Wispy, Waify, and Wild (Poem)


She was just a dream

I guess that is my nightmare

All these sorts of things

They always interrupt me

This is why I stare

O so very blankly

As the hand ascends

And drops down

O so very slowly

Nothing ever ends

Wispy, waify, and wild


Note: For those who listened…I know it’s rough. These are actually just voice memos I make for myself so I remember the gist of vocal melodies (so called) that I make up. But…IMO (and I suppose I’m biased) they have a certain raw quality that I like. So I guess the point of this note is (1) gimmee a break, (2) give yourself a break and publish something! Cheers.


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The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 9.1 – Rope

Image result for prehistoric hot air balloons


That’s not right.

That tree wasn’t there. None of this was there.

I’d looked down at the trail.

I’d looked for only a few seconds.

Schmidt was behind me. Lucas just ahead. The sounds of our over-encumbered out-sized expedition echoed all around.

Now there was an eerie silence. Now I was alone.

It wasn’t very long before I emerged from the far sparser jungle into what I can only describe as a savanna.

The field of burnt high grass spread away into the horizon like some great reedy shag rug. Trees and clusters of trees occasionally breaking the beige monotony.

It wasn’t long before my tactical side took over. I retraced my steps. I avoided calling out. I began to look for high ground.

There really wasn’t any. So I decided to improvise. My best bet seemed to be a tree whose lowest branch was about eight feet off the ground.

“You can never have enough rope.” I recalled my uncle saying on a hazy Appalachian evening. That trip was over a decade old, that uncle was dead, found floating in the Colorado river. Maybe he forgot his rope. But I didn’t.

I tied a tent peg to one end of the cord and tossed it over the branch caught it and looped it over again. I passed the peg through the knothole and yanked.

Climbing with eighty pounds of gear was something we hadn’t trained for. Because it’s fucking stupid. But so was leaving my kit unattended in the Twilight Zone.

I was glad for the wisdom of bringing gloves. Though their original utility was to soften the impact of a machete handle they now became an indispensable recon tool.

After what seemed like centuries I hooked an arm over the branch and hoisted myself up using my torso. As I surveyed the rope below my dangling boots I cursed myself. I could have just hoisted the damned pack up first.

Well, it’s not everyday I hop between dimensions. That’s what was dawning on me now. Maybe this is where those weird Saturn fuckers were coming from.

The air felt different. The sun felt different. I really was in the twilight zone.

‘What am I a theoretical physicist?’ I mocked myself as I realized that action was a higher priority than thought. I looked up.

Thankfully the next branch was within arms reach.

I shook my head at the realization that I’d only considered the first branch.

‘Dipshits luck…’ I chuckled at my good fortune.

The pack would be fine as long as it wasn’t on the ground. I hoisted up the rope and used it to secure the kit.

I reveled and rested for a bit in the sudden weightlessness of unencumberment. Then ascended.

I really had picked a good tree. It wasn’t very long before I burst above the canopy.

I gasped.

Where the fuck is the jungle?”

The ‘forest’ that I had just been in was nothing but the largest patch of the trees in a savanna. I blinked in disbelief and glued the Nikon’s to my peepers.

Jesus.

It just went on and on. 360 degrees of savanna interspersed here and there by plucky patches of rain forest. It was like the Pantanal but on a grand scale.

That however wasn’t the greatest shock.

As I continued to pan I noted an anomaly drifting in from the west. As I increased magnification and focused I gasped again.

There in the indigo distance was a brilliantly chromatic balloon.


Full Text

~

Previous Chapter


The Sketch of Sam Monroe is a weird fiction thriller. Follow the adventures of five quirky Black Ops pharmacologists as they globetrot their way to the Mato Grosso jungles. Philosophy, psychedelics, and banter are infused throughout this literary comic-book.


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Tactile (Poem)

Get to Know a Variety of Maple Tree Species


There’s a lot to be said for tactile suggestion

How treading leaves with rubber soles

Is an eternal orientation

Contextualizing roles

The shoe, the man, the fall

Somewhere between specificity and ambiguity

Strange songs begin to call

Like myriad birds

Flitting in their season

Whether in fifths or thirds

They will seduce a novel reason

The sight and prickle of the holly

The wind whips between bare branches

Without melancholy

Yes, due to such stanchions

As the footfall and the dusk

All such touches all of natures kisses

Will breathe life into a husk

For touch is truth that never misses


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Chipping Paint

Related image


Small southern towns that bake beneath a low hanging sun. If you’ve seen them all then you haven’t seen any.

