KarmaGhost

The Artist Formerly Known as God

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The World

Nov 20, 1987 - I am born. I am born with zero expectations: no idea what color I am, what language I'm going to speak, what God I'm meant to worship. I am thrust from a world where the only thing in existence is myself, and the faded sounds of the world beyond, a soft indication of the life of the world to come. And dying to that womb brought me here. I do not remember it. But it thrust me from a primitive solipsism to a world of Other. September 7, 1993 - I attend my first day of first grade. It is at a public school. I have never been to a public school before. Pre-school and kindergarten were in a private, Lutheran setting. I was surround

All

115 deviations

Literature

Survival, Torture and Struggle

It would be cliché to call the United States a nation of immigrants, but a cliché is not always without truth value. The U.S.’ unique cultural heritage earns it many sobriquets, including the melting pot, but considering its age, America may better be recognized as the cocky young adult interacting with cultures many years its senior. Owing their cultural milieu to various waves over time, these United States have integrated the values of diverse European nations into a strangely dissonant culture all its own. It should not go unsaid, however, that the unique histories of various European countr

Essays

5 deviations

Creative Prose

2 deviations

Literature

What a Lion Sang Into Being

What a lion sang into being I danced out of the sky and I grasped him where he fell, shining bright, and making my night a day. He did this to grant my wish, kept you around ‘til morning, and his birds brought his manna for him to shine again, and with their wings carried him away. But I think in his intent he shone brighter than his rays, for I think he dropped on his way a final piece of fuel for his fire. It landed on you and now you shine alone on earth, a star single enough to bring all those wishes made on him real. I danced a star from the sky, and this one’s for you.

Poetry - Love

12 deviations

Literature

The Elephant and Death

At the water hole: an elephant to drink a few gallons, a playful shower, then 'tis much simpler than remembering, though he has not forgotten To forget would be to kill again the death of the cub crawls to mind like the spider spinning a web to catch little flies, little beads in the dreamcatcher, let them not pass on, let them be destroyed A trumpet call to gather 'round herd the youngsters in the center: a target, bull's eye straight down Is it so bad that the elephant, who never forgets, cannot remember how his little one made his trumpet call?

Poetry - Angst

8 deviations

Literature

Minute Minute

Car accident on the freeway and an abortion of Main Street and that murder a block a way the rape right next door. Here I sit counting away the seconds Sixty have passed and they have yet to begin

Poetry - Commentary

7 deviations

Literature

On the Physics of Fairyland

In Fairyland, an apple can fly around and miss Newton. I saw such things-- even tested them scientifically-- and found the laws of nature. They were in full effect. But I didn't see the stars, for they did not shine, nor hear the ocean's cadence, for the waves did not crash, nor admire a blue sky, for it was all shades of gray. The apple tree grows and bears golden candlesticks, and all the horses run backwards. In Fairyland, people fall up and rise down, the sun never sets. In a world deaf and dull, gray, noiseless, nonsensical, the magic is thick. For the Laws of Nature are in full

Poetry - Fairyland

5 deviations

Literature

Deeper

Were I to teach what time forgot, I would show you all the things that it remembers: the great victories of hate over time, the periods of peace sustained by sword. And in that you might know what it values, which is naturally so different from us, who value the endurance of love beyond defeat and the lasting conflict borne of intimacy between two so different they cannot help but be alike in their passions: a peg to fit a hole, and a shovel to dig ever deeper into the earth, a foundation formed by these tired hands, weary arms that tried so futilely to hold you where you stood against me, against the world that told us no! I a

Poetry - R.S.V.P.

11 deviations

Images

4 deviations

Literature

White Noise -WIP-

Eighty-eight keys- but you only have fingers- to make white noise, the sound of crashing against the shore, grinding into sand while we and your ten fingers run along scurrying and making music gently, fleeting, dance alongside and I will and you will It's a dischordant sound, every note together but it is our to sing it with two voices.

