A New Page from the Book of Pat, verse 12:08:25

I say everything I’ve done, it’s all make believe. Pure work of fiction. Just nonsense I babble on about.
That’s because if I forget to say it ain’t so then some ass will come along and see the reality in what’s what… then I’ll get screwed again. Just like before.

I’ve been here many times. Sat in this very same mildew stained chair. Watched the cobwebs drift down to blow eroticly about with dust bunnies upon the floor. Fixated I am. I get off transfixed at the slow movement of my own decay.
Death doesn’t come easy for the insane.

Today’s extraordinarily special for me. Lucefer and the other angels have come by for a birthday party. Sadly I am the cake.
Long sensuous fingers peel back the flesh from about my eyes. Careful to avoid the layered muscles and most of the nerve clusters. Of course temptation being one of his weaknesses the devil makes sure to pluck a few strings. My mouth quivers in the ecstasy of the moment. Here the party trick of a forced smile isn’t lost upon the revelers. Skin stretches back bringing with it hair. And just like that the wrapping paper is undone.

I don’t scream though. Only the living scream, and everyone knows I have been dead for awhile. I’ve been dead for a very long while.
If it wasn’t for the guilt I believe I’d have quit playing this game of pretend sometime ago.

I ramble… I can’t help it. It came with the dieing. Someday you’ll understand what it’s like when random braincells flash their last gasping breath of memory, and somehow you’re supposed to put shit into some kind of rational order just to be understood. A few expletives would fit here. Feel free to choose your own. I won’t mind. I may learn a new word.

Let’s go back to the party.

Like a birthday cake nimble fingers make quick work of the frosting and beautifully rose shaped flowers. The sweet red cherry jubilee pulses in the open air. Its translucent strawberry gelatin shudders orgasmic from all the festive excitement of the party goers. I take a deep thought and point out to myself that even now at the end I never was much at being the life of the party.

A seething crock pot steams over rattling it’s lid. The noise of the gurgling almost too distracting to think. Pressure builds up from all those lame ass things I should have, could have, but didn’t. No regrets…
A white hot froth simmers up to a boil. Things buried tumble up from beneath. The vapor expelled casts a ghostly shade above it all.

The scene changes. Bloody hands claw out tearing loose the worm eaten cloth about me. A revenant fresh from the rapture, emotions clash with the truth. All will see things at the same instance in time.

I know the purpose of this calling. My seeing and dreaming of things in repetitive fashion. You wouldn’t understand. At least if you’re favored you won’t. So don’t be a nameless Lot’s wife and take an errant look back. What you would see following close behind is a horror that’s been promised since the beginning.

And I know you’re not ready to know what I mean.

Places Out of Time

I remember days that lasted weeks.  Left alone to many nights at port, to many times on dusty roads.
Mirages appear and disappear like the voices in my brain.  Landmarks becoming burned deep into my soul.
Out there somewhere I’m looking for something lost or maybe it’s just something I’ve never seen.
You never know what’s waiting there just beyond what you know.
Crazy ad it is, that’s exactly where I want to go…

Another Wakeful Dream

I’ve been here before…

This same dust filled room.

I have sat there in the same worn, mildewed, moth eaten chair, and watched the silent currents blow the cobwebs into movement.

I have watched the micro world’s blown about as dust in the light of each passing day.

There every page of life is written, collected, and bound. The work of a legion of unseen hands.

Every letter, every mark upon the page, created by a host of beings.

Beings that etch their knowledge simultaneously into the condensed lines of unreadable script.

My tired eyes have long ago grown accustomed to the wording.

Upon a shelf of magnitude…

There sits the great library.

Each volume a collection of time. Each traced letter a forgotten second remembered, recorded, and shared…

And each night I close my eyes…

Each mid day nap I close my eyes…

Each careless blinking of the eye…

Another leaf, another chapter, another book is added.

They lay scattered, disheveled from there proper place…

For but a short time.

Until leathery, age worn hands, once more lifts them into their place.

I know. I have been here before.

I will be again.

Loosing The War


Late nights all alone

Staring out into dark places

Listening more to forgotten voices

Than a person should

Shadowy death clouds the sight

Some nostalgic musings

Remembering long walks in open woods

The distances between school and home

Forgotten rides to and from

Sudden rains and freezing cold

The wants of being needy

All those hand-me-downs

Ill fitting shoes from musty closets 

Going without and not knowing it

Growing up

Wanting to give what I didn’t have

Finding out you can never give enough

To wipe away childhood things

Unable to change any of that

Staring out into dark places

Remembering you use to call it home

Broken Mirrors

There are things you’re not supposed to say

Emotions that you’re expected to suppress and hide

There are moments you are supposed to not make eye contact and if by chance you accidentally do 

You pretend you didn’t and quickly turn away

Change the subject

Quit reading because that shit bothers you

And if you don’t

If you have the courage to get all sucked into that drama

You somehow manage to pull someone back from off that ledge

Hell…

I reckon that makes you a hero

The world needs more of you.

A Sunday Morning ConfessionDirect from the Book of Pat

When I was a kid. I wore hand-me-down shoes a lot of the time until my feet grew bigger than everyone else.
Then I got one pair of shoes.
You’d think as an old man I’d buy more shoes but instead I find that I now just don’t throw old pairs away.
I set them by the door and try using them until one day glue and plastic bags no longer work to hold them together. Then I toss them in the garbage.

There are some days I get in a hurry and forget to take off my good pair.
I feed the chickens and ducks getting muck and gunk caked into the soles and tread. Large sticky mats of hay, feather, and bird poop clumping up usually in the arch and flicking onto the laces.
It’s horrible.

On Sunday morning as I prepare for church I inspect those shoes.
I see how well I did in keeping them clean during the week deciding on just how much effort it’s going to be to wash them clean.
Sometimes I can do it in the bathroom sink where under the bright lights every little speck can be seen clearly. Most times it’s so bad that I have to stand over the kitchen garbage can and scrape off the “shit”. (I tried not to say shit but it is what it is.) Then moving to the kitchen sink I use an old worn toothbrush and wooden toothpick to scrub with detergent and pick out the treads all the filth I managed to pick up through the week. Then when I think I’m satisfied I go to the bathroom, under the bright lights to see the grit and stains left behind.

If you skipped the body of my true story, just reading paragraph speaking points, what I’m saying is this…

All week we/I try very hard to respect the foundations your/my parents taught you/me. To cherish and value what you/I have. To worship God and follow His commandments as best as we/I know how.


Many days, weeks, months I do him honor and keep myself worthy to walk into his house. Yet it takes but one unconscious decision for me to fail for there is no righteous man who walks upon this earth that does not sin.
No matter how often I wash those shoes clean, I’ll get dirt on them as I walk through the churches parking lot.
I’m glad God understands and forgives.

… sometimes I just take my shoes off at the door and go barefoot because I know I am walking upon Holy Ground.

Praise God, Praise His Holy Name!

An Autumn Day

The heart grows weary as the cold nights lengthen
The wicked gather
Adorned in riches of jewels and gold
Where are the vigilant that tend the watchfires
Have they abandoned their duty to glean the crops
Why have the wise men ceased their understanding
Frequenting instead the alehouse and tavern
Alone the traveler wanders
Burdened by knowledge that the gates have all been barred
Highwaymen prowl like lions
The blind, arrogant, and foolish fall prey
And from the rooftops the innocent crying leap
But there are none to stop their fall