Now I’m a PAID Writer

Big money
Big money

Did I forget to mention here that I had a poem put into a digital published collection of fantasy stories? It looks like I did. Anyway, I have a poem in a fantasy collection that you can buy here. The collection is only $2.99 so you should probably buy one or five copies.

I just got my first share of the profits from the book today. So, I’m not just a writer anymore. I’m a paid writer! Here is to hoping I can increase the figures behind that dollar sign…

Postcards

Makes as much sense as this poem does!
Makes as much sense as this poem does!

I write postcard
and send them to
strangers.

I’d like to get a
postcard some day.
One with a picture
of a sky that
is too blue, and
everything is where
it’s supposed to
be.

I wouldn’t put it
up on the fridge,
I don’t have any
magnets… Maybe
in a book or
a cheap frame
hang it on the
wall.

Why?

To remind me
of, I don’t know,
the idea of somewhere
else, a not here,
a “nice” place
it doesn’t have
these four walls or
the empty grass
beyond them.

Really I think I
would frame it.
A simple one.
I wonder what
it would say?
The postcard.On the
back.

I always like
to write “wish
you were here.”
Or make up funny
stories about how
I tried to impress
the locals, but it
all fell apart and
everyone had a good
laugh and I made
a new friend,
or lover, who
showed me the “real”
thing.

But, sometimes I
tell them my name,
that I’m not happy
here. No one hears
me though and I
never learned how
to scream. That
the picture on the
front isn’t real
at all and that
if you were here
you would be
miserable.

The postcard is
a lie. It doesn’t
mention the weather
or the people or
the fact that
everywhere is the
same when you
can’t stand being
with yourself. That
here is a constant
reminder of all the
theres where you’re
not.

Why?

I want these strangers
who get my postcard
to cry, to feel
to be frustrated
and upset. To know
something. Something
they can’t change.
Only accept and
regret it. Until time
erases it from
them.

I don’t think
I’d frame it
a shadowbox would
be better. And
I’d put it in
the bathroom, so
guests would see
it but not be
able to to turn
it over. I know
they’d want to
the need, the urge
to turn it over, read
it. To know its
secrets.

I wonder if I’ve
ever met someone
who received one
of my cards… We’d never
know… But it’d be there
that secret  bond
a thin string
tying us, connecting us.
Unknown to even us.

I like to think if
they did know. They
would thank me, and
hug me, and cry with
me.

Contemplative Transciptions

Ma Yuan's Scholar by a Waterfall
Ma Yuan’s Scholar by a Waterfall

It jumps from thought
to no-thought like
riding over cobblestones.
Uncomfortable and enchanting
all at once.

Watching waves tumble over
each other in their race
for the shore, I
see men crawling
over their fallen dead
scrambling for sand

Now I see your face
or is it our face?
It is sad and unhappy. Tied
to old people, old ideas.
It can’t see it’s own
beauty for the wrinkles.

Is this poetry? Skimmed
off the top of my thoughts
and thrown away like
cream from milk?

Is this thought?
Mere images that
play on and on. An old
phonograph: scratchy and
tinny but irresistibly
charming?

Some say that’s what
love is like. Wonderful
in the most useless of ways.
I always thought love
was a silver bullet
to the head that
sadly doesn’t kill
you. Only leaves you
always mumbling about
your slippers

Or is that old age?
It’s hard to recall
They come and go, and
go and come. As waves,
as men, as music that flirts
about the ears…

mist rising from the water.

The Recursive Horror that is Looking for Work

CLICK it!
Click the picture to play!

A piece of short interactive fiction by Jonathon Howard

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