First Published in Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose. Salt Lake City: LUW Press, 2019, pp. 112-113.The flame rose hirer
And the sound of heat, gushed. The button was pushed with fire As the closed door shut, hushed. The leaves unfold As the paper burned. And the crisping sound untold through the centuries traveled, learned A simple Herbological specimen arrived in the collection of Louis XIII. But kept from Australia, as dead men Do keep their secrets, grave born still, 19th. What Labillardière gathered so carefully survived through the revolutions aim. The World Horrors of 20th century passing merrily yet, be so tossed into the consuming delights of flame. Jardin des Plantes, Tagged, boxed, shipped from bureau Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, France. Colhelper, No 71250: Tony Bean, botanist, Queensland Herbarium, Australia. Asking des Plantes “where are my catalyst?” the government answered sesquipedalia. Olearia, flowering plant, Asteraceae family Daisies and sunflowers alike. To identify and classify, happily Seed, stem, leaves, and pit to strike. In the notes of a book now closed the package of Australian history, embers. In the oven of biosecurity, disposed the job done, security officers unhindered. The only comfort to centuries of dead gone by an email, no sugar, no feeling. Government empathy, thought, and lies fingered the send button, bureaucrat’s willing. References
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These Poems First Appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, No. 37, June 2020Southwest, pp. 159-60
On iron red tipped mountains high, heat and scorched earth cracked in rays, waves brought by arid death-- beams shooting through salt flats barren an age ago, cracking the range as Earth splits the crust westward through basin voids—billow currents of air as red rock and sand falls down the river beds, dry. 2 Spice and pepper, sliced chilés to garnish the dish: cumin, chipotle, jalapeño, corn, purslane, and black frijole served with the flare of rustic ranches. Piñon Pine drops the seed of coffee from green branches, simmered in the kettles, while Prickly Pear cactus reaches for sun raised long, purple flowering light-soaked edibles as red rock and sand falls down the river beds, dry. 3 Big Brown Bat, sonar silence in the night of cool relief, while Great Basin Rattle Snake slithers in waves of shimmering glass. Desert Recluse burrows deep in layers webbed, Cattle ranches in sage brushed valleys, and cowboys lasso and tie. Buffalo roaming the valleys where ancient Ute bones lie, symbol of First Nation Elder Peoples, on iron red tipped mountains high. 4 Stillness protrudes the Desert Solitaire into holes deep gorging. Arches float in mountains ancestral. Smoke reaches the sky above, while canyons gorge the earth deep and wide, painting the rainbow of time for all to see-- pride and transparency-- homes dug deep in Ancestral Puebloan sandstone and beans that fill the stomach, and the cooking pot above flamed mesa. Spiritual desert dreams the weaver of tomorrow, As Bear’s Ear rise above Grand Staircases, red rock and sand falls down the river beds, dry 5 Southwest, living lives in a places that splay life barren. Flourishing among the four corners-- Copland and settler the land reveals it secrets. Welcome horn and home eastern and first nation, love. As the Golden Spike transnational is one, the red rock and sand falls down the river beds, dry From Iron red tipped mountains, rising high. Online reference: https://adelaidemagazine.org/2020/06/20/southwest-by-daniel-cureton/ Raspberry Pie, page 160 Power surging, Body open ready to receive. The heat fired And the gun lifted The metal from the board expert hand steady gliding across my insides the thrill and fun I was unplugged For safety as you felt me up felt my parts felt me shutter as you touched me again in only the way you could You pulled me apart And it was no work But for my own good MOS 6510 Become Raspberry Pi Circuits breaking You screwed me after you finished Tempting me again Making me hot in ways only electric can Old to new, now I emulate Commodore-64 As the 8 bit world turns, I’ll always be your computer whore. The Universe Set Free, page 161 The Bekenstein-Hawking formula is given as Sbh = A/4 X kc3/Gћ Emanating from space, from the precipice of the ultimate curve The event horizon of holes in black, blackened fabric of positive density The universe of the mind, In a Nutshell seeing the beginning and the end of sun stars, moon bodies, nebulas and nurseries Euclidean math and imaginary time, evaporation spheres and negative energy The devotee of Physics and Cosmology, On The Shoulders of Giants Taught us how to peel the sky, understand the ends And find our place in the cosmos. Great brain of the ages, locked away freer than those caged in bodies of flesh Traveling on the currents of the multiverse in 11 dimensions Lucian Professor of Physics, conversing with Newton Running free and rowing home On the rivers of space-time You were here, A Brief History of Time Humanity will miss you, science will Saint you, the Bang will never forget the name Stephen Hawking Brazil National Museum Fire September 2018, pp. 162-63 The rush of hot wind on the men, hands furiously grabbing what they can