It all began on a typical day, in a typical town, in a typical grocery store. Pushing through the aisles with a squeaky wheel, the Man passed boxed meals, shiny and new. He passed sugar free. He passed just add water. He passed and passed until he reached the end, squeaking all the way. He looked down at his empty cart and felt inside the same expansive emptiness. In his stomach and in his life. Inside a store with thousands of products designed to satisfy his hunger he was alone and starving and squeaking down the last aisle. Abandoning the cart in the frozen foods he began to run, but not run away. He was running and running somewhere, but where? One clear goal was out the automatic doors… far from the boxes and instants and prepackaged. Inside a fear welled up threatening to implode within him and destroy his life. His steps became panicked, the strides long. With escape just moments away the outside light blinding him, he held his breath not wanting to take any of this store with him out there. 

It was in this moment, one foot in the safety of the store, one out into the wild, that something caught his eye. A quarter machine. The Man stopped and starred into the glass at what this machine held seeing his own reflection, seeing what it could be. Reaching a shaky hand filled with adrenalin into his black jeans the Man pulled out two quarters and placed them into the slots where many quarters had been before. The dial turned with ease and with a click click clack. It was that moment, there in a typical grocery store surrounded by typical men, that the fear faded with the dropping of a little plastic bubble, that the Man was able to look out the doors and know that everything was going to be ok. It was that moment that the Mustache met the Man. 
:{)

#mikebrown

I turn on the television set to a cbs all-seeng eyed lie, only seeing what I'm told to see. Drowning in a sea of the information age, without the information to save (the only real information we crave). Only told what I'm meant to hear as I'm lead like a steer to a McDonald's McDouble dollar menu struggle. Beef, it's whats for dinner as the police kill my brothers in the streets in some secret scheme, like from a bad "American Dream" we will never wake up to see. The All-seeing iphone strapped to a liberal white face disgrace in shock a people stood up for it's fallen son, even as the Sun falls on the "Land of the Free." I would leave, but this blood soaked sand is my home and without Us they win; they have always won with the deck stacked like bodies, their calling card. For me it is easier, my white skin a free pass to buy snacks at night without fright, but my brother has to fight for even this stupid right? Is this what America has always been? A land of sin? Of greed? Of blood and dead and slave? Take is the way we behave. Land where freedom rings the bell for another funeral of a nameless black man- except they have names now behind a #mikebrown, white girls tumblr screens becoming America's only true journalism. Irony? And ebony. A war of felony, perpetrated in Our neighborhoods. Where it always has been. The war on skin. If we read a black book we could find the numbers, the names. The people we would meet whispering words like MOVE and Black Wall Street. Police dropping bombs, but why would we bother to listen? We don't care about our brothers, our sisters. Our fellow humans in the streets standing up against our foes. How long until your child, your son or daughter lies next to Aiyana Jones? How long until you are throwing stones? How long until you are rotting bones because justice failed to see you with her blind eye? This same eye you turned, America, keeping your cool while drinking a Siren's non-fat-soy-light-iced-White-mocha. Drink it down America while the ship runs aground and listen to that sound of chanting in Ferguson- that is Liberty.

He comes to you at rest

with outstretched arm in judge-less greeting

beckoning, a light, a guide

dead and alive;

like you

a god, a demon

an angel in waiting

the ageless servant of the moon

with wings or horns adorned

his face a mask

comforting

leading you to the end

a new beginning

Death is his name

yet alive you follow

in darkness, through the hollow

toward the unknown lands 

of forever tomorrows

the path of the Psychopomp

I heard my favorite song today while lying in sleepy sheets.
The rhythm a beat steady and live and pumping.
We sang it together me and you and us.
A metronome disco techno throbbing thumping.
It felt warm and safe in those notes played
wrapped like arms around my waist.
Like yours, very much like your heart beating, your breathing.
Along with mine too, breath in air mingling dancing.
Like the good songs few words and simple.
Perfect syllables uttered in beat and time.