Scraps

15 deviations

The World by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

The World

Substitute Stars by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

Substitute Stars

Our little fights in the back of class and the essays delivered on paper airplanes should be enough to note that the notes we pass were nothing more than tantrums for the substitute teacher to know that we needed to be taught. I wanted to learn how shooting stars burn out like the scented candles you love and why the northern lights are invisible even on these dark nights where I lay awake, dreaming. Would you explain to me all the ways you are inside, outside, upside down to earth and into all the little things like ambient light. And I will tell you why the shipyards and their miles of halogen globes remind me of

Modern Times by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

Modern Times

There are volumes upon volumes of history texts dedicated to explaining the effect of the Great Depression on public sentiment within the United States. Like all things practical in these modern times, they serve a very specific purpose to explain a very specific phenomenon in a very specific, reductionist and mechanistic manner. If it is the job of historians to interpret facts and generate a narrative, it is the job of the popular artist to express the sentiment of a generation. Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times may well be one of those cultural classics, embodying on screen the morose of disillusioned Americans during the Great Depression. It

Bless the Burned Bridges by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

Bless the Burned Bridges

And you say screw the root and curse the branches, but I wonder if you might take the tree, chop it into logs for a fire to keep you warm at night. But do the bridges you burn light up the sky like the stars we used to wish upon; or wrap you in warmth like my arms? So I wonder now if you finally realize: it is not enough to want to be good, for you never were and never can be. Nor can I be noble and love you perfectly (though God knows I tried); we are human and children, all fragile and foolish and mistaken so often. For this we have as the only law we know, and we do not live by it well, else we might not be so

Epithalamium for Unbetrothed by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

Epithalamium for Unbetrothed

Come, you lights of night, and welcome the dawn with me; remain here, o morning star, and bask in the glow. You waning moon risen in dusk, dance! Dance in a small revolution, your gentle orbit 'bout this earth; pull these waters up to you, these tidal swells and bulge along my beachfront life; whisk away the gritty sand, grind the rocks to nothing, and exfoliate my surface skin 'til it be smooth, fresh. Come, you rising sun, and banish the dark for me; break, o waking morn, and bring day on the horizon! Heat the waters; boil away my ocean view heart; dry me to the bone. Come, you shade of day, and share the silence with

Sparks and Snowflakes by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

Sparks and Snowflakes

Sparks fly, little moments of heat that fade with the distance of space, a continuum with time; they flutter and flicker against my peripheral vision, and I do wonder if we are not like this. Turn off these lights, and we'll bathe the room so dark in candle light, and play funny shadow games against the ceiling, soft light and soft touches as we speak soft whispers 'neath soft blankets. And the glow will dance across your perception like warm, incoporeal snowflakes, and melt along your touch, never to be felt but for the lingering cold (or heat) and the wet excitement. Let's light a candle, and I'll not need hea

Church Music by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

Church Music

A broken ground, split along fault lines-- our faults-- pushes into the sky, and along those striations I spy into the hidden meaning of ledger lines and lead sheets: sketch little notes on the wall to me, and I will scrawl out words to you, divine all the meaning of the divine and though my feet leave not the ground, I walk about in the sky, and from so high above like crop circles I will make out the notes to sing, to you in the shadows. Hail, O, Gladdening Light! For it is where Heaven met Earth, where the sky pierced the ground and I caught a glimpse of you, a frozen moment in time: and there they sing thre

On College Dorms by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

On College Dorms

I left for the quiet, a room where I was not hemmed in, but the world was shut out. Instead I found a tomb, a testament to masons and carpenters, who raised the two-by-four walls and hung the limestone drywall which vibrated in perfect resonance with the voices of oh so many. This building is hulking, so Sovietly efficient in storing people, stacking us one on top of the other like skeletons in Roman catacombs - we are so long dead that our modern morbid priests have forgotten the prayers and instead cast us in this lot, disease long gone but for the rats who scurry through our eye sockets. And the quiet is cavernous, th

Canopy by KarmaGhost, literature

Literature

Canopy

Through an opening in the canopy the sunset caught your skin, and in the warm light of the evening I caught my breath to take you in: the sure grace of your cheek led to the soft point of your chin. I was twenty, you were eighteen, and we were too wide-eyed to know that what passed between us, so mystified, was how love begins to grow. Now I wander through the dark night and wait for break of day for in the morning, in the sunlight, you still take my breath away. But in the evening, in the soft light, in the glow of silver moon, I sing softly, whisper plainly, longingly hum myself this tune: that in the morning, in the sunli

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