I Am Santo

Fiction, poetry, music and mindscape pictures by creative artist Jason Santo

Mirror mirror, asked on that wall. For you are the fairest of them all. Can you not see? This fairy tale holds no place for others. This happily ever after is yours and no one else’s. Princes may come and go, but your beauty and this divine reflection will stay forever, assuring you of the truth: there cannot be another as lovely in this world, or in any other, real or imagined. Set your teeth upon the apple and taste wicked futures where dreams of lust crowd like crippled forests at night, like the notions of forgiveness swimming in the fright of others who cannot claim as you do the throne of unapproachable affection. For you are the dream. You are the fruit. You are the pure descendant of Eden, at home in children’s stories; alive only in fictions where snakes speak sweetly of temptation and crones with knobby knuckles eliminate their competition. And who are you? Siren or klaxon? Savior or warning? The shrill cry of beauty is a hung note in the gallows of melodic reflection. Try, try, try, sweet girl, and look forward to that day when the looking glass cannot tell you anything you don’t already know: that it’s there already, in the heart, that truth. That undeniable return from the sea of cast off jealousies that ran fathoms deep, but surfaced like whale breath, like a stolen rib, like a queen’s ire when someone else dared alabaster’s sheen to a contest. Oh you always win. The perfect always get what they want. Too bad greed disallows desire, a book starved of revelation; a tale without an antidote kiss.

***///***

The truest of writing prompts, the enigmatic @alice.artc blessed me with this shot and a “mirror mirror” reference which resulted in the edit you see and the words you may have had the patience to read. Thank you, dear Alice, as always, for being such a tremendous muse.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #iamwriting #collaboration #muse #lovely #beauty #doeyes #beautifulwoman #portrait #mirror #reflection (at Mirror Mirror)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

Maybe it was the roundness of her eyes or the deep warm brown of her irises that hinted at a universe of thoughts she had swirling like galaxies in her mind. Inviting the curious. It was as if the firmament went out. She wondered if her eyes now just held cold dead space that no one was brave enough to stare into; a hungry abyss that was the color of her loneliness. Men and women. They seemed unable to look at her any longer, despite assurances of her ravishing beauty. She stepped into solitude, a maiden draped in knowledge and robust heart instead of silk finery and reticence; her mind as limitless as night sky and to be spoken! Perhaps they found such forthrightness unbecoming. Let them. She had bigger plans than to appease, and if she was as lovely as each said with their candle wax pronouncements dripping from their wary lips, she would trim their wicks with a quick sideways glance, hinting that those fires still burned within her; those faraway suns possessed even more mystery than ever. It was then she smiled again, confident in stride. Relegated to nothing and no one.  Aware that her definitions defied and her value needn’t any assessment. 

./.

Sometimes a story resides in a simple glance. Thank you to @theeglantine, as always, for allowing me to steal a tale from her always expressive beauty. She could have written it better, but I’m still glad to have had the shot. Her photo, my edit and words.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #iamwriting #collaboration #muse #lovely #beauty #doeyes #beautifulwoman #portrait (at On Approach)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

Vestige yearning,
piecemeal fulfillment,
Seeking a heart that interlocks
The way snowflakes blanket
And stars collide
Far from here, but happening
Like these dreams of complete
Blanketing
Overlapping
Depths of understanding
Like the churning
Of an ocean
Tumult sweeping day aside
Ushering in stifling night
Like stones cast
Fleeing light
Drawn by the gravity of imperfect bliss
That dark heart of reality
The antithesis of together
In light
In Union
Whole.

***

After eons, @jesmegs and I have finally managed to get a collaboration happening and it’s been a ton of fun. A fantastic writer and lovely inside and out, this is a huge honor. Her image. My edit and words. She posted a companion piece. Look for more coming soon.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #portrait #beauty #collaboration #brokenheartslament #pieces #longtimelistenerfirsttimecaller #lovely
(at Pieces)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

The sigh was a measure of indefatigable longing. It stretched as if wind across a desert, as if her lungs were chasms at the edge of the world that bore into Earth’s passion hidden deep from the surface. “Break me,” she instructed. And so he moved over her, his lips and fingers tracing her contours as will cracked. Such measured resilience had defined them, but all walls fell sooner or later. No fortress was immune. Because these hollow defenses were constructed to keep the frightening at bay, they had no recourse when the threat came from within. To get what they want, lovers need only drop the gates and step into the open, hearts exposed. And they stood in the night, hands diligent with pleasure, and awaited the sun and its greedy fire. But they would not burn. They would shine; two stars in the constellation of belonging.

————————————————-

A collaboration with my friend and muse @christinehunt76 who took the photo and did the initial crop. I did additional editing and, as usual, added words. Because that’s what I do.

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #creativewriting #igwriters #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #poetsofinstagram #writersofinstagram #model #beauty #sensuality #redlips #lipstick #bare
#surrender (at Surrender)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

Had they made thousands of these? Yes. Thousands of unique, captured dreams mailed to the homes of the rich, the lonely, the sick. And he’d never touched her although he so often dreamt of what that warm, smooth skin would feel like beneath his hands, of what her breathing would feel like under the crush of his weight. She stood before him, prone and naked, then bent back over the recliner to greet the light and he moved closer, over her, the lens spying and adoring her perfection.
She then stopped and did something she’d never done before. Standing, Roxanne stared directly at the camera; fixing her gorgeous doe eyes on Clifford whose sure hand shook under her gaze. She knew he was keeping her. She knew this was his reel. A grin teased at her full lips then and a moment later the camera stopped rolling. Just like that, it was over. Just like that she had become the latent image of his desire, his mind filling in the gaps of their last dance together in a way their bodies never would.
————————————————-
Part three and the end of the third and final planned collaboration with the alluring @___luciferaisback___. Her photos, my edit and words inspired by the shots. It was a huge honor, Linda. Thank you for being so amenable to collaborating!

