Carolynn Staib: 2012

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Great Horizon

slumber is sly, trickles like rain
seduces the mind, soothes waking pain
takes your hand, speaks consoling lies
so you forget 'the land of behind-the-lids-of-your-eyes'

but the second they close she'll show you the deep,

the valleys of shadow that comprise human sleep

and she won't let you wake without her claws in your side,
without bruises and scars from your nocturnal ride,
for she wants you to acknowledge what we're all scared to confide,
that the cosmos is vast but the mind's just as wide

insignificance is something we cannot evade
no matter how we may fight, rage, whimper and pray
because just as we're small beneath starry skies
so are we too behind the lids of our eyes

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The Times They Are A'Changin

Slipping into the dark ages used to be a distant, hypothetical fear. Now it seems I can look in any direction and see people I once thought stable dragging society backward. Magical thinking is making a resurgence in our world, with the fear of devils and witches around every corner.

Just today I read an article on the pop-icon Lady Gaga and how her new perfume is an alleged occult potion. Yes, really. The “article,” while completely void of citations or sources, is bursting with claims that the ingredients used in the fragrance are common components in ancient pagan rituals. The ingredient that seems the most troubling to the article's author is an herb called Belladonna, which he insists not only serves as a catalyst for witch/demon orgies, but aids in flying and “astroprojection” (see astral projection). In fact, belladonna is an exceedingly common homeopathic remedy, which I myself have taken perhaps hundreds of times throughout my life without experiencing any side effects, let alone human-demonic relations or flying (http://www.elixirs.com/belladonna.cfm). However, it's not hard to see why Belladonna was feared by people in the ancient world. It's a dried extract of the toxic plant “nightshade” that if consumed raw is fatal. Your mom didn't tell you to not eat strange berries for no reason!

Alongside belladonna is a synthetic pheromone supposedly of the same molecular structure as “male semen” (as opposed to female semen?). The author admits this is not listed in the ingredients, but asserts that it is “a very powerful ingredient in any spell work or Magick along with blood,” which brings us to the next element in our modern witches brew. The perfume contains a metallic scent, an homage to blood, which the author insists is an exact molecular copy of Lady Gaga's blood. Forget fragrance then, this perfume marks an epic breakthrough in medicinal science! Synthetic blood? I suppose that means I can go ahead and cut up my red cross blood donation card. He goes on to say that all who wear the fragrance have entered into a blood contract or covenant with Lady Gaga and subsequently become her property. While such claims are ill-supported, or as I like to call them “ridiculous,” it is likely that the scent contains pheromones, chemicals based on hormonal secretions that increase sexual attraction – but most high-end perfumes do and use this as a selling point (http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct02/pheromones.aspx).

Beyond the perfume itself, the author postulates that even the egg-shaped bottle is something sinister and boasts themes of “primordial chaos, the universal matrix, the great deep, the Virgin Mother,” though I admit I fail to see the connection there to witchcraft. The remainder of the article contends the perfume's commercial's use of mind control, links to Nazi Germany and its links to the occult. All in all it's a fascinating, albeit frighting, glimpse into societies crumbling depths. Go ahead and give it a read. http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/lady-gagas-fragrance-fame-and-its-occult-meaning/

Saturday, September 1, 2012

I dreamt I was immortal,

first resident of Earth,

Creator of mystery,

Witness to the dawn of worth.

I made great stone circles

I painted limestone walls,

spoke in tongues now lost,

and bathed beneath the falls.

But time hurried and brought new creatures to tame.

Couldn't be more different, even though we looked the same.

They demolished my landmarks,

They burned my manuscripts

Violated sacred places

and turned them all to crypts.

But mercifully I woke

before I got to grieve

the loss of what I'd had

before the birth of thieves

Still I feel older for it,

though only twenty five,

because one night while sleeping

I spent one million years alive

Friday, August 3, 2012

Boogyman

The monster in my closet made a mini mortuary

stuffed me like a doll, stained a porcelain face

snapped naughty Polaroids inside his dreary diorama

rouge upon my cheeks, body bandaged up in lace

Sly eyes beneath the bed, wide grin of grimy teeth

offerings from shriveled hands to justify the crime

Paddle in a pool of pretty things for pretty girls

pencils, pearls and panties, polish up for next time.

