I Am Santo

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

These bones roll the way forgiveness does from the tongues of mothers, effortless, but with care. And the shell of potential clangs like dusty canastas, the hollow of escaped souls lingering the way the sense of a last kiss might. This path winds and welcomes, but the end rarely in sight plays to that whimsical mood of noon in Summer, when the world spills promise light golden sunshine and the air clings like a young lover’s embrace. Eyes strain for the end in sight, and the rattle of pour us lightens frames, air slipping like lust into the hollows of uncertainty. Why not? Just go, slip fingers beneath lace and find the warm wet of opportunity welcome like rapturous balm that covers but never heals. In time every scar fades to dust, every cracked support sheds pressure and purpose. And into the ground these shallow complaints sink, like dill seed searching for stalk, as if somehow the groan will win sunlight and favor. But instead the roots surrender to sharp bitterness, the tart of accumulated experience stinging eyes. Play drums on these here leavings, the deposited shell of romance and rancor. For it’s all that’s left to keep a beat with a heart lost on the road to ruin long ago.

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TIMELAPSE

Clocks spent their winding hands as if they were folded on felt, minutes wasted in an ante and the litter of this dying season trying to hide belief. No poker face here, faded bliss grows vibrant, a flashbulb churn of willingness gone like green lost to autumn. And the combat of seconds clashing now into disdainful futures has casualties on all sides, but with each lost there’s no accountability. Does anyone count each grain of sand fallen in the hourglass? The souls flit like expired leaves on the shakiest branch, the gales of whimsy, lust and adoration buoying them on air currents the way a lover’s kiss lightens steps. And yet all bets are off, time ruined by attempts to measure it. For days are prison cells and years are maximum insecurity. Bleed divine colors. There’s no moment but now to do so.

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This is graceless,
A heart made of ash
Reduced by the fanned flames
Of self hatred
And the inferno of
A loathed mirror.
How can it not be mud
When mixed
In waters of forgiveness?
Siphoned whoa,
The guilty thirst for kindness
As verdant leaves cup
For early morning rain
A gray sky delivering bounty
Alluding to certain heavens
Where the drip, drip, drip
Allows thr parched a sip
And deems unkempt worthiness,
A runoff spilling down
Lips, chin and chest
Searching for the heat
Of a tugging heart
Pulling at the edges of forfeit
And instead discovering
The rising distraction of sex,
That rigid stand-in
For the swept up refuse
Charred in countless
Self-started fires.
Oh this match has done gone
And expired
Before igniting a hint of
Long-lasting ardor.
But there were enough smiles
To grant that pitter-patter
Of sweat and release;
A warm flow of
Frenzied body whitewater
That stings the tongue
But suffers in the sticky resin
Of charcoal belief.
How black is this night?
It never knew day.
And the land is dry.
The land never knew rain.
The invective kicks up again,
Blast furnace winds
From lungs and chords
In solemn vibrato,
Never sotto voce
But forte,
A scream above ever gentle wet
Tearing through throat
And lips trembling
For kisses,
Oh die, starshine fool.
Too hot to burn for long
The light hits welcoming eyes
So long after the oxygen fled;
So long after astral loneliness
Choked belief
Right out of the bright,
Marrying it to the vacuum,
Marrying it to the endless void.
And whose hands seized
The bruise-laden neck
Of a fallen star?
These hands.
These crooked, dead hands
Stained with carbon clumsy
And atrophied into claws
As the spat-sung bile
Of reflected derision
Echo in the infinite dry
Of celestial loss.

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These words mask meaning like a crystal ball fakes futures; the hazy extract of purpose taking time and deliberation, likely providence of charlatans or the delusional. What lies beneath cloudy candor and convulsive colloquy? Connection? Contrivance? Character? Such slip-shod servitude to an alleged muse, it’s slung muck, equal parts cowardice to say what needs to be said and comeuppance because this is as good as it gets; the half awake verbal spill of a mind gone sideways, loose in the channels of feeling like a gondola caught in Venician tsunami. Those brash wordwaters flash then crash, pulling back to the sea of understanding all potential for such delicate craft because this isn’t deft or delicate, it’s a smash of overbearing vocabulary and whimsical inspiration – a dash of loose metaphor hanging like a cracked neck from a noose drawn taut by love, lust, loss. The flood of time cannot be dammed by cataract eyes and mystical omniscience any more than this fierce compromise of ability can be anything but damned. If we do or if we don’t makes little difference. Divination holds no keys to unlock tomorrow and derivation is the sin of the artist, both met with derision in their clamor for the future; predictions and assertions like the echo of a slap fade, fade, fading even as the sting of their imprudence long lingers. It’s not what’s said that matters, or even how it’s said, but the sum of opinion that’s a mountain among sand dunes; resilient while time’s tides wash away intention.

