Milton's Tempest

My arms spans wide

To capture heaven’s energy.

Spin, stab, rip, roar.

Meager globe, wrapped in clay,

I cut your palms, whip my steed and

Victory dance the coast for ruin.

God of my soil – Lament!

Lo! Spoiled fruit.

Neptune breaches clay with trident,

Seven days followed Satan’s pursuit.

Such is the fate of my fruit, for

Breached by Neptune, these hills

Meet wet steel of brute sword;

He plucks the virgin daffodils.

This unrelenting hunger,

Rape earthen clay-bound daughter.

Pluck, pierce, force, fear.

I bring the night’s shade

To cover phallic justice of

Wind, water, and wrath.

Blind invocation! Light!

Bard! or uncouth swain!

A winded fist meets plight.

Ride Mercury’s wings

‘cross the shallow seas and plain.

Now all is mortal, thus servile kings.

Those that you may choose,

Take tidings with you!

The Ethereal Man

The smell of vodka always reminds me of my childhood. I wasn’t in a broken home, nor was I experimenting with alcohol at a young age.

There I was, - five years old – with my khakis at my ankles, no shirt on, sitting at the kid’s table trying to separate the marshmallows from my Lucky Charms.

Come comb your hair, mother would yell – she was hurried. They say that smell triggers memory. Every Sunday before church, she would fill the room with her hairspray. Tentatively, I’d enter the aura of her makeup lighting above the mirror. The spray’s spicy burn would coat my throat and talk to my nose as if to say, cough…sneeze. Choke.

Fifteen years and ten waist sizes later, who knew Monsieur Grey Goose would be helping me reminisce over childhood Sabbath rituals? The familiar waft that made me cringe in my Doc Martens when Clinton was president still hovers a few inches above a Vodka-Red Bull.

Perhaps it’s the irony that makes this connection so firm in my mind, or maybe it’s the juxtaposition. Whatever it is, it’s like something is speaking to me whenever I have this realization. My senses, arguably the only tangible aspect of this life exploding with perception, keep me grounded in my childhood.

Comic Sans

A woman wore a deep blood-red silk dress. It fell carelessly over her porcelain skin. It cost her $700 dollars and few hours of her Sunday afternoon.
The sweaty mess of a man she stood over was sobbing. He was drunk. He wore an old t-shirt that was probably from his high school. He cost her thousands of dollars and her youth.

The Chronicles of Chronic Lulls - "The Big Break"

My parents always warned me that being an actor would be tough. It would probably take a while to land a big role. Pay would be sporadic. My studio apartment might get a little cramped. Shit like that. Honestly though, that didn't turn me off. It all sort of fell in line with all of the other "hardships" that come with the glamor of pursuing the Hollywood dream. Yeah, I saw the budding actor's struggle in the same light that seals see Navy tattoos. These first few years would be my right of passage into a life of luxury and paid emotional expression. I just hadn't anticipated I would spend so much fucking time waiting tables at Joe's Crab Shack. Fuck me, right?

So here I am, 29 and a birthday around the corner. Two dogs, a cat, and thirteen fish later, I'm still living in that same studio apartment which is actually (though not surprisingly) in worse condition than it was when I moved in. I'm making the same money I made when I first moved here because I keep telling the Crab Shack (or simply "The Shack") that I can't accept more responsibility, what with my "numerous auditions" and "hollywood-related commitments." They laugh because the only time they ever saw me on the big screen was in a commercial for Nitro Lax, "The Laxative that Won't Quit!"

I tell my parents that I do a lot of theatre work around LA to get them off of my back about "making money" and "not being bankrupt." I don't do a lot of theatre work around LA, by the way, because shit, it's hard. The competition is huge. Who knew there were so many other starving actors... We're like a bunch of acne-riddled kids at a middle school dance. We post up along the walls of the gymnasium waiting for Sally Big Tits to approach us. Everyone seems to be waiting for their big break.

 Nitro Lax was not my Sally Big Tits. This I would not allow.

Sitting alone in McDonald's, I'm laughing like an idiot at the picture of Monopoly's Mr. Moneybags on the side of my Large Fries. A monocle, bro? Really?

In walks a tall man with gray-brown curly hair, wearing a beret and a matching beige tweed jacket. He was with a much smaller flamboyant man wearing a stupid-tight purple V-neck to complement his stupid-gelled hair.

The tall man spoke, "I need you to express pain, Denario. PAAAAAIN! You look like a fucking school girl with a broken nail. Try it again.....see now what the fuck is that?" The small man with him, Denario apparently, was responding to Mr. Tweed with a series of disappointed tongue clicks, hands in his own pockets looking at the ground.

"Meester Jones, I cannot do eet. Eet ees too tough for me." Denario rolled his R's like the guy in the Dos Equis commercials.

"Great...Fucking great Denario. Your daddy gets you a role in a--" Mr. Jones cut off to lower his volume, "...in a goddamn Scorsese film, and you can't even show me pain!?! Like straight up physical pain? I'm not talking inner-torment kinda shit, but real superficial, 'Ouch my cock hurts' kinda pain." He turned in anger to the teenager working the cashier, "What?"