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #creativewriting #igwriters #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #beautiful #sensual #seductive #lovely #creativewriting #microfiction #story #beauty #alluring #provocative #shortstory #stunning #woman #sensual_women #grainy #monochrome #sultry (at Action: Part 3)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

She’d been modeling for him over the past sixteen years, and while technology moved on, their dances didn’t change. Clifford hated the flat boredom of video. It lacked the latent image, the romance of a movie camera. And he had no patience for editing. He captured only what was raw and real, a single reel. The seduction. The long lines and curves of revelation. And no one moved with him the way Roxanne did, her head falling back and her hair sliding across her face as if under her complete control and not that of gravity. She was a greater force than Nature could summon. If this was to be their last dance, he couldn’t bear to part with it. Not after so long. Not after having let go of her time and again to the highest bidder, selling off the love and lust she coaxed from him.
————————————————-
Part two of the third and final planned collaboration with the alluring @___luciferaisback___. Her photos, my edit and words inspired by the shots. It was a huge honor, Linda. Thank you for being so amenable to collaborating!

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #creativewriting #igwriters #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #beautiful #sensual #seductive #lovely #creativewriting #microfiction #story #beauty #alluring #provocative #shortstory #stunning #woman #sensual_women #grainy #monochrome #sultry (at Action: Part 2)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

The camera churned, a kind of rough chewing made by it’s teeth as they pulled 16mm film by its sprockets, delicately capturing her on celluloid for the last time. She looked this way and that, trained to ignore Clifford and his lens, instead appearing as if the moment were candid; as if this motion picture were pulled from someone’s grainy monochrome memory. She was coy. Always so coy, but the layers slipped off surely, expertly. Clifford held the camera’s trigger and moved slowly about her as the sun played all around them and her skin beckoned. A single ten minute take of Roxanne earned her $200 now, with him earning $500 or $600 total for the shoot.
————————————————-
Part one of the third and final planned collaboration with the alluring @___luciferaisback___. Her photos, my edit and words inspired by the shots. It was a huge honor, Linda. Thank you for being so amenable to collaborating!

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #creativewriting #igwriters #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #beautiful #sensual #seductive #lovely #creativewriting #microfiction #story #beauty #alluring #provocative #shortstory #stunning #woman #sensual_women #grainy #monochrome #sultry (at Action: Part 1)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

Trapped by the flood of circumstance and the ardor of impossibly attained lust, the net cast, the zeros and ones of outrageous fortune that cling to hearts literate in the great languages of binding, abiding, yearning, desiring. Rocky shores threaten shipwrecked delight and moonlight reveals skeletons awash in the salt of uncommon release, cracked ribcages once housing fierce throbbing cores that dared to stand against calamitous tides and Hellspun winds. Coaxed and nuzzled in gentler times, licked from end to end by tongues wet with an appetite for the original sin; the apple was devoured and rich runoff drizzled the chins of this maiden’s suitors who rose, strong-kneed from the sea, stumbled at the sandy grace of her tremble, spent seed with her name on their lips, and then disappeared again into the static of urgent life, drowning despite the binary tether holding them to their mythical lover. The ocean is too big to allow Heaven, so it gives and takes away with its lunar God laughter.

————————————————-

Original photo by @zeusnursemaiden with whom I adore collaborating. Thank you for sending me this shot and for allowing me to once again explore your beauty with words.

#poem #poetry #writing #writer #poetic #poetry_addicts #literary_imagery1 #creativewriting #beauty #sea #ocean #woman #lovely #doubleexposure #waves #curves #nature #sensual #sensual_women

(at Sea Maiden)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

It was gleeful, 
This delight.
The hand finding wet,
The body curling under 
Each hot kiss
And confident breath
Bred from decades of waiting.
She sung high quiet
Into a pillow stained with lipstick
And the smear of mascara.
The moans of approaching release
A chorus of measured patience eroding
As cliff ledges falling
To the need of a turbulent sea.
Still she hid in the heart light,
Silhouette suggesting the long shadows
Of a perilous dawn
Where the cry and tension of sated hunger
Blinded all reason,
All mercy,
All reluctance.
So there she lifted high,
Spine bent in ecstasy 
And euphoria inching closer
With bold strokes 
Painted within the welcoming yawn
Of her need;
His masterpiece.
Her lost composition.

##############################

This is my second collaboration with the  lovely @life_lyrically. Her photos and my rather intensive edit accompanied by my words. Thank you so much, M. It’s wonderful to have your trust and faith to create something special together. 

#poetry_addicts #mobileartistry #poetry #snapseed #poem #photoart #heavyedit #silhouette #woman #beauty #lovely #writer #collaboration #writing #risque
(at Feared Art)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

A fastidious collection of awe, the driving beauty she possesses. Beg forgiveness, knees shattered under the weight of each supposition, each errant conclusion. How fortunate to behold such a gift of Nature! What a flourish of chance and frightening staccato, the lulling rhythm of days thrumming the mind into a drugged haze of blind complacency. And yet the pause – the break – paints brilliance on every lost minute, each failed touch where the sky stands outside view, the clouds frozen in nostalgia and a frozen past begging to be revisited. #sun #clouds #morning #sky #nature #beauty #silhouette #trees #writer #writing #poem #poetry #literary_imagery #literary_originals (at Longing)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink