Perkele

Sometimes, when I’m typing things

I’m crying

Posting a comment on art that moves me

Really makes me feel something

It’s poetic.

So make the art.

Write the thing

Draw the person

Build the Lego ship

People are moved.

I am moved.

Down it goes

after all this time

tumbling tumbling

silent shine

from the top

pushed below

tumbling tumbling

there i go

what was built

up to the trees

crumbles down

I was born in a factory, chrome and proud, Placed in a rack with a colorful crowd. Sold for a dollar to a man with a beard, Who used me for smoke breaks and sometimes got weird.

He left me behind at a gas station stop, Where a college kid grabbed me to light up and bop. Together we traveled in dive bars and bands, Flicked to ignite cigarettes, joints, and plans.

I lived in his pocket through heartbreak and dates, Lit candles at vigils, burned love notes and fates. Then loaned to a stranger in some alleyway — That’s how I was lost again, shuffled away.

A woman in corduroy found me by chance, Used me for incense, for rituals, dance. Her kitchen grew smoky with incense and sage, And I felt quite at home in her mystical stage.

But pockets are tricky — one slip, then I'm free, Rolling away from her lap carelessly. I fell near a bus stop and laid there awhile, Till a skater boy found me and grinned with a smile.

He took me to rooftops, to bonfires and shows, Lit sparklers, small fuses, and God only knows. But skater boys tumble, and so did I too — Fell out of his jeans as he jumped and he flew.

Now here on the pavement I quietly wait, Scuffed up and dented, accepting my fate. But footsteps approach and fingers reach down, And just like that — I'm off through this town.

Refujesus came strolling one fine desert morn, With a pack made of socks and a halo well-worn. His robe was all wrinkled, his sandals were shot, And his holy beard tangled in knots he forgot.

He knocked on a door with a sign that said “NO,” So he scribbled “Just checking!” and gave it a go. The guard said, “Your paperwork’s centuries late.” He shrugged, “Well, I did rise again—give or take.”

At customs they asked him, “What’s your intent?” He said, “Mostly kindness, and maybe a tent.” They searched through his bag full of loaves and old fish, And muttered, “This fellow is oddly delish.”

He wandered through cities where rich people dined, And offered free hugs, which they all declined. He juggled some figs for a small caravan, And healed a man’s rash with a big frying pan.

He taught a stray goat how to moonwalk on cue, Turned mud into coffee and socks into stew. He crashed at a hostel (they charged him in prayers), And bartered his sandals for two folding chairs.

He shouted, “Rejoice!” at a laundromat crowd, Then tripped on a mop and proclaimed it out loud. He baptized a duck by mistake in a sink, Then gave it a name: “Little Savior, I think.”

He passed by a wall that was ten stories tall, He climbed it with grace and a pink rubber ball. When questioned by guards if he had a real visa, He whispered, “I am the divine… Refujesus.”

Down in the depths where the waters run thick, Lives a creature of myth, amphibious, slick. But monsters, like men, have their errands to do— Even legends require a schedule or two.

He wakes with a stretch in his algae-strung bed, Slaps on some seaweed to slick back his head. With a sigh and a bubble he’s out through the reeds, Clutching his briefcase of practical needs.

First stop’s the bank by the shipwreck debris, Where the tellers are crabs and conduct business with glee. He deposits his clams with a signature squiggle, While jellyfish clerks eye his gills as they jiggle.

Next is the market where mermaids all shout, “Herrings on sale! Fresh oysters about!” He barters politely with squid behind stalls, Then bags up his shrimp and his shopping list calls.

At noon there’s a meeting at the Kelp Credit Union, They argue returns in aquatic communion. Charts made of coral, pens shaped like eels, He nods and he hums at the quarterly deals.

A stop at the gym — "Swim Strong, Swim Free" — Where he bench-presses anchors beneath a kelp tree. Then coffee with friends at the Rusty Old Pier, Where gossip is traded for bubbles and cheer.

By dusk he’s exhausted, just longing for peace, He kicks off his flippers and boils up some grease. Eats dinner alone with the glowfish turned low, Watches soap operas starring trout in a row.

(A Noir Sailor’s Lament)

The moon is a liar, hung thin in the sky, She watches me drift but won’t tell me why. These hands smell of rope, of tar, and regret— The sea doesn’t love me; it’s easy to forget.

I signed on for glory, for ports dressed in light, But found only shadows that swallow the night. My bunk is a coffin, nailed shut with my sins, And the waves wear a grin like old circus twins.

The gulls are all judges, black-robed and severe, They laugh when I whisper the things that I fear. My compass spins circles, it dances, it weeps, While something below me stirs under the deeps.

