In these seasons ( a letter from a retainer)

In these mean seasons we grow weary of our lust to live. We turn to our fears and embrace them as though they were familiar. We come to gaze our enemy eye to eye and without blinking pass into the days of tomorrow. Even now in knowing our limitations do we list our strengths and guided by the gentle hand of the unseen we come to know when to control ourselves. Thus embracing the desperation in our way do we cease to be virtuous and become something object, towering all things yet meaning nothing. In this decadence we come to know all things as many and yet fear not the difference that separates us all, for this difference is nothing more than abject fear. Silently, without tongues, without touch all wounds are healed and presented as cause for jubilation as a creature gifted with a mind can learn. Thus your humble servant can speak without fearing that his words be misused.

The Pyre

It started with a flame. The flame turned unto torch, the torch unto pyre, until there was nothing left but the cold ashes of logic and reason scattered upon the winds of once was and now will never come to be again. Thus in our infancy we were but two pups licking at each others wounds. I was a mutt carrying the scars of battle left by the weight of the ultimate taboo. She was a bitch burden by her attempt at a premature departure from this world. Together we reveled in the exquisite nature of pain savoring each others departure as one would tenderly care for an open wound. In its coming of age we proved to depend upon each other, no longer only satisfying the carnal limitations of our weak flesh bound to bone.

to be continued...

A defanged beast has a funny grin

and im tired
instead of resting in peace im resting in pieces
playing backwards in my head that record with all the things we never said
and i would be lying if my lips didnt betray your name
all the same i should stop pulling my punches and show you some pain
but ive bled all that bad bile away and all thats left now is this stain
how serious
a defanged beast has a funny grin finding gaps within my chin
reaching in just to begin
pull something wet and warm from my head sleeping in this waterboard bed
its not considered torture if you like it its only considered torture if you run with out side kicks
but its okay im not alone i got multiple personalties and none of them home
working my fingers to the bone expecting answers from a wall of stone late at night i can hear you moan over a turned off telephone
poison is your new name when playing this old game time to be cruel to the useless old frame
try and demean me i have no shame to me it all feels the same

