Darkness of the Forest

Today, I went to the Seneca Nation in Salamanca, NY. To get there, we have to go through Route 219 which takes you through the Alleghany National Forest. I was hoping to elk or even a bear roam through the woods. Not lucky today.

We started back well after sunset. Bradford has a refinery and the smoke pours into the night sky. It is not as cool as the refinery in Chester where flames shoot from the tops of the stacks. The refinery is huge and they have a weird slogan? Principles? One of them is "have fun". I am not exactly sure why anyone should be having fun at a refinery. But it makes you think about before like how it was in the 60's and 70's. Except for the refinery and the Zippo factory, it seems forgotten.

The highway is smooth and mostly empty at 7:30 pm. Bradford disappears in the rear view mirror and there is nothing but blackness once the forest opens up. The Allegheny National Forest's sign has vintage yellow lettering from the 1950s with the dept of agriculture underneath on a brown background. Like stepping into another time.  The half moon barely sheds light on the road, the white and yellow lines are faded into the salt-encrusted blacktop. But the mountains are a thicker black, silhouetted against the dark, starlit sky. Small little villages that have small little signs and you forget the name of it as soon as you leave. A radio station with a white hound comes out of nowhere and vanishes into the black mountains.


Ridgeway is long forgotten and maybe at one time, it was a great town to live in. I can see the people wandering downtown Ridgeway. Most of the brick buildings are empty and hold whispers of another time. I wonder what happens to towns when they die. Do they come back to life? What if they never do? These are things I think about when I am working on my apocalyptic mini stories.

Sometimes, I love the darkness of the forest. The silence of memories, of towns, the night sky. A place hiding in the forest.

Till next time...

Bucket List

I drove around the streets of the neighborhood I didn’t live in to look for the right person. People minded their business, doing their thing. I was looking for someone special.

Finally, I saw her. She came out a brick apartment building, alone and not on her phone. She was probably about 21 or 22. Beautiful, graceful, perfect.

I rolled down my window and called to her. She approached the passenger window, bent down to look in, and asked how she could help.

Before she could run or scream, I pulled the trigger and lodged a bullet in her head.

Let's Build that Wall If...

We build a wall along EVERY single border that the United States has.

Why stop at the southern border? Aren't we just sick of the Canadians coming over to this country with ideas of healthcare and paid leave? Working over here?

And Alaska... Sarah Palin says she can see Russia from her house. If that isn't reason enough to build a wall all around Alaska, I don't know what is.

Fortify islands with 30-foot walls on the Hawaiian Beaches, Gaum, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

East coast, west coast and the Gulf of Mexico is also vulnerable. Build a giant wall along the beaches. Including Mar a Lago.

If we are going to do it, might as well do it right.

We are told that there is no money for universal health care but money can be found for a wall.

We are told the military needs equipment but there is a lot of junk we don't use.

But...

But what about the people who originally come in on work or student visas and never leave? What about the ones who come by airplane and never leave? What about the people hiding in boats and sail across the Pacific. Or those who come hiding in tractor trailers and trucks right under Border Patrol's watch?

Tell me how does a wall stop those people?

So if he wants the wall around the southern border then wall the entire country. It only makes sense.

Maybe once we are done with those walls. Each state can build their own wall.

Sounds wasteful and stupid, doesn't it? Yeah, that's the point.

Till next time...

Air Sirens and Jiffy Pop

Air sirens went off again for the fifth time this week. I’ve met others while scavenging. We don’t talk much, we trade a little and then go our separate ways. When the first bomb dropped, I was prepping
the cabin while the family stayed home.  They’re gone now.

I found a perfect package of Jiffy Pop, built a small fire in front of city hall.  Bombs dropped in the distance like exploding lightning.

So buttery, so delicious as the bomb- fire expanded eating the horizon. Screams rise and fall. But I’m here for another day, might as well enjoy it.

When She Rescues You, You Pay the Price

Six months after the zombie uprising, someone yelled for help. Pulling my gun, I approached him, laying behind the church with a broken leg, covered in blood.

Gavin. I loved him all through high school. He gave me shit all the time, but I didn’t care.

“Dee.”

“Were you bit?”

“No, I got caught in the trap.”

I never expected to catch Gavin as it was for gut-munchers. I released the trap and helped him up.

“I owe you,” he said

I healed him then I kept him as my own, my slave, chained in my bedroom, for my pleasure.

Wiper Blade Lullaby

I follow the tire track glaze
on the polished hematite road–
fog takes the steering wheel
guides me up
and over Skytop
to somewhere else.

Before this road
I find myself in a graveyard
I’m there in the fog
like an undead ghost
the interstate is progress
and dominates the wild.

Trees call my phone–
I toss it over
the mountainside, rain
begins to fall like icy
rejections, still I hold onto
the fog, roaming
figurative mountains, my world
and validity run
on my interstate above the interstate.

Reality blows its horn
fog swallows that dreamy
mountain, and I’m back
in the rain collecting
image fragments from the side
of the interstate– shunned
by carcass- picking crows. 

***
I wrote this poem recently for the poetry class I was in.

Trick or Poem by JM Scott FREE in all Kindle Markets Through November 19, 2018

Hey all, Trick or Poem is FREE in all Kindle markets through November 19, 2018. This chapbook contains 31 Halloween and/or horror-themed poems in a variety of styles, including poetry collages, pictograph/emoji poems, linked haiku, free verse and more.

And don't forget some of your favorite horror creatures make an appearance: witches and blood magic, vampires and wendigos.

If you grab a copy, could you leave a review?

Enjoy this free sample.