compressed tempo
compartments, havens, the weight of space
song,
the cadence of days

The End and After (Working Title) - Chapter 1

this is the first chapter of something I'm working on. It was originally meant to be a short story. It has kind of grown from there, but I will be working on a series of short stories dealing with the same character but before the series of events that bring us to this "book," The End and After. Let me know what you think so far...negatives appreciated just as much as positives.

I had been riding freights for days. Waking up screaming to a box car filled with empty pill bottles and various garbage, from dreams of the way life was before the shit hit the fan. I could feel the train slowing down now, so I packed up my bag quietly in the dark, pill bottles rattling and rolling all around me as the brakes hissed and squealed. The train still slowing. I grabbed my bag and slid the door open. The night wind rushed in and I could smell pine and smoke. I was somewhere in the Northwestern Territory. Below me, a nice grassy hill. "Thank You for the little things," I said looking up at the sky and leaped off. There's no such thing as a soft landing in train hopping, but this was as good as it could get.

The grass was wet and my feet gave out beneath me. I slid for a few feet on my ass before rolling to a full stop. I stood up and brushed off.
"Coulda' been worse, McDell."

After months of riding freights and hiking the territories alone, I was completely comfortable having conversations with myself.

"Just remember ol' Willy Burnaski. Son of bitch never looked where he was leapin' and ended up half stuck in a tree. 'Course the other half kept on fallin' to the ground!"

I had a good laugh at my own sick joke. Of course, Willy had been a good friend of mine, but you just gotta' laugh at life sometimes. Keeps you from going insane after you've seen a thing or three. And I had seen my share just over the last five or so years.

Back in 2012, everyone was talking about the Mayan calendar and the world ending. And on December 24, 2012 some of those people were dead on. Only, it wasn't Wormwood or Planet-X or anything alien. Just our own dog world shaking fleas off its back. A massive earthquake sent a piece of Africa plunging into the sea, which created a tidal wave that completely wiped out what was once the eastern seaboard of the United States. Mass panic erupted all over the world, starting huge riots and total Anarchy. Governments were overturned or just given up on. I guess everyone just figured they were already dead. Millions died and mass suicide became very popular for the following few weeks. Luckily, I had been living in what was California at the time. After everything happened, I got in my car and headed east to see if I could help survivors. But there were no survivors; You were driving down a road that was once sprawling farm land, far from water, and all of a sudden there was the ocean. It was very sobering.
No survivors.

this ones gonna hurt she thought
as she lay down lonely for him
this ones gonna take the cake
and run away with it

this one, she though
this ones not
this ones not like all the rest

all tears will be bitter sweet
if the fire burns and dies
hearts are never hopeless
she lies helpless by his side

this ones gonna hurt she thought
this ones gonna make her cry
this ones gonna steal her heart
this one will change her life

Wine Thieves

Learning the styles of wine thieves
and layabouts
with their bohemian in the night
and their magic squalor

With blankets and pillows
And blankets of smoke
With artifacts of daily life strewn about
And art of fancy littering the walls

We wait in front of the collective unconscious
for the new archetypes
to show themselves
to the philosophers native
to philosophers raw and new

For them to make myths out of
And sing them to women like lullabies
In the blankets and pillows
And blankets of smoke
And wine stolen

My ex had a Sigmund Freud figurine glued to the dashboard of his van.

He was a psychology major and obviously, a huge fan of Freud. And on drunken nights, when I would reveal my "repressed" feelings or said something that intrigued him, he would turn little Freud's adjustable head over towards me. Then he would try to psychoanalyze me.

It bugged me out.

I broke up with him.

I was never really into astrology. I came across a book on astrology one day shelving in the non- fiction area of the 130s at the library I work at. To kill some time, I started reading it. They say those with the astrological sign, Scorpio, make great shrinks. Scorpios like to pry into other's thoughts, analyzing every single detail. They usually can read people very well. Yet Scorpios are some of the most secretive, private people you will encounter. It usually takes them a while to open up to people and don't like it when others pry.

