[x]

A Pocket Full of SkyWhen I was young, my father would take me to the highest tower of Notre Dame precisely once a year. It would be cold. Freezing. But we'd stand there, and take deep breaths of air, and peer down, towards the tiny ants of people below. Down, towards the sprawling city beneath us. It was always winter, when we'd go. Always cold. Freezing, freezing. But however cold it was, and however dull and bleary the weather, my father would ask one thing, and one thing only: that we adhered to tradition.

"Lucie," he would say, with the fond smile and kind eyes I always remember. "Lucie, my peach. Whatever you become, and wherever your heart and mind leads

Sharing Communion Amongst Creation -DFC Day 30I.
The sun stretches her caressing hands.
Balancing on the horizon, it seems.
Last rays of day scatter across the lands.

As through a glacier, the light gleams
Over meadows and memories past,
Dripping off cardinal's wings into azure streams.

Galloping alongside stallions unsurpassed,
Golden beams falling with prancing leaves
And slipping into cracks of canyons vast.

Shadow wraps around illumination like sleeves.
Billows as smoldering incense in sacred art.
The day has left, has hastened like ghosts and thieves.

Shade stands resolute and rampart.
Rapt with the veiled, vanquished moon.
Hidden in devious clouds, the waves devoid o

Lightning Bug CosmosI lace my skin up like a corset, peel back the blinds on my eyelids, and take a step forward, waking from the poppies to the
lightning bug glow of truth tapping on my eardrums.

In front of the mirror I stand, but what I notice is not the awkward crook of my nose or butterfly lashes. I look into the lighted mirror as if searching for answers hidden under
Ribbon-like sets of
veins, arteries and nerves.

Sometimes it all flows correctly; sometimes everything becomes
knotted up in all the wrong places. Skin toughened by beatings brought about by the

WhitewashWhen you're five years old you set a promise in the dark, your sister's ice-queen eyes witness. Millie is sitting straight-backed against the headboard, face wide and earnest, and it seems as if the world has heaped itself on her shoulders, or maybe it's the strangeness of midnight.

"We can't make our wills or anything like that until we're eighteen," she says fiercely. "But I might forget this by then."

In later years you will find time to reflect that you're not as whimsical as Millie; young, you only think then that you could never forget something this important. But you can't argue with the three-years-older she holds above your head (

SolsticeOnce upon a time, when you were still sunlighthouses and shimmering existence wherever you were needed most, you found him. He was November, shaky on his first last legs, and you saw through the mind-twistings he feigned to the mind-twistings that were really there, knotted up in his dreams.

You were still birdsong then, and thunderstorms, and your bodyheat melted the frost claws that held him tight. You held onto him as his November deepened. When he howled, you howled with him, and the wind played with your voices and pressed the softness of your lungs against your cageribs—and then against each other's.

November became solstice, and

Avengers: In MemoriamIn Memoriam
—in memoriam, a Latin phrase that translates directly as 'in memory of'"Did you mourn?"
"We all did."They all mourn. Just in different ways.
There is a bloodstain on the wall.

None of them ever mention it or show any sign of letting it dwell in their thoughts, but Fury has noticed—with his 'good eye' as Stark likes to refer to it as—that there are a few rare moments just before a mission when they can be found gathered around the mark they refuse to let anyone clean away, and one or two of them at a time can be found giving it more than just a passing glance as they wander by it, fingers outstretched and tips ba

Billy's PterodactylsBilly was in what his mother called 'his dinosaur phase'. He'd been firmly ensconced in this phase for the past six months, ever since his Dad had taken him to see the Natural History Museum in Oxford. The first thing he'd seen on entering was the huge bones of the Tyrannosaurus Rex glaring down at him, and that was it; he'd been hooked ever since.

