The stars look high but the sky is low.
Got just one thing to do and nowhere to go.
They lie again and again to me.
A realistic outlook I will not see.
Time flies by so rapidly but
I run with it defiantly.
No
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Tag Archives: Creative Writing
That Darn Baseball Bat
A silly, nonsensical Projection on Paper story
That darn baseball bat. The one over the mantel. Yeah, the one dad died over and mom lived over.
It was forty years ago when that fire broke out at the baseball emporium downtown. Dad couldn’t really think too straight back then, either. See, there was the fire, and he got stuck. A “baseball player” saved him. Smacked the wood beam he was stuck under clear in half and pulled him to safety. Smacked it with that darn baseball bat. Ten years later, I was born. Dad had kept the bat that had saved his life. The darn one. He had even started a collection of bats. That made us poor. Then it became things that were not baseball bats, but could be used as one. It was a huge collection. I started selling them under his nose; we were broke and needed food. But it didn’t matter how many I sold. Dad never noticed and he just kept buying more and more of them. Mom got sick. She was going to die. I tried to sell the darn one, the darn baseball bat. Now that he noticed. That one sent him into a rage when he saw it was missing.
And his heart broke down.
Empathy
Twisting, diving, spinning and turning. Watching the flow drift and soar, weaving patterns of worlds up in the air. Energy that warps, bends, has no end. Like a lucid dream that never wakes. Water silently roaring, cascading down, falling into the deep abyss below.
Under the earth where the water falls is a lake of emotion. The limestone walls are of lies and pains. It flows into a steam of time through the tunnels of direction. Sight leads to the left and an endless fall. Collapse. The right leads past the walls and outside, and can only be traversed with word. Empathy.
Outside the trees grow tall, the energy spirals and the stream flows between them all, into another lake. Ripples form on the surface and meet. Scatter. Converge. Waters meet as one lake, one mind. Time ends. The winds pick up suddenly. A storm carries droplets into the grass where they sink back down into the earth. Cycle.
Waste Away
The light will all waste away
Waste away
Waste away
The dark will all waste away
Waste away
Waste away
These clichés will waste away
Waste away
Waste away
The will to stay alone will stay
Parse that again
Read it another way
Masks
I showed the workings of the mind.
All they saw was that they were blind.
The words and colors didn’t mix.
I threw the mask down and it broke into sticks.
Resilience
This is a world of many rains.
Of pouring downs and flooded street-drains.
I had stopped hearing the cities call.
In the woods I found a misting fall
The water decent down like walls.
Down into a slow creek that became a surging stream.
The stream moved on and flowed to a river.
The river surged, gaining power.
I pondered why the water below
the falls somehow moved so slow.
I wanted to be like the water.
Disappear
I know it’s not the time or place
but I stopped and resolve stumbled when I saw your face
something about it made it shine so clear
that I have so much to do before I disappear.
My ears have yet to stop hearing the sound.
Those voices that tell me I have long to go.
I will keep walking along this road
until your heart turns so shallow.
This is not the way for me
I need to find some kind of sympathy
These pillars of life no longer throw light,
they only throw shadows.
Tremors and trembling tributes to things I once thought.
All of these artifacts of things that I sought,
of goals with half-hearted meaning and places I never wanted to go.
How was I ever to know?
A class ring, a medal, a broken CD.
A stone from the river and a handful of earth.
A diploma of worth, on the back I wrote out how I would no longer be.
I wanted to disappear.
Your visage stopped me here.
Juxtaposed
Just tell me one thing.
It’s all I want to know.
A few simple words that could answer so much for me.
The way you look at me, the way I look at you.
Of the connection we share, what truth there is to us.
Just tell me how much this will hurt.
Attain
I wanted you to know something but I can’t remember what it is.
I wanted to say something but the words went and hid.
I wanted to learn something, something new and amazing.
I wanted to view something, but clouds made the image dim.
I wanted so many things that I never got to live.
Pedagogy
A Projection On Paper story by Zachary Storch
My father taught me the way of the blade. He said the most important thing to remember was why he taught me.
“I teach you so you learn when to use it,” he said.
I took that to heart, but never to mind. We started with wooden sticks that we threw into the air. He showed me how he cut them such that they would split into eight pieces before landing onto the ground. I cut them once only.
The next day we went out to the river, and my father placed his blade into the stream and showed me how his blade cut the water and anything that touched the edge of his weapon. I asked him why he did this, and he said it was to show the danger. That made me confused when we were slashing at flying sticks again the next day. I cut one twice.
Later we moved on to hunting. There were wolves outside of town, and we exterminated them. I asked him what the wolves had done. He told me that they had pillaged chickens and grain. I took that as moral and a reason to use a sword. A thief. Thieves could face a sword.
Then it was sticks again. I cut one four times, but it was only a fluke. The next I could only cut three. Father cut them all eight.
We sparred, too. A dangerous thing for certain when our blades were live, but we did it. He scraped my arm and it bled badly. We stopped then. I cut him back when he lowered his blade. I expected him to be angry, but he applauded me. No mercy. Merciful people could face a blade.
I grew older, and my skill had improved. I cut the sticks six times now. Father had gotten older too. He only cut them five now. He still taught me, only now I knew I was the stronger. I would always learn from him, even now that he is gone.
Bandits came by town. I decided to find them. Father came with me. I cut all I found down. Then we came upon a woman. She held her hands up and cried for me to stop. Father urged me the same, claimed she was innocent, that she was just one of their wives. She had a small dagger on her belt. Were she innocent, she would have struck her husband down. I turned my blade upon my father. I cut him down, then swung back at the woman and she fell with him.
I returned home as a hero. I would still learn from my father in his death. I would never do as he had done.