My ex and I were born just hours apart.

My ex and I are both Scorpios.

picking apart law
invitations, alarms
the physics of kingdoms

So this waitress,
her eyes heavy under
the weight of piped in soft rock,
bad lighting, and another night
with walls heavy and creaking
and rotating,

and time slowing down,
and her head
stretching away from her
feet, pulling apart

she doesn't really think about physics,
and if you ask her about it,
her eyes just sink deeper
and no light escapes

a river of grace
shimmering drops of grease
in the sun
shifting colors
before my eyes
molten and prism-like
breaking down words and
thoughts to their
own unique hue

"I use to think that the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time... but it's not like that. It happens overnight." Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

Are You Awake and Free?

Are You Awake and Free?
by Sam Flot
10.18.oh2



Are you Awake and Free?

When will you even commence to understand?
When will the confluence of our powers be reunited and brought to fruition?

Are you Awake?

When will our physical beings come together to communicate on a realm other than existential?

Are you free?

Do circumstances leave you available for a chance to get together?

Are you Awake and are you Free?

Do you have the imagination, fear, pride and appreciation for beauty to keep up with us?

Do you have a sense of humor?

Are you Awake and are you Free?

Do you have an ability to lose logic and suspend impending reality?
Do you know how to punch with the Rolls?
Do you go with it or resist the flow?

Are you Awake?
Are you Free?
Are you Awake?
Are you Free?

Are you Awake and are you Free?

blink

to touch your face gently
and run my fingers through your hair
was an image
tossed and played in my head
quick, and fleeting

and for a fleeting thought
to suddenly become real
is astounding, yet comforting
our arms wrapped up in each other
our fingers intertwined

each holding on to the moment

It is her alluding that reels,
The noiseless picking and tolling
A mind superfluous
Is no mind

love hums the blood
beats the surface,
insect wings striking fruit

within the clothes
the bones clank
the palms pull closed

you never looked that good in blue

slaughter the innocent with me...
i brought enough to go around
lets spill intestines and bile
baby
we'll paint the town explosive
and eat chicken parts from garbage cans

don't run when the sirens blare
thats how you know its fun
and don't get any embers on you
its evident theres more to come

oh, one more chapter and this book is far from over
i'll keep writing if you keep telling me what it says
i'm not intangible yet darling im just slurring my inhibitions
got a ticket to the out house ballroom

meet me in the room marked fuck

Buddha's Brain Game

Buddha's Brain Game
by Sam Flot

Teasing Buddha's Brain Game
Situated by his buddy the bodhi tree

Facilitating a game
Of words and philosophy
Slipping subsets into genres
Slipping anthems from aphorisms

Spreading the words
Amongst the People of Peace
Who respect moments of Dharma
Dropped on their
Non-coconut heads

Not becoming a mango
But becoming understanding
Of the inter-relational basis
Of vibrations
Between me and the mango

Between me and
What I perceive to be
My illusion of myself

My perceptional mind-state
Understanding
How fruit and energy and
Chaos theory and
Elephants folowing elephants following elephants
Attached to each other

Leaving no elephant behind
To be alone

and

If you ask
Is it always because
You don't know
Or are there occasions
Where maybe you either
Already know the answer
Or don't need to know
But wanted to relate
Or wanted to cause
An interaction?

On a sidewalk
Or on a dance floor
Or in a heartbeating moment

Which may have just
Come and gone
Or which may be right now
Or maybe not just yet
========================
poem copyright Sam Flot 2008

I smelt the sea today
and the moist, briny air
cooled, and left my face
crusted in salt

into our palms we take
june, earth, our daily name
we seep into the world

"I realize now that the reality of things is not something you convey to people but something you make. It is this that gives birth to meaning."
-Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes

apartments and cars with no air conditioning

sunburned skin
saturated in sweat
musky scent seeping out of pores
sultry summer days

eddie vedder
was a holy
seattle saint
soaked through
his flannel
and vocal chords
til all
the so human desperation
of north wood
and late nineties
leached
out
as sound
and halo