve built, what can I do now

Is this all that I can know?

I am falling into mind-consuming pain
As I turn and see the falling of the rain

I am lost in my guilt, filled with great self-doubt
I’ve lost what I’ve built, what can I do now

This is all that I deserve.

The Folly of the Usurper

"God. I, and every other human since the concept was introduced, have wondered if this being exists. I can't be sure if He does or not, but I can be sure on whether Satan exists or not. He does. His purpose is to deceive and conquer. He is a petty, warmongering Hellspawn. I have looked into his eyes, and seen his handiwork. The Cold Boy. The Quiet. The Plague Doctor. He has created these monsters. He will not stop until he is defeated.

"Will you help the cause."

Thus spake the usurper, bravely out of range of rebuke

Hiding behind dynamic defence, always replacing defeated forms.

This hunter from beyond our borders assails not one, but all of us

While promising to amass his own numbers for grim usurpation.

Time, time, and time again he is beaten back

Yet still he persists

Crying for retribution for some supposed sleight on our part

To him, brother, and their friend

And all the while not-so-subtly attempting coercion

By empty threats of self-destruction.

And lo! one great defender speaks:

"I will never allow you back in, not if this is how you view us."

And with his decree, all who hear, we stalwart defenders,

Rally in an instant to our home's defence

Whereupon the folly of the usurper is illuminated for all

And he might know that we are, and always will be,

Stronger, more persistent than he.

Haiku 3

In silence I stand
Watching as my hope erodes
For I am alone

Terrence Anathema Transcribes: Autopsychography

(By Fernando Pessoa , 1931, translated by Richard Zenith)

The poet is a faker

Who’s so good at his act

He even fakes the pain

Of pain he feels in fact.

And those who read his words

Will feel in his writing

Neither of the pains he has

But just the one they’re missing.

And so around its track 

This thing called the heart winds, 

A little clockwork train

To entertain our minds.

Manufactured Surgery

Machinery and metal surround
though one is not perplexed by their intricacies
for a goal is formed and pursued
though one's path to its completion is unknown.

Taking instrument after instrument in hand
the mechanical lobotomy begins
as one unbinds and peels back that metallic skin
and reveals dust and cogs vital for automation.

Transplantation thus follows,
as memory is tested and replaced
and in this surgery on nonsentient entities
the sum of those various parts might grow.

Satisfied with one's work of hands,
that metal carapace is restored
and machinery and metal no longer surround
now that improvements are fully engendered.

Terrence Anathema Transcribes: The Final State

(By Kabir ca. 1420, translated by Vinay Dharwadker)

The ineffable tale
  of that final simple state:

it's utterly different.

It can't be weighed on a scale,
  can't be whittled down.
It doesn't feel heavy
  and doesn't feel light.

It has no rain, no sea,
  no sun or shade.
It doesn't contain
  creation or destruction.

No life, no death exist in it,
  no grief, no joy
Both solitude and blissful union
  are absent from it.

It has no up or down
  no high or low
It doesn't contain
  either night or day.

There's no water, no air,
  no fire that flares again and again.
The True Master permeates
  everything there.

The Eternal One remains
  unmoving, imperceptible, unknowable.
You can attain Him
  with the Guru's grace.

Terrence Anathema Transcribes: Dead Roe Deer

(Taken from the Classic of Poetry, attributed to Confucius ca. 1000-600 B.C.E, translated by Stephen Owen)

A roe deer dead in the meadow,
all wrapped in white rushes.
The maiden's heart was filled with spring,
a gentleman led her astray.

Undergrowth in forest,
dead deer in the meadow,
all wound with white rushes,
a maiden white as marble.

Softly now, and gently, gently,
do not touch my apron, sir,
and don't set the cur to barking.

How to Play Dungeons & Dragons Properly

1. Make sure to have every Dungeons & Dragons book
ever written, so that you can pore through
even more irrelevant information than usual
while you look up rules.

2. Have several pencils, because
they will all break after hours of writing changes
in your character’s health.

3. Have a d100 die, because it looks cooler than a d20.

4. Make sure the Dungeon Master doesn’t know
how the game works, as that will make their scenarios
even more entertaining.

