Tag Archives: prose

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work, Stories and Story Excerpts

Order is in the Bar

Leave a comment

A cold fire burns within and without in the world I dwell in, and they all dance on a head of a pin while I sit wondering why they dance at all, and what tune is playing as they dance, and do they even hear the music that they dance to because it’s god awful.

I press my ear to the wall in my hotel room and I hear their gibbering muffled words coupled with occasional laughter. The snatches of conversation never seem to come into focus, never revealing anything but more mysteries of a world that I could never truly see. It’s one of lofty laughter and sick sorrows, and fears reflected off a dirty black mirror sucking in all the known. In that room, desires are unfurled, as regrets are thrown to the floor, forgotten, with lessons never picked up and put in their proper place upon the shelf.

Chaos reigns in that room as Order has a left a long time ago and gone for a drink in the hotel bar down below.

I pound against the wall, over and over.

“Hear me!” I yell at the peeling paint.

“See me!” I yell through the thick crumbling plaster.

“Let me into your party!” For I need talk sense to you savages, or at the very least strangle you all completely so I can finally go peacefully to sleep.

The music abruptly stops. The mumbling, murmurs, and gaiety subside.

Have they heard me? All is quiet.

Then there is laughter all around, and a banging back upon my wall as if by a hundred, a thousand, no a million hands, and one clear word shining through it all of being called a “FOOL” right before the music resumes, louder and more raucous than before.

My fists clinch, eyes becoming intense as dark deeds flood every particle of me. Destruction reigns, blood rising as my blue view begins to fade to a pale red creeping to a dark hue.

Then comes a knock at my hotel room door.

I walk over, looking through the peephole and it’s Order, eye to eye with me.

I fling open the door ready to give him peace of my mind.

“I thought you might need a friend,” Order says, grinning with whiskey in hand as he walks in, bringing all his new found followers, never ending, flowing in, filling my room complete.

Order’s smile is infectious and I smile back as the cold fire within, burning, begins to warm.

I laugh loud and hard, bringing out glasses for everyone, filling them, with Whiskey, passing them out fast as I fill them

“A toast, a toast” I say, with a flourish of my glass, “To Order, my friend, for your time shall come as will our own, so drink, drink and turn the damn music up and lets have some fucking fun!

by Philip Wardlow Feb, 2020

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The many flavors of little girl/boy lost

Leave a comment

 

Foot

Therapists say the core of us, from the defining moments of our youth, make up a great part of how we see ours lives throughout our whole existence through and into  our growing “adulthood”  until the day we die.

We all walk a path, and that path we walk  sprung up to meet us whether we know it or not. Some have found that magical path and place among the trees where they know peace and a solid foundation under their feet as they tread a world still alien.

Most are not so fortunate whether you think they are or not.

Some of us walk it in seeming surety, with one foot right after the other; having all the answers to life at our lips and the tips of fingertips based on what came before.  Those types outright scoff at times at those who don’t know all the answers or have it all together.  They can truly be arrogant bastards; ridiculing the “underclassmen”  saying they will never catch up.

((Secretly)) they know they do not know everything;  no matter what they say. I have to imagine, that need in itself, to have to be sure all the time; it must drive them mad when their world falls apart at not knowing the answers when push comes to shove in their lives.

I truly do feel sorry for some of them.  For I do believe that type of arrogance is needed in the world to get things done. Else many of us would be sitting on our hands saying woe is me and nothing else. But these types must pay the price at times when the chaos finds them in their own mind.  For no one must see them weak you know.

Others  of us walk in a  meandering, stumbling,  almost drunken course down a  path where our footing is anything but sure.   Always needing that tree to lean on,  or that bush off the road to vomit up our urges and failings behind.

Yet, still they walk, for their is a determination in their lives that drives their legs into motion. They are not comatose. They are not in a vegetative state. They breath, they exhale, and they bring in life and let it out in small amounts.  They evolve in their own course;  through the volitions of some inner or external force which they cannot place,  but it drives them, much like the arrogant ones above, that have already embraced a reality and be damned to anyone who stand in their way.

What else can they do in life but to try?  And besides, they can’t look weak ; not to the  arrogant ones that depend on them to prop them up from time to time when they speak.

Finally, there is that brow beaten soul. That lower than low. The one that goes home to sleep and sleep and dream and dream until the day has disappeared and night encapsulates and settles the debate of who has won that day,  life or him or her.

They will not choose to try again the next day nor the next.  Woe are they, to not even attempt. For that voice that once shouted has been muffled and thrown into a cage of the finest steel made.  Never to be let out, never to be fed or watered, but instead to let whither and die in a lonely cage bound with a strength they gave away.

All because they believed they reached some end.  Some place in their  life they could not rectify, or redeem. Never realizing life is impartial, life goes on.  So go on, life says go on, and don’t be afraid to look weak and go on.

Be that person you lied to yourself about that you told you could not be. This is a lesson for all three of you who walk the path you think you should.

See…the path before you.  Just let yourself  simply really truly see.