hold. From a collection of 20,000,000 gems oh what can’t be retold! bombeiros spray with blasted guns fail the 92% gone. They grow limbs as beast of the realm save what can be lifted before the flicker drawn. Science legacy, 200 years of collecting, serving as the reference for the world. Exist now in journal photos, precious research items in embers hurled. The rush of hot wind on the men, hands furiously grabbing what they can hold. From a collection of 20,000,000 gems oh what can’t be retold! The flame creeps along the wall-- Baking, breaking, bashing, burning. Cooking dead knowledge consumed, stomachs full—churning. The insects pinned to posts so carefully recorded and displayed. Brilliant colors, shining as the light dances, fly away in the sweeping winds unbraid. Art woven by indigenous hands, feathers float on the waves. Adorned with delicate history greedy heat stealing down-caves. Masks hide their faces no more, exposed in the cold heat. Melting, cracking, splitting, caving embers on memory beat. Mollusks, 40,000 specimens slow to move, stuck in the shell of time. Gazing death in fire’s eye, succumbed not through, the saving hands of curators’ line. Continents joined—village planes beyond the Amazon rivers, the twist and rounds of throats that rose from the twangled jungled roads. Egyptian and Latin, wrapped in linen preserved, corpses entombed an epoch ago explode. Civilizations out of time-- Crackling sounds, drowning rhythms of drums. Wars, plague, politics forgotten-- Bones rattle their hums. Museum cured of the forever backlog, reels shrink, bubble, and pour. Exu consumed with delight, voices crinkle and crackle—ash tapes of analog speak no more. The rush of hot wind on the men, hands furiously grabbing what they can hold. From a collection of 20,000,000 gems oh what can’t be retold! The flame kisses and the roof falls, the tongue—forked—speaks. Higher it rose, deeper into history, all-consuming death, bleak. Fresco of Popei, buried and removed from the eruption of Vesuvius. Escaping time, heat, ash, dust, and dirt, 2,000 years late, swept into the bin by consuming flame at Rio, lugubrious. Pages fly past on hot current, blackened as the Earth, return from whence they came. Manuscripts so delicate, disintegration’s famished spark to blame Bubbled brain, the lobotomized Brazil. Mourn for the loss, and living unknowable countless millions still. Specimens sent around the world, gone from the drawers of tomorrow. Labels charred—files smashed—cases crushed, Science forever blind, hands full of sorrow. The rush of hot wind on the men Hands furiously grabbing what they can hold From a collection of 20,000,000 gems oh what can’t be retold! Cabinets of potential covered in the wake of collapse, heat tempered to survive. Offering hope to us where there was no sprinkler No insurance-Nature may revive. Dearest Luzia, we thought you gone, 12,000 years born, your skull tells of life. Unborn to Europeans and the Far East, You cut through Nature’s crematorium as the carbon-steeled knife Bendegó stands tall, symbol of hope, among collections that lye dead there. Meteor fallen so long ago, you withstood the bend, will, and crack, Pedestaled you remain—dispel our despair! References
America the Vile, page 164 When did we forget what it means to be American? How cold did our hearts turn to other's situation, not like our own? When did we ignore the flailing dreams of those seeking better, and chill ourselves on the ice of greed? We dream the dreams of today for a better tomorrow, but we leave those who are most vulnerable behind. We seek to further our own money, letting the elderly die unattended. We pass children lying in the streets, starved of futures. We cast the poor asunder, saying they are lazy workers. We call the youth insouciant, labeling them as entitled millennials. We accost the minority, profiling them as thugs and illegals. We close our doors to the immigrants escaping wars, marking them as radicals. We let the Corporation fill our bellies with swill and our minds with hate, placating us so that even Nazis march in our streets. Yet we call ourselves, American. Liberty stands hollow in the East, face shrouded in shame, torch snuffed by narcissists. Our Lady invites the poor, the tired, those yearning to be free, to pass by not the America of dreams, but of condescension and tyranny. The lands of the Earth shake, blackened with living dead, corpses on the tit of capitalism, stained by the blood of soldiers in Uncle Sam’s’ forever wars, thickened like the paint of doom by the talon of the Eagle moving slowly toward the abyss as the bison in the plains. Hope is but a memory, and freedom a passing lark. Columbia dies on the doorstep of the nationalism, calling us to remember “We are a nation of immigrants” Enjoy these excerpts from my new book: Monster Brain: Conversations with OCD, Forty-Two Books, 2019.Anxiety's Bane, page 44 You ever felt it: the uncertainty and distrust? Your own self a stranger not knowing who to trust. Fade in, fade out the focus is so hard. Bright lights, enemies-- soul wretched and marred." Alone IN A CROWD: A Short Film by OCD, page 56 "CUT TO BROKEN PERSON BROKEN PERSON is filled with intense panic. Fright appears on their face, they fall to their knees. BROKEN PERSON NO...NO OCD (V.O) Lade