Poetry

Inked in Blood
Originally published in Festival for Poetry/WILDsound Writing Festival, January 15th, 2025

Dad buries his child
peace plans inked with bloodied hands-
shots crack the blue sky.

Looking for you
Originally published in Garfield Lake Review, 2018

I spent several long years looking
for you; though you were never really
anywhere but inside me.
After innumerable, arduous (but
necessary) strides, I reached the
edge of a shoreline where my
Eternal and Immutable Self
greeted me with calm silence.
Fatigued and sore from my long journey,
I laid myself down to sleep.
There, in my state of slumber, you came to me.
With thoughtful consideration,
the Watchtower-of-my-Being
whispered softly in my ear,
“Here it comes.”
And you did.
With soft, delicate arms you
embraced me; flung me into complete and
utter ecstasy.
Dancing and convulsing in
luminous, resplendent, ever-expanding light;
my limbs, heart and mind
became yours.
Then, as quickly as you came,
you let me go.
Upon awakening, I laid there-
grinning to myself.
Knowing full well,
that you just gave me a taste
of what it is truly like
to die.

Afraid for Mother Earth
Originally published in Garfield Lake Review, 2018

Sometimes I am terribly afraid
of what will happen to Mother Earth
when the Children who Fight for Her
have all returned to her Merciful Womb
and only neglectful, inconsiderate
offspring remain in her fragile, beaten arms.
Bickering amongst themselves why
She isn’t giving them all sorts of lovely
Treats and things-
while making a huge mess.
When one truly incurs the Wrath of a Mother,
another planet is your only hope
until she heals herself and
forgives you.
She is sure to forgive us all
when we straighten up
and start acting like big kids.

Two ‘Leaders’
Originally published in Garfield Lake Review, 2018

It is quite easy and
natural for a leader to
project their fears and
concerns onto those who
they are supposed to lead.
The people act as a mirror
by reflecting the impressions
given by those who dare to
create the images of their
desires upon them.
As if playing God.

But what happens when
Two leaders, who, thinking
They are God, but acting like
The Devil, project opposing
and grotesque figures onto
their mirrors, their people?

When they break their
divinely imposed restraint and
dignity by acting like foolish boys-
playing a game of Army Men
in their mother’s backyard?

I fear that, the result is quite
obvious, even to the least well-
polished surfaces of those mirrors:
War.

What if we were able to
ask each tiny particle of
those mirrors what it is
they wanted? I’m quite certain
they would say in response:
Not war, but life,
love and
light.

The Dreamers
Originally published in Indolent Books, 2017

Would you consider stealing just one dream?
Or even eight hundred millenaries?
Those aspirations and hopes you would deem
Unworthy of life, and increase for these-
Children who’d give everything to beseem
A great nation built upon reveries.
If you would wake them and send them away,
It’s this nation’s principles you’d betray.

Every Soul
Originally published in Among Satyrs and Nymphs, 2022

Every soul an Aphrodite
born of Ocean’s foam.
Mixed with the Sky’s most hidden gems
on Gaia’s bosom to roam

But I am as Persephone,
shackled against my will.
Melancholy, my companion-
Demeter seeks me still.

On the glorious day she finds me
We’ll celebrate with Spring.
For such a joyous occasion,
even Orpheus will sing!

Fiction

Ghost of Goliad
Originally published in The Mad River

Work Log #934
Association for the Ghost Rights of Texas (AGRT)
Assignee: Sarah Jameson
Date: April 30th, 2112
Description:

The spectral gig working economy has really grown exponentially in the past several years. After the Great Secession from the Union in 2100, our Great State of Texas became a place blessed and cursed with liminality allowing the threshold between the mundane and supernatural to become merged in unexpected ways. With this fact, the dead have sometimes re-entered the workforce. Sometimes, it is with great success, and other times, it is with unimaginable failure and even oppression from the living. Due to these occasional mishaps, a spectral gig economy has emerged where some living Texans now act as a bridge between the dead and the living to keep our economy thriving and our fellow dead happy. Today I will interview one such spectral gig worker: Rex Granger. I have copied the transcript of my interview with him in this log ticket.

Notes: Rex was already present in the meeting room when I arrived. He wore a dirty, black duster and a pecan-colored Stetson cowboy hat. His gnarled, dry hands played with a deck of worn cards while he smoked a cigarette. He seemed older, possibly in his fifties, but his eyes gleamed with a light that felt youthful and reassuring. But also dangerous.

### Interview ###

SJ: So how long have you smoked cigarettes?

RG: Ever since the price of them has taken flight I reckon. It helps keep my gambling addiction manageable when they’re so expensive. They are a welcome relief from the vicissitudes of life. The cigarette is a blessing and a curse to mankind, and mankind has too many blessings for the priests and not enough curses to go around.

SJ: Do you believe in the Ghost of Goliad?

RG: What I believe is that anytime you tell a story slant, it can easily become a ghost story, even if it is about a currently living being. That is the nature of life, isn’t it? The moment we believe we have felt a thing, it is already dead and in the past. Goliad is a lovely place; but what a funny accent they have. SJ: Do you think the town of Goliad would welcome you for a tour?

