Dark bits.

Or not. You can never really tell how words and music will land for others.  That's an artist's curse.

LUST

You taste like Saturday night,
with a hint of Sunday confession.
Everything lingers,
trails of smoke follow your touch
and I burn.
 

It's just me.

An October afternoon.

Ocean and Ocean and Ocean. 

if you keep looking, down the coast

there is only fog.

Only fog and me and sea.

I imagine him before I see him.

Slow walk just above the water line, 

the fog catching up behind him,

fantastical cape.

The rational me, the me that is willing to sacrifice everything - even my breath - for the illusion of normalcy, 

tells me he will walk by, acknowledge me with a half wave, and continue down the shoreline. 

The darker part of me, the part I trust and ignore,

assures me the stranger is coming for me.

I am the destination. 

The finish line.

I can see him now. A small stick figure,

growing a bit with each step.

He's smiling, I imagine.

He's hungry, I know. 

After there will be only fog.

I will be less than mist.

So I sit here, on this October day,

waiting for the stranger and the friendly half wave

that will never come.

There is a dead factory. It sits on the tip of a small piece of land that extends into a forgotten lake. The whole structure looks like a giant dirty-inked thumb print pressed against a faded blue sheet of paper. Sunny days show up here about as often as pearls in washed-up oysters. Today is one of those rare days.

Joseph walks the perimeter, a reverse moat of concrete that keeps the waters at bay. To Joseph, it seems as if some deranged architect feared that armies of water nymphs and other fantastical creatures would rise up from the old lake and storm the ramparts. But this is not a castle, and it was no army, real or imagined, that destroyed this place.

Joseph continues his silent patrol, head cocked to the sky. His eyes are closed but he opens them quickly every few steps to avoid catastrophe or embarrassment, the two being synonymous for most Englishmen. even those from Yorkshire. When his eyes are shut, he feels the sun's embrace, a mother's soft hand on his face. 

Soon he stops walking, tired of opening his eyes and not wanting to chance falling into the water. There is wind and he hears the leaves along the shoreline sighing. He stands there a time, waiting for the ghosts. It is a beautiful, sunny day. Even so, their eventual appearance is inevitable. There is a bottle of not-so-cheap golden heat in his coat pocket, but today there is no chill excuse to seek it out, so Joseph just stands there, arms at his side, grizzled face (no wife, no work, no reason to shave).  

Eyes still closed, Joseph resists an urge to shout. Instead, he listens. He waits. After a time, he thinks that maybe it isn't ghosts he came to see. What would be the point? What do ghosts do, other then mock and offer false comfort. No, there are no ghosts here that Joseph hopes to stumble upon. The discarded, living or dead, cannot help him. It is at this moment that Joseph realizes that is exactly what he is. Discarded. Left behind and of no further use. He almost laughs then, but part of him knows that is not a path he can afford to go down at the moment.

This is the last place I was happy, now Joseph the Discarded has returned to haunt it. I am the ghost.

The thought hits Joseph with all the weight of sadness and he feels daylight's warmth fade from his face. Probably a cloud, maybe a cloud. He does not open his eyes to see. He does not want to know the answer.

Imagine, if you can, working in a shoe factory. Many people can't. Imagine working from dawn to night in such a place, with the noise and the chill and the grey and the monotony. Imagine doing it every day, every hour, slowly trading away your years, your life, in exchange for standing on a noisy factory floor. Now, imagine being happy. Joseph may well have been the only man alive capable of imagining just that. And the realization almost kills him.

Warmth returns to Joseph's face. Still he does not open his eyes. He does not turn his head.

Joseph does not return here on rare, sunny days, with the hope of glimpsing ghosts or other such ships, long since sailed. He comes here seeking a way back. A way to trade this world for a story, a world where old men can slip back and reclaim important moments. Where time is a merry-go-round, a roundabout, and where sometimes a man gets to jump on and ride in circles, the years sloughing off him like a snake shedding its skin. 

Right then, Joseph is not thinking about what he might have done to make things better. He doesn't want to change anything. He wants a place that needs him. A place that wants him. His place. His happy place. The factory.

A tear fights free from Joseph's closed eyes. He feels it make its way down his cheek. Tears always feel bigger in darkness, and this one feels like a river. He hears something then. It's only wind in trees. Only breeze and leaves and desperation. But to Joseph it almost sounds like a factory whistle.

Not almost. It is a factory whistle.

At this moment, he knows with absolute certainty that if he opens his eyes, he will see them. The discarded, all walking toward the factory's big double doors. He hears them now, a murmur that follows any crowd. Lost words about children and wives and baseball scores and politics. Joseph can't make out anything the discarded are saying, but he knows exactly what they are saying.

He stands there for a long time, but his eyes do not open. He has no interest in seeing ghosts. That is not why Joseph haunts this place on rare, sunny days.

I write poemswith bullets.
Sprayed punctuation on government walls.
I feel bad sometimes, but 
in the end - everything is art. 
Do you understand?

Liar.

Sacrifices are made,
so that my words may be heard.
In the end
I want you to listen.

do you understand?

Liar.

I want to be in charge of change.
So I write poems.
With bullets.
So I can be heard.  
Understand?

Liar.

Freestyle accompanying phone poem.

Shelter is a pretty illusion, 

a grass hut in a hurricane.

I offer my arms and soft words of safety

against the all devouring wolf of time -

relentless hunter.

Our only escape on a very narrow bridge, 

sways with each breath, each step.

Suspended above darkness and void. 

This moment.

this moment

this moment

is everything 

is everything 

our pretty illusion. 

Last week or so, I changed my profile so that it no longer reflected that my submissive had accepted my collar.  I did this as a bit of an inside joke and tease for her. 

I did not understand the importance or significance of doing this. It was not done because of any change in the status of our relationship.  It was not done out of anger and it certainly was not done out of intentional disrespect.

But I understand now that it was inappropriate for me to do so, and could seem hurtful and demeaning.  So I apologize for what I did. It won't happen again.

There are a lot of Daddys here, so there is a shortage of available screen names. Let's help them out.  post your suggestions. 

1. Daddy Long Legs

2. Bo Diddly Daddy

3. Sugarless Daddy

3.5 Sponge Daddy

4. Fatty Daddy

5. DomCom Daddy

6. Eat a Bag of Daddy

7. Daddy Denture 

8. Sir Dad alot 

9. Daddy Lubeless

10. Glitterdick Daddy