Ladies and gentlemen... the WrongPlanet writing showcase

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Few poems of mine.

I am the one with the spirits, one by the river, by the darkened trees, a woman with a knife in one hand and a bandage in another.


My exhaustion is pristine, I close my eyes and inhale the dark rain.


Lay like the dead, with cold hands pressed against the ground. You don’t need to imagine the nothingness.

Newest draft of the story I wrote:
A Grade
by Zachary Goodwin

It was afternoon, the sun was shining through the window. A teenager was lying on his bed. He has a backpack next to him on the bed. The bed has a blue blanket with white sheets, and a white pillow. The bedroom included a dresser and a closet. There was a light above the teenager and a light on the dresser. The room was somewhat messy. The teenager on the bed had on a logo T-shirt, jeans, and white socks. He pulls out his iPhone and goes through his texts. The teen finds text messages with his father about how to clean his car, another one on how to mow the lawn, and lastly how to sweep the floor. One of the text messages he reads reveals the teenager's name is Thomas. Someone knocks on Thomas's door. Thomas opens the door and it is his father, "Thomas, if you could tell yourself you will succeed more you would not feel so bad everyday. You are very smart."
The teenager opens up his backpack to pull out a math test which has a failing grade on it. The teen has a sad face. He pouts and says to himself while puting his hand on his face, "I'm going to fail high school."
Thomas with a frustrated look says to his father again, "How can you be so sure that telling myself I can succeed would work? I have a quiz tomorrow." asked Thomas again.
"You are my son and I care a lot about you. Just try telling yourself that you will get a good grade and I think all will be well!"
Thomas's dad leaves the room and Thomas's books in his backpack are laid out and closed. It was now 5 PM. The teenager closes his eyes and has a tired look on his face.
"I will get a good grade.", he said.
Thomas falls asleep on his bed and snores. It is morning. He hears his alarm clock again. Soon Thomas rushes out the door with his backpack. Time passes by, and it is now late afternoon at 3 PM. Thomas opens the door looking at his math quiz grade,
"Why can't I get a good grade!"
He then gets a phone call from his father, "I heard about your quiz grade. Your mother told me after I was done with my meeting."
Thomas then says,
"It's just a lousy grade."
"Just a grade? Thomas you have so much going for you, but you need to try in your studies. Read and go over your notes and read the textbook."
"That won't work!" replied Thomas.
"It will be better. Anyway, I have some news for you, my boss told me that I need to work overtime. I'll be home at 10 PM. I understand you are a light sleeper, but you got to finish your homework and go to bed at a decent hour."
The phone call ended. Thomas feels somewhat tired still. He looks at his bed and then his bookbag, and then his bookbag again. Thomas looks there and there again. He sighs, goes for his bookbag, and gets to studying for his math test. Thomas reads the textbook and fills out papers. Time passes by until it is night.
"Thomas, dinner's ready!" said his mother.
Thomas went downstairs and sat in a chair with meatloaf and potatos with green beans on his plate. He starts eating it. His mother looks at Thomas,
"You're going to pass that test I just know it." she said.
Thomas finishes eating dinner. He then cleans his room. He still focuses on his studies, reading and going through his notes. It is now 9 PM.
"I'm going to fail again." said Thomas sadly.
Thomas sighs and he goes to sleep. He wakes up, grabs his bookbag, and he walks to the door. Thomas is somewhat scared he will fail the test. Thomas closes his eyes and then says to himself, "I will get a good grade."
Thomas takes a deep breath, opens his eyes, and walks out the door then closes it. Time passes by and he slowly opens his bedroom door again and walks into the bedroom slowly. Thomas looks at the paper. On the paper is a 97 A+ test grade.
"Yes!" said Thomas excitedly. Thomas then gets a knock on the door from his father, and Thomas opens the door.
"That's great news! See Thomas I told you you could do it! Your mother and I am proud of you. Good work." his father said.
"And I bet to you that I can get an A on the next test. Dad, I want to pass my classes and be as happy as I can be about it." said Thomas.
"Dinner will be ready at 7 PM, your mother is making chicken with salad and mashed potatos."
Thomas's dad leaves the room. Thomas lays back on his bed smiling. He takes a deep breath with his arms on the back of his head on the pillow. Thomas then opens up his bookbag to get the books out of the bag. He relaxed and smiled again. "I can do it and get through it. I'm going to pass high school." He then went back to studying for another class.