RG: I don’t know if they would welcome me. I think they would tolerate me, and possibly sell me overpriced taquitos. These are hard times. Cigarettes give you bad lungs but taquitos give you a bubble gut sometimes. You need your lungs to breathe poisonous air and your gut to tell you when to kill a man. You have to take these things in stride though, you know?

If there is a ghost in Goliad, and it wants my taquitos, I would gladly offer them. Food helps the dead as much as the living since there is no vitality in our food these days, and the ghosts mostly just need it for the smells and nice gestures. It can’t have my cigarettes, though. I have too many days left on this earth for that and ghosts don’t breathe our poisonous air.

SJ: Have you ever offered a ghost anything besides taquitos?

RG: Yes. It’s traditional to offer water, non-poisonous air, or other things of value to them. However, since a ghost in Goliad would likely be Texan, they’ll have a proper palette for a high-quality offering such as taquitos.

SJ: Why do you think the poisonous air doesn’t bother the folks in Goliad as much?

RG: That’s like asking why water doesn’t bother a duck as much. Angel City ain’t that far west of them, so that could play a part. Everyone down here knows after the Great Secession in the year of our Lone Lord 3893 (or 2100 AD), the bodies of the slain Mexican soldiers from the Goliad Battle of 1835 were exhumed to be zombie-conscripted in the fight against the Empty Folk of the not-so-united to the north. The reified spirit of Sam Houston himself ordered it, may the Lone Lord keep him.

SJ: How do you know when a place has more ghosts than living folks?

RG: It’s simple arithmetic and statistics. If your good-for-nothing President didn’t deliver you such a garbage education for your tax dollars, you’d know that a Chi-square Test or Fisher Exact Test could determine your answer, depending on the sample size. The number of bodies we’ve lived in over the eons could be piled up to create a mountain taller than the Olympus Mons. A good old-fashioned regional-lead-ghost-summoning-for-taquitos ritual can also give you the answer if math isn’t your cup of tea. At the end of the day, a place always has at least three ghosts: what folk think happened, what didn’t happen, and what actually happened.

SJ: The people in Goliad say you’ve been there before, but nobody remembers when. What do you make of that?

RG: Maybe I have in another life. Maybe I was martyred in the Goliad Massacre and await my next life. That wouldn’t explain why my doctor keeps telling me to quit smoking cigarettes though.

SJ: Some say the ghost of Goliad only appears to people who owe debts. Do you owe anyone?

RG: Absolutely. I owe more debts than I can even remember. It’s partly why I smoke - it gives the debt collectors less time to find me and break my knees. Once I used a ghost to help cheat in cards since they’re invisible and such. It worked out really well for me until my opponent noticed my dowsing pendulum under the table. Then they chased me from Willis to Cut-and-Shoot where I hid for three days in a What-a-burger dumpster. I learned some interesting things there from one kindly spirit.

SJ: Have you ever tried to pay a ghost’s tab at a bar?

RG: Yes. It was the ghost I used to cheat cards with. Since I lost all my money in that game, I tried to pay the debt I owed for his service somehow. He seemed to think the bartender there was pretty keen on the nature of Time and how we might go back in time to make the Lone Star State the ruling authority of this continent.

SJ: They say cigarette smoke keeps certain types of ghosts away. Is that why you smoke?

RG: No, but tobacco can be useful that way sometimes, considering the planet of Mars correspondence. Every spirit or object has a planet associated with it, but not like they live there, with little space suits and dehydrated meals, but they resonate with what the planet symbolizes. Saturn symbolizes death, among other similar things. Therefore ghosts are associated with Saturn. Mars is associated with War, so cigarette smoke can be seen as a kind of attack. If the ghost is a big sissy, it might do the trick. Don’t get into ghost workin’ if you don’t have the balls to stare a ghost down once in a while and tell him he’s a nobody like the rest of us. Sometimes they get all arrogant because they can go through walls and win the lottery.

SJ: What do you plan on doing once you get to Goliad?

RG: Initially, play some cards and have a smoke. See what all the fuss is about. I’ll make my way over to the Presidio la Bahía, where the main reports of this ‘ghost’ seem to come from, and possibly talk about this poisonous air. If you lie down with dogs you’ll get up with fleas. And I got too much to smoke to have another flea problem.

SJ: Final question. Do you plan to allow this ghost in Goliad to have its own equal rights, like it deserves?

RG: To be frank ma’am, skin your own buffalo. The relationships I have with the dead are between me and the Lone Lord. Ain’t nobody on this earth (living or dead) truly has ‘equal rights’. It’s a facade we tell ourselves so we can fall asleep at night to trashy TV. Humanity has barely changed in the thousands of years since recorded history began, we just have fancier tools to get around with. We’ve been scammin’ each other ever since the Bible was written, which was just stolen from the Persians and others anyway. The only meaning in this life is doing what you’re good at and catchin’ some thrills before you’re a goner too.

SJ: Thank you for your time.