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For a few years of my life I thought I had found balance, calm, spiritual peace. It was actually death. I was rotting inside my skin, and I had mistaken the cavernous echoing of my hollow soul for a new age dolphin song of spiritual enlightenment. But I had repressed so much that I turned inside out.
Lucy was my liberation, and my salvation, and it took her only two days to repeal the harrowing guilt and crippling fear that had dictated my consciousness. She tore me off my cross and let me dance within her flesh, and with such a display of truth and purity she threw light and revelation upon the conflicts and curiosities of my being. I don’t know that she was ever aware that I had been born only at that moment, and that my passions had graduated from their cocoon, with wings of silk and silver, but she would never again feature in my life, except when her cruel and ethereal beauty returned as an apparition in my memories.
I owe a great debt to her, but she disappeared before I could repay her. Until she awoke me I was in constant hibernation. Life was happening around me, but I did not participate. Afterwards, the bright conflagration she had ignited behind my eyes allowed me to confront the darkness, to run towards it and bathe it in illumination. When Lucy left I felt no sadness, no regret, or no mourning, for I had never fallen in love with her. Instead I felt a great sense of kinship, camaraderie even. We were both looking for something, both turning over stones to find completion. We united in the journey, and we advised and counselled each other, but we were just two people exploring together, ultimately destined to go our separate ways.
Convention divides us into separate selves, our professional self, our casual self, our spiritual self, our sensual self and the component parts are not to be mixed, except for the odd leak, the rare osmosis of one part into the next. But experiencing freedom and liberty made me feel singular, and essential, as though every thing I did was but an expression of my soul, not an act perpetrated by an element of me which surfaced as and when required, and must be suppressed when inappropriate.
When I am at the piano I am at the lips of a woman, and when I paint the brush caresses a female canvas, and when I write I am tattooing her flesh with my words. The street goes both ways. When I am with a woman, I am writing her character, exploring her depth, and imploring her to melodies, posing her as a grand sculpture of wonderful femininity to express the beauty of her form. All of our perception of this earthly state enters through our senses, and so we can choose to exist as mere assimilators of information, deducing and theorising, or we can become one with the wave of sensation, lapping against the shores of euphoria, grabbing at the sand, tasting it, and rolling back into oblivion until we can gather enough momentum to return. -
This is another extract from the novella I'm working on. A lot of the writer's I love have a very sparse style, and use words very sparingly, but when I write I find that I have a natural clumsiness, and the words tumble out as I they spring to mind. I think it stems from my lack of trust in words, and language. I am always conscious that somebody might read something differently than it was intended, and that once you throw your ideas out there they may get themselves into trouble. I liken it to the feeling mothers have when their children "fly the nest". I am trying to learn to let go, but it takes time... ©2009 Daniel J. Fiasco
When you couldn’t pout your lips because of involuntary laughter,
I was not offended by the denial of a kiss,
I was satisfied by the carnal expression of your joy. -
A short poem about laughter. I don't write a lot of humour, and so people often find me very grave, but I love laughter. I have a friend who is a comedienne, and I adore her absolute dedication to making people laugh.
©2009 Daniel J. Fiasco
I loved her in an instant. There was no tangible reason why. She had only the most distant hint of beauty, and she had a desperate clumsiness. She wanted only to flirt, not to reveal anything of herself. Who needs a personality? Who needs these emotional asteroids floating amidst the planets of our most brutal and instinctive designs? I had no time for subjective fields like culture or wit, or kindness, or cruelty. They are all pre-determined, unchanging and mathematical.
The reasons we love people make us all whores. The purest taste of love is that which is unfounded, unjustifiable, enigmatic. A feeling that we want to collide in union and forget, time and consciousness are no longer relevant. The kind of absolute ecstasy of willing yourself to death amidst the most rapturous of heartfire, pumping through your veins like a hot liqueur and reminding you that every moment outside of this beautiful state of being is an incarceration , a numb and vacuous hell in comparison.
