[x]

earth circuitAnd when the sun sinks, the earth's skin crawls:

I.
I wonder if this awkward creature would notice me the way I notice him.
He's so tragic at his throne
I stare after him longingly.
And yet,
He never realizes that I'm the one
Who forever basks in his brilliant beams.
If only he knew how much brighter he could burn
[with me]
He'd light up the universe.

II.
I heard him speak of thirst, once.
The quenching lust of the stars had run dry.
So that night, I brought along a jar of acid.
(And how it gleamed in his glow).
I handed it to him, wrapped in taffeta ribbons,
screaming
I wish curdling joy
On my gurgling boy

Harvest MoonThree a.m. moonlight
across lazy dust motes; a
tree scrapes the window.
Your arm weighs on my hip like
whispered promises of love.

MeanderingHardly a mountain, though on lowering days its head sits wreathed
By the mists of a passing front, aged and befogged as bygone elders
Doddering about – before there were names for the malaise
That hazed their thinking
And from this modest crown there slouched and sloped
A long shoulder, meandering down to meadows below
Pausing now and again to coddle a pleasant hollow
Casting a sloping pitch – enough to rush a torrent
After a sudden shower
Seldom pooling
Its glint and glimmer burble among the stones
To join a rill and plash and swirl and putter about a root
It's there I'm apt to wander

Not much of a path, hard passed a

A Pocket Full of SkyWhen I was young, my father would take me to the highest tower of Notre Dame precisely once a year. It would be cold. Freezing. But we'd stand there, and take deep breaths of air, and peer down, towards the tiny ants of people below. Down, towards the sprawling city beneath us. It was always winter, when we'd go. Always cold. Freezing, freezing. But however cold it was, and however dull and bleary the weather, my father would ask one thing, and one thing only: that we adhered to tradition.

"Lucie," he would say, with the fond smile and kind eyes I always remember. "Lucie, my peach. Whatever you become, and wherever your heart and mind leads

The Order of Sublime Simulacra Kamon woke to the sound of bells and saws. The ceremony must have started hours ago; there was invigorating yellow sunlight outside the gauzy curtains. Kamon's Self was intoning eight o'clock, eight o'clock with all the insistence of a song looping in his head.

Flesh brain, he thought, you should have caught that alarm. Sometimes the flesh was louder than the devices supposed to make it properly quiet. The flesh insisted on the persistence of the Real. This was exactly the type of lesson that the brothers were supposed to learn, and Kamon hoped that relaying to the abbot how thoroughly he had learned it might lighten the inevitable punishm

Tallmy words are green tonight
written in the air in a neon glow
standing on the corner in the snow
reciting poetry from memory
i feel very tall

there is power in words
and tonight i'm in control
looming large and strong and
razor sharp
and feeling very tall

have i had too much? no,
just enough to clearly see
my shoulders are straight, my
head held high
speaking green words

and very, very tall

Whiskey Laden DreamsBitter eyes and tears might taint a drink, but sitting in this bar alone with your stool pulled out next to me, and the Martini poured regardless of your presence still brings a smile to my face; despite the taste. I'm having a whiskey myself; dry. Yes, I know I don't drink, but every once in a while you need whiskey to solve an intricate problem, and mine is the distinct lack of alcohol in my life.

There are people everywhere and it amazes me how none of them are you, from the woman in the black dress coming down the stairs to the signing couple in the corner, laughing silently. They're not you at all, and that's what's amazing – in an

Down By The SchoolyardThere is a rather cliched phrase that states that some people live double lives. I have always found that to be an intensely misleading statement and I guess you can call it a bit of a pet peeve of mine. No one leads "double lives", they just lead fucking lives. That those lives are more complex that the singular one-track existence of lesser creatures shouldn't be a matter of duplicity, but of common sense. No one is exactly who they seem to be.

Julio is one of those who they would later say lived a double life, but it is no more true for him than anyone else. The difference in this case is that there are two of him, rather than one.

Perha

Flights of Fancy Nature is best seen through a window. Cars are nice, but televisions give a better view. The important thing is to keep a window, any window, between you and wilderness. This is my strictest maxim, a rule of comfort I put aside only once, years ago. I spend most of my life expressing shock when friends say they're going on a hike or planning to camp out.

