writing

Pages from the Netherrealm that Nevermiss (III.)

A series of poems conjured from the minds of J. Evan Rogers + Bailey Gaus

To seek Truth—if She still breathes—follow
the Vermilion Kittens, their eyes aflame
with candor, through Sincerity Alley
to the Wall that Reasons Back—lest the Pendulum
of Morality defers to its own direction: back-to-
forth rather than side-to-side.

The Contrarian arrives barefoot, aghast
with vagrancy, pockets full of static, claiming
resurrection by tessellation, offering a celadon serum
that hums like a neon Eucharist, insisting it will
transmute your spiritual dampening
into an onslaught of joy.

The Forgettable Saint has warned against
this for centuries, wounded with immortality—
unheard beneath the Symphony of Creation,
unnoticed amidst the Divine Cosmic Waltz.

Emerging from the Oracle’s Closet, the Underaged Alchemist
promises the Promiscuous Prodigy—with maps drawn
on their wrists—that to reach the Dungeons of Abundance,
one must resist the gleam of the Gold-Plated Gallows,
decipher the Infirmary of Mysteries, and avoid at all costs
the Parlor of Perpetual First Impressions—unless one wishes to
unknowingly begin again back at the beginning,
never to speak to Him, trailed for all eternity by
the infinite ellipsis in an everlasting glow of gloom.

Enough with riddle and scripture—the illusion and reality of it all.

Step through.

It’s time to experience the Netherrealm from the inside out.

(Back to Pt II.)

Pages from the Netherrealm that Nevermiss (II.)

A series of poems conjured from the minds of J. Evan Rogers + Bailey Gaus

Further in, a flicker stirs
like an inverted firework—
not of Hope, but Remembrance—
a brittle pulse in the Belly of Dusk
where remorse coils like smoke in lungs.

The Whistling Spectacle frolics
hand-in-hand with the Anticlimactic Angel—
on the tip of thought atop the Tower of Certainty—
mocking Time and Truth with their
slow, decaying tongues.

A ceaseless fever dream, the so-swollen
crimson soil weeps with every footfall, soaking-in
silhouettes of the Parade of Regret, as if
Penance was a place, not a plea.

Still, the Tease awaits—languid, laughing;
seething, searching—beneath the haunted
hush of what was heretofore.

The darkest part is a fact of art:
the Heart of the Artifact is hard to find.

(Forth to Pt III.)

(Back to Pt I.)

“God’s Got Nothin on Gasman”

            An effluvium of tortoise-tone smoke rose all around him. He stood in the dustydark boarded-up building with no regrets.

            The space was abandoned, but far from empty. It held: a dilapidated counter as the only level ’n elevated surface that once served as a service desk now used for a multitude of other erroneous inactivities; pallets jutting out at all angles, left stacked or standing every which way like a failed attempt at a giant game of Jenga, rusted antique automobile ’n oil signs barely clinging to the walls like lizards ’n silverfish or something else unidentified ’n strange that slipped its cocoon and flung itself free into the frenzy… among other things.
            Think of something, Dear Reader. The rundown gas station he stood in held everything except that thing you just thought of. (Now what are the odds of that?)

            His mind was made mostly of kerosene—and he was still for the moment, smoking slow and convincingly, while the noxious wave patterns leveled out in his skull.

           It’s not hard to pump gas, he thought, you just always have to be sure to get your fill.
           That, and: God’s got nothin on Gasman.

            [*cutscene omitted*]

           His thoughts didn’t come out as clean as they once did. Still, they were invaluable when translated (which, as of yet, there was not a single known translator of such “language” on this planet, or any other). And, now, they emanated audibly.
           Glibglibglibbbb, came one. Urshaurshaaa, went another. And so on and so forth. Et cetera, et cetera.

           The world zoomed on outside the decaying walls. Time ticked endlessly toward nowhere in particular. He was an anachronistic artifact, a sullied statue in his greasy jumpsuit and beat-up boots.
           It mattered not how dark it got, how cold or bleak. He remained, mostly unmoving, in a tuckered-out tomb of concrete blocks and ethanol.

           He heard there were places where gas stations still exploded. The knowledge of these kinds of occurrences was useless to him—it simply did not compute. A moth faltered in its flight, swirled and twirled, crashing down belly-up under the faint glow of a pulsating “EXIT” sign.

           There was only one rule in the rundown abandoned gas station: No Smoking.

           He lit another smoke in his mind, which gurgled graciously for the chance to do so. It was a volatile yet conscious decision. Although the one rule did not specify, he knew why it existed, and although extrapolating with assumptions in gray areas and murky waters was one of his pet peeves (in the top ten on his list of lifelong no-nos, in fact), he felt it more than fair to take those two words literally, not figuratively. If we were to take every rule to pertain to the imagination as well, he thought (which came out flifffliffflifffliffffff), we’re in deeper shit than I imagined. (Shunnashunnnnshun)
            Plus, the therapeutic encapsulation a mental tobacco toke granted him was one of the main exercises keeping him alive.

II. Let’s Walk Through Walls

            We are all ghosts if you pay attention. We are all spirits.

            It’s not a matter of ‘When will I?’ or ‘How could I?’ Those are too many words. They are slightly, yet at the same time (paradoxically), monumental in their disadvantageousness. Superfluous and erroneous wording is the utmost enemy. Not to mention the rhetoric of the aforementioned quoted questions is entirely incorrect. They need all sorts of rearrangement. We’ll get to that. Trust me, I’m familiar. Trust me, I’m aware. I trust you, you already know. There are no traces of strangers here. Not even an outline. That’s one of the many reasons I like you, good friend. That’s one of the many reasons I care.