 

by Philip Wardlow 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Perhaps the Dream is dreaming me

7 Comments

I stroll this earth in all my Fragile trodding  from point A to Point B.  Clip Clopping in and out of the lives  of others.  My footfalls echo off their souls and their smiles which always seem to gradually fade.

But never mind me,  just let it rain all around this person I call I, which was  placed in this time, upon this big space by unseen hands, holy or not. Forgotten or not. I am here and that’s a good thing.

“Truth hits everybody, ” I heard her say,  as she walked on by,  and I could see the Hole in my Life in her words as she pushed her cart on down the street and rounded the corner leaving me to think on things too much. I have much yet do. Much more compels.

So Lonely you think I be?   Not hardly,  for I see others just as desperate as me trying to flee this dream. Stay oh rats!  Stay. This is a grand ship! Let’s share a piece of cheese!

I pass a bakery and smell the sweet aroma of cinnamon and raspberry and it makes me Hungry for you and brings me to Once upon a daydream thinking of that when of  wanting you to Be my girl, Sally , or whatever your name was back then.

Seven days was all it took to create this place so they say. Perhaps whoever did it should have taken just a little more time and perhaps, just perhaps, there might have been just a little less pain involved for us all. Ah I digress, I always do.

When the world is running down like the so called pundits and arm chair philosophers like to speculate about, I recall all the lost Sallys, and the sweet smells, and all the rain that I have tread in and I can only smile. Because those are my memories, my experiences and they may not be here tomorrow. No matter how bad they were, or good…they are mine and mine alone and I treasure that.

That’s the shape of my heart on the matter. So I continue to dream this dream.

 

By Philip Wardlow 2016

 

memories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work, Stories and Story Excerpts

The Crow Waits ~

2 Comments

crowwaits

The Crow Waits~

I see it on high sitting in a tree, a Crow amongst the sparse fall leaves
that yet hang to the branches, even though winter fast approaches,
no one told them it seems that they are dead and should already be on their way.

The crow with its pitted black eyes knows me it seems, for it calls my name
across the wind while I languish on the ground in my own blood which spills
from my body and forms around me like a macabre picture frame.

Funny thing, how the crow knows my name, a simple carrion bird waiting for
this warrior’s death so it can pick me clean and leave nothing but my bleached bones,
rusted armor, and a forgotten sword as my only legacy.

Long has the battle been gone from this place I now rest in, the victors have gutted me
like a fish on a stone and left me to the flies and the maggots to fester inside.

But yet shall I live, ever stubborn to die and only the Crow truly knows why.
I hear it laughing at me, calling me a fool for an adventure I sought full of folly
with only death to be met at its end.

It has seen many a fool I am sure and feasted contently before the sun has set.
But still I live! You will not have me fool or not!

So sit your perch and wait for you shall not have me this day or the next,
for even if I should pass these earthly bounds so shall my shade pick up
my blade and strike you down!

The sun has set and the night grows cold, the crow sits in his tree and
waits;  for it has seen many a warrior born and bred and knows full well their
strength, courage and the valor which fills their head, but it knows when dead is dead

by Philip Wardlow

 

 

 

 

Inquiring Minds, Stories and Story Excerpts

The Fourth World – Chapter 1 – an Excerpt

2 Comments

The following piece is an excerpt from my First full length Novel – “The Fourth World”  due to  be completed this year.   It is a Dark Urban Fantasy Teen Novel.  It’s  set in modern times surrounding three teens  all of whom are strangers to each other.  They will  come together whether they want to or not to just possibly save the world and learn something about themselves and their place in the world. This is chapter has been revised a few times but I am sure it will be revised again before its all done…:)

***************************************************************************************************

 The Fourth World

by PhilipWardlow

Calvin had always believed in magic. He didn’t care what anyone else thought. They could doubt all they wanted. There was a hidden world which we could not see sitting right in front of our faces, most everyone was too busy, too blind, or too stupid to see it. Calvin saw it in the trees as the distant winds kissed the leaves which flew through its branches. He spied it dancing in the fire amidst the embers at night; little tiny sprites hopping from log to log amidst the flames playing a game of tag. He smelled it in a wild rose growing in a crowded field of jostling weeds flinging its pheromones to attract the butterflies to alight upon its silken petals. He heard it in the babbling brook as the water played upon the rocks behind his home whispering to the frogs as it traveled on downriver. He felt it in the rough stone he caressed in the palm of his hand; an ancient power from ages past unearthed from the deep bowels of the earth from the crumbling’s of a mighty stone titan long dead. It was everywhere if they only choose to see. The magic spoke to him because he chose to listen and he almost understood what it is was saying…

**************************

               

Chapter 1 – Reality Sets In

 

Calvin tasted the blood that trickled down to his upper lip which flowed from his nose. It had a sweet metallic taste. He liked the taste of his own blood. Calvin wasn’t a weird person don’t get him wrong, he wasn’t into to that kind of stuff.  He just liked to sometimes pretend that he was Conan the Barbarian backed up against a wall, fighting an angry horde of ghoulish creatures hell bent on gutting him like a fish, and slowly eating his entrails as he watched. With sword in hand he would hack and slash, limbs would fly. He would be scratched all to hell and bleeding from a dozen different wounds and smiling insanely because this could be his last day alive so why not go out smiling like a true warrior would upon meeting his death well met in battle. Yeah, he liked to have his mind go to places like that rather than be anywhere than where he was right now. Continue reading The Fourth World – Chapter 1 – an Excerpt →

30 Days of Halloween Poem Challenge, Inquiring Minds

Skeleton Prince – 30 Day Halloween Poem Challenge – Poem a Day – Poem#8

1 Comment

SawtheMoon
The Skeleton Prince,

with eyes dark and vacant

as an empty mouse hole,

looked down from his lofty

perch.