Coffee & Words

Chasing fulfillment
down a dizzy street
Each streetlamp dim
Anxiety suffocating
darkness
growing slim

A dream seems like sleep and awake forgetting
A sad smile replaces love in a lonely setting

A coffee and a few words is all that is between us

In the air
laulling calling tender laugh
foot prints in the grass
a steady stream
lumbering tumble bubble bath

In between
buzzing fuzzy feel
heart and eye heal

a steady stream
a steady stream

a dark tale (rough edit with all the mispelled words and mess)

A tell-tale heart beats through the floor of the house next door, but this is a much darker tale than that. Where the fairy tales tell of wonder, this tale will dash it to the floor, smashing like a head of lettuce. Though a tale- you will have to let it suffice. For the real story, a story without the colorful sceanery and the qiup of a well penned line, is dark. It is dark with old blood on black fire chewed walls, slowly crawling towards the floor to pool and congeal and drown a lone black sugar ant searching with his tiny antenne for a scrap of meat. Dark like the eyes left starring- caught in the last moment of a longing. What darkness did those eyes see now? THey wouldn't see a golden light in a tale like this, only the black fire and the bbq stink of burned flesh... and black pooled blood.

In a place as fucked and messey as this, the awkward limbs and rigid flesh, one had to dream dark nightmares. Ones that happened in the comfort of your own home. The shit- the blood. The ripped photos of seared lovers, faces melted and distored into grotesque creatures capable of actng on dark impulsses. BEasts like that were for fariy tales- this is something much different and much darker. Something much more real.

THere was passion- no one can deny that fact. You could say it was passion that fuled this dark thing, before the smoke, and blood, and smashed lettuce head. The passion ran bright and fresh as it crashed into the reclaimed oak floor boards- splattering with a startling smack-
Now it sat laying like a molded head of lettuce, the only color in the whole stinking room. It hadnt been enough fule to burn the death from the neiborhood, and they would be found. When they did they wouldnt find the mingled flies and maggots feasting on starcrossed lovers. No this was no fariy tale of young stupid love. This was the real love story of Stacy and James, and Johnathan.

There in the kitchen.

A common enough place to find a knife, yet finding it broken inside the neck of Johnathan might suprise you. The papers would read weeks later, HE had been stabbed 46 times post mordim. The holes, dark claw marks on his soiled sweater vest, dark plaid shirt still tucked in one one side, he might have looked nice- handsom- if not for the caved in half of his head. He still wore the nardstrome calogne she loved but you couldnt smell it over the death. The pants had burned away along the lower half of John leaving melted polyester.

The walls that still held wallpaper displayed photos of smiling Stacy hanging on John at LAke Eola park last summer, after the church picnic. HEr mom Leanne and stepdad Paul. The neice she loved so much with the straw hair and tomboy knees. THey had all been witness to Johns death with the knife that had carved the Xmas turkey. They had slow cooked it all day, basting it with Moscato and cranberries. The blood almost looked like cranberry sauce as it lay dark and cold. It seemed unreal- almost like a fairy tale- But they dont make fairy tales about this kind of love story.

And we can call it a love story for what greater love is there than Death? Always there to welcome and kiss and say well done. The feeling so strong. The rage so hard. The violence so total. There is still a love story here yet it lacks the mystery to capture the mind in fariy tale. The deed is plain. The killer known. There was no hiding beneath the floorboards. No neat set-up. Just blood and love and death. Each beautiful in their own way. Each ugly. Complicated.

I must confess this is a tale of two loves and twice the death. Each sad. THey lay there entwined in a way that suggest one had to witness the others life leave in horror. One from the knife, the other from the poissoned wine that used to be in the bottle that crushed Johns head. The emerald green casting erie light. It is a story with details that mimik the fariy tales yet are wholly different. And yet the same. Two lovers are dead.

Another thing I must confess is the Mystery. For it was a strong hand that embraced Johns as he died, and still layed there in stiff comfort. Stacys smiling face looking down at the two wedding rings cutting the bloated fingers of James and Johnathan.

There is no moral. There is no neat ending. The mess and reak littered story has nothing to say to you except the world is dark as fuck sometimes. And complicated.