Once you have tasted that you can never fill in a tax return, or check that all the transactions on your bank statement are correct. You can never plan what colour to paint your kitchen, and you will never again be able to read the morning news, because somewhere, amidst the vast vault of memories you hold, is a cancerous and deranged recollection of what it felt like to bathe amidst that glorious zenith of higher being. She will exist behind your eyes and she will writhe out her poisonous dance between you and the world, insulating you from peace. Every second that vagrantly flicks by will inflict a wound upon your soul, it will waltz you back in time to when you were King, and torment your descent back down to peasantry.
I wondered how other people functioned? Was this happening to them? How can you go to work, or even have breakfast?
- Extract from a story/novella I'm working on about hypersensitivity towards life. This little passage manages to stand on it's own, so I thought I'd post it. I'm sorry I haven't updated for so long, but time has been short. I aim to be a little more consistent in posting from here on in.
©2009 Copyright Daniel J. Fiasco
Sylvester stood at the side of the square, amongst the throngs of people. He watched a man carrying a briefcase, hurrying along. Sylvester quickened his pace and caught up with the man, and whilst marching side by side asked him if he could just stop him a moment and explain something to him. The man, continuing to rush along explained that he was “most busy” and had no time to spare.
“No time to spare” pondered Sylvester. How strange that a man so efficient as to rush everywhere had no time to spare? He decided it was best to change tact and he noticed a young woman sitting peacefully on a bench, as though she had all the time in the world. He walked over and took a seat next to her, and she looked up with a furrowed brow, suggesting she was uncomfortable in the presence of her new found companion.
“Excuse me, may I just speak with you for a second” enquired Sylvester in his polite tone. The woman reached down for her bag, picked it up and then left, condemning Sylvester with a withering glance as he walked away. He watched as she took up a seat on an unoccupied bench across the square and continued to glare at Sylvester as though he had wronged her somehow.
Sylvester regrouped and turned around to see a jovial man casually strolling along and laughing. He called out to the man.
“Excuse me, have you got a minute?”
The man shook his head and gestured that he was speaking on his mobile telephone. Sylvester slumped back into the bench, saddened by the fact that nobody had been able to allow him the time to warn them. He looked up at the dark sky, and noted that the eyes of all the masses of people scurrying through the square were pointed directly in front of them, watching where they were going, and navigating through the bodies.
He looked out across the landscape in front of him. The birds were no longer singing in the branches, though the flower beds by the monument were vibrant and alive, perhaps more so than ever. The trees swayed in their constant vigil, watching over those who marched below them.
A few feet away he noticed an old man, a wrinkled and bald artist, stood behind his easel, also looking up at the sky. He was taking great care to match the colours on his canvas to those he was seeing above him. A sudden calm fell over Sylvester as he watched, the patience and attentiveness of the old man soothed him.
The painter mopped his brow and smiled at Sylvester, then came to sit next to him on the bench.
“You know, I tried to warn them that the sky was falling, that the clouds had burst into flames but...” Sylvester started with despair.
The old man nodded and smiled.
“But they have more important things to attend to?” he grinned. - A first draft of a short story I am currently working on. ©2009 Copyright Daniel J. Fiasco
Sweet murderer return, and poison my senses again
Race me to expiration,
Astride this chariot of the waves,
Hurtling as one towards the end.
A war in which victory comes, but is not sought
The bodies breathe heavy,
Ah, la petite mort!
- a short poem, submitted to a poetry contest for women. I was excluded on several grounds, not least, that of being male. Poetry competitions are a pet hate of mine.
©2009 Copyright Daniel J. Fiasco
In the rising light of the morning The Councillor and his bailiffs walked in to the studio of Heinrich Neiting, The Perverse Artist, and began to seize his work. The Perverse Artist stood in the corner of his naturally lit studio, fascinated by the authoritative stance of the official, and his struggle to avoid making eye contact with any of the paintings laid around the room.
Heinrich positioned himself in front of his current piece, “The Rose of Lucia”, an elegant nude portrait of his favourite model, laid playfully in the rose garden at the memorial park. As the room gradually cleared of it’s two dimensional guests Heinrich grew amused by the failure of the Councillor to
address him.
The two roughly shod bailiffs cackled and made lewd remarks between themselves as they removed the offensive pictures from the walls, but the Councillor kept his head down and scribbled furiously in his notebook. Only when the room was clear, except for Heinrich and “Lucia”, did the Councillor speak.