Feet dangling over  a crescent Moon.

Halloween had come again.

All the little children

were scurrying about from house to house,

collecting their useless tidbits

of candy.

During the year as always,

ignored he was, no matter how

how loud he yelled down through

the clouds.

The children didn’t like him.

He supposed it had to do with his lack of skin.

It was just skin.

Who needed skin on the moon?

But Halloween had come, and for one night a year

the children looked up and saw past his

lack of skin and smiled.

And he smiled back and even waved

at some who stopped and took the time to

really look up.

He knew it was fleeting,

for soon Halloween would be gone.

and the loneliness would return.

But he reveled in their smiles and their laughter.

The witches, the goblins, and skeletons and the myriad

of monstrosities which abounded.

He was one of them, if for the briefest of moments,

and the coldness in his bones  seem to lessen

just a bit.

The night flew like the fall winds

and nary a child walked about.

Most were inside counting their candy

from the mountain dumped upon their

living room floor.

Soon there were none save one

in the night.

A little girl, wearing a dress of

gossamer white, with a diamond studded

tiara upon her dainty head. Crying.

“Why do you cry so.”  the Skeleton Prince asked

“Two mean trolls took my bag of treats” said the little girl

looking up.

“That is no way to treat a Princess,”  he huffed

“Here, I think you will quite like this instead.”  he said, as he pulled from behind

his back a jagged saw  which he placed against the moon and began to cut a piece off.

Bits of the moon crumbled and tumbled to the little girl

below and fell into her lap.

“Take those pieces and place them under your pillow.

Make three wishes before going to bed, and in turn you will wake to them

fulfilled in good stead.  Now GO!”  the Skeleton Prince commanded

The little girl ran.

With that, the Skeleton Prince went also to bed,

head hanging low to wait for next Hallow’s Eve.

A knocking awoke him, and that knocking

was inside his own head.

for the little princess was their tap tap tapping

on his bony skull.

“I made Three Wishes dear Skeleton Prince.”

“One was for candy, and oh, did it come in loads!”

“The second was to be your friend. So here I am!”

“And the third…?” The Prince asked

“Why, for it to be Halloween every single day of the year.”

by Philip Wardlow

Inquiring Minds

FIGHTING

Leave a comment

After a blogger follows me I typically make it a point to check out them out as a courtesy to see if it would be someone I would want to follow. After checking her out and not just her photos you dirty minded buggers I thought this was a Blogger that deserved a look. …and not just for the photos people c’mon…sure she is a strong pretty woman… but I think the real strength lies inside of her. Read her blog…she is determined, real, and inspirational and perhaps a wee bit insane..just kidding…well maybe :). I’m a writer and I’m a sucker for strong characters and she has one. So check her out. I have pushed many of my followers that intrigued me so check her out if you would like.

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work, The EROTIC ZONE

Blue Balls of Gentleman – A Poem…(did this happen to me? – I’m not telling)

Leave a comment

 

BlueBall

Blue Balls of a Gentleman

Never was a pain so great
as to leave a man almost
doubled over as he walked.

Such a foul wretch of a woman
she was; to taunt and to flaunt
her wares so, to sidle up alongside me,
yet hold back her ultimate
charms.

Never to help me find release
from the tension that she had
caused to exist far below.

True, I could have taken matters into my
own hands like any chaste man should have;
evacuate the cause of all my pent up
pressure and damn her back to the nine hells
where she surely belonged.

But I be not a man to take the easy course;
for I wished her to capitulate in the war
she had waged right outside my castle gate.

Cease this siege woman!

Acquiesce to the desires that I see burning
in your eyes and overcome your coolness
buried deep in your cold keep of a heart.

Grab hold of what you desperately
wish to conquer and I shall relinquish
myself to you with a flood of gratitude.

Perhaps dear lady you will grow
accustomed to my sweet taste.

By Philip Wardlow 2012

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

I suppose – Random thoughts put to prose

Leave a comment

I suppose
Closed

Life goes and goes…and nobody knows truly why….you can tell me you truly know…and I will nod my head and say yeah, I suppose, and not seek to dismiss cuz I’m like that – to each their own – …but deep inside I’m still surmising, guessing, hoping…I do believe there is some purpose to this space and time that we occupy. But could that be the secret? That we apply a purpose to begin with.  Whatever the case, I believe Will, Desire and Intention have a power all their own..so we will see when all the lights are turned off and the door is finally locked tight and the sign is finally hung….what mysteries may await us after closing time.  By Philip Wardlow