5. In order to continue, pass an investigation check.

6. Give your character a really setting-inaccurate name,
such as Punch Johnson IV
or Gronk.

7. Make sure at least one player
has a Paladin for their character,
as Paladins are contractually obligated
to make really hilarious, poor decisions.

8. If there is lightning in the setting,
climb to the tallest point
around while wearing full metal armour
and carrying large metal weapons.

9. Be a gnome.

10. If a friend chastises you for being a nerd,
roll 1d4 in order to determine
the damage of your retaliatory punch.

11. If there are no NPCs named Bradley,
or some variant of that name,
immediately quit the game
and never play with that Dungeon Master again.

12. Or, alternately, immediately change the name
of your character to Bradley,
or some variant of that name.

13. Make sure your character can only speak a
really obscure language, such as Infernal, so that
no one in your party can understand them.

14. If you encounter a vampire,
make sure it sparkles
before trying to fight it.

15. Drink at least five energy drinks before the game,
so that you cannot focus
on anything that happens while you play.

16. After several hours’ play,
find an axe,
and fight the orcs in your yard.

17. If you find a skull in a box, take the skull;
it will become your party’s mascot if you do.

18. If you have a girlfriend or boyfriend
who thinks that D&D is nerdy,
force them to watch you play;
they’ll love it.

19. Fly into hysterical sadness as the character
you so lovingly made and played
is so frustratingly murdered
when the Dungeon Master rolls a natural 20.

20. Consume roughly five pounds of chocolate
before rolling up a new character.

21. If a wizard is trapped inside a sealing circle,
immediately free them, so that your party might enrage them
and get themselves killed.

22. On that point, if you manage to kill
your entire party in this manner,
you are an amazing Dungeons & Dragons player.

23. If you kill your entire party by freeing a wizard, then die
by climbing a tower in the middle of a lightning
storm while wearing full metal armour, then you are
an even more amazing Dungeons & Dragons player.

24. If you are a gnome paladin, named Bradley,
and you kill your entire party
by freeing a wizard, and die
by climbing a tower in full metal armour
in a lightning storm,
then you are the best Dungeons & Dragons player in existence.

25. Once the game is over for the day,
sleep for a week
until the next game starts;
you’ll need the rest after the caffeine wears off.

26. And, above all, don’t forget to brag about
how you killed your entire party
if you manage such a feat.
Writing about it in a satirical Fearblog
is a great way to commemorate such an event.

Enchanting Adversarial Trance

Pure singing voices overtake my mind
Sweet sensations from depths below
Vexing me to leave the world behind.

Shimmers in my sight of an ethereal kind
Old gods in the sea, no one can know
Pure singing voices overtake my mind.

By newfound lust I've become blind
Paralysed by a maddening, seductive show
Vexing me to leave the world behind.

To her I am naught but a teind
Without individualism black forces goad
Pure singing voices overtake my mind.

Madness to this presence my soul will bind
Vestiges of my sanity sweet words corrode
Vexing me to leave the world behind.

Overt possessing lyrics penetrate my rind
My sweet doom they repetitively bode
Pure singing voices overtake my mind.

Captivating apparitions I've come to find
Suggesting my mind to them I owe
Pure singing voices overtake my mind.
Vexing me to leave the world behind.

Monolith of Love

I'm falling into a void,
Drowning in my tears,
For as I see you fade,
After all these blissful years
My heart is torn asunder;
My soul overwhelmed by fears.
And death will not free me;
That spiteful spirit leers
As I'm falling into a void.

Into Ruin

What have you ruined?
A miasma of betrayal as sentiments writhe.
Once we drank of innocence,
Childlike and innocent,
But your heart perished.
A hateful morass of memory -
Tears follow rain, follow blood,
Love ground to dust.
In a torrent of sorrow,
I still love you.

Der Trumpf

Wants a man, for God and kin,
To make their land great again.
But that greatness is out of reach
And this man, by wealth grasps at power,
While from wealth, that power eludes him.

As by blood, proclaims he,
That our southerly neighbours,
Through wanton malice and scorn,
Bring about the pure and proper doom,
The total destruction of this land.

Reports he, that 20,000 or more,
Those devout followers, attend
To his words and ideals,
Packt like sardines
Into a five-times-too-small venue.