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#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #beach #shore #newengland #plumisland #sand #surf #seafoam (at Washed Away)

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My rage is a Hellfire won. It’s prophylactic temerity. Taste this seed where the yawn and ache demand. Be here in the presense of a thousand years of stammering bliss. What the evidence portrays again and again with reckless disregard is that this never mattered; that each and every uttered word, committed action and kindness offered was a snowflake melted on an upturned hand; incidental and insignificant. Enjoy the latest snowfall. Let those lovely shapes disintegrate in your alleged warmth that hides such sanctimonious greed and oh how hate urges to devour your liver, your kidneys, your heart. Oh how these teeth bared grind against each other like knives on the sharpening stone; just die. Go far away into the abyss of memorials, I have nothing left for you, your taste or your anguished fuckery that clicks and clacks like stilettos along the long, empty corridor of promise. What degrading mirages we strived for. Such horrific heat ripples on the forever sands reaching into failed forever. The greatest trick of love is that it meant something at all. Like an eclipse bathing the world in dull amber or a funeral shawl drawn over pulled shut eyelids, everything is transition, a darkness that too will abandon to greater forces of Science or God, some fictions spilled like carelessly poured whisky that burns like your craven blush of affection. The only truth is death, each flickering second a footstep toward the absence of breath, of faith, of love. May it eat me alive and spit out these tinder bones for the fallen’s inferno. Like you did. Like everyone does. At least then the pain will end. The body no longer able to scar. The mind no longer able to remember. The heart, thankfully, no longer able to beat.

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(at A Death)

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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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They built cities on the sea. They dared the forces of nature to rest. It was foolhardy, but they laid bricks with confidence, bolted steel with hubris and didn’t care how the ache of tomorrow might hobble their endeavor. It was a lot like us, that boldness, that arrogance. Everywhere there were facts and figures supporting the failure of union, yet regardless these fingers brandished rings and our uttered promises fluttered over sea spray like lost butterflies mistaking waves for tall grass. We were not alone in that seaside town and a sideways glance at store windows through which helpless owners stared, worried, told us alone was near, that struggle was all around us. Yet like them we kept fever in our hearts when bigger things tugged. Nothing stops saltwater from eating away at the edges of progress, because there is no greater insistence than Nature’s. She chews through wood, concrete, metal, chemistry, intentions, and love. She has no mercy for your belief. And in time we all fall quietly back into the sea, immunity an illusion, the tall faiths we held in our hands and hearts just a little extra salt sprinkled into unfathomable depths. Yesterday was strength. Today is weakness. Tomorrow is insignificance. And we go with the tides, soft yearning crystalized and drawn away in the flood, arms bigger than any we could ever imagine encircling us, tearing us down, letting us go.

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Season’s passed. Seasons past. Left in the vague memory of warmth and calm, a love light flickering weakly in the dark like starfire lost in the firmament of broken hopes. It’s death, this morning of mourning come into afternoon like the inevitable forgetfulness accompanying kindness and care, the taken for granted, the hand left, palm open and fingers extended for another’s to knot, to not be alone. Abandoned illumination and promise, a filament so slowly whispering into the inky cloak of night that it escapes notice until it’s gone, an empty bulb sat in a chain of similar failure that once gleamed vibrant tidings of good faith and now sings with no voice the dirge of low worth, of goodbye. Every ending can be predicted, like the spill of rain from approaching gray, but never the deluge, never the torrential drown that chokes, suffocates, tears limbs from heart and shreds the flesh fabric of organs with an unknown, immeasurable velocity of hurt and then stitches them together into a shroud for every single dream shared; a funeral for the thumping heart of belief. What mighty collapses wandered into, desolate, crestfallen structures of faith fallen like thatched huts in hurricanes, the reeds and fronds of then now the refuse littering fabled paradise. And always there, haunting, is that flawless beach of yesterday, that gorgeous stellar wish that burned so bright it left scars on these eyes forever; a vision marred by the reminder of what was and what can never be again.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #poetrycommunity #igwriters #portsmouthnh #newengland #portsmouthharbor #christmaslight #holidaysend #lightsout #seasonsend #gray #rainy #depressing (at Over)

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The church’s bells clanged in the winter air, a flock of sleeping pidgeons roused from their afternoon sleep by the toll of the hour. Rick looked toward the silhouettes of the departing flock and for a moment forgot all about Kathy and her temper. Those birds were free, small hearts rapidly thrumming in time with their busy wings as they found a new place to rest. To be able to flee like that, to take wing and suddenly abandon where he was; what a dream. Rick watched the birds break their group, flitting in the chilly wind and then there was only one, circling, unsure of where to land. That bird, that was him. Leaping and ready to soar, but then unsure of the next place to land, circling until the din of the bells stopped and it returned home. Who lives in a place like that? A place you have to escape regularly, but that you always come back to? Rick wanted to shout at that bird, but he shivered hard instead. It was freezing outside and he didn’t have his coat on because he left quick when Kathy started up again with her rising tone, a discord more frequent and upsetting than any church bells. It was probably safe to go back for now, at least to grab his jacket and maybe he would look again at the train schedules. See where he could go for the meager amount of money he had. Anyplace would be better than with Kathy at this point, even if she was pregnant and might change back to the woman he once loved. But then there would be a daughter, another Kathy screaming more than on the hour or ever half hour; shouting, crying, and berating until his nails dug crescent moons in his palms as he clenched his hands into tight fists. Rick wanted to be a smarter bird. Somewhere there was a better place to roost.

#poem #poetry #poetic #igwriters #instawriter #writersofig #poetsofig #igpoets #igpoems #mobileartistry #creativewriting #fiction #flashfiction #writing #writer #story #shortstory #microfiction #literature #poetrycommunity #writersofinstagram #storyteller #church #portsmouthnh #moody #newengland (at Distance)

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