I Am Santo

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

All lights go out. Whether it’s approaching day mercifully silencing the hum of illumination or simply the filament, the incandescent heart, failing, all lights quit. Quitting. It connotes a decision made, a conclusion reached. If an end is inevitable, maybe giving up is the only control to be exercised. Stick with it and prolong suffering at the hands of fate, destiny, God or whatever fictions keep the nightmares of loneliness, of emptiness, away. Call it, fold the hand, walk away and at least there’s a clean snap, like bone, that can mend and heal. Alas, the heart ain’t bone. The heart is stubborn and flexible, it beats because that’s its job and the days pain-stretch on the hope of maybe, possibly, with any luck. But it’ll stop, see? It’ll quit whether told to or not. The brave keep it going, like a sun hidden behind the sternum, a glowing, fiery, astral carnivore of darkness trying desperately to guide otherwise blind travelers through impossible nights, out of crushing depths. Yet someday even stars die, spew supernova rainbows into the wonder firmerment and gleam like celestial scars, reminders of massive histories, hard-won-and-then-lost loves. Beautiful. A dream of destruction and heavenly yearning sated, but inevitable in conclusion. All lights go out. All fires stop burning. All passions wane. But everything leaves a scar. And those last a long, long time.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #lensflare #streetlight #snow #newhampshire #dovernh #nighttime #evening #winter (at Dimming)

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Covered. Cold. Sin is in season. Disbelief in the evidence. Laid out and direct. Like sunlight on a cloudless day. Blinding. But obscured by the thick frost of derision, that chill of hate for the mirror that can’t crack soon enough. Right there. A blind man could see it and yet, reason vanishes and the tumble wins. The suffering. Embraced. Grunting long into midnight. Sweating hard agitation when softness attempts to lull. The muffled honey voice of care and blessing. There. All around. Unmistakable and then failure. Communications down. Hypnotic livewires skittering across wet avenues begging for mercy. Against these titanic beliefs. These etched-in-stone commandments that won’t crumble, shatter, sift into forgettable sands but instead cast the fiercest, suffocating shadows. Sinking unimaginable black. Sea bottom agonies. Crushing. Hear that. Hear it. A siren wails longingly. But these stones in these pockets are home. Unrisen. Drowned.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #woods #forest #newhanpshire #dovernh #sunset #dusk #winter #goldenlight (at Eulogized)

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A careless fire, this blister-founded lust chews mercilessly through the dogeared days of apart; of longing for one another in the soft glow of morning, before the hard shadows retreat and stretch and the fight of hours quake minds preoccupied with petty things, the digressions, the supposedly important tasks of responsible souls with rents, loans, the odd piece of material nonsense that drags like a lifeless body through unstirred woods, picking up pieces of flim and flam and weighing it all down, an anchor to free living and immovable even with the most ferocious of tugs pull, pull, pulling with the tenacity of Helios and his solar chariot, a deus ex machina of failure to unshackle from the torture rocks crack, crack, cracking but never breaking, uncrumbling, resistant to this blissful ardor arousing senses and grand seas of emotion that flood, capped and crest-waving, the threaded clouds of belonging mixed with the brine of release, the saltsweat stinging on tongues and the tidal wash of such smooth imaginings, like polished stones, a communion bathed in alter wine and somewhere He laughs, the grand joke of distance, of years and miles, such cruelty that the afflicted lose their blessings, cower under parchments consumed with blast furnace passions. Alone they wish for answers, their begging like snowflakes on their tongues, the taste of each appeal as cold and vanished as their constant goodbyes. It’s twin-soul yearning, this filament illuminating, heating, bringing light where darkness governs; a plea like a star fallen from a galaxy. “See us? We are light. Together we are home apart from Your design.” And the dark, weakened by their rapture, surrenders, a light-year devotion blinding the scared and empowering the dreamers, the lovers, us.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #forest #woods #trees #winter #snow #snowstorm #blizzard #noreaster #winterstorm #newengland #newhampshire #dovernh (at New Star)

Published by Jason Santo on | Permalink

A careless fire, this blister-founded lust chews mercilessly through the dogeared days of apart; of longing for one another in the soft glow of morning, before the hard shadows retreat and stretch and the fight of hours quake minds preoccupied with petty things, the digressions, the supposedly important tasks of responsible souls with rents, loans, the odd piece of material nonsense that drags like a lifeless body through unstirred woods, picking up pieces of flim and flam and weighing it all down, an anchor to free living and immovable even with the most ferocious of tugs pull, pull, pulling with the tenacity of Helios and his solar chariot, a deus ex machina of failure to unshackle from the torture rocks crack, crack, cracking but never breaking, uncrumbling, resistant to this blissful ardor arousing senses and grand seas of emotion that flood, capped and crest-waving, the threaded clouds of belonging mixed with the brine of release, the saltsweat stinging on tongues and the tidal wash of such smooth imaginings, like polished stones, a communion bathed in alter wine and somewhere He laughs, the grand joke of distance, of years and miles, such cruelty that the afflicted lose their blessings, cower under parchments consumed with blast furnace passions. Alone they wish for answers, their begging like snowflakes on their tongues, the taste of each appeal as cold and vanished as their constant goodbyes. It’s twin-soul yearning, this filament illuminating, heating, bringing light where darkness governs; a plea like a star fallen from a galaxy. “See us? We are light. Together we are home apart from Your design.” And the dark, weakened by their rapture, surrenders, a light-year devotion blinding the scared and empowering the dreamers, the lovers, us.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #forest #woods #trees #winter #snow #snowstorm #blizzard #noreaster #winterstorm #newengland #newhampshire #dovernh (at New Star)