To win a war

To Win a War
By: Alejandro Peruga-Martinez

My social worker lit her third cigarette while my mother sobbed her lengthy goodbye into my shoulder. My father stood to the side watching me quietly, a glint of shame in his eyes. “Alright lets go”. I heard the social worker say as she turned around and walked toward the car leaving me to escape my mother’s grasp and carry the heavy suitcase that contained all the pairs and sets of clothing that I would need to complete my uniform.
The tie was tight against my throat as I got into the car. It had been several months since my dad had taught me how to tie my tie. How sad he must have felt that the first time he imparted this knowledge was for the court hearing for his eight-year-old son.
I didn’t really understand the whole hearing process at the time. “Attempted Murder” was not yet part of my vocabulary. What I do remember was the Michael Sheean had done something to make me angry and I had held his head beneath the water of the pool for one second too long till he had stopped struggling. After that there had been a whirl-wind of strange people asking me questions, evaluating and assessing me, until finally a somber man in a black robe gave my parents a choice: either I could be put away with the other degenerate children, or I could be banished to an academy in Northern Virginia. My parents, thinking to spare me, chose to send me to school rather than incarceration.
The social worker drove as though she had taken this journey many times before. She had a demeanor of quiet exasperation, as if she was doing me a great favor taking me to my punishment. I did not fully realize the choice my parents had made, but I knew that either way I was to be punished. We sat silently on the southward drive for what felt like an eternity. When I first caught glimpse of the academy, it was as we drove up the long driveway. It was a large rustic building that at first glance seemed to be a mansion except for the two flags, one red with a crest and eagle emblazoned on it and above it the American flag, flying from the massive flag pole at the end of the driveway.
The social worker parked her car in front of the main entrance and we made our way up the large stone steps and through an elaborate door and hallway to a small office with the words “admissions” stenciled on the glass. She exchanged words and documents briefly with the secretary sitting behind the almost comically small desk. She leaves me without even so much as a good bye.
“You will be in hall B bunk sixteen. Take the stairs on the right, drop off your things, and then make your way out to the blacktop for PT”, the secretary drones out without ever looking up from the documents she is so laboriously signing. I cautiously make my way through my new surroundings, walking up the stairs and down a corridor with stainless white walls whose cleanliness in some way made me feel dirty. I reached hall B and manage to find my bunk, placing my suitcase at the foot of the bed as were all other so aligned. Some how I make my way back through the maze to the door I believed led to the black top.
There was hardly anybody on the black top when I exited the building, just four boys sitting at the far end. Past the blacktop there was a field and I could make out the distant shapes of people running. I started to head towards the field when one of the boys sitting at the end of the blacktop called out to me.
“Hey you, you new here?”, the bigger of the boys says as he gets up and makes his way towards me, his three friends falling in behind him.
“Yeah” I responded as the bigger boys’ towers over me.
“Do you have anything to trade?” the bigger boy blurts out and his friends begin to snicker.
“Trade?” I ask unsure of what we could possibly trade. The boy stares down at me and I can see the rage gathering in his face.
“Don’t play dumb” he yells at me and his massive hand grabs me by the shirt collar,
“run your pockets”.
At this moment rage and fear swell in me, and I flail out only o feel the soft thud of the boy’s fist against my face. The first blow stuns me and knocks me to the ground; it is the kick to my gut from the boy’s friend that sends a wave of pain through me. I gasp for air beneath the kicks, which are coming in a barrage now, and slowly I get very sleepy and the blows seem to be like thunder from a far off storm. It isn’t until the next morning that I wake up in the cold sterile comfort of the infirmary wing. My body aches with innumerable pains and it is near impossible for me to move. It is several hours before a nurse realizes that I am awake. She asks me what happened and instinctually I reply “I fell”. The nurse looks at me sadness swimming in her eyes.
“That seems to be the reason why everyone gets hurt”.
I spend several days recuperating in the infirmary after which I am released back into the general populace with only a few unsightly bruises covering my body. I make my first friend that day after English class, which is my third subject. I am sitting down on the bench outside the cafeteria when he unexpectedly sits next to me.
“I see that Greg has gotten to you,” he stammers out behind long unkempt blond hair.
“He pretty much runs things around here since he’s the oldest, gets away with anything. I heard once he even killed a kid.” At this I feel a small swell of shame rise in me and I fight it back.
“My name is Matt and I’ll be happy to show you how things work around here.”
Matt kept me under his wing for a short time. He was a grad higher than me but was about the same height. Perhaps that is why Greg preyed upon him too. We became friends by sharing an innumerable amount of beatings and making sure that neither one of us was ever abandoned. Greg was one of the older kids. He had failed to graduate and spent most of his time doing what he pleased. There were only a handful of student that who would stand up to Greg and his idiots. Andrew and Josh were two of the older students who Greg did not want to mess with. For the first year they looked out for the younger students, often time intervening when Greg go out of hand. They however graduated a the end of the year leaving us no protection against Greg’s onslaughts which now not only came during the day but sometime during the night.
The only other person who Greg feared was the head administrator, Mr.Hernner, He was a short man who always wore the same deep blue suit and an eye patch, which looked strange, under his thinning whit hair. He walked with a cane to support his bad leg, and so made a loud clinking noise that always foretold his arrival. Whenever we would hear that noise Greg would stop whatever torture he was administrating and leave as though the incident had never occurred. I suspect that Mr.Hernner knew what was going on. When he asked us about our various injuries we always reported “I fell,” for the unspoken code of youth was never tell, for in telling you lost all respect, and in the end respect was the only thing that kept you from falling further on the food chain. Eventually I fell into a rhythm, some days I would be able to escape from Greg and his lackeys and other I would wear fresh bruises in quiet shame.
It was halfway through my second year that I was put in charge of the tool shed. We all had chores that we needed to complete. The previous year my responsibility had been helping the librarian organize the bookshelves, which had been rather nice, seeing as when you don’t have a TV you seem to get a lot of reading done. I had poured over almost anything I could get my hands on but mostly enjoyed reading history, which is why I probably excelled in class. It felt almost like a demotion to be put in charge of the tool shed but in the end it was perhaps fate.
I worked in the tool shed in the evenings, organizing and distributing the various tools. More than often no one would need anything and I was left to my own devices for hours at a time. Then one day Matt came sprinting into the shed out of breath. There was blood on his shirt.
“Hide me he’s going to kill me,” he panted as he tried to hide awkwardly behind a shelf. Not a second later Greg and his most loyal of lackeys Gautam burst through the door, a long cut oozing blood from his face, holding a small penknife in his hand.
“Where is that fucker?” he screeched, locking his gaze on me. At this Matt stirred and gave away his position. I had no time to react before Greg pushed me out of the way and Gautam grabbed my hair and pinned me against the wall. He fished Matt from behind the shelf and sent him to the ground with a sound blow to his jaw, then proceeded to pin him to the ground. He took the penknife in his hand and began to poke and prod Matt with it, allowing the blood to find its way to the surface through freshly punctured skin, all the time yelling,
“You think you can cut me and get away with it, you really think you can do that to me?” Matt began to screech like an animal, a sad pitiful high-pitched noise and that’s when I felt the rage fill my lungs. It was different this time though, where it had been hot and uncontrolled, it was now cold and calculating. My actions were as though they were not my own. In my mind’s eye I can see myself elbowing Gautam in the groin and knocking him to the ground, I can see how I pick up the monkey wrench and swing it at the side of Greg’s face, but it is the feeling of soft flesh, stretching sinew, and broken bone that I will never be able to forget. In that moment I realized how fragile the human body truly was, that we were no more than flesh bound to bone and I marveled in the violence as I sought my own emancipation.
It was all over in less than a second. Matt got up from beneath the now unconscious Greg soaked in his blood and we made our way back to our respective bunks the victors for the first time ever. It was not until the next day that I was called in to see Mr. Hernner. He sat in a large office, a tiny Cyclops behind and immense mahogany desk.
“Do you know what happened to Greg yesterday evening?” he inquired in his normal commanding tone.
“No sir,” I responded, willing myself to believe in my own ignorance.
“Well he seemed to have gotten injured in the tool shed about the time that you were working there, that doesn’t ring any bells?” he continued.
“Maybe he fell while I was out sir,” I said with conviction. At this he cracked a smile and said,
“that’s exactly what he told me, but off the record I want to know why.” That’s when I remembered something I had read in a World War Two history book.
“Sir, when the United States decided to use atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they knew that it would be an atrocity and that many human lives would be lost, however the loss of life if the war had continued would have been even greater. I wanted to win the war, not simply the battle, Sir.” At this he nodded and let me go,
As I made my way back to my bunk I understood that what I had done had been neither right nor wrong but necessary and it chilled me to the bone that I accepted it with such little remorse. It was rumored that perhaps I had killed Greg, but I had seen him being taken away in a van the very next morning towards a destination unknown. Though I had liberated myself I felt shame, shame that perhaps I belonged amongst the troubled youth that roamed the stainless white halls.

