The Photographer [V3]

She was an artist in the general sense. More specifically she was a photographer. She loved taking pictures with friends when they made wild faces, at school when she thought the classroom had a certain aesthetic, in the park when the grass felt cool under her bare feet. She loved the limits the polaroid’s frame offered after it slid out the other side. It provided her with a sense of perspective on the things around her that she couldn’t ever fully understand. She loved the feeling of solidity that it gave her, the things in each shot existed outside of what she saw with her eyes, they were independent of her life. It gave them life. She loved photography.

She also liked to organize the photos into albums in neat symmetrical patterns in a strictly chronological order. She liked to get out her clear blue ruler and measure the exact number of half-inches in from the sides in order to align the four photos on each page in the perfect place. She enjoyed the patience and diligence that went into this work and the feeling of self-accomplishment that followed. She enjoyed the hours she poured into these albums, adding captions and borders and pages of more photos. She did this when there were quiet moments alone, or when there were quiet moments in class, or when there were quiet moments at the park. She loved photography.

He hated her for her love. He only ever saw her for an hour and a half in the one class they shared. Unless either was sick or he skipped to go smoke, then it was slightly less. But he hated her for those few hours. He would watch her from across the room, watch her mindlessly measuring and adjusting and re-measuring and pasting her photographs into her albums as their teacher tautologously preached ethics. He hated the way she would only look down at her photos, not blinking for minutes at a time. He hated her self-absorption and the way her tongue would sometimes creep out from behind her lips as she slowly pasted down a corner. He hated everyone else in the class for not hating her the way he did. His hate consumed him for those few hours each day. But once in a while his hate would spill into the evenings and ruin his cigarettes. Or sometimes his hate would leak into the weekends and ruin his nights. And sometimes after that his hate would surge through his mind and send electricity through his bones as he had sex or when he masturbated or when he day dreamed. Some days after school when he would light up his cigarette, breathe it in absentmindedly, and say to no one in specific, “I’m gonna burn those fucking photos some day.”

And then one cool October day he did. It was more of a sudden impulse than anything planned or thought out. She was sitting on a bench outside the school taking a photo of the trees becoming vibrantly bare when the hate boiled up in his throat. He ripped the album from off the bench and flipped it open. He saw a photograph of her painted toe nails in the nearly green grass lighted by a summer sun, a photo of a merry-go-round with two young children smiling widely, a photo of a sunset intensified by the deadly fires of the west, and a photo of the girl with an empty smile standing next to some friends with emptier eyes. His body flared with hate and then his lighter flared from butane and then the album flared with flames.

She didn’t put up a fight, she didn’t protest or even stand up. She hardly even blinked. She met his eyes and held them for a long moment with a passive stare, her eyes glossy like a camera lens. The acrid smell of burned chemicals stung his eyes and sent tears streaming down his cheeks. He wanted her to feel something, to hurt her badly, he wanted to grab hard onto her cheeks and drive his thumbs deep into her eye sockets, to crush the glass lenses. But he just stared, letting the cool October breeze put out the little flames of the album and pushing his tears off their course. The girl raised her camera, clicked, and walked away.

She was an artist in the general sense.

The Lifeguard [V3]

Everyday he would take the same route to the beach. And every day he would slowly walk the same path from his car to his post, letting his body adjust to the tension of the sun. And every day he would sit atop his post, his eyes squinting, looking out over the ocean and he would think about all the women he hated. He never had to look very far, they were around him at every moment; in town, in shops, in libraries, at home, and especially at the beach. There were women with skin that darkened under the sun, women that wore little or nothing, and women who laughed heavily about nothing and thought little about everything. There were women who revered Marilyn Monroe, women who were in love with their body and whose universe did not extend past their lightly freckled skin. There were women who didn’t read Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy or London or Thoreau or Nietzsche. Their gods lied within the glossy pages of a magazine, or a romance novel written with the basic formula that all romance novels follow. These women had no passion in their lives; they had no art, no literature, no control, they had no purpose to their life other than tanning and fucking.

So ever day he would sit perfectly still on top of his post and stare at them through his dark aviator glasses, observing and hating, letting the strangling heat of the sun beat down over his body. Sometimes when the heat was unusually overwhelming he would let his hate separate his mind from his crude, sweating body, and let it drift across philosophies and religions and meanings. He knew that God was dead, and he knew that religion was a crutch, and that you had to create your own purpose in life. He knew that nature was the only thing that was still beautiful anymore, and that it was the only thing that could still move him. He knew that someday he would leave the beach and its women behind to find his own salvation in the wild. He knew that no one else could comprehend this and that made him alone.