Did you ever sit under Magnolia blossoms, next to a jar of crickets, as your friend’s sister twirled on a tireswing. A tireswing that was just ten minutes walk from a swimming hole?

No, I’m not trying to sell you chewing tobacco or homemade jam.

I’m just wondering if these places are going to stay.

They were sort of our version of indigenous tribes deep in the Amazon. All sleepy in a blanket of humidity and cicada song. As primordial as discarded peach pits that take root.

Do you remember battered banisters, and the highest technology being a superninendo; that you soon abandoned to slide in your socks across a musty woodpanel floor? You know the sort of stuff you’d do as an ancient Sharpee named Midnight watched lazily from his post beneath a shuttered window.

If you don’t I guess it doesn’t much matter.

Cause every sacred rite of passage that a barefoot, cricket hunting, Red Ryder marksman fell into, climbed over, or set on fire is now forever bathed in the witching glow of LCD.

Unfortunately that’s not an illicit substance that will get you closer to nature. It’s mighty uncanny. This disembodied voice that colors every living moment in artificial omniscience.

The oaks are still majestic at the periphery of the pasture. The earth smells sweet. But there’s a tension even here.

The question is am I old. Or are we mad?


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Cager (Poem)

Image result for 19th century man


Overclocked machines

Stuffed to the brim

With numbered

Listlessness so grim

So grimly unencumbered

To trim

Cutting meaning into action

Assembled and compiled

For a smoother traction

Cager faintly smiled

The neatness the precision

How carefree

To live without decision

In the geometric See

The paths are set

Garbage collected

There’s no regret

No life so masterfully

Architected


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Poor Doggo


There were some tumors that I took for skin irritation till they started to bleed. That’s when we took him to the vet. Where a grapefruit sized tumor was found around his spleen. Forutnately, the spleen is not an indispensible organ and it was succesfully removed along with the tumors. Hoping it doesn’t come back.

There were no real signs of the grapefruit sized tumor. The dog behaved normally except for slowing down a bit. Since he is old I thought this was normal. Sometimes he cry howled at night but he’s always done that.

I guess the moral of the story is take your pet for regular checkups because it’s really hard to tell when there’s something wrong.


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Brussel Sprouts vs. Actual Europeans

According to the Romanian EU MP Traian Ungureano Brussels has a rather dim view of Eastern Europeans. I can’t say I’m shocked.

So…

Eastern Europeans are lazy says the organization headed by the nation that started two World Wars. The second having the express intention of enslaving the whole world so that krautloving groupthinkers had more time for their shit fetishes.

Isn’t Belgium also famous for crazy ass antics in the Congo via King Leopold where they cut off hands of locals for not working hard enough?

I hate to ruin a cutting joke by tempering it with: Germans are lovely people generally. But it is the current year and autism is at an all time high.

Not sure about the cutting off hands but there was some fucked up shit that went on and if a bunch tiny dickless Western nations (that were nothing before Rome) that couldn’t achieve anything without subduing weaker peoples are gonna fling shit. I’m gonna fling it right back. Let’s have a chimpout! Come on EU! Flinga da poo poo!

Why so triggered?

I’m American first but I did imigrate from Russia when I was very young. So just like an Englishman or German would recoil at the constant berating of British-ness or German-ness (well ok the Germans are masochists). I guess my point is that a bunch of WASPS that aren’t even Anglo or Protestant are calling Russians and ethnically similar folks Dagos. It’s like 1930’s New York up in this bitch.

This sort of rhetoric. That is dehumanizing rhetoric is often a precursor of war. Is the thousand year reich finally going to come in the robes of its opposition?

Try this on for size:

I’m serious about these savages. If you study the west you find Neanderthal DNA. Their civilization is contingent on Rome. A land to the south and east with refined acquiline facial structures. Not disgusting nordic lantern jaws.

chillin
– Herr Propangdaminister Von Weir

So…was that paragraph pleasant?

Neither is calling an entire country a nation of thieves.

Romanians have little love for Russians. And I have no particular affinity for the kingdom of Tepes.