I Say Im Glad

I say im glad
Behind clenched teeth
“what were you thinking?”
My stomach sinks to knots
behind this stoic code of thoughts.
I peer without having a reason
and for my treason you have sought
conviction of capital offense
I cant make sense
Behind these bars
Behind these walls
Of your pretty white enamel
When enamored you show
No remorse
I run the course
the gambit once again
and I pretend
that I have suffered through far worse.

Zaragoza

The wind sighs dissatisfied past my ear. Though others are cut quick to the bone by her cruel lash she can find no purchase on me. A cold flame burns bright blue in me propelling every limb with rigid calculation. The elements assail me but I am devoid of thought and through sacred stillness my organism moves undaunted by mundane obstacles.
There are few who at this hour dare to taunt the city. She shines bright, a cemetery of broken dreams scattered before us like pearls cast before swine. I am affected and some might even say afflicted. Though some claimed that misery seeks company the true masochist seeks his punishment alone. At every bright doorstep opportunity beckons me with her intricate veil but I am too old fashioned and far to wounded to respond to her request.
My thoughts are as lead, heavy and poisoning my steps. My mouth tastes of the kiss of whiskey and my shirt smells like a carton, unfiltered. My fists are balled tight protecting the tips of my fingers, which have now become numbed. My eyes are sharp though my ears have been stunted by years of blaring television. Effortlessly I map my surroundings while lost in transient dream.
I beat out an awkward rhythm against the sidewalk, the type of swagger when you’re a few cups deep and a couple joints short. There are few to witness my ugly ducklings walk save for the prostitute on the corner who calls me handsome as though she and I were well-acquainted friends. But she is nothing but flesh bound to bone, a living reminder to our carnal limitations, her young defiled body a testament to an uncaring deity.

Flayed

I seldom feel that sweet release of easing into friendly waters, instead i throw
myself against walls
of silent stone, ready for the slaughter.
Now sweet friend i turn
and ask
what would you have me do?
Bite my tongue, make due
with none,
or simply return to you?
For a wound can heal
many times through
but scars are what remain
and i ask of you
what would you do
with someone whom you have
flayed?

Nature

and they think they can fleece you.
they think that they know you so well.
they think you cant read em, but you will never tell.
I read the deck before u rigged it and didn't give a fuck
because sooner or later we all run out of luck.
The devils in the details,
he drinks your sins like wine.
Your half hearted nature has proved itself in time.

Menial Task

menial task
to break down this Mountain with this body of glass.
For whom do you think you'll pass
fast to fast, last to feast?
Only poets know what it means to rest incomplete.

Voodoo Spell

so sleep well, beneath this voodo spell
crack magic and strong muti
"put yourself on duty"
I surrender my peace of mind
bread and water, simple things divine
unbind unbound sound hollow
echo words to the oracle of apollo
and i pray, and i portray, and i am prey for the replay

and kindness from you is a hung jury
and the future is nothing but regrets
and the past is nothing more than fiction you and i invented
because we hate current events....

Deja Me Beber de tu Copa

Deja me beber de tu copa,
aunque han bebido otros.
Deja me saborear las gotas,
como un hombre, condenado,
saborea su ultimo trago.
Dejame rellenar tu copa,
con mi vino
rojo como sangre
para que pueden beber otros.
Pero dejame, si se acaba,
el utlimo trago, para que mi boca
nunca sea olvidado.