It took two hours for Leon to convince me to accompany him on a short ride to the hills. I thought it would be safe. Leon was a good friend. Though he knew that particular day was my day to hit the mall and hang out with the gi

Under DreadThe winter, the whole winter
is sitting on my head, nesting its fingers
in the little hairs over my ears.
Its friend, the great and unnamed doubt,
is leaning against my collarbone
in a most familiar fashion,
and I fall in and out of balance

irregularly irregularly.

I have a beauty waiting, warm, willing
on speed dial, but the phone--
where did I leave the phone again?
Beauty is as elusive as
the car keys, which, I swear,
were just in that pocket. I

had my hand on them. The whole winter
keeps coursing its little nails
up and down my neck and taking
all my breath away.
There was a dream I had that
I almost remember, almost r

of the ground-

It was Sunday night when Geo climbed into my room from the fire escape. I was painting my toenails and listening to the sounds of the city: police sirens, pulsating bass, the kids in my tenement running guitar riffs back and forth with the street musicians on the sidewalk. That was the year I turned sixteen and took a two-month vow of silence to honor the death of autumn. A premature snow had robbed the season of its delicate warmth and color, forcing the maples to weep their leaves into the gutters. All that rainwater, all that decay. How could anyone create when October was dying outside their windows? Pete and Jake practiced acoustic th

WhitmanI am all that grows from me
and all that grows from me is sacred—
              my hair, dirty roots reaching towards sky,
fed by sky, shifted by its undulating currents
              my fingers, spiders, crescents, twigs,
gaunt, blunt, probing, inquisitive...prurient
              my ears, awkward conch shells jammed on as if by mistake,
rigid and ridged, elven,
innocent like unexplored caves for children to bound gaily into
resounding with echoed cheers of courage wanting
as if a dozen more children waited within, fearless guides;
              my nose, obdurate.
The reach of my eyes knows no bounds;
what walls are there to throw my body against?

JuliaMetMichaelSamaraSawTheStarsGenevieveFoundFeari.

                               Tonight is different.
Genevieve pauses, staring as layers of fog encroach forward.  The ominous mist slinks onward only to settle against her taunt muscles.  Vapor coils along her skin like venom; tangible and prickling.
She allows her lungs timid inhales of February.  Every breath sparks artic shockwaves throughout her nervous system    Glacial streaks start to sprout within her tissues, ever-so-silent and sickening.  She slows, listening to iced-oxygen hardening between blood cells.

                     The cold feels like boulders in my lungs.
Genevieve feels so unexpectedly heavy in her skin.  Wadi

A Dancing GirlA girl stubs busted toes
across cigarette sidewalks
and rippled parking lots,
shatters her music box,
her mother's dying swan,
to dance with vagaries
for the dawn of her city.

She dances violently
for every chaired cripple
and the politically corrected,
handicapped by society.

She weeps in corners
with the coroners who
uncover bodies under bridges,
every vagrant of her city.

She sets fire to roof tops
where falling stars nestle,
runs rusted fire escapes
that lead to dead end allies,
and turns over dumpsters,
raging for a way out.

PressureSomething broke.

A hard CRACK while sitting in
a soft chair. No pain registered.
The absence of it
is like watching explosions in space.

You follow the curve of your skull. You remember
how skulls are formed like tectonic plates.
Your head wants to be a planet,
volcanic, living, in change.

You continue to your left shoulder,
the one with all the problems.
But today, it has nothing to say.

Your rib cage moves
like oceanic waves, expecting a storm
that hasn't come.

You stand up,
homo erectus,
you consider your legs,
homo sapiens,
nothing feels wrong,
homo stabilis.

But you can break
more than your body.