7 wonders

A raging red root sunk deep within the sea, tangled twine to iron shine courage to be
Above rose the roaring sun, orange aglow to life below all being one
Into the sky a lion proud, yellow gold new and bold I AM it cried aloud!
Green arms raise their hands in praise, holy holy holy love in their gaze
Their blue faces sang forth, with words and praises sung east, west, south and north
The lion bowed and heaven cloaked in indigo mystery, shining numbers and shifting shapes what is and could be
A violet fruit was born sweet, and was given to those who seek
to eat and plant seed; and is sown into the night, each a sparkle pure and bright
to guide the weary to the light








LCLTD

a small girl

A small girl sat on a hill and flew a kite so high And on that kite she tied a wish and sent it to the sky One day she dreamed it would find its way into a knowing hand, someone she thought who knew the the name of every golden sand

DAISY IN THE BARREL pt 1: Behold a Pale Horse (rough edit)

DAISY IN THE BARREL
PT 1:
Behold a Pale Horse



Written and illustrated by:
Joshua Alan








She sat; a brilliant star against a dark sky. Yellow fire. Radiation surrounded her in an angelic halo as she eclipsed the moon. Legs covered in blood red rivers lead to her floral top, fluttering in the midnight breeze. a shining Knight, clad in a white leather jacket under which she wore twin revolvers.

- The daisy in the barrel of the gun.

Aching, she waited motionless atop the fire escape in that stinking slum. She watched disinterested as in and out the cliental came for pills and powders. As they came for the disgusting ache of their lusts the night offered. The smells of sewage and swisher sweets swathed in cheap perfume reminded her faintly of home- a place she had never known.

She had seen this scene repeated in movies and comic books, the stinking garbage lined streets, hoodies and baggy pants speaking low to cars that pulled around like a mary-go-round in an endless circle. Dirty money and greasy hands. This was the type of place that needed a hero. Some crazy batman like the stories of gotham. She was not that hero. No, books would not be written about her even though she would deliver justice tonight, Bathed in red. She hunted him tirelessly, always right behind him like a shadow.

He came out of the shadows-

Out of the shadows without ever leaving them. They trailed like an evil spirit, excited and perverted. Jutting at awkward angles and twisting with grins and sneers snatching and grabbing at the huddled and dirty living. The cigarette he breathed out curled smoke around his head like an executioner’s hood. Death. Eyes neither looked toward nor away from him in fear. Though he walked amongst filth and crime they parted like a biblical event. His footsteps made only the sound like walking on water.

With a crashing of cymbals life returned, even to these criminals and perverts, like the sucking of wind from an icy pool. It was in that very instant- between the grave and heaven- that a dark eye caught a flash of flowers. But as the Darkness passed through the doors into the sleazy project house, he saw only the full moon reflected. And then he slipped away.

It was down he went. And through locked doors and evil intent, Stairs spiraling into the darkness. No sound like winter, and just as cold. Finally he arrived at a door, larger than the rest, heavily bolted and with a whisper passed through. Light seared the eyes in the glow of candles, arranged in patterns across the floor throwing angry spirits against the walls. The Darkness came to a stop in the middle of the room, judging his distance between each of these muttering secret words under his breath, And with great care settled to the floor amongst the majic.

She felt it then, like eyes of a thousand corpses stinging at her neck. He was searching for her. She couldn’t give up now, not when she was this close. It had been years hunting, stalking. Searching out the Darkness. She had traveled lands strange and black studying the arts, as he did, so when the moment came she would have him. She made the priests pay for their crimes, every one of them she could find. But not before they had shown her everything they knew. It was blasphemy. And she was deaths angel bringing hell with her. The pale horseman. And they burned.

It was in the middle of a breath-

and they were there. Each with red eyes that starred lustfully unblinking, the undead come to take the living. ageless demons with an appetite for human flesh. Before she had always run from the darkness using the charms and prayers of the priests but tonight would be no such night. On her lips was a curse, Tonight would be red.

-and she pulled the revolvers.

Like ballet. Like watching the humming bird on a sunny Sunday morning fliting about the daisies. Like the moment between heartbeats in your daddy’s chest. Teeth and claws and blood and bone ripped the air. death fell like lovers as a piano played a slow song. The white Knight and the black hoard.