But speaking of Tepes. It was always the eastern lands that acted as buffers for the lanky, tribalistic, warring untermensch to the West. Holding the Mongol hordes at bay, the caliphate at bay, and crushing those yellow haired Swedish rats calling themselves Vikings. Can a more disgusting animal be conceived than one who slaughters children under the cover of night. Arriving silently from the sea while singing songs of bravery.

You like that? Is it pleasant. No. But one can take something with a dollop of truth and color it in rabbelrousing opiate. This is dehumanization and as I said it is an essential tool of war.

I am merely playing. It’s evident in my theatrics. But when institutions that want continent spanning armies engage in similar rhetoric it becomes a touch alarming.  Especially when its a sneaky policy influencing rhetoric manifesting as an inside joke and metstasizing into nation ruining dictates.

The EU could have worked. If it was at trade Union. But it is incresingly becoming the pet project of milk bar Clauserwitzes.

Again, since it’s the current year I have to drive home the point that many of my best friends are German. That I am entirely western. That I often criticize the East and defend the West from the wiles of my Russophile friends.

I’m optimistic about the future but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to highlight dangerous mindsets. To tease them and show their madness through the lens of their opposite.

 

Da Pacem Domine…. you Papist Swine =)


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Cheesy Medical Drama Yello#5 – Saturday Night Freewrite

Image result for cheese


“The best thing you can do…?”

“I’m telling you what’s the best thing that you can do.”

“You think it’s knowing the signs of a subarachnoidal hematoma?”

“Fuck that.”

“The best thing you can do is tell me what you are!”

“No shutup, shut the fuck up…it’s a rhetorical command…shhh…don’t move those suppositories  ya call lips…fuckin kiss-ass…don’t even think about it…”

“Cause I’ll tell you what you are.”

“You’re worthless, you’re powerless, you’re a fraud, and the sooner you realize that the less people in this death camp disguised as a hospital are gonna croak. ”

“You chinless fucking boy-band reject. Fresh out of Harvard…well whoopdeefuckin doo.”

The chief resident pantomimed a vigorous jerk off session.

“Studied the sages under the seasoned? Yeah, well guess what they know? FUCK ALL.  And the good ones will be the first to tell you. But…hey…that doesn’t matter does it…cause you’re not listening…you weren’t listening then…and you aren’t listening now.”

“I mean Mrs. Bray has pneumonia! Why…? Acute stroke and now pneumonia. She wasn’t presenting any signs before. That means that’s hospital flora in her lungs! And how in the holy fuck did it get there?”

“Ahh uhh ahh uhh ooo….no dipshit it wasn’t you, or the nurse, it was entropy, the real God of this world. And you’d best bend that knee and kiss his ass cause that’s the only hope of salvation. You think these are machines we’re dealing with. You think that because we can reduce certain functions to a handful of variables…that we can control them. CONTROL IS THE FIRST ILLUSION!”


Ok, so I had a rather late start on my WordPressing tonight. This was due to a combination of music practice (I still suck but I realize how much so that’s progress), nerdy ass PHP lessons, weight-training, and dishes. Holy shit do those fuckers stack up fast. I might go back to bankrupting myself with meals at the pub.

Anywho. The above snippet is just something I pulled from my subconscious as I was pondering what to do with the Sketch of Sam Monroe. It’s completely unrelated to that novel but emerged as a sort of overflow from the aforementioned brainstorm session.

I suddenly recalled Antonio Damasio’s books popularizing neurology and his findings in that field. I remembered how he talked about the immense gaps in understanding that we have surrounding consciousness and even less intangible things.

This tied in neatly with thoughts that I’d been having about how we are all still children playing on the shore. The latter concept being something from a poem or something from a something. The source is not as important as the message.

Because it communicates that the world is indeed mysterious and our grasp of it is indeed tenuous. So maybe some reverence is due?

I know that entropy can be overwhelming. That the sense of the loss of control can lead to anxiety and depression.

But just like in Jujitsu sometimes in order to get out of the grip of your opponent you have to get closer.

So the moral of this story is that we should embrace the knowledge of our ignorance and not look to oracles in lab coats. Because the oracles only know a few more tricks than the average schlemiel.

This is not to poo-poo medical professionals and scientists but to merely acknowledge that they’re less magicians and more mountain-climbers who are subject to scrapes, slips, and downright tumbles into the abyss.

So hopefully I left you more entertained this evening than you previously were. And that maybe you found some food for thought in here.