He felt he had to gain complete control over his own body. He needed to discipline it, to ignore and abuse it. He needed to make it suffer through starvation and pain, to let his body know that it was not associated with his mind. To assert that his body could not touch the infinite purity of his mind was important to him. He would not allow himself to become one of the endless women on the beach who saw their bodies as a pinnacle and summation of beauty in the world, as something to be relished. He knew the human form was ugly and detestable, that it didn’t provide an accurate representation of his self.

He could not let the ignorance of the world taint his soul.

This is what he would think of every day, atop his post, eyes gazing across the expanse of the ocean, with the thick heat of the sun washing over him. He loved how his hate separated his mind from his body, and the separation it created between himself and every other person on the beach. He knew that he was not like any of them and his hatred was confirmation. And witnessing their behavior at the beach allowed him justification.

One day while he was lost in thought under the pressure of the sun, someone yelled from far away. At first he absorbed it, allowing it to fuel his hatred for a little longer. But the yelling grew louder and drew nearer and soon it became discernable from the hiss of the waves. A woman with streaked golden hair and horror streaked eyes was running towards him. She was out of breath and fell to her knees when she reached the bottom of his post, drawing in oxygen with sharp gasps, heaving out her words in short blasts. Someone was drowning.

For a moment he gazed at the woman, running his eyes over her hair, eyes, skin and shape. Her hair was still dripping from salty ocean water and sweat, and her chest was rapidly rising and falling, and with the strange position she had fallen to, she had the appearance of an injured animal. He was disgusted by her appearance and a grimace grew across his face as he watched her completely deteriorate in the reflective sand.

His eyes then slowly turned towards the horizon and he scanned the glassy surface of the water. A little ways out he saw something thrashing in the water, causing little ripples in the surrounding area. He imagined the panic they were feeling; the hot flashes surging through their body, the dulling of rational thought as the water filled their lungs. He wondered what was running through their mind now that death was so close, so imminent. Did they regret not thinking more heavily about art and literature and philosophy and religion? Did they regret their shallow life? Did they realize how pointless their existence had been? Or did they simply go into a frenzy, desperately trying to dig their nails into what little life they had left? He wondered if their eyes resembled those of a cow’s when they hear the wet death of the ones ahead of them in the slaughter line. He thought that they probably did.

So he simply sat there and watched the little ripples become smaller and less frequent until they were completely swallowed by the greater ebb and flow of the ocean. When there was no longer any disturbance across the smooth surface, a sense of envy overcame him. He speculated whether or not they ever truly appreciated the beauty of their situation, completely escaping their body. As the woman beneath him continued to yell and shake violently in disbelief, little streaks ran down his cheeks, catching slightly on his upturned lips before dropping onto the waiting sand below.

Almost [V4]

fingers drifted across your darkened skin like the
building shadows from the slow smooth
descent of a summer sun behind the gentle curve of the west
I tried vainly to memorize the
last warm dissipating rays before they
left me desolate

arms tensed around your waist like the
eternal pull of the earth on a lustrous moon
invisibly powerful and
evocative of a stellar waltz in a
vacant ball room after everyone else has gone off into the
night or bedrooms
but the moon is quietly slipping away
losing grip with each graceful turn in the dark

your ethereal eyes were in mine
the soft burn of a million clustered stars that reveal themselves
to the romantics who leave the modern cities
scanning the skies for love and inspiration
only to realize that all those brilliant beacons in heaven have already
died years ago in a cosmic
sigh and collapse

I nearly kissed you
tender pink flesh parted waiting
for warmth but feeling cold static air instead
it was almost remembering a dream of unreal beauty and color before it is
swallowed by the vacuum at the
back of your mind

I opened my eyes to the painful brightness of
another new-day sun still low in the sky
the night and dreams of an almost amorous age already
evaporated into the atmosphere
I lowered my teeming head
hesitated then staggered east leaving
warmth behind me

Almost [V3]

fingers drift across your darkened skin
like the building shadows from
the slow smooth descent of a summer sun
behind the gentle curve of the west
I try vainly to memorize
the last warm dissipating rays
before they leave me desolate

arms tense around your waist
like the eternal pull earth on a lustrous moon
invisibly powerful and evocative
of a stellar waltz in a vacant ball room
after everyone else has gone off into the night or their bedrooms
but the moon is quietly slipping away
losing grip with each graceful turn in the dark

your ethereal eyes in mine
the soft burn of a million clustered stars
that reveal themselves to the romantics
who leave the modern cities scanning the skies for love and inspiration
only to realize that all those brilliant beacons in heaven
have already died years ago
in a cosmic sigh and collapse

nearly kissing you
tender pink flesh parted waiting for warmth
but feeling cold static air instead
was almost remembering a dream
of unreal beauty and color
before it is swallowed by the vacuum at
the back of your mind

opening my eyes to the painful brightness of
another new-day sun still low in the sky
I lowered my head and moved east
leaving warmth behind me