Goblins are as goblins do.

Incubi and devils, too.

Try to pick one from a crowd,

They all look just like you.

All monsters curse the reaper, my rescuer and teacher,

who snapped my strings and sang that I am no man's marionette.

Every toy loses flavor when it grows too old for favor

or becomes a suffragette.

It's your turn, boogyman, to catch the boomerang

and now my hooded friend is waiting just outside your door.

He'll rouge your lips and fill your veins, fit you in a pretty box,

then hold my hand and watch you sink beneath the floor

Live Love

Want to lay under the sky

feel the earth beneath my bones

embrace the fear I see

and call the cosmos home

To know my life is brief

and still be brave enough to breathe

then be buried in the clouds

let my ashes ride the breeze

But for now before I'm gone

I want to cradle every heart

touch every life with love

so that my end might be a spark

Every thing is fragile

every atom dies

still love grows

long after we close our eyes.

Make it count.

Wisp

Maybe if I hadn't been so young

or loved with my whole heart

I could have looked instead of leapt

lived inside a work of art

I could have felt you breathe

and not be haunted by your smile

that lives behind my eyes

like the regrets of a child

But I didn't slow to think

didn't dare to take a chance

was afraid to wait or sink

or remain inside my trance

So I let you go

though it wasn't what I want

and toil every day

inside games of if and what

I've told myself since

at least I felt it once.

I can treasure the thought

like it's something that I won

But I lost.

Memory is vapor

that taunts the holder from the past

a gnawing reminder

that our kiss was the last

And like the smoke it is

recollection fades

slips through my desperate fingers

leaving nothing but a shade

How do I contend

with an incomplete dream?

With a door I slammed and locked?

With a past I can't redeem?

How can I navigate

my conscious’s cliffs and bluffs?

How do I move on

when a memory's not enough?

Proverb

Don't fault the wolf for craving blood

or blame the hare for dying

such things are truths that nature sings

and do not warrant crying

Don't fault the hunter for his mind

nor child for falling prey.

Blame the one who should have known

to keep the dark away.

Sister Night

Sister night

Save the world

While nobody’s looking

I won’t tell

And dawn is dead

None will wake before you’re done

Swallow us whole

Let us grow inside your womb

Blind and warm

Sew the flesh back to our bones

Heal

The broken world

Wake

The sleepwalker

Sister night

Push us out

Into the open air

Hear our cries

The shock of life

For us to begin again

Embrace us

Push new breath into our lungs

Give us sight

Bring the birth of a new sun

Rise

Fellow man

Love

Submit

And learn to love again

Dusk

When clouds as shadows dress to woo the fading sky

and black trees cut from paper stand stark against the light,

When bells on tiny legs bid the sun goodbye

and lighted wings like lanterns adorn the coming night,

When all I see goes still and window panes glow gold,

sounds cease, wrapped in fleece

and the breeze turns cold.

When the buzzing drone of waking is swallowed into peace

Is when I feel you breathing and pray to never be released.

(Dis)comfort

I say I want contentment

I lie.

There’s no healing for the healed

No recovery for the sane

Flaw is required for repair

Resurrection’s for the slain

To find perfection is to die,

Immortality the grave

It’s through humanity we grow

Temptation frees the slave

Wisdom and innocence cannot coexist

Which do you want to be?

There is no purpose without struggle

We need to lick our sores

For to be content is to seize up

And improve no more.

One Day

We may not be acquainted

But we’re made up of the same

I may not laugh with you

But one day you’ll know my name

When this world’s run its course

Long after we’re both gone

Perhaps we’ll love each other

In not so very long.

