https://bonesmoses.org/categories/writing/ Recent content in Writing on BonesMoses.org Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sat, 18 Aug 2018 10:00:33 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/sometimes/ Sat, 18 Aug 2018 10:00:33 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/sometimes/ In the lonely hint of darkness, for there are nor wit nor wail. It matters not how things began, for all is doomed to fail. In despondence, it occurs that few things persist so well as uncertainty. That constant, maddening drip, penultimate and voracious through and through. The criss and cross, flaying and barreling forward, draining into yawning steel or simpering infinity. It’s there. And so, these times that conspire to wrest recollection from failing and questionable histories, that ascribe nostalgia to a litany of inconsistent but unfailing missteps, revenge is both meticulous and triumphant. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/the-yellow-house/ Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:23:04 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/the-yellow-house/ I’ve been reading Reddit’s nosleep section for kicks, and wanted to contribute. So I threw together a quick story based loosely on some childhood memories. The scariest stories are the ones partially based on truth, right? Can someone be haunted by a house? I’m a little freaked out, here… When I was six or seven, we moved into a house near the railroad tracks. My brother and I shared a room on the second floor, and it was our parents’ plan to renovate the second, larger room to be a big game room for us. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/leviathan-revisited/ Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:27:04 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/leviathan-revisited/ I’d first like to begin by saying I’ve written about this topic several times already. But while those were basically artistic impressions, this is an outright essay on the mild disquiet I feel every day while embedded in this society, and what probably causes it. I’m warning you right now that it’s exceedingly long… about twelve pages going by word-count alone. You’ve been warned. As a rather boring proponent of various documentaries, I recently ran across The Trap directed by Adam Curtis. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/forgotten/ Mon, 21 Feb 2011 02:57:55 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/forgotten/ In the world that we despise, are there times of loss or wonder? Toiling ever, full of lies, sick of writhing, going under. In that bleakness waiting never, 'till no senseless drone became. Wrath or sunder, thrash or sever, breaking through with none to claim. And that weakness sups upon us, gibbers for our souls do slake. With a thirst so vile and vicious, we but shiver in its wake. Thus all reason burns with malice, shackled minds do shriek and wail. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/local-man-angry-daughter-isne28099t-dating-vampire/ Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:25:32 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/local-man-angry-daughter-isne28099t-dating-vampire/ Many fathers only want the best for their daughters: the most competitive colleges, the fanciest cars, a man that’s truly worthy of her attention. Jim Seymore, a local butcher, bemoans his daughter’s choice of a successful brain surgeon instead of a vampire in her search for love. When interviewed about his unorthodox stance, Mr. Seymore explained. “It’s ridiculous!” he stated, nodding toward a small pile of Twilight books and True Blood DVDs on his coffee table. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/falling/ Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:48:10 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/falling/ And she who danced upon the darkness, breaks and thrashes on the floor. Throwing fits of rage and fury, torn and sundered to the core. Blistered through and through with wonder, blasted from the roles of fate. Ripped and wretched for a moment, crushed with woe upon the gate. No paraiah is more vanquished, than who buck the will of time. Seeking but to make a difference, though ’tis an eternal crime. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/mccreedys-war-finale/ Mon, 03 May 2010 21:09:34 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/mccreedys-war-finale/ Read: part 1, and part 2. " ‘Fight the good fight,’ he said," mumbled Ben, almost incoherently, to nobody in particular. The silence became a living thing. Everyone knew about the Chicago explosion. By then, everyone in the bar stared at Ben in complete shock, not even breathing to disrupt his narrative. “I dunno if the man knew his plan or not, but those wasn’t water pumps we blew. That bullshit about the river flowin’ backwards is fer the tourists,” Ben said unevenly, “an’ gullible bastards like me. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/mccreedys-war-part-2/ Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:35:02 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/mccreedys-war-part-2/ Erin lasted longer than he expected. Two weeks he’d traveled through towns picking up supplies and killin’ every damn zombie he saw. But Erin knew he’d never make any genuine progress that way, so he left the back-roads for good. He followed the tributary streets into highways and finally the interstates, heading to the biggest mall he could find, knowing the zombies would congregate there to feed. He went in with guns blazing, hurling Molotov cocktails in every direction, and somehow emerged unscathed, like an immortal action hero. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/short-story-crash/ Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:00:38 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/short-story-crash/ Sam pressed the accelerator into the floorboards, trying not to stand in his panic. He risked a glance at Kristen and suppressed a sob. “She’s fine, man. Just drive!” Ben barked, holding her head and pressing the towel into her throat. Maybe a towel wasn’t the best choice, but they had to use something, didn’t they? “God damn it!” yelled Sam. “Just God damn everything.” Angry tears rolled down his cheeks even as he concentrated on the road, almost never looking at the speedometer that blared 90mph like an accusation. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/mccreedys-war-part-1/ Sat, 10 Apr 2010 23:31:48 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/mccreedys-war-part-1/ “Son, let me tell you somethin’. Anyone says truth is stranger than fiction, really means he just saw somethin’ impossible happen, an’ can’t believe it ain’t. Nothin’s stranger than fiction, an’ whoever denies it only wants to run away from the truth. The truth is mean, Son, an’ cold. It ain’t no fairy tale; that you can believe.” A figure in the background sniggered. “You crazy, man!” shouted another. A low rumble of agreement met their skepticism. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/a-serious-inquiry/ Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:22:17 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/a-serious-inquiry/ Dear Freddy Krueger, I have long enjoyed your work. Eviscerating children is also one of my favorite hobbies! I was wondering about the specifications you used for the glove blades, and the honing/stropping methods you used. All of the limb-gouging tools I create never quite seem sharp enough… I know you have a busy schedule of invading dreams and terrifying occupants of Elm Street with a dizzying barrage of convoluted and psychologically unraveling horrors, but I’d greatly appreciate your input. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/never-enough-time/ Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:35:00 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/never-enough-time/ What are hobbies, exactly? They’re things that take time. Sometimes, too much time. Copious, extravagant amounts fully enabled by circumstance to derail anything improperly prioritized. (For me, that’s basically everything.) I have a desk job, folks. It’s not the worst thing for a writer, but I’ve also decided to learn to play the piano after something like two decades of indecision on the matter. And of course, I must maintain a relatively strenuous aerobics regimen to keep my malformed heart in working order. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/what-is-it-good-for/ Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:43:29 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/what-is-it-good-for/ “It is a war, you know. The worst kind,” said the old man. The youth stared at him and shook his head. “There you go again. What is it this time?” He paused in thought for a moment. “I seen pictures of World War II, man. But now you gonna tell me somethin’ out there is worse than a whole mess ‘o dudes in a church with no arms and legs. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/spending-all-of-value/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:13:21 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/spending-all-of-value/ What is this darkness? Can I see it, in this blackness full of light? A dawn of wonder crying softly all the while. For in those dreams of succor, there stands an empty hollow, a haunting, callow dread upon his smile. And in that thunder of the sky which has ripped apart our souls, we lay broken on the shores of destined fate. And there’s no rest, and no release, from the torment looming here, madly thrumming in the aether like a shiver through our spines. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/i-once-had-a-whit-of-wonder/ Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:51:28 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/i-once-had-a-whit-of-wonder/ Fly in the darkness, fry in the light, sup upon the simple while it dances in the night. In dips and wander, tell and fall, let the cries echo through the gallows in the hall. So right, so raw, but thick undone, those fresh and callow, so calm begun. But while and willow, these fawns of one, they trip and tremble, through webs once spun. In times far broken, and worse for wear, it once was spoken, no time to spare. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/always-known/ Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:17:24 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/always-known/ Logic is a conundrum. That which sups upon the wretched singularity of the soul and gibbers unsated, slathering beyond redemption among voracious gullets of woe, seeking to consume every vestige of complacent acceptance until only oblivion remains. And as that creeping, insidious ivy grasps and claws, rending thought and will asunder, naught but confusion reigns where once supreme and permanent wisdom wrought transcendent equilibrium before the sack of time forgotten and unsung. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/not-another-word/ Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:50:00 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/not-another-word/ Dawn awakes, but nods until draped upon silvery dregs of fortune and will. So new and calm, too tired or careless to examine the tumult or try repentance or rest, acquiescing ultimately to wroth and disdain. And it shivers; tied upon a backplane, shunned by not solitude or enmity, but of contemplation and ease. These things that think and consider, aware of nothing but alacrity and fate, or driven destiny, fail to learn or lose earned wisdom by crashing upon reality; wailing into the rift of oblivious ease and treacherous banality, corrupting innocence in favor of some measure of nebulous, untrustworthy success. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/riddled-sky/ Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:16 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/riddled-sky/ In the sky… in the Sky: it’s so drastic, only one, time and time. Fuddled, meandering among wandering trails, and peaks, and valleys strewn of fate and whistles. Drinking of the soft rattle leaking from the moon and fountains whispering rightly, always rightly, to heedless sands. To mire, so brittle, of foundations won and filtered by calm melodies in tune, or sung by ripples in soiled but honest water. Water, by God, wished and real, upon the parched and the famished, and the tame. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/if-there-are-stories/ Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:27:11 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/if-there-are-stories/ To a six-year-old boy, hospitals are more confusing than frightening. But Shaun liked this place, even knowing on some level he may never leave. There were the play-closets, for one: child-size doors scattered around the waiting-room where kids who never met could hide and seek each other while parents completed paperwork. Further into the labyrinth was a sprawling wooden house sized just for little ones, always echoing with the giggles of all but the few confined to wheelchairs, too weak to stand but smiling at the sight nonetheless. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/question-of-enlightenment-introduction/ Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:24:00 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/question-of-enlightenment-introduction/ What is it like to feel satisfaction and know true contentment? To let the world and its ills flow past, through, and beyond. To smile in the face of adversity, of pain, of loss. To have that strength, to embrace absolute insignificance, to reduce any problem to a shadow of nothing. To eschew derision, find compassion for the hateful, and love the enemy that inspires progression beyond simple reaction. For years, I’ve felt on the verge of understanding the world–beyond the components that comprise the shapes and senses, past anthropomorphic callings of mental stimuli and instinctual urges. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/rapidity-of-splot/ Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:32:43 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/rapidity-of-splot/ Always scheming, scarcely dreaming–is it bits, or bats, or both? Wind around a wrinkled walrus, best amend your tale of woe. ‘Cause it’s simple, as a pimple, for anyone to see, that the crazy isn’t lazy to the dreaming and the me. But don’t listen (there’s a siren) to the babbling I make. Every time I cough or chortle, I’ve most likely made a mistake. Or have I wandered oddly off the road into the trees? https://bonesmoses.org/writing/overtuned/ Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:50:25 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/overtuned/ A tawny force a’canting, in a melancholy spire, does cry and waver, ranting among blackened souls afire. The split and crackle churning, always wrought by leavened hale, attempts to quench the burning in a mixed-up, sundry tale. By sultry fates asunder, those calamities do gaze into most guarded plunder, only whets desire to raze. Waking chaos few survived, glimmered through the murky none, wetly splashed and yet deprived of kismet forever done. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/again-and-again/ Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:14:01 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/again-and-again/ Espouse that fantastic land, that porous slate through terrible glade. Wisps swim to curl night among ether and silver shale–pale vortexes swept and sullied, inking silken scrawls for rend and rape of dreg and coughing man. Entail, so wroth be the wanderer, of platitude and tale spoken beyond listless temper. Echos or whispers or tide-battered bones slipped to steal unwary souls and filth and empty blood borne of order and contempt. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/governed-by-chaotically-harmonic-patterns/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:44:21 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/governed-by-chaotically-harmonic-patterns/ A conundrum espies an infinite wake, bereft of solace, robbed of succor. Instead, splendor and convoluted mirages ripple and entreaty fealty or some semblance of instrumentality beyond obvious and unrepentant madness. It sings of listless fate and they listen The pariah raves for reprieve but damned perfectly Tortured ceaselessly by forever Still, a blink pierces the vale and cruelly illuminates every sordid fleck and sardonic splinter of corrupted tapestry. Driven unreality crafts this mockery of fantastic oblivion, voracious and intent to rend sanity through tantalizing simulacrum inspired by grievous shadows cast beneath vile imitations of predictable automatons. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/quotes-why-not/ Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:53:24 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/quotes-why-not/ I’m a writer, these pop into my head. That’s life. “It is not enough to be a just leader of men. For how can one rest knowing men need leaders at all? Gently cast down those that idolize or they shall eternally subjugate themselves.” “What is melancholy but the purest conviction there’s been some terrible mistake?” Until Tomorrow https://bonesmoses.org/writing/dynastic-bombastic/ Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:43:13 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/dynastic-bombastic/ C:\POSTARTICLE.EXE Article Posting Engine 2.97.827 build 132875423 alpha 47 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter article type. Enter ? for list. > rant Loading rant module... done. Enter rant type. Enter ? for list. > sarcastic Initializing sarcasm plugin... done. Select sarcasm level. Enter ? for list. > billionty WARNING! Setting 'billionty' is highly unstable! Continue? > yes Enter subject matter, 'FUCK' terminates: > Clinton > Bush > dynasty > hades > handbasket > FUCK Generating tokenizer. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/opaque/ Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:53:52 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/opaque/ And there are those that vanish, beneath the sundered skies. Who prey upon the witless, with malice in their eyes. Sit smoking in the landscape, a rolling wake of rage. Tumultuous with a sickness. beyond mere turn of age. This rhyming lilt of marching, doth shake the pebbled earth. Resplendent in the darkness, erasing his own birth. And through that eye of nothing, a glass burned through with none. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/secret-squirrel/ Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:43:19 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/secret-squirrel/ Bob: Wow, I was beginning to think you’d fallen off teh intarwebs. Shaun: Droll. Bob: Well, I certainly thought so. What, nothing to say for the last over a month? Shaun: … Bob: I’ll take that as a no. Shaun: Do you think this is healthy? Bob: What? Talking to yourself, or being so apathetic you can’t even bring yourself to write about anything? Shaun: There’s nothing to write! I played some video games, watched all of House… nothing exciting. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/my-perspective/ Sat, 13 Oct 2007 22:52:15 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/my-perspective/ There are things of dark, and things within the sky. There are folds of woe, and wroth of shallow eye. There are prophets that sit upon words haughty or stripped of fear. And sit they must, digesting solemn mixes of faithless harrow. They tire of life, promised full of meaning and limitless wonder. They are broken, the wanderers, lit like frozen candles flickering in the infinite chaos, striving weakly to scale and scrabble brittle scaffolds of reason. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/once-atop-the-mountain/ Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:27:24 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/once-atop-the-mountain/ “Fidalius,” began Kartaena, sadly, “the Human Condition has an infinite capacity for suffering. A man’s ability to torture himself pales the gamut of physical or emotional pain another could mete. History is written on the backs of men and women who ignore this at their peril, societies lost to antiquity, flush with philosophers or kings suffused with their own righteous insights. Even great empires that once spanned the world and ushered a new era of inspired debate and progress lay as dust, forgotten by all. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/all-but-the-fat-lady/ Sun, 30 Sep 2007 23:26:34 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/all-but-the-fat-lady/ And then there was none. The tale of Rue’s haunt of Tammond Dale is no more. It’s over, damn you, and done. The tale describing an undead lagomorph intent on rending Kyle’s soul has been concluded, and I can only hope I avoided being obvious. Now I must combine the hundreds of separate entries into one giant thing and format it as expected by publishers. I need to print, edit, and refine. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/of-literary-endeavors/ Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:04:58 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/of-literary-endeavors/ And so Chapter 19 of my first book is starting. Another three, maybe four chapters remain until everything is finished, for good or ill. I’ve entered the endgame, and done terrible, unconscionable things to my characters at this stage, and it’s only going to get worse. It’s necessary, and for the trilogy to continue, absolutely essential I do these things now. I hate foreshadowing for events that won’t happen for two books yet, but I’m not writing this, so much as I’m experiencing each confusing morsel. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/rue-a-missing-prologue/ Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:16:01 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/rue-a-missing-prologue/ “Hit it again!” they jeered. Crowded around an ancient willow, the godlings pointed and sneered. “Eww! Gross. Look at it!” When the man approached, he wondered what they stood over; why they slapped a dusty old plank against the tree. Bored maybe, or curious; children always were. “What is that?” one asked him, pointing. He couldn’t tell: it was mostly crushed, bulbous and oozing–all but destroyed. “I don’t know…” said the man, squinting, humoring them. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/ratios-are-the-devil/ Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:11:19 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/ratios-are-the-devil/ I’ve always wondered just how many “words” makes an average printed page, so I looked it up. Apparently that number is roughly 250, with about thirty lines per page. Assuming the average six-by-nine inch book format and a one inch margin, that seems about right. Unfortunately it also means my page count estimates have been the product of pure fantasy. I took chapter one and formatted it according to what’s normally expected by publishers. https://bonesmoses.org/writing/lost-in-simplicity/ Mon, 18 Dec 2006 02:30:35 +0000 https://bonesmoses.org/writing/lost-in-simplicity/ Sometimes I catch a sliver of a phrase that contains within it a shard of true insight both innocent and intentional. It could be from a book, A song, an animated film, a graphic novel, someone on the street, or an unexpected observation from my rapidly unraveling mind. Regardless of the source, with each fragment a tiny piece of an infinitely overwhelming puzzle becomes imperceptibly clearer. It is melancholy of the purest sort, consuming and unapologetic in demanding my remaining attention.