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mmmmmFrom childhood> So well remembered. So well loved. Biscuits, butter, and blackberry preserves.

namingPoets name the nameless
I stream words but do not weave
I am thankfully not sane as some would see it
Till I have done much more of naming
I shall not of my own will leave

see Spot runlife
spotted much but gently
like a favourite dog
becomes a pleasure
as the old man sits in comfort
unencumbered
by youthful expectations

West and SouthI am the wind of West and South. I blow the cold back to its north of ice and blow the god back to its ignorant beginnings in empty sand. Let the earth and air and water be driven to their desire by fire.

vanHe ended when he needed to
The glow of wheat and sun was shadowed
He joined the watching crows in their night of black

Cool and dark and calm
became a watcher, too

plastic paththe plastic bags pile up in walls
channeling the way he walks
building his directions
recording his history
making him secure

take away his trash
and give to him his freedom
he will be so very scared
forgetting who he was
terrified of future

a probable suicide

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Submitted: October 16, 2012
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grassy field with rust

by *LancelotPrice, Oct 16, 2012, 9:31:40 AM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

grassy field with rust
--------------------------

I'd heard about the old car, three miles out of town and all alone. I just had to see it. It was time. School was over for the summer, my friends were at camp, and I was bored. I set out Thursday morning for a hike, following directions that Uncle Will had given me. As the heat was still growing with the climb of the sun, I found the field and wandered around looking, and looking some more, trying not to be distracted by bees buzzing in the flowers, and butterflies and baby mice. Then it was there, just a bit upslope from the bottom of a natural swale, and just below the sky at the top of the bank. A 1959 Cadillac convertible, but not like the old music videos showed.

This one was part buried in grass gone to seed and turned almost white golden with the dry heat. The tires were collapsed cracked pieces and there wasn't a trace of pink paint anywhere. Rust owned it, and it held on so tight that holes were showing in what used to be steel. The top was gone except for some brownish red channels and rods.

It was grand.

The biggest car I ever saw. And the farthest gone. Like some river barge stranded when the stream changed course and left it on top of drying mud that grass returned to. Uncle Will had said that the Caddy was already more than thirty years old when Dave Jenkins ran off the road being chased by the Sheriff for having no taillights, but maybe carrying weed. Some of its old pieces had broken, and Dave was arrested and didn't have any money anyway and here the car still was after all these years.

The breeze blew soft, the grass moved slow and easy, and the old car was peaceful, and comforting to watch. It just seemed right that things were the way they were. I fell asleep. Later I woke up and walked home, thinking for awhile, that the past was okay just the way it was.

grassy field with rustby *LancelotPrice

Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

just the way it should be

------------

I've thanked

for featuring this one in DD, and thanked all the individual commenters so far. I've yet to individually thank those who've faved 'grassy field ... ', and I'll try to do so, but until I do, Thank you all.

Lance

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-10-21

grassy field with rust by *Gypsy-Knight A simple single image brings strong reflections of the past. Beautiful Vignette. ( Featured by ^Beccalicious )

Hidden by Owner

~AMWeitz Feb 15, 2013 Student Writer

This could easily be turned into a longer short story, yet i LOVE it the way it is. So, so beautiful.

*LancelotPrice Feb 16, 2013

I'm surprised that you found it.

Thank you. It may be part of a life, and so could be extended into a novel, but I don't think I have it in me to write that long. Sometimes it's best to focus on small moments, so that may be a good thing.

I've had a look at your page and added you to my devWatch list.

~AMWeitz Feb 18, 2013 Student Writer

I agree. Which is why I usually write poetry, and why my poems are usually short.

Yay, thanks!!

*LancelotPrice Feb 18, 2013

You're welcome.

*AlisonBlue Feb 3, 2013 Student Writer

oh, yes.

*LancelotPrice Feb 3, 2013

Thank you, Alison.

*archelyxs Nov 29, 2012

This is really beautiful, full of buzzing and breathing nostalgia, a picture deserving of the strongest frame.
Really belated congrats on the DD also! I miss you and your work, and I hope things are well.

*LancelotPrice Nov 29, 2012

Thanks very much, Megan; I'm happy you like it

Things are very well with me. I wish they were better for you; chronic fatigue is no fun at all. Good luck with getting credited with your work at Uni. Be positive; do whatever it takes to keep yourself entertained and cheerful.

Cheers,

Lance

*archelyxs Nov 29, 2012

Thank you so much for the support. I've been needing to read pieces like this piece, so all the thanks is to you.

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