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It’s all flame and eruption, this dilated cauldron of hurt that brews blood oil, that sticks and lines the insides of the skull, lungs and heart. With each drop of proffered kindness the trajectory is proven wrong, war-swept gales of indifference, expectations and frustration sweeping as if flack in the rain. What destinies would have lain below? What tributaries might have been fed by such gentle words and patience? Seas starve to deserts and allegiance denied, the corpse of promise bloats, stretches into corpulent fester and reveals itself among the dunes where it will desiccate as a scar on the arid smooth of anger’s release. Burning skies, rivers, creeks. Flawed evolution in the absence of a knowing, guiding hand, His plans etched in the shifting grains of dried faith and the churning waters of forgotten decency; nothing leaves here alive. What was strong is wrestled in the waning light of adoration, the dusk’s beautiful absense sweeping over ashen memory. Somewhere, in another place, each soft particle of affection clung to the skin of a lover, cleaned the wounds of self flagellation and rinsed the red into healthy oceans teeming with bliss and belief. Somewhere, not here, rolling laughter rode currents to a welcoming home, purging the caustic inflammation of every lash strike. Somewhere, familar but lost in a blink, happiness bloomed, propelled, landed, blessed. Somewhere, away. Somewhere, gone. Somewhere, remembered.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #fountain #river #dovernh #sunset #allthepretty #sunlight #dusk (at Somewhere)

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The chance to get it right. It’s represented in small moves, smiles and head bobs that spy things now long unnoticed. Pens as drumsticks. A stage as adequate for play as a park. Long windows gathering day. The wonder of wind and its play in the fabric that binds brothers and sisters, lovers, thieves and valor. Small dreams, lost to the amnesia of youth, but still present; in the stomach, the liver, the thumping chest beating rabbit pace, and an unsatisfied mind, constantly hungry and aching for the next, the bright, the delightful hurry. Get it right! Love with blood and feel that rhythm of selflessness, that wholeness drawing in every scattered thought to pristine focus. Fragile needs skitter, dried leaves on cracked sidewalks at autumn’s gray end. Chance holds the cards, a dealer’s advantage, but fight always for the upper hand, chewing through odds as if delicious challenge – adulthood the long dessert of a life well prepared. #son #child #discovery #flag #window #backlit #america #poem #poetry #youth #love #writer #writing #barleypub #dovernh (at The Second Chance)

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I want to melt with the day. Feel the cascade for her leaving, the drip of hours down the bumps of my spine. Clear my head of obligation’s webs, threads of gossamer duty spun to mighty ideals that crack my knees; lower my head. It isn’t too late to forgo this mission. A tiny rebel under forced night, I cater to whimsy and flash decadent preference even as the world floods with purpose. To drink from you would be divine, and to allow your wet to bathe me in calm is the worthy surrender. Yet I steel myself in order. I flatten dreams into the press of belonging, and I sing hymnals to join the chorus, wanting to stand out like a cloud on a clear horizon; a flaw in heaven’s design. #dusk #sunset #river #water #reflection #trees #clouds #sky #writer #writing #poem #poetry #dovernh #literary_imagery (at Between Haste and Indifference)

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Small things, lost in the deep blur of land and sea’s mourning. The haze of undying, burning off the gray of uncertain paths, revealing color and contrast where before there was only wandering without a hand to hold. Cold tears and solemn reflection clinging to icy shores as small hopes soar almost unseen in the diaphanous gown of early. Push on. Await the next impatient bleed, the laceration of frail daily context from which scars of repetition will mold soft skin into hardened versions of ourselves. #gray #fog #morning #greatbay #dovernh #seagulls #sky #sea #foggy #grey #landscape #sailboats #poem #poetry #writer #writing #igsomniac (at In the Gray)

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Refrain from interrogating the course of things, this stream of rippling mirror projecting upside down worlds of infinite possibility. It’s familiar, the lines of each direction, the flavor of responsibility, the sweet sting of obligation and resultant pride of accomplishment, yet the free fall beckons, unclear of view, but quivering forms of suggestion seducing curiosity with crooked grin and exposed skin. Diving into the blue means drowning or rebirth, and security demands lock-legged obedience. The sun rises to darkness, stars lost in a reflected blur obscuring detail, a lack of definition so alluring that swimming cannot be denied. Embracing tides, chilled by wet rushing, air secondary to a newly adopted nature, new days start with the plummet of a shimmering sun. Safer to watch and dream liquid release. #irispad #upsidedown #reflection #tree #river #dovernh #sunlight #sunshine #lensflare #beautiful #nature #poem #poetry #water #writer #writing (at Dover, NH)

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