I've heard them down there — soft voices like knives, That speak of lost sailors and unlived-out lives. They promise me harbors of velvet and bone, But each port I reach feels more haunted, more lone.

The captain went mad or was born so, I think, He toasts to the stars with a bottle of ink. And me? I just swab where the bloodstains won’t dry, Dreaming of shipwrecks beneath a bruised sky.

There once was a candy man, Pete McMaroo, Who wore jellybean jackets and taffy-tied shoes. He danced every morning with caramel socks, And used peppermint pebbles to tickle the clocks.

His hat was a swirl of spun sugar and lace, With licorice lightning that zipped round his face. He spoke in a giggle, he walked with a skip, And he'd high-five a toffee with just one quick flip.

His home wasn’t normal—it jiggled and jelled. The doorbell played music, the floorboards all yelled. The roof was a rooftop of bubblegum bricks, And the front yard grew lollipops taller than sticks.

He had a small dog made of marshmallow fluff, Who barked once a week and then melted in stuff. His cat was a licorice noodle named Jean, Who hissed only when she turned tangerine.

Inside, there were fountains of soda so bright, That fireflies gathered to bathe in the light. He'd juggle some jawbreakers, gargle some cream, And whistle in chocolate—a cocoa-fueled dream.

He crafted his tables from nougat and nuts, His spoons made of wafers, his napkins of guts— (Not real ones, of course! Just fruit leather kind!) The kind that gets stuck to your elbow and spine.

Each Tuesday at two, he'd host a parade, Of cinnamon soldiers in candy crusade. With marshmallow horses and sugar cube drums, And a bagpipe that squeaked out the sound of gum thumbs.

He built a whole city of gummies and glaze, A Ferris wheel powered by peppermint rays. There were fudge-fueled trains and lollipop cops, And a mayor who burped out banana-flavored slops.

But not everyone cheered for this candy crusader. Some frowned on his sugar like bitter potaters. "That man is a menace!" cried Dentist McClack, As he polished his pickaxe and flossed out a snack.

“He’s rotting their teeth and their brains and their shoes! I’ll chase him with fluoride and logic and news!” So he marched up to Pete with a brush in each hand, And yelled, “I demand you DE-SUGAR this land!”

But Pete simply smiled and reached in his coat, Pulled out a cupcake that danced like a goat. “You see, Mr. Dentist, your world’s far too bland! What fun is a Tuesday without candy sand?”

Then Pete sang a song full of giggles and pops, As gumdrops erupted like fizzy corn crops. The dentist slipped on a toffee-tied wire, And landed face-first in a pudding-filled tire.

From then on, old Fred was never quite right— He giggled at licorice deep into night. And Pete? He grew sweeter, more wild and free, Expanding his kingdom with syrupy glee.

He built candy castles, he spun sugared clouds, He held gummy operas that drew in big crowds. He’d twirl through the skies on a bubble-wrap kite, And leave little butterscotch stars in his flight.

So if ever you feel like your life’s gone askew, And the world’s far too sour and dentist-approved, Just follow the trail where the chocolate winds meet, And you’ll find a small sign:

He sat on a throne of rusted gold, A crown too heavy, a heart too cold. With breath like smoke from a dying flame, He ruled by fear and not by name.

The courtiers bowed with broken backs, Their smiles stitched with silent cracks. He dined on pearls, on lambs unborn, While his people starved and dreams were torn.

His robes were sewn from stolen skin, His scepter carved from mortal sin. He taxed the poor to build his keep, Then laughed as they died in gutters deep.

He silenced truth, burned all the books, Hung poets high from sharpened hooks. The bells that rang once pure and wide Now moaned like ghosts who'd wept and died.

But whispers stirred behind the veil, In candle smoke and prisoned jail. The baker’s boy, the widow’s heir, All breathed revolt into the air.

One stormlit night, the gates gave way, The people surged like judgment’s bay. They dragged the king from crimson halls And fed his throne to fire’s calls.

He begged in muck, his voice gone thin, But justice bears no love for kin. No gold could bribe the reaper’s hand— He met his end in dirt and sand.

She was ten tons of rust and prayer, The Saltwood Drift with a crooked stair. No bigger than a drunken lie, And just as likely not to die.

Her captain wore a coat of black, With sins stitched tight across his back. He spoke in growls, not meant for man, And kept a pistol in a coffee can.

The sea was mean and drunk with squall, It rose like guilt and threatened all. Waves like debts came crashing down, Trying hard to drag them down.

No stars above, just bruised old sky, And gulls that circled, waiting to pry. The compass spun like a crooked deal, And the hull moaned truths you shouldn’t feel.

The crew was three and one was mad, One kept praying, the last just laughed. They sailed through fog so thick with dread, The air itself felt good as dead.

A freighter passed, no lights, no sound— Ghost ship trailing deeper ground. The radio hissed with voices lost, Like every scream had paid a cost.

But Saltwood held, through tooth and tide, With metal faith and devil’s pride. She didn’t break, she didn’t beg, Just rode the storm on one stiff leg.

By dawn, the sea had calmed its thirst, But nothing looked like it did at first. No land, no birds, no path to track— Just salt and steel and no way back.

Beneath the hush where the moonlight slips, And tide pulls secrets from trembling lips, There lies a place where silence keeps— A breathless dark they call Indigo Deep.

No charts can trace its ink-black span, No diver returns, no sonar can. It sings in tones too low to hear, A hum that feeds on fear and near.

They say it swallows ships like wine, And curls around the anchor line. A velvet void with teeth like glass, Where time is slow, and none shall pass.

The fish down there have eyes grown wide, Pale as grief, and twice as sly. They flick through ruins long forgot, Through prayers once cast, now left to rot.

A sailor once, with a cobalt mind, Claimed he touched it, left part behind. He speaks in riddles, sleeps with light, And weeps when seas go calm at night.

No storm can match its coiling dread, No god has dared to raise its dead. It waits for those who dive too steep, The endless mouth of Indigo Deep.

The sign read “Welcome to Mercy Glen,” Population scratched out in rusted pen. A lonely road, a gas pump dead— Four lived here. Three wished they’d fled.

Old Sheriff Pike with his one good eye, Still cleaned his badge though the law was a lie. He talked to ghosts on the radio hum, Waiting for crimes that would never come.

Miss Ruth ran the diner, always in red, Served cold eggs and things better left dead. She knew your sins before you spoke— Poured black coffee like a funeral joke.

Tommy the boy with a twitch in his grin, Wrote names in chalk on his pale white skin. He said he saw things no one should see— Like who killed Dad and who’d kill me.

And then there’s me, the last in line, Drinking rotgut by the church bell’s spine. I write it all down in a torn-up book, Pretend I don’t hear the way they look.

No mail comes here, no birds, no breeze. Just fog that clings like a skin disease. Four souls left where the sky don’t cry— Where secrets rot but never die.

He wrote by candle in a London flat, Where rain tapped Morse on the window slat. A bottle of gin, two lumps of doubt— And an inkwell he never quite figured out.

The label was foreign, the seal half cracked, Smelled of iron, smoke, and something black. A gift, he claimed, from a dead-eyed peer, Whispered through fog in a pub of fear.

He dipped the nib, and the pages bled— Words that slithered, twitched, and fed. Plots grew twisted, characters screamed, His fiction blurred with things he dreamed.

Each night he'd scribble with frantic hand, Pen scratching secrets the sane can't stand. He muttered Latin, or something worse, As ink leaked madness line by verse.

Neighbors heard him pacing floors, Laughing loud at walls and doors. He stopped the mail, unplugged the phone, Drank ink like absinthe, lived alone.

His prose turned slick, unholy, cursed, The Queen was a lizard, the moon was reversed. He wrote of eyes inside the drain, Of gods who fed on poets' brains.

One day, the flat went dead and cold— The ink ran dry, the story told. All they found was a single note: “Beware the words the ink promotes.”

The room was stained with violet oil, His pen stuck deep in the floorboard’s coil. They buried him with books unread, A mind unspooled, a soul misled.

She smoked kelp cigarettes by the rusted pier, One fin missing, the other smeared With barnacle scars and alley slime— A mermaid chewed up by time.

No seashell bra, no siren song, Just whiskey breath and a look gone wrong. The ocean spat her out half-made, And left her floating in the shade.

Born with half a tail, they said she’d drown— No ballroom glides, no shimmer crown. The others mocked with gilled delight, “Go walk, land-thing. You're not quite right.”

She sold her voice for shelter walls, Traded scales for bathroom stalls. Men came looking for a myth to chase, Left cold coins on her water-stained face.

The docks grew cruel as nights grew thin, Each tide returned what hope swept in. She kept a knife beneath her braid, For sailors drunk and debts unpaid.

She dreamed of deep, of trenches black, Where no one laughs at what you lack. Where jellyfish drift like mournful ghosts, And freaks like her are honored hosts.

But here, above, the world’s unkind— It loves its beauty, leaves the blind. And mermaids, see, they bleed like us When salt meets wound and dreams combust.