Rib Cage (first published in BlazeVOX)

16 January 2022 by Rey Armenteros

The bell, the hawk, and the moon…

Lightning outlined the way for the traveler. The traveler was on the pillow of the floating world. With a brush in one hand and a fan in the same hand, the traveler was going to make something of the tremors that originated at the epicenter of everything. Absorbing the calm of his spinal column, sending his mind to meet this force, but… But he halts. A new resting place is a sojourn in the country, as they say in that almost forgotten place, the land of his birth. But he tarries. Too long, it seems. And soon even this new place becomes his home. Time. A monument of time caught him looking back into the window from that side of his home he now leaves to dust and disuse. At the sound of his voice, a butterfly flutters away, and another catastrophe marks a decision that will be finalized on the horizon. This, as idea prone to reality, forces him to abandon his place to live life again engrossed by a constantly shifting picture plane. On and on, but the traveler stops in front of ancient ruins. What buildings there were turned into the ossified evidence of wooly mammoths. Look. Gossamer spider residue swings from an obliging exit space long ago shaped like an arch, and he goes inside, soon hungry and tarrying once again but for far too long, and then lost to all memory.

Leave a comment | Categories: A Poem, Poetry, ReyA' | Tags: a poem, BlazeVOX, literature, poetry

Prehistory (first published in BlazeVOX)

09 January 2022 by Rey Armenteros

The drawback behind choosing silence is: no one will ever know. (Silence as it is preceded by blank page or title and nothing more than an ellipse.)

Those that commit suicide have always carried the responsibility. The suicide note is a necessity. The exposition in such notes reveals a reason, identifies it as what it is, as opposed to an accident or murder, and provides testimony for the civil codes in the law. The suicide note shows those on this side what compels the suicide to climb to the edge and decide to release all connections. It is the only proof that bears witness to that line of thought. Potential suicides recognize that it is the proper thing to do. Life has no meaning. We know this. We are the ones that provide the meaning, and it just isn’t fair.

At least we have one way out that is all our own doing. The potential suicide studies this and somehow loses the meaning established by self and sundry.

A new line of thought has been developing. Recently, potential suicides have found meaning in identifying themselves as writers of suicide notes, never graduating into full-fledged suicides. They are notorious for writing the words without doing the deed. We know them well. They have gone by many names. Eventually, after the world forms new layers of ice and then loses them, eradicating all previous civilizations and erasing all past accomplishments, they will come to be known as poets.

Leave a comment | Categories: A Poem, Poetry, ReyA' | Tags: a poem, BlazeVOX, literature, poetry

Some Crumpled Pieces of Paper (first published in BlazeVOX)

21 November 2021 by Rey Armenteros

That poor hopeless son-of-a-bitch. Who was he anyway? Concentrating. Hard. Delirium. Nothing. Anyone can overcompensate for their false sense of time, space, and self. In step with the spirits, it tastes good until the bottle goes sour.

Now, this poor son-of-a-bitch was talking to an old friend of his that he knew before a prior career change. They had known each other longer than the dry span of progress, that regurgitator of certain lost souls. The son-of-a-bitch was at his favorite hangout spot when his old friend hit him up for some money. “Is it okay?” his friend asked as he pulled the crumpled bills out of the son-of-a-bitch’s shirt pocket. The friend put some in the cigarette machine and offered the son-of-a-bitch a smoke. He was sure his friend was genuine, but when his friend strutted off, the poor son-of-a-bitch thought, “How could this still be happening to me?” 

Leave a comment | Categories: A Poem, Poetry, ReyA' | Tags: a poem, BlazeVOX, literature, poetry

Choices (first published in BlazeVOX)

10 October 2021 by Rey Armenteros

DIRECTIONS: Read this to powerful music.

In all that time, I would have this thought.
You use words. Others have thoughts too.
But it never fails. It happens.
Disappointment. Something to overcome.
And the only way that can be done is with a tool.
A hammer. And you understand something larger.
Open chamber. Bits of skull with matted hair.
The housings of thought. But not your thoughts.
And once you give in to this curiosity, stop.
Regret sets in. And something larger…

(OR: Read this to whatever you like.)

Leave a comment | Categories: A Poem, Poetry, ReyA' | Tags: a poem, BlazeVOX, literature, poetry

A Single Speck (first published in BlazeVOX)

02 May 2021 by Rey Armenteros

Imagine a speck smaller than the eye can see suddenly become the Universe and everything in it. That is one infinitesimal thing becoming every other thing.

If I look around this common room, there is paper and wood furniture and a telephone and ink and dirty clothes and bottles and toys and books and dirty pictures and even particles of light coming off the top light bulb.

Now, the scientists say that the speck must have been pretty dense.

I calculate for a moment about how many specks I can fit in my room. Then, I mentally look out my window and imagine all the things around the corner of my perception and then mentally fill it up with specks.

The picture I’m getting includes layers of sky and beyond, with the idea of spinning globes separated by gases and rocks and things that may not even have names yet. There are more corners and layers in these places, and well…

I fill everything up with specks. It is unreal, but I am a sorcerer for just this moment, and I conjure specks as clearly as the actual spaces they fill. And over my shoulder, I feel the presence of a number that no human concern has ever encountered. An eerie feeling takes over. The entity introduces itself, and this is the number of the specks that fill up all the spaces in this universe of ours, the one that resides in our minds if nowhere else.

Now, I understand I’m doing this backward, because I am filling the spaces and not the objects which actually derived from this one speck at the beginning of time. But that is not important because human comprehension can go either way it wants, and it won’t go very far.

Eventually, the question I get, when the entity takes its leave and all is back to normal, is how much larger can the universe actually grow, and just what kind of density are we talking about here? 

Leave a comment | Categories: A Poem, Poetry, ReyA' | Tags: a poem, BlazeVOX, literature, poetry

Choices (first published in BlazeVOX)

12 March 2021 by Rey Armenteros

Leave a comment | Categories: A Poem, Poetry, ReyA' | Tags: a poem, BlazeVOX, literature, poetry