dah, let’s try the old plate to the head! Better yet, hammer to the temple instead. Sharp jolted camera angles zoom onto BROKEN PERSON’S face with angled sunlight illuminating their terror. OCD (V.O) Maybe we can hack off the limbs and pretend it’s Dicken’s little Tims. Or smash in the face, just like the show, and find relief, with the killing blow." A Day in the Life of Compulsion, page 78  Brain Trippin', page 113 "I said oh well!! Don’t care.” he said nonchalant as the anxiety welled inside. The mental struggle was exhausting, the unrelenting grind of obsessive compulsive disorder never relented on the organic machine. “Well Daniel, how about try this fry pan on for size. See how hard it hits the brain with ease?” said OCD “I don’t care. I don’t want to care about fry pan weights on skulls.” “Now, let’s try to see the exploding brains that fly out when you strike.” “Ugh, disgusting. Too bad it’s a watermelon now.” “Problem solved” smiled OCD. “We’ll just reset the loop.”" Heteroflexibe?, page 126 "You could suck off every jock in this locker room and swallow their loads like horchata! *startle* “WTF!?” Every dick I suck means I’m gayer than the rest. “What, I don’t suck dick!” Yeah bro, it’s the hottest thing. “OMG, what are you talking about.” Why don’t you try it, you might like it enough to switch." Hue of Blue, page 148 "With hue of blue, Clonazepam. You sit on the shelf each night, eyeing me with your tranquil plot. I resist like I know I ought. But, can’t help to think you’re right. You land inside so easily. Taking you is so breezily. I close my eyes before the ride, with hue of blue. Sleep comes as the fairy dreamland. No better feeling than dreamsands. I, in wake of anxiety, escape OCD quietly. O, there in sleep I make my stand, with hue of blue."  First Published in Peaks of Madness: A Collection of Utah Horror, Forty-Two Books, 2019, p. 60.Fiend of the night
you came to Deseret for the deeds with saccharin charm The University too easy, the Saints let you in their doors- Elders and girls so trusting blind to bludgeoning psychosis. As you hit so hard. The cracking, deep, in the skull The glorious ideas. The succulent sounds. The warm feelings- that coursed inside. The ease of strangle. The rush of the beat. The thrill of the feel- as the feet kept still. oh Ted- The push of your thrust, into the hard body throbbing against my walls balls shrinking deep, as you came inside within my stiffened space fulfilling the corpse desires screaming ecstasy of compulsion loving me to death the art of murder-sex I never knew love before you corded me Ted Exhibition for one The truest love like the kind you gave in my filth laden grave I’m yours Forever in the cell your memories electrified never forget the high as you stiffen, bulge, and die First Published in Enheduanna: A Pagan Literary Journal, Volume 3, 2018, pp., 50-51.Response to “In Noctem” and the cut scene in which it is used from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film. The sound track should be played when reading aloud the poem, completing the reading by the end of the song.
*Times indicated are seconds on soundtrack The utter despair. The absolute knowledge of what is to come. Not seeing a way out, Not seeing the light that is around. (Pause. Begin again 0:21*) Angst is little comfort. Hate was my constant. Disdain my sleeve. Scowl my outlook, as I walked into the shadow. (Pause. Begin again 0:36) How did it come to this? (Pause. Begin again 0:41) I was careful. I was strong. I was closed to the dark impulses. Yet I agreed, to take on what needed to be done. (Begin as music arrives at 0:48) To do what no other could. To out pawn the pawn master. To master the manipulator. To show him the wrong of his way in the final moment of his defeat (Pause. Begin again 1:00) Even after my body is cold. Was it all worth it? (Pause. Begin again 1:05) Will the memory of Lily live on? I can walk away. (Pause. Begin again as verses begin duo coupling at 1:11) The clouds form and there is time as the shadow passes. It’s not too late to leave in an instant. But why have I stalled? Why I have I forsaken myself? (Pause. Begin again 1:23) What is love? This thing I could never purge… (Pause. Begin again 1:28) even with the darkest acts (Pause. Begin again 1:38) I know... I know what it is… (To be finished as the second half of the last “Never will forget” begins at 1:45) It is…death. References Học viện HogwartsV. “In Noctem (Into the Darkness)-Hogwarts Choir-Half Blood Prince Deleted Scenes.” Youtube, 24 July, 2016, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9By0u8CoV0. Hooper, Nicholas. “In Noctem.” Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). New Line Records, 2009. First Published in A Shanghai Poetry Zine, Special CNY Edition 2018The longing, windy lane
Brings all sign of wane But of Shadows, sought Hanging air, death thought Souless wind their way Hope of swallow nay The New Year without The Dog barks its doubt "Ni Gong Xi Fa Cai" But Ni, such is why? Death pets the sleeping The Erhu howls, weeping The road closes dark The gems, dim in spark The lane shows not lots Future yet cast, lost |
AuthorHere are samples of my writing out in the world in print in publications and journals. Archives
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