While I’m here I might as well throw a few bones to fellow writers who are thinking about writing an actual medical drama and not just a cheesy writing exercise.

Check out these links I found while looking for realistic medical scenarios to use in fiction.


Medical References for Wirters

https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/improve-my-writing/how-to-use-facts-in-your-fiction

https://redwoodsmedicaledge.com/

https://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com/


P.S. I was listening to Elliot Smith, Jeff Buckley, and Mazzy Star while writing this. All very nineties stuff. The asshole chief resident is based on Dr. Cox from that 90’s acoustic radioshow called Scrubs.

P.P.S. Just to piss of atheists and Jesus simultaneously for using Jesus quotes on this Pascha while remaining a staunch heathen here is a verse that IMO really fits the mood of letting go to gain a profounder wisdom.

25 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.


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Eyes on the East (Poem)

daffodils


O you voices of wonder….

Pour out your splendour !

All through the hills…

O sweet and tender!

Reedy and ready…

How the wind fills!

Various yet steady…

Eyes on the East!

Shine stars o shine…

From greatest to least!

All down the line…

Herald the dawn!

Impulse for dancing…

Sundays sweet fawn!

Tender is glancing…

Fresh wine is drawn!

O you voice of wonder…

Pour out your splendour!

Cast down your hilts…

Sing that great ardour!

That drones and that lilts…

It’s never harder!

Than at twilight…

But if faith will continue!

The Sun is our sight…

Shine on o shine on true!

Voices of wonder …

Pour out your splendour!

All through the hills…

Curtains are thrust back !

Exploding as Daffodils…



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The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 9.0 – Pop Quiz

Image result for portable geodesic dome


“I see that the test went swimmingly.”

Thornton’s corny dad joke landed dully in the comm tent.

He ignored the silence and our high-res grimaces.

“If these coordinates are to be believed you boys are less than a month’s trek from your destination.”

We groaned collectively.

The old spook was fond of subtle psychological torture. Likely cause he viewed it as practice.

Cold amusement flickered through slate blue eyes as he casually took a sip of my favorite beer.

“What’s the MO Baird?” He asked.

“A cold brew and a warm whore.” I considered aiming this joke at his mother but there’s something classic in his aura. Something of the high school principal or deacon that sealed my lips.

“Still a sophomore I see.”

“Better than a senior citizen.” I quipped. Surprised at the quickness of my own wits at such an early hour.

“I heard you were last in line for reveille. That’s why I’m picking you to help me reorient the team. So, once again Lieutenant Commander Baird…what is the mission objective?”

“Get high for Uncle Sam on the tax payers dime.”

“I see that you’re tired Lieutenant. Perhaps you’d like a change of occupation? This is a voluntary, privileged position, for which you applied. You are well compensated….but I hear maybe not enough. Your credit score seems to have slipped. Shelby’s cost a bit more than they did in my day. But, hey…you’re a smart guy… I’m sure America’s HR climate is highly hospitable to drunken seamen with dishonorable discharges.”

“No one else could do this job. We both know it.” I was too worn for threats.

“Your overconfidence may increase the probability of success. So, I’ll let your cocky bullshit slide. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want an answer. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want an answer, now.” He replied with steely vehemence.

Thornton never cussed. So I reluctantly turned on operation earnest boy-scout.

“PLATO – practical alchemy towards order – is a psychological and pharmacological project for which Captain Schmidt and I  successfully competed – and were placed in leadership of – because we were the best of the best candidates…”

“The objective Lieutenant….”

“The objective is to expand knowledge of and develop techniques for pacification. It is a less than lethal weapon on a mass scale. A hippy bomb if you will. That and the free acid is what I signed up for.”

“Narrow your scope.”

“We are in the Amazon for the dual purpose of researching the correlation between geomantic practices such as henges and traditional medicines. We are also in pursuit of a possible cache of high technology in the city of Z. A hypothetical remnant of a civilization which seems to have been confirmed by Hoyt’s map.”

“Good. And how will you get there?”

“….” Before I could reply, I was again witness to a classic Thornton idiosyncrasy as the screen went black.


Full Text

~

Previous Chapter


The Sketch of Sam Monroe is a weird fiction thriller. Follow the adventures of five quirky Black Ops pharmacologists as they globetrot their way to the Mato Grosso jungles. Philosophy, psychedelics, and banter are infused throughout this literary comic-book.


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