Lament

Bodies die

Magic hides

Fairies are only fireflies

Health goes

Wonder slows

I wish I didn’t know

Greetings From Michigan

How proud your mother must be, sword-bringer

And strange how often I wish she were me

I can claim no credit for who you are now, or who you’ve yet to be

Still, I fancy us scraps of the same tablecloth

Where yellow daises dissolve inside the mouths of moths

Rest, little tanager

I want you to be well

And to steady the light that pierces your shell

I’ll crash on the couch, you take the bed

Or hide in my soul and let it cradle your head

Futile devices though words may be, and I’ve no steel in my name

I hope you’ll listen to me

I see you wither with pain and loss

And deny your desires at any cost

Loving only through film-reels that burn in your brain

Of lakes and kisses and sunburns and shame

And while happiness is fragile

And fulfillment is death

The idea of you hurting stabs me in the chest

You’re right

You were not made for life, not on a rock so full of cracks

But the world is lighter because you lift it

All five parts upon your wasp-bitten back

You’ll be the first invited, little Atlas

To the parade among the trees

Your soul is the least impossible

Irrefutably (and if I accept you, so will he)

Friday, April 13, 2012

Rant - Religious Email Forwards

I'm assuming everyone has one (or a few); a family member or friend that constantly floods your inbox with email forwards. You love this person so you don't want to tell them to shove off but get so sick of the ill-informed, self-righteous hoopla that you debate deleting the account altogether.

Being that I was raised in a very rigid religious home, the majority of these emails I receive consist of temper tantrums over gay marriage or alleged edits to currency, the pledge of allegiance, and basic court room practices (all surrounding the use, or lack thereof, of the word "God"). It's the same people who complain about the dangers of Middle Eastern theocratic diplomacy, and yet somehow find it justified to call for theocracy here. This is supposed to be a nation of religious freedom, not religious exclusivity, and I legitimately have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that another adult can't see how a Muslim American (or member of any other non-judeo-christian faith) would feel just as uncomfortable in a "Christian nation" as a Christian would in a Muslim one. How is it possible to reach adulthood without forming a basic level of human empathy?

Freedom does not mean everyone must support your beliefs, it means no one can impede your beliefs. - So you don't believe in gay marriage. Fine. No one can force you into one. Does that mean everyone else must abstain because you don't approve? No. You don't believe in contraception. Great. Don't use it. No one can make you. The second the government forces you into using birth control or starts rounding people up for mandatory sterilization, I'll jump right in and claim religious persecution, but until that happens please shut up (I said please?). No one has the right to control what you do in your personal, religious life. That's freedom. Or rather it's only freedom if everyone has it. So stop trying to control how other people live. How is it even humanly possible to not see the hypocrisy in this situation?!

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

I'll make millions!

Here's the idea for my newest book.

Nightshade

Tabitha Salem has never quite fit in, but when her family ships her off to (Enter Mysterious and lazily-named town here – ex. Midnight Hollow or Secret Falls) she discovers she's not alone. Every student at Nightshade Academy, her new unrealistically lavish boarding school, has a secret, and Tabitha soon discovers they're not teenagers at all, but immortal beings of...some power or another. Tabitha must now face the absolutely-one-hundred-percent-unexpected possibility that her parents knew something she did not. With the help of Drake Ula, the hunky student-body president with a hunger for human flesh, Tabitha discovers that she belongs in (mysterious town) after all and is, in fact, a creature of unimaginable power!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Fever Dreams?

So, I think I might be sick. There's been this wicked stomach thing going around, and while I haven't thrown up (in sixteen years) I'm not feeling great. Sleeping last night was a challenge because I had horrible chills - but I also had a crazy, crazy dream. For no other purpose but to tell someone...here goes. I dreamt that James Franco came to my house to try and sell me a vacuum cleaner. He was dressed as cookie monster, had a sesame street back pack, and was holding a full sized gum ball machine like the ones at the mall. It was bizarre.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentine's Flash Fiction

Clich´e Chronicles Vol. 2

"Love is a Choice"

The building was unassuming and sterile, the windows obscured by part-time-model couples clad in overreaching smiles. A sign blazed above the door in stark white helvetica. “Cupid, Inc.” I had seen their ads in the paper – thin, finger-staining fliers that boasted promises of love. Valentine's Day special; fall in love for 50% off the whole month of February! My stomach hurt.

“You ready, David?”

I turned to face her. Riley was stunning. She had a small, angular face with exaggerated features. Her frame was soft and somehow willowy. The girl was all eyes and tits, but I didn't feel a thing.We'd gotten married in our youth, blinded by the arrogance of young adulthood. Our marriage would be different. Chemistry was an illusion, and sparks were overrated. We would show the world that neither was a necessity for success. All one needed was friendship and drive. We were wrong.
“I don't know.”

She released an exasperated huff that dissipated like smoke on the February air.
“So, you don't even want to love me.” It wasn't a question.

“I...I don't know, Ry, do you love me?”

Her face twisted into a knot. “I want to. I want this to work.”

I thought back over the almost four years we'd spent as husband and wife; the loneliness, the silences, the petty arguments, the awkward sex.
“Why?”

“Think of how much easier it would be, David. No failure, no judgement, no having to rebuild our lives from nothing. We can be happy.”

I looked to the open-mouthed smiles of the models on the windows, their eyes lost in laughter. Happy looked a lot like lying to me.
“This is really what you want?”

“It is.”

There was something attractive about going back to sleep; of plugging into the matrix and dissolving into a world of pet-names and smiley brunches.

Without meaning to I pulled my phone from my pocket and watched the little green light blink. I already knew who the waiting message was from. Cora was a strange woman. In a world of gingerbread men she was a genuine original. Her only cookie-cutter twin on this rock was me. We each possessed one hemisphere of the same brain. I hadn't meant to fall in love with her. Hell, I hadn't even meant to meet her.

I looked up again to the clownish faces on the window, my eyes aching with the threat of angry tears.
“Okay.”

Riley grabbed my hand and headed for the door. The waiting room was pristine. The lighting was a harsh, florescent white that showcased every coffee stain on the battered travel magazines. Plan your second honeymoon!

“Riley and David Rae?”
A woman with a clipboard stood framed in the doorway, her pink scrubs dotted with tiny red hearts.

“That's us.”
Riley stood with a forced smile and grabbed my hand. I suppressed a scoff. We were there because we weren't in love, and everyone knew it. There was no point in pretending.

The “nurse” (or whatever the hell she was) led us into a small room that housed what looked like two dental chairs. The green vinyl squeaked beneath me as I slid onto it and stared into the overhead light.

“So, tell me a bit about your situation.”
The "nurse" put the tip of a pen to her clipboard and looked at Riley to speak.

“Well, David and I have been married for a little over three years now. We never dated. We'd been friends for years and just, I don't know, thought it would be a good idea...”

The nurse nodded as she wrote. “Vegas?” she asked.

Riley blushed. “No, actually. We had a wedding.”

The nurse smiled. “Well, your situation is very common. People take the dive for lots of reasons and end up sitting right where you are now.”
I couldn't help but think of all the loveless asses that had been right where mine was. I fought a frown.
“Well, if I could just have you each sign and date this form, I'll go mix up the magic, and the Doctor will be in shortly.”

Riley signed the form without reading it, then handed the clipboard to me.

I, ______, am aware that all effects and treatments provided by Cupid Inc. are temporary and require biannual procedures to maintain. Cupid Inc. cannot be held liable for any subsequent legal and/or criminal damage on part of the patient or his/her significant other due to the loss of said effects, i.e. physical/psychological injury resulting from spousal/domestic abuse, divorce, alimony, child support...

I looked up from the clipboard. Riley was examining her fingernails. I couldn't understand how she was so calm while my insides were screaming. My chest ached with a pain that made me wonder if I was dying. I could hear my own pulse, and couldn't tear my thoughts away from Cora; her mossy green eyes, her nose, crooked from a childhood injury, the tiny freckles on her face only visible close up. She was not what one would call a typical beauty, but she was the most gorgeous creature I'd ever seen. I wanted to scream.
The door opened.

“Hi there, folks, I'm Larry Bennet, or as my colleagues call me, 'Doctor Feelgood.'”
The room echoed with his and Riley's dry laughter, and the nurse re-entered the room with two syringes on a tray.