In the time since then his entire room had been re-decorated with a Jurassic theme. Dinosaurs were on the bedsheets, the curtains, the posters on the walls, and little plastic ones covered his floor to the point where it was dangerous to walk across it. Unless you were Billy, of course. No dinosau

for unseeing eyesladen with sky
we stumbled
and painted mockingbirds
on loveless branches
folding in our slender limbs
and ducking under our own
voices, fidgety and frail
against the wall of night.

between the dipping blades
and drawn shoulders
we learned to craft our words
steady-soft,
a drumming rain
that carved canyons
in open hearts and
drew the sunshine to
our supping lips.

keen-eyed, we watched
remembering the weight
of unseeing eyes
and scalding remarks
and we learned to slip
the noose-knots and slide
through the soul-cracks
and somehow
build kingdoms under
upturned noses.

with lyrical uncertainty
and tender determinat

grassy field with rustgrassy field with rust
--------------------------

I'd heard about the old car, three miles out of town and all alone. I just had to see it. It was time. School was over for the summer, my friends were at camp, and I was bored. I set out Thursday morning for a hike, following directions that Uncle Will had given me. As the heat was still growing with the climb of the sun, I found the field and wandered around looking, and looking some more, trying not to be distracted by bees buzzing in the flowers, and butterflies and baby mice. Then it was there, just a bit upslope from the bottom of a natural swale, and just below the sky at th

inhalethe cavalry have forgotten
their men in the mud
and i fear we are
running out of ammunition,
ambition,
i mean
we never had much
to begin with
we've not got the fire of a
thousand horses but maybe
two.
sometimes
two will do.

compareeins.

you were

the smoke pouring out of her mouth,
(misty coils of a vague filth,
dancing to noir jazz, fading with each note)
smudged lipstick on the side of of her mouth,
and the little streak that crawled to her tooth
when she bit her lip in a supposed wonder,
and her eyes threw a faint film over themselves,
(like an elegant lady wraps a silk shawl around herself in a light breeze)

zwei.

you had

the light feet of a dancer
whose calluses were hidden under tight shoes,
whose toes would arch like Nut over her children,
(and she or you would spin with the earth, holding her frame as if-
as if earth was something of mass, as if

GraceHe led on his bed, eyes shut, the dim light creeping through his eyelids. The purple walls were soft with peace as he listened to Jeff Buckley's Grace.
The nearby lampshade lit the one white wall which reflected around the room like a spectrum cast over the soft purple walls, darkened by shadows.
He thought of how his death would affect the world if he were to choke on chewing gum right then. If he'd been found listening to a tragic masterpiece with dead ears. But then he worried, he was no one. None of this would affect the world around him, so he stopped the thought as soon as he could and returned his attention to the melodic guitar riff

What Soft DreamsWhat soft dreams we lay -
What soft dreams, like infants put to rest -
Frightfully bare, and compromised,
Our kisses on their breasts.

We close our eyes and trust them safe,
Kept 'til break of dawn -
Forgetting that the night is fickle,
And dutifully, as long -

It safeguards some,
Covets others,
Moved by neither coin nor threat
Nor anguished mother's cry.

Ottumwa ShamanIn Iowa, weeping willows dream of
Tigers, born in pagan fog, their
Coat of stripes singing shaman
Songs; shrill symphonies of grief.
Heaven tilts, crashes, and we race
The dirt to get away. We drink the
Earth with bullets of air and grow
Dizzy, light-headed from breathing
Some far off flame. Perhaps a poet
Who braved the fog of Ottumwa, and
Caught fire. Every cowboy has his
Six chances before high noon, before
The fog forms wispy jackals to take
Them home again. Every son inherits
An empty gun, six voids to fill with
Answers, skimmed and guessed from the
Covers of books their fathers used
To read. There is no other way.
In s

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Drink Coffee

Following daily routines people stop themselves from enjoying the pleasures of life. Young kids D.A.R.E. to box themselves away from the pleasure of sex and drugs because our society stops them. In America the society made a tea party instead of a booze party. The schools teach truth without courage, perspectives instead of authenticity.

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The night's sleep is suddenly gone!
Awake! Rise! To positions! Take arms!
But ho! Heed this! Lover's grasp are my chains!
With Houdini's skill I open her lock
and sweep out of bed, no longer en bloc,
but my heart is struck with black passion,
bubble, spurt and twist into foam,
my head foreshadows what is to come!
I stumble into books and leap over the couch
And fumble a porcelain dome until it's just right
poised to catch the black rain.
The storm of a faucet will pulse through my veins,
the hurricane in my skin will flush my face!
Black gold worth its weight in blood!
Oh stones may shine and silver glitter,
But never a metal o

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Submitted: October 18, 2012
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The Piano Facadeby *thomasbisbee

Literature / Prose / Fiction / Philosophy & Perspectives / Short Stories

This is a short story about a dystopian world and a museum employee. My head is a little woozy and I only proofread this once so forgive me if this ends up being a less than great read.

=====================================================

Oh wow Daily Deviation! I just now proofread and fixed all the grammatical errors from when I was sick (I wasn't expecting the DD) and also changed the pdf formatting to a more enjoyable 6 inch by 6 inch layout.

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-11-12

The Piano Facade by *thomasbisbee Suggester Writes: This is a bleak but very human dystopian story. What the writer does so well is the small details that make the story feel real. ( Suggested by =futilitarian and Featured by ^Beccalicious )

Critique by ~shehrozeameen Nov 17, 2012, 10:15:08 AM

Although this is a DD (Which is commendable in itself, and thus far greater a banner than this critique) I must emphasize that the only things which I didn't like in this work were:

the use of the word "fuck" when Art is cynically thinking. Use "damn" instead. I can understand that proof-reading is a terrible process and it takes a lot of effort to revisit old concepts, but still.

Apart from that (which played a huge impact on me as a reviewer) I feel you've written a powerful narration on the death of art as a humane emotion expressed.

What do you think?

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=C-Allagash Dec 29, 2012

I was completely out of mind... I read it, I commented on it... but I didn't fav it! o.O

I hope it isn't too late to fix my mistake.
I featured you in my last journal of the year
[link]

I wish you a very Happy New Year!

*thomasbisbee Dec 29, 2012 Writer

Thank you and happy new year!

=C-Allagash Nov 16, 2012

No wonder it was chosen as a daily deviation. Congratulations!

I like this text, especially this part "Art walked through the narrow glass tube hall and knew that no instrument behind a glass case can show beauty. The beauty emerges from usage."
It's obvious, but I had never really thought about it.
Now I no longer feel guilty for have sold my guitar, which I've never been able to play.

A text to think about... a lot of things. I am really happy I have read it, and hope you'll still have lots of dds.

*thomasbisbee Nov 16, 2012 Writer

Ha thanks.

Oh and I can't play any instruments either so that's totally a no guilt allowed thing

~Ningyou-Yume Nov 12, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

I loved the play on words. Art Ongaku...Art Music! Very nice. xD I enjoyed this piece a lot. It made me feel sad...it showed how the Government didn't care for the music. It makes me wonder what's going to happen to the typewriters...

*thomasbisbee Nov 13, 2012 Writer

I glad you noticed

~EckoSlime Nov 12, 2012

What does "Façade" means? >_<

*thomasbisbee Nov 13, 2012 Writer

a facade is the face of a building, but can mean the superficial face of anything:

[link]

~EckoSlime Nov 13, 2012

Facade is the same as Façade? I thought that Façade was related to lying or pretending something... I'm not sure

*thomasbisbee Nov 13, 2012 Writer

Yeah I think it's the same. Well it can be used figuratively like that, which was why I picked the titles "The Piano Facade" so it's sort of a play on words because even though there is literally pianos on the exterior of the building, it is kind of a false propaganda.

I hope that makes sense I might be rambling

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