-And the piano stopped

leaving the notes hanging in midair. Bodies crashed all around twisted and broken into the pools of red. And silence.

then fell the tears with her crumpled frame. And she dreamed of her only sweet memory. the one smile in her life. She dreamed of her mother’s lullaby and goodnight, and a sweet kiss to the top of her head. The look of love in her mothers’ eyes- she looked again and it was the look of dead.

The dream had become a nightmare and one she couldn’t wake from. It was her lying in a pool of bodies and blood. Her mother was dead and the darkness was trying to kill her too. and he was there, creeping. Lumbering over her like a puppetmaster pulling the painful strings.

-she was too close.

Staggering, Dragging her combat boots through the swamp of flesh, she descended into the spiral of darkness. This would end now one way or the other. And she recited the holy words of the priests

“And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

“Amen.”

This last word sent a shiver through every cell in her body as her guts froze over, it had not been hers…

Everything was wrong in this last moment. Her head was spinning, swimming in fear. It hit her at last- she was not the pale horse from the prophecies. The truth crushed her lungs pushing the last warm breath from within her. The priests had delt one final blow in their death twisting the words into a trap. The dark became darker and she could just make out his form. It was him, the darkness. and she behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

She could feel all around her the black and lumbering things, the hellhounds and zombies and spirits and vampires. The demons that served the darkness. And she again raised those two revolvers into the midst of the darkness, this was her only moment she knew, it had to be now-

click

-and she fell to her knees.

It started as a chuckle, almost sympathetic, that grew into cruel and pure evil. A pale hand delicately touched her cheek and an icy kiss was placed on the top of her head. It was all she could do to hold back the tears and finally they poured out, all the pain she felt for her mother. How she had failed her here in these last minutes of life. How she would die just like her.

“what a waste of a beautiful flower.”

Crushed. She sat there helplessly, motionless, waiting. like all those nights she spent waiting, watching. Now she watched the last moments tick by in slow motion.

“you remind me of a girl I tried to help many years ago. She too had the same fragile face and sad eyes. I thought that she would bear my seed but she had other plans. She could have served a god!”

As he told the story he began to rage and the room grew darker. he seemed to absorb the energy of the night and grow. The juxtapose was chilling. The Hulking shadow of death and the small frail child in white. She search every pocket. Empty.


“she tried to run and take my child before it had been born!”

Then she saw it, the small crushed petals. The fragments of a beautiful life. There in the darkness, even near death its self, life could grow. Under the white petals was a sliver bullet. She reached a tiny hand out and picked up the flower.

“I don’t remember her name, like no one will remember yours”

She felt the cold steel of his gun. She looked into the dark barrel that held her death. And with a small voice and a single tear she whispered…

“Daisy.”

And placed the small flower into the barrel of the gun.

immortal

a worn brush pulls down shadow
like a shade to night

creating form from light.

a worn expression of rough tone
and of a cool blue

a face appears in hugh.

in time forever captured
eyes of yellow brown

and lips curled together, in frown.

the God all around

What is God?

Can i see Him? Do i feel Him? Is that His smell? That sweet taste, is that Him too? Does He speak to me- Is that Him i hear?

Do I swim through his running waters or fly in his ever expansive skies?

Is God one? or two? many or few?

Is God Day...
...Is God Night?


can He be both darkness and light?



is He a She?

is HE, ME?

white flowers

a Winter Sun

A new dance

the dry creaking again stirs from behind-- just behind. It's touch-less grasp sends shivers up your side in an uncomfortable embrace. You are wrapped up, snuggled, in this cold. It burns. An abusive lover. One you love to hate.

Always.
Always right in your ear.
Whispering.
Whispering "truths" with a lying tongue.

The long descriptions lull you into complacency with creamy vocabulary, the comfort of steamed milk and espresso.

...and you dance with deception to a slow waltz.

You wonder to yourself where you learned how to dance like this, you must have always known it. It feels natural.

The rhythm feels like your heart beat.

You must have always known this.

Your thoughts feel like an echo your thoughts feel like an echo.