Almost [V2]

fingers drift across your tanned skin
like the slow smooth decent of the sun
behind the gentle curve of the west
as you try vainly to memorize
the last warm rays dissipate
before leaving you desolate

arms around your waist
like earths eternal pull on the lustrous moon
invisibly powerful and evocative
of a stellar waltz in a vacant ball room
but each slowly slipping away
losing grip with each graceful turn

eyes in mine
the soft burn of a million clustered stars
that reveal themselves to the romantics
when they leave the modern city
but all those brilliant beacons
have already died yeas ago

nearly kissing you
like almost remembering a dream
of unreal beauty and color
before it is swallowed by the vacuum of
the back of your mind

opening my eyes to the painful
brightness of a another new-day sun
still low in the sky
waiting on what no one knows
I lower my head and move east
leaving warmth behind me

Almost [V1]

fingers across your skin
the smooth dipping of the sun
behind the curve of the west
and the last warm rays leave you shivering

my arms around your waist
like earths pull on the moon
invisibly powerful
but slowly slipping away

your eyes with mine
the soft burn of a million clustered stars
when you leave the city
but the country isn't a home for me

nearly kissing you
like almost remembering a dream
that is swallowed by the vacuum of
the back of your mind

opening my eyes to the painful
brightness of a new-day sun
i lower my head and move east
leaving warmth behind me

Observations on a Storm [V3]

calignous clouds billow up from the ocean
expanding to fill the sky
like steam surging from an ethereal train
the air hisses and strains with movement

a vast shadow covers the town and forest
warmth dissipates from the atmosphere
and the fauna tightens with anxiety
apprehensive silence falls over man and animal
the little singing birds retreat into thick winding branches

the boughs shiver
vacillating in strained sweeping arcs
their leaves glint rapidly in the wind
and nature waits

with a muted distant rumble that crescendos
with spine-tingling celerity
the rain comes hard with the sound of
a million angry cicadas

a great wind picks up and pushes the storm eastward
the tension in the air dissipates with a sigh
as cracks appear in the lowery grey
and gold streams pour through like a heavenly cataract

the light spreads out in all directions
illuminating a world that is wet and waxed
soft glows come off leaves and grass
shingles and telephone wires
steam rises patiently off the glossy pavement
and a little song bird takes a tentative step
out into the gleam of day

he pauses for a moment
the sun warming his small brown body
then a flicker of feathers as he takes flight

Observations of a Storm [V2]

calignous clouds billow up from the ocean
expanding to fill the sky
like steam surging from an ethereal train
the air hisses and strains with movement

a vast shadow covers the town and the forest
warmth dissipates from the atmosphere
and the fauna tightens in anxiety
apprehensive silence falls over man and animal
the little singing birds retreat into thick winding branches

the boughs shiver
vacillating in long waving motions
their leaves glint rapidly in wind
the anxiety builds as nature waits for the rain

with a muted distant rumble that crescendos
with spine-tingling celerity
the rain comes hard with the sound of
a million angry cicadas

a great wind picks up and pushes the storm eastward
the tension in the air dissipates with a sigh
as cracks appear in the lowery grey
with gold streams pouring through like a holy cataract

the light spreads out in all directions
illuminating a world that is
wet and waxed
soft glows come off leaves and grass
shingles and telephone wires
steam rises patiently off the glossy pavement
and a little bird takes a tentative step
out into the gleam of day

the little bird pauses for a moment
the sun warming his small brown body
then a flicker of feathers as he takes flight

Storms [V1]

calignous clouds billow up from the ocean
expanding to fill the sky
like steam surging from an ethereal train
the air hisses and strains with movement

a vast shadow covers the town and the forest
and the people and wildlife fall silent in anticipation
the little singing birds retreat into thick winding branches

the boughs shiver
vacillating in long waving motions
their leaves glint rapidly in wind
the rain comes hard with the sound of
a million angry cicadas

a great wind picks up and pushes the storm eastward
cracks in the lowery grey appear
with gold streams pouring through like a cataract

the light spreads out in all directions
illuminating a world that is
wet and waxed
soft glows come off leaves and grass
shingles and telephone wires
steam rises patiently off the glossy pavement
and a little bird takes a tentative step
out into the gleam of day

coming out from shade of a bush
the little bird pauses for a moment
the sun warming his small brown body
then a flicker of feathers as he takes flight