And in an attempt at admiration,
For his lineage, spake he
That, were his daughter of another's blood,
He and her would bond quite differently
Wherein anyone of sound, stable mind
Realises the depravity he exhibits.

Tanka 2

A destitute man
Stands silent among a crowd
And as they pass by
In taciturn ignorance
His hope for aid fades away

A Paradelle

A small fee to pay, a grave deed today;
A small fee to pay, a grave deed today;
Heaven happens, you see. Well, I don’t.
Heaven happens, you see. Well, I don’t.
I don’t pay a fee to Heaven well,
Today you see a small deed happens grave.

Repressed information begets retaliation,
Repressed information begets retaliation,
Blatant controlling consoling words,
Blatant controlling consoling words,
Blatant retaliation controlling information,
Repressed words begets consoling.

I remember when music spoke free,
I remember when music spoke free,
Culture flooded laments the sea,
Culture flooded laments the sea,
Culture laments flooded music,
When I spoke free, remember the sea.

When I pay a grave fee to Heaven,
Blatant controlling information happens free,
Don’t remember music repressed culture,
Retaliation consoling begets words small,
You spoke well, see, today laments a deed,
I flooded the sea.

Haiku 2

A mind ravaged so
Cannot begin to revive
As it's tormented

On Writing: Revision

Revision is writing anew.
Slogging around on the sentence level,
Changing this word,
Moving that one
Has very little to do with the reality of revision.

Revision means you are like a painter walking
To the far side of his loft.
How does the piece look from twenty feet away?
Fifty feet?
One foot?

The goal of revision:
Intensify the work so it makes a moving picture
Inside the reader’s mind.
Your trick, what you are trying to pull off:
The reader forgets she is reading at all –
She has an experience.

On Writing: Insight

Creative writing is devoted to exploring
The complex aspects of human experience.
We read creative writing in order to
See into the human condition.

Insights are very much your specific observations
About how and why people behave as they do,
Why the world is the way it is.
Insights add up to wisdom.

You know a lot more about human nature than you might think.
How to bring the insights – your inner wisdom
Up from within your soul and out onto the page,
Reflected in the images you present your reader
Is a core part of your work as a writer.

On Writing: Pattern

Pattern is artful, intentional repetition.
How writers make meaning.
An essay may tell you the meaning.
Creative writers must create meaning.

Once creative writers discover the intricate nuances of sound,
They use sound repetition to underline
Or highlight or even evoke
Specific moods and feelings in their readers.

Instead of thinking about sound simply as rhyme,
Pay attention to the vowels and consonants.
Sound can be very subtle.

Readers appreciate “figuring out” the puzzle that is pattern.
The harder the puzzle is, the more payoff there better be.

On Writing: Tension

Writers use tension to make their work
More readable,
More meaningful,
More interesting.

The force of despair
is how you move from
“So what?” to “What’s next?”

Life is a process, not a destination
and has room for questions and paradoxes.

Generalizations kill tension.
The summary gives a general impression,
No tension there.
Tension allows everything you write
To keep your reader with you
For the whole ride.

It’s the little stuff.

On Writing: Personal Experience

What to choose for a subject?
What only you know.
Your specific repertoire of emotions and details
Make good writing good.

If you observe normal day-to-day experience
You will create energy.
Readers like short sections.
Readers are attracted to movement.
The reader wants to figure things out.

When you employ leaps in your work,
You are comprehensible and interesting
On the first reading,
But the aware reader knows there’s more there.

On Writing: Imagery 2

Mental pictures that inspire
Like painting, or sculpture, works through the five senses.
A sustained moving picture that’s real, alive.

Images are the opposite of thought
Be too visual, make it easy for the reader to see.

How do writers use thoughts, then, in their work?
Sparingly.
Thoughts distance us from images
like the voice-over in a movie.

The images aren’t decorative.
The images are how a character
Sees, feels, exists, moves in the world.

Creative writing relies on images: three-dimensional

On Writing: Structure

Each finished piece of writing is made up of parts
Words, sentences, lines, scenes, and stanzas.
These building blocks can be combined in many different ways
To create different effects.

Structure in creative writing, as in building,
Mostly does its work invisibly
Behind the scenes.