“Mr Neiting, if you would step aside, there is one last obscenity to be destroyed.”
“Now, how do you know it’s an obscenity when you have never seen it Councillor?”
The Councillor was taken aback by Heinrich’s playful question.
He shuffled uncomfortably, glancing over his shoulder to check if the bailiffs had come back into the room.
“Mr Neiting, you are a perverse artist, and your works serve no purpose other than to corrupt those unfortunate enough to set eyes upon them.”
Heinrich strolled to the other side of the room and bit his lip, exposing his masterpiece to his intruders. He curiously watched the eyes of the councillor widen as he saw for the first time the porcelain face of Lucia. Her graceful neck and delicate breast, and most strikingly the velvet skin of Lucia’s thighs, spread wide open to reveal a scarlet long stem rose carefully painted in place of her sex.
“Tell me Mr Councillor, are you now corrupted?”
The councillor signalled to his two subordinates to arrest the painting and destroy it as they had the others. The Councillor turned to leave.
“If I hear of any more such pieces I will return and destroy them also, as I did the others before these. Good day Mr Neiting.”
Heinrich strode into the doorway and blocked the Councillors path.
“Her flesh is much softer than I could ever convey with oils Councillor. You should see her in person. She is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. What do you think?”
The councillor’s face betrayed a panic that his authority could not endure.
“I think. I think that maybe it is not just your work that is perverse Mr Neiting. If I hear such vulgarity from you again then I shall have no choice but to report to my superiors that you are a highly corrupt man and it is no longer safe for you to remain at large in the community.”
“Mr Councillor, does all that Authority ever strike you as more perverse than a simple man painting what he considers beauty? You know, some may consider it corrupt that you see the things that you censor other people from seeing? “
The Perverse Artist smiled and stepped aside, and the Councillor stormed out of the room.
- A short fiction piece regarding an artist whose work is not valued by the state.
©2009 Copyright Daniel J. Fiasco
“I was born, and I followed the path.
Then one day I plunged myself into the darkness, I submerged myself in the opaque waters of human existence, destined to either find the answer I needed, or hopelessly drown in the process. I burst through the surface, desperate for breath, having failed on both counts. But, that’s not to say there won’t ever be a day when the water subsides and leaves behind the glowing pearl of wisdom I was looking for. I’d even wager that from time to time I’ll go back there, and seek again what evaded me that day, but it would take a moment of immense clarity, not to mention coincidence, for me to stumble upon what has been lost for so long.
All the while, time marches on, my own existence ebbs and burns brightly towards it’s end, and I must use the light to keep the night at bay. It’s time to be selfish, to saturate my sensory fibres with pleasure.
I shall try and flood my mind with experience and knowledge, and to temper my own vibrant steel in compassion for other people.
Without a higher meaning, I revert to the things that distract me the most. If I stop occupying myself, or fail to numb my mind with ecstasy it will turn in on itself again, and I will be combing through mud searching for that elusive answer.
It can’t be said that I am melancholy, for I am truly awake with joy when I am in the company of those I admire, or when luck should deposit me in the arms of a lover, I am distracted to the point of oblivion.
I don’t wish to die. I wish to live as much as possible in the time I am allotted, safe in the idea that I can find pleasure, if not meaning in this most grave predicament. My legacy is dust, as is yours, but in all dust and debris there is a great story, which exists even if nobody takes time to listen.
Please, don’t ask me the meaning of our being. I looked, high and low, and with a wry smile I realised that it was a great trick, a proud practical joke on us all that one day we would evolve so highly as to understand there was really no need for us to evolve at all. But without laughter, all are days are dark, and so I salute you silent joker, and my pen shall fall silent. “
- Short fiction piece about a writer's resignation.
©2009 Copyright Daniel J. Fiasco
For a few years of my life I thought I had found balance, calm, spiritual peace. It was actually death. I was rotting inside my skin, and I had mistaken the cavernous echoing of my hollow soul for a new age dolphin song of spiritual enlightenment. But I had repressed so much that I turned inside out.
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