I was enthralled. My ketchup was getting weirdly warm from the sunlight through the window. The two men seemed to be involved in Hollywood. Apparently little Denario over here had connections that got him in Martin Scorsese's spotlight? And apparently he was shit. That crap makes me mad - the politics of Hollywood (put that in the same book with The Shack under "Shit I didn't anticipate"). You have people like me, literally working their asses off with Nitro Lax. Then there's Denario who probably decided yesterday that he wanted his friends to see him in a movie. Connections. Essential to success. My dad is a doorknob and metal fixtures salesman.

It was actually starting to make me feel ill, the scene. Just so despicable. This little arrogant rich boy being given the opportunity of a lifetime, and squandering it because "Eet ees too tough." Suddenly, Mr. Moneybags wasn't so funny. I want all that money, just like Mr. Moneybags. I want my big break.

I stood up, heated, carrying my tray past the "Floor is Slippery" sign. What would it take for me to finally break into the scene? To finally get that monologue opposite one Scarlet Johannson?

Just as I'm approaching the garbage, I realize that my phone was still on the table. Turning around, still stricken with pensive anger, I don't pay much attention to my feet on the slippery McDonald's tiling.

The hot ketchup exploded into the air as I launched my tray into orbit, my feet out from under me. I could just make out Denario's nasal, "Oh my God!" before I hit the ground with unanticipated force (my lack of anticipation seems to be a recurring trend). 

With contact came an excruciating pain, as I land on my wrist. I howl, "FUUUCK!" followed by a series of disbelieving moans and demi-weeps. Everything seemed to be culminating at that moment - all of my failures and anxieties, my stresses and annoyances. This was as low as I could bear to go. I look at my hand, it's quickly taking on a purple-ish tinge.  I can't move my wrist at all. Great, broken. I smell like fucking ketchup. It was then that I felt strong hands pulling me to my feet. I gathered myself then processed that I had been helped up by "Meester Jones."

"That, son, was magnificent! The way you manipulated your face like it would take some of the pain away from your arm. A real introspective display right there... See Denario? THAT is fucking acting right there."

Denario, confused and horrified, responded, "Meester Jones, I think thees man actually hurt hees wreest!"

"No, no..he..What the fuck Denario?.. No, he must have overheard me talking to you. Right, son? Wait, are you actually hurt?"

I had a real decision to make here. Do I sacrifice my integrity and lie to this potty-mouthed man? My wrist was seriously throbbing - real pain for sure. I always hated actors who got their beginnings out of sheer luck, having agents come up to them in the park offering them roles to summer blockbusters. But, this guy apparently has connections with Marty Scorsese. So yeah, fuck all that, fuck Joe's Crab Shack, fuck integrity. This was my big break. My broken wrist was my big break.

"Aaaaaaaaand scene!" I exclaimed. 

Get at me, Hollywood.

Genesis (I)

Oscar sat watching the blood red sun pull itself up above the Parisian rooftops. It trudged slowly over the chimneys and glowed against his bare shoulders. The small window was cracked ajar, and the warm summer air thickened the cold room. His forearms were stacked on top of each other on the window sill, a cigarette slowly burning away in his right hand. The room froze around the smoke which tailed away out the open window. He was just staring at the red glow of the Lucky Strike and the milky waterfall that was erupting from its open head. Light, burn, burn, burn.

"Could you go buy me some cigarettes?" she asked. "And some bread too, I'm so hungry."
"Yeah...yeah just a second." Depressed, Oscar sucked the last bit from his cigarette then dragged it across the floor of the ash tray. He sat, hunched over in the wrought-iron chair looking out on the morning skyline. It was a Saturday.

Oscar was a decently-built man - nothing that would impress, but he felt good about himself. He had thick brown hair and a defined cheekbone that complemented his five o'clock shadow nicely. Suits seemed to hug his figure well and he knew this, so he wore them everyday.

The sidewalks were empty at this hour in the morning. Avenue de la Grande Armée.........
Oscar always found something soothing, therapeutic even, about being entirely alone on these streets. In one hour, businessmen on scooters would weave between cars and the silly French sirens would howl out in battle cry. He still avoided sidewalk cracks, even sacrificing his looking like a decent human being - he carried that from childhood.

But today would be the day he died.

Love Magnolia

Sometimes, white like the Magnolia,
Love's brace will kiss your head.

Love --
It's the air in your mother's lungs.

Effervescence --
les aveugles rose de l'amour.


Sometimes you find it
amidst your own thoughts
in a weird dark place.

Bounty boom plentiful.
May we transcend our limitations,
our inhibitions and our associations.

Our childish ways and
scanty devotion to form.

Love --
It's the air in your mother's lungs.

A Jump Rightwards On

Rejoice! Men of fallow heart
Feel Apollo in their veins!
Eeriness be damned,


Don't speak through them.
Like boats stacked in Monte Carlo,
An ocean churns and froths


Unbeknownst to the many.
Alas! Infinite Jest resonates
like salts that sting their noses.


We lie in sheets that babble
around us like air in a vacuum.
Stasis; Paralysis of love.


A dynamic vie de la grâce,
is seen hovering above the surface
like foam on the great blue.


We hope the rain will fall,
Unrelenting in its prosperity.
Yet, we fear that what will remain


Will be no more than
A single drop.