Structure doesn’t constrain your writing;
Rather, it lets you create an experience for the readers,
So they can move around your piece easily.
If the writer has done a good job putting the building blocks together,
Many times readers will not even notice the structure.

The more you know about the building blocks, the more you can create.

On Writing: Reading

Writing and reading are parallel acts of paying close attention.
We read and reread, trying to get at
The core experience our audience will have.

We read to a new book to see how it’s done,
To pick up new moves,
Because we are curious,
Because that’s how we get inspired.

Exploring the tightly knit relationship between reading and writing,
You discover some practical strategies, and some time-saving tricks;
Techniques that will help your writing.

Learn from the successes and mistakes of others.
Talk about other people’s work the same way
You want yours talked about.

On Writing: Imagery 1

You no longer hear sounds around you.
You forget where you are sitting.
You are transported to another time and place.
You experience, with all your senses, another world.

At no point is it suggested we look at an actual ocean,
Or wave, or beach,
Rose, pansy, or peony.
At no point is the viewer’s experience of the painting considered.

Techniques for making fresh art of high quality
Involve the artist’s experience, and, more importantly,
Focusing on the viewer’s experience.

Creative writers work from life
And they build from the ground up using the true observed stuff of real life.

Chain of Command

Put the king in the vice,

Now he is the viceking.

Jig forever and again.
Your job becomes your jest.

Your vest becomes your life.

Put the lime in the coconut,

And drink it all up.

Drink forever and again.

Your hex becomes your better.

Your letter becomes your vex.

Put the vice before the king,

Now he has a second.

Rule forever and again.

Your life becomes his toy.

Skin-Robed Lords

Skin-robed lords dance by moonlight

Voices call from blood

Thoughts are easily carved

Am I to die frightened and alone?

Night-thoughts of madness

Anxious apprehensions

Isolated agony becomes life

Cold mortal abyss consumes me

Unnatural contortions of my mind

In dreams tormented by old gods

Mind shattering before my eyes

It is erotic when I die

Skin-robed lords dance by moonlight

Voices call from blood

Thoughts are easily carved

Am I to die frightened and alone?

Landay of Matthew Hopkins

Make them run, make them swim, find his mark
The devil is here, his heresy kills his servants

I Have a Confession

The flayed squirrels
in the yard
are dead
because of me

The exuberance
of skinning them
felt better to me
than Ecstasy

My parents are worried
"this is not good
for a nine year old boy"
they said, shuddering

Litany of a Chair

Standing motionless for all time
Only a push or pull might move me

Bearing the weight of books or body
Only an arm or leg might use me

Pressing down upon the floor
Only disuse might confuse me

Crackling and creaking under duress
I hope my benefactor won't restrict me

Breaking from age and perpetual burden
I hope my benefactor won't evict me

The Breakup Poem

My love for you is infinite and nigh
Though you might think, I am not high
I think about you and feel I can fly
Now you surely think, but I am not high

I come to you with wine and you run away
I call out to you asking por que
No response from you, and you do not stay
On my knees and crying, I shout out por que

Thirsty and miserable, I am now alone
Downing our wine, I know not to roam
Or cycle repeats, which I do not condone
Drunk and blacked out, I cannot roam

Haiku 1

Two souls in the aeons
Fly swift to meet with rapt poise
Are my soul and yours

Devoid of Love

The night falls as if slain by the sun, stricken are we.
The salvation for which you lust
Flares once, then dies,
Devoured by a velvet ebon nothingness.
All hope must surely perish.

Your heart desires no more.
How could you abandon me?
Lost souls surround us, crying,
Save us from ourselves.

A Ghazal

As I wander about in my enraptured mind
The daemons of doubt invade my now-captured mind.

Though pervasive, am I, ever optimistic
Only so far can repair a fractured mind.

But as hope remains, cling I to that lovely visage
Of you and I, mends the punctured mind.

Faith is rebuilt as mirth takes control
Posing a formidable threat to a daemon-cinctured mind.

And as my spirit rises to overcome the foe
To you I wander in my enraptured mind.

Tanka 1

I look to the sky
And see you beckon to me
How we embrace there
Where in that perfect moment
My heart belongs all to you