Pen-and-Sword

Deep. Musky. Earthy. That’s the unmistakable and unfading scent of leather. And yet, it is so hard to define. Leather has so many connotations that you’re never sure if what you’re smelling is purely leather. It is a sensory input that can be called up by many sights and smells: a brown, weather-worn cow; an old wooden saloon; a cigarette; a burst of motorcycle exhaust; a beating by a group of toughs; a fetishist with her whip hanging loosely at her side; another night in a dark city, alone in the truest sense of the word… “Hmph.” A discontented sigh interrupted my reverie. I turned my head towards the sou

A blank slate, my thoughts begin to spill An un-etched slate, soon to be filled. Quarrelling guttersnipe, our foes, our friends A brick through the windshield of a Mercedes-Benz They can always buy more, turn away in disgust The mangy dogs that reminded you of us No end, no meaning, no deep thought involved Just watch the minute hand, your life it revolves A curse, a cry, too young to die So much undone, too young too young Too young said he To take seriously Potential unfilled The joy they killed Born too late He'd have to wait "Go back to your notebooks, silly child! Do you think you’re the next Oscar Wilde?" So cyni

“Welcome to Midnight Frights. Tonight’s tale of horror is about the inner beast within all of us. We try to suppress it, but it’s still there; biding its time in the darkness. Once in a while, it loses its patience and steps forwards into our consciousness. And who does it take out its frustrations on? Well, as the saying goes: homo homini lupis. So please, prick up your ears and heed the tale of the Wolfman…” Part 1 Snaps, growls, and rustles moved slowly in on the mind of Jonathan Garnier, much like the mists that were rolling in from the surrounding woods and swamplands. He felt as if he was being driven to

In an early month of the later year I had set my feet to an idle tune Which poured from a heart of nihility That made my body to swoon. I paced the darkened ridge To a mountain of oh-so-green And looking around, I came to found A sight not as it seemed. Out of the thrush there came a rush Of fur flung at my feet A wounded boy, a fox so coy Clung weeping to my feet. With no lack of admiration and joy, I bent to the subtle form But it was not the fate of that blond boy To stay and keep me warm. A blow to the nose was harshly dealt Not from I, but from he! And springing to a grassy hillock, He turned to look at me. He carried

While passing through A museum of Greek sculpture The bastion of Beauty In Ephebian form I approached A line of busts Of rulers long past and gone One shone Out of the crowd I could barely contain my excitement As I feigned interest In unnamed busts of women Finally I arrived Before My quarry Whose Ivory-hewn features Drew me near We stood Facing One another One After another My features trembled As I saw them Reflected In the proud expression On the face Before me Nose Lips Eyes And smooth Cheek All as they Lay upon me Looking down My soul begged Who is this Kindred spirit I barely whispered His name

We held each other by the hip and swayed with the dirty swamp rhythms. For a moment, gender lines were blurred and we melted into an undefined mass of passion and feeling. We were lost in the sound as the fiddle screeched across our brains like electricity surging across a circuit board. I slid my hand across his jagged ribs, mirroring the rasp of the frattoir that punctuated our swinging. The heat emanating from his cylindrical torso lashed across my own stomach, and I relished the whipping. My feet bounced from ball to ball joyously inside my new army boots, causing my loosely tied braid to jump and wave across my back. Loose hair brushed a

I see you Sitting on a bench In Central Park You took a bus here And diesel fumes still waft Off your jacket Mixing with the musk Of cigarettes Coffee Incense Imbued into the thick brown suede Parked by a bush of holly You stare into its depths With those hungry Wolfish Eyes that I can never argue with You hate this city But still you make the trek here Just to sit Inside The park Inside Though the trash you see Scattered about inside Makes you blind with disgust And rage You come here Time after time Just as I do And that is why I am here Our masochistic love for the park Brought us here together I sit down

Sam Alford. His name alone is enough to summon a swarm of memories to swirl about inside my head, as well as causing a dull ache to rise in my gut. Remembering, my mind leaps effortlessly from the happiest moments of my freshman year to the low point of my sixteen long years on this earth. Yes, it seems my recollection of Sam is as bipolar as he was. Oh, but he was beautiful. Not in the traditional sense of male beauty. Not like a Greek sculpture or a Renaissance painting. Rather, he seemed to have been crafted to fit my aesthetics. I could have watched him for hours, and often did. Scruffy brown hair over matching eyes. Paper-white skin wrap

Hunger is the original eye of the body It stems from our roots As wild animals Desperate for survival At any cost Hunger drives us Causes us to create To invent To speak To kill Hunger is a little demon Pinching and tweaking At our nerves and synapses Playing us like a keyboard Hunger is the fire In the belly of the proletariat And the weight on the shoulders Of the downtrodden It is the lurking fear Of the desperately poor And the comfortably well-fed And when we experience hunger Feel the void open inside of us Our stupid contentment Is stripped away And our eyes are opened To the true mettle Of our being Being h

I jazz to my brain-bop, a personal rhythm. The percussion prattle that swells the walls out and in like a jellyfish- Steady cymbals- Cymbal talk- One, No—two, No—three, No—seven 'til your ears fill with interstellar interstellar or something they sing to the heavens or something they pound into the ground with a thousand gravel throats. I sway to the rhythm of my walk-sidle though the sidewalk's cracked and swelling with roots, shoots and tubers growing unchecked— Can I get a gardener? Sir, your assistance unnerves me, go. Must- I stumble- map this path? or is it even possible To believe in several gods is to greedily orb o