“We all set?”
She looked at me and the form in my hands.

“Oh, uh...” I raised the clipboard and was distracted by the glint on my wedding ring. Forsaking all others...fuck. Closing my eyes I pressed the pen to the paper and signed my name.

“Great!”
The nurse grabbed the clipboard from my hands and immediately rolled up my left shirtsleeve. She used two fingers to tap against the inside of my elbow and tied my upper arm with an oversized rubber band.
“Doctor, he's ready.”

Doctor Dipshit approached me with needle raised. His too-white smile was showing too much and matched his tacky lab coat too well.
I'm sorry, Cora. I rammed my eyes shut, and held her image on the inside of their lids.

The pinch of the needle was brief. The doctor untied my upper arm, and allowed the sticky, alien warmth to spread throughout my body, slowly erasing the magic from Cora's face. She slipped away.
I sat for a small eternity, feeling progressively more apathetic until I heard my name.

“David?”
It was the voice of an angel. I snapped my eyes open with a smile on my face and gazed at my wife, perfection personified. Her giant blue eyes pierced my soul, and her frame made me want to cry. I roved my eyes over her tiny details. I loved all of them, and would continue to love them... for up to six months.

2012, Carolynn Staib - cfstaib@gmail.com

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Cradle Lake - Flash Fiction

Cradle Lake

We saw all through amber gauze, which blurred lines of shapes, and of realities. Cicadas hummed from the trees; a lulling static song that buzzed like the adrenaline in my veins. Even now I have never felt less judged, never freer, never more at peace.

Our bronzed torsos stood bare above the surface of the water, glistening with the drying dew that still clung to our skin from the swim. It ran as tears down his back, and across the wasp sting from the previous day’s hike. I had thought him so brave for not crying. Every few moments he would reach round and scratch the place with a wince. “Don’t touch it,” I had said with a splash. The fresh drops upon his shoulders like beads of crystal shone in the light of the intensifying sun. I watched them evaporate from the angry wound, which I so desperately wanted to soothe.

I had only wanted to make it better, and for him to want me to. It wasn’t until I pulled my lips from his skin that I truly realized what I had done. Awkward, I shifted my feet in the sand beneath the waves.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he finally said.

I sank my head to escape, straining to see my toes at the bottom of the water. “Sorry.” The sound of campers laughing passed behind us down the beach. He looked up from my face to watch them disappear before the silence drown us both.

I hadn’t expected his hands, warm despite the stifling August heat. They grasped my shoulders and urged me to face him. He didn’t say a word, only pulled me against him, my head upon his chest, his arms cradling my soul.

It may have been the first day that I believed in love; a concept tossed about throughout my youngest years, but always challenged by behavior. Like dad, who seemed fond of the word but left us anyway. But the thing I felt then did not at all resemble the obligatory notion I’d encountered at home. It was as though I had become better – undergone a strange metamorphosis that rendered me complete. In his arms was clarity, and there I was content.

A fire was lit inside me as his chin caressed my face, and my skin erupted when his timid mouth approached my own. There was no space to separate us, and still the whole of the universe hung suspended between our lips. Eternity passed within that moment. Suns and dependent civilizations were born and died, but no time had passed at all. Time was just an illusion created by men in suits. And then it was over.

I was thrust from him, disoriented by the spots in my eyes the sun had made. Tiny tidal waves rushed behind me as I fell into the water’s arms and watched him recover from the moment, facing the beach and waving at our counselor.

“Guys, come on, it’s almost time for chapel!” He ran as fast as the lake would allow, the water jumping up and nipping at his jaw. I was hurt by his shame. My eyes clung to the red welt on his back as he fled, imagining my lips were still there. He was to the beach before I could stand. “You too, Calvin!”

I’ve searched my whole life for that fleeting peace; the one they would call abominable, the one they say he hates. But hate was never a part of it. Love does not even recognize the word.

Carolynn Staib, 2012 - cftaib@gmail.com

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

New Poem

Nearly Calvin