            Where we go, we choose. We use and abuse and discard other’s views to the point of contempt. It’s a point better slept on to get the full picture. But picture this while you’re still awake: a picturesque view of that which you most long for, that which you wish most to acquire. Feels good, doesn’t it? I bet! Except for accepting the fact you’re exempt from the path of that which you lack and you can’t get it back. As if you ever had it in the first place! The optimist in me hopes you haven’t. Now that’s a facetious facet to fancy, first and foremost.

            For most, I wish the best. But firstly I want you to rest safe and sound without the sound of your safe going off in the night in the dark without sight—nor without sound if your caliber’s large and the criminal looms under the slimmest of moons. You’ve got them and spot them, hopefully I assume. Though I should assure you: Hope’s not my thing. Fate has you in its omniscient hands. Destiny will handle the rest.

            Good luck in this scenario, good friend! Hope, Fate, and Destiny are the names of strippers.

            Assumptions, well… assumptions can be quite assuming, can’t they? They can blow me for less! Less than a matchstick but this isn’t Kansas, I’ve been halfway across half of the atlas and found I’ve traveled the fastest on the thirty-ninth latitudinal axis.

            No, not Nazi Germany! Modern geography! Learn your angles! And your world!

            What’s it all for? What are you all for?

            Can you tell me?

            I hope so! If not, you’ve got work to do. We’ve got work to do. There’s always a reason. There’s always relief—in some sort of whimsical way, shiftable shape, feasible form, or abhorrent abomination. Shh—it’s a secret! I’ll share it with you. Follow me. Goddammit! Quiet down now.

            Quiet… calm… very well. Acquiesce now. Capitulation is key. Good friend, good job. Here we go:

            There is a door.

            It may be close, it may be far. If you’ve made it here then I sense you are nearer than you might fathom you are. I imagine you’re closer than black tongues behind the loose lips of lying lovers. Take a look around. What do you see? Sure—floors, walls, ceilings, objects of unimportance—sure. Fine. I’m used to it. I can relate. But what don’t you see? Air, atoms, sound, and (arguably most importantly) the doorway.

            Allow me.

            No—allow yourself, good friend!

            The door can be gold, it can be black. It can be red or gray or garish in ornamentation. It can be glass, it can be steel. It can be single or double or revolving in orientation. Don’t let me impede on your imaginative processes! It can be whichever or whatever you like! Really, this is the most crucial point of the process. Yet, somehow, some way, even more crucially, the point is: it is there. It exists. All you must do is find it. Taking for granted you haven’t already. (Maybe you have. Maybe it begs to be revisited. Maybe it craves recrudescence. Maybe, just maybe, it wants you back. Maybe you should comply. Maybe you might if your might might allow it. I, for one, believe it mightily.)

            Take it down. Talk it up! Take it however you take it such. I’m with it. I’m for it. Who am I to disagree? Who am I to say? Who am I to think? Thinking is still legal, isn’t it—even if just barely? I thought so. Great. Fantastic. Grandiloquent, if I do say so myself (and I do). Without further ado!

            It’s kind of like geometry. You know that old saying: A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square. Doors hinge upon doorways, not the other way around. There’s always another way around. Let us pass through walls if we have to. What’s important is what’s on the other side. It’s all subjective, really. Could it be—

            The past. A bright day from your childhood, a day so profoundly a part of your being you wouldn’t be who you are today without it. A day you thought would never end. In many ways it never did—it never has. You’re here again, aren’t you, good friend? Never knowing where you are now. Never knowing what you’ll be. Leave that in—

            The future. Promising and prominent. Prosperity parading down the promenade. You must think it to achieve it. That’s how this works. That’s how we work. Make it worth it, not worthless. Detach deterioration from its detrimental threads. Keep your head up don’t wind up—

            Dead. I smoke cigarettes in bed. I haven’t woken up deceased yet—at least, not that I know of. My dreams tell me I’m still alive. My dreams tell me a lot though. The universe isn’t as big as we think. It is much, much larger. It’s vast and vacant and lonely lonely lonely, even with all those stars keeping us company. Because stars are incapable of—

            Love. The perfect human. The ideal mate. Waiting patiently for your dissident ascension to the other side. It’s the first day of spring with the flowers and birds and all that. Bloomage and plumage, as it were. Summer’s verdant warmth eventually falls face first. The flames whither to a whisper before they disappear. Ice for embers. Much to your—

            Horror. Dingy dungeons, a particular filth. Thick slime and lowlifes of the same sort. They sneer from the shadows, making deals with the coroner around the corner, ill-reputed and sick. “Any day now,” they say. “Any day now.” Any day now is right! Any day now you’ll find yourself—

            Outside. There’s a brilliant gleam streaking the sky with soft pastels. Twilight twinkling down the gulf, shimmering shimmering away. You made it here because you said ‘I will’ not ‘When will I?’ You exchanged your ‘How could I?’s for ‘How could I not?’s. You opened that door and took that step.

            When you see the door—whether it’s squeaky or greased, swinging or sliding, infinite or infinitesimal; be it locked or gaping, modern or ancient, inside or out; if it’s under a train or over a trap, barricading a cave or blockading a castle, adorning a theatrefront or the front of your home—I ask that you go through it. Heroically and wholeheartedly.

            I know I will. And if not, well, there’s always the wall.