-you miss a beat-

Who said that?

Tighter the web weaves leaving little wiggle room. The room feels stale as the lights fade.

Something...

something slips your mind. Something you have always known. It dances too... just on the edge of consciousness. There at the end of the tunnel. Towards that light.

The Light.

Suddenly stumbling, your head spins. You feel a rush as the beat picks up. The steps are too fast to keep up -but you dance. Your head is heavy like waking from a thick drunk.

The Light tears into you. You glitter through the holes left by something from another life. You shine.

The others...
have stopped.
They notice you-

are different.

You are changed.

What was stale and dark now fresh and white.


The air is cold and fast. And comforting.

And it feels

feels like...



Love.

so this is the new year

Each new year starts with so much hope, hope that our dreams will become realities. Hope that that one special person will look our way with a little sparkle in their eye. Hope for the new job. Hope that you can quit smoking-- Hope that life doesn't fucking suck like last year.
We raise our glasses in those last few seconds, search for a kiss, and wave goodbye forever to the old year. Then we look forward into the face of the new and somehow see what might be. We stumble hopeful into our beds in the afterglow of champagne celebration and sink soundly into our dreams-

-Then we wake up.

everything is exactly the same as before.

The list we made to better our lives slips behind the desk lost. The vows we made as the ball dropped drop from our minds to that place where ever they go... those things we forget about. And life goes on.

-THIS YEAR CHANGE-

Nothing will change if you don't change it. Do something different. Start a new hobby. Go to a new coffee shop. Ride your bike. Learn an instrument and play it super loud until people complain.
Whatever you do, do it better than last year. Work harder. Play more often. Call your mom. Don't date that girl you know you shouldn't but you're a dumbass so you do anyways. Most importantly, be YOU.

This is your year.





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awake

Well I have spent the last few months traveling and painting and NOT writing. It is time, I think, that I get back on the pen. Many thoughts and ideas have passed to sleep with me every night and my brain is full- ready to explode.

lamp, bracelet, 2-4-2, hair

hummmm-

its there in her head, never ending, tonedeaf, dead
it buzzes without pause
it dims the yellow sneaking out of the small lamp by the side of her twin bed

on it she sits wearing nothing but covers, and the one bracelet made by her lover
it is silence, but it is so loud
the digital 2-4-2 stares at her as it has for what seems like hours

is it in her head, beneath her matted hair?
or outside behind the dark curtains?

with every bit that still exists, she shuts her eyes to sleep, counting each and every awkward sheep
if boredom has a voice
it is here now with a hum, talking from the deep

yellow birds

She sits by the door. Its old oak frame supports her thoughts as would a tree hold the very small nest in its’ safe mothering arms. The dreams flutter in the silence beating their tiny memories, playing a vision that dances on the sky blue walls. Nestled in between two knobby roots, one small delicate finger trails the hem of a flower garden in pink and blue. The petals smell real but feel like corduroy. She leans back into them feeling their warm tender hold and listens to the whispers ebbing like the tide back and forth. She is drunk. The sweet wine of yesterday is fully alive- hot in her blood. The bottle lays broken and shinning, reflecting the sun like a kaleidoscope. Like stars. They travel their path up the walls and across the sky marking time slipping away with each little yellow bird. Singing and playing. She studies their every shape holding them in her mind. Each time they seem to be a little smaller, a little less brilliant. Eventually they are replaced with squawking ugly things. Lumbering and Black. And the garden turns cold, dark. And in that place lit not wholly by the moon, she sees more clearly. What was early, sweet, is now just a memory. Neither cold nor hot. And the garden under the oak tree is just a sad girl in a frumpy dress, knees knobby, sitting by a door. Cold and alone.

I need a change. The more and more I write, or read, or paint, or listen, the more and more I just need to stop doing everything the way I am doing it and do something else. Maybe this is an extension of my life, just hating the feel of static, or im finally turning the bend away from my sanity. Or maybe im just bored.

I need something.

Im going through a weird phase in life that transitions me from a rambling, nomadic twenty-something into an adult with responsibilities. I cant say for sure but I think that it is time anyways.

This could be just the thing I need.