I apologize if any of this link does not work. PM me if this happens.


Pieces of Truth
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Synopsis: Alice and her childhood crush Brian drift apart after witnessing the brutal murder of two friends. Ten years later, they unexpectedly reunite in college only to have their renewed romance interrupted when they begin receiving messages from two people claiming to be their murdered friends.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kPur7d0SrDBFVXKXQrAHVpqB5bqLhbqz/view?usp=sharing

11/17/2010

The wind is impassioned tonight,
and I wish I wasn't impassioned with it.
It wraps itself around me, without fullness,
I am tenuous as a dead leaf.
Is it so bad, my darling,
to have my heart beat fast as a bomb
to close my eyes during the explosion,
my body twisting and pulsing with chemical reactions?
I wish your eyes spoke with fire, my dear,
but they do not, and I can't make them.
I grip you like the water left from a wave washing over it,
barely satiated.
I watch your back rise and fall night and night
after the days I wait for you, like a raindrop in suspense,
never finding any ground.
What will I do when it fills me and I nearly drown?
can I fill my lungs
may I fill yours too?
Your breath haunts me,
but the night between us is silence,

and I wait for rain.

Over time, I learnt that the seers and teachers were ordinary human beings.

Books and documentaries exposed their lies and misdeeds. Even swindles, oh my!
What was not spelled out, I deduced, once the general pattern became clear to me.
It is funny how patterns repeat themselves.
Lie and lie again, to make what? Not wisdom or goodness, but lucre.
Money to buy luxuries, little pastries with cherry filling, or just to pay the rent.
Because these seers, you know what? They have a real problem with working for a living.

All of that is disgusting, sure.

In the modern age, there is no hiding behind the veil of antiquity that cloaked elder prophets with dignity.
In ancient times, secrets were kept and secrets were lost. The dead tell no tales.
Still, there are clues scattered about, here and there, for the curious.

In the modern age, the situation is much different. People get exposed for what they are. Contradictions are discovered. Hypocrisy becomes clear.
There is no hiding. Ready or not, the truth comes out!

I do not think I am gullible.

After all, I do not follow a human being, but a spirit, that which we call God, that which speaks in silence rather than words.

Human beings are helpful, but I do not light a candle for them. I do not draw a circle for human beings. I do not trace my stars.

Have you seen through your idols yet, or do they remain inaccessible heroes on a pedestal?
Let them go. Let them fall and shatter. Only then can you ever hope to reach them.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z329Z39/re ... CMVr-d3heg

While I've already posted about another of my short stories, The Miscount, being published in a new anthology called A Roll Of The Dice III, I thought I'd crow about it some more!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0819 ... ZNMVG2H0BR

I just published a new novelette! Available on kindle on Amazon, and soon to be in paperback.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1707413894/re ... 253&sr=1-2

Now in paperback!

You See

You see,
many years from now,
you would come over for visit.
and your little boy would call me uncle;

But he would not understand,
What desperation pushed
you to meet his green-eyed daddy.
A savvy move devoid of romance
driven by a need to survive in this alien land.

Nor would he understand,
the depth of the passion
that burnt in your once youthful eyes.
A fire born in the summery streets
far away from his snowy home.
A distant turmoil
which he learnt only from fading pages.

Nor would he understand,
the sting of the poisonous mist,
that you braved through as you rushed forth;
The many ways to start a fire
that you would never teach him;
The cries echoed in a holding cell
which you endured
so that boys like him won't have to.

Nor would he understand,
the cold years of longing and nostalgia;
the language which you mindlessly uttered;
the bitter tears which you left on that place.

the home, which is forbidden to us all.

I've been making over eighty sales for my audio book, Skin Like Tanned Leather. And I'm sure I can thank the virus for keeping people inside with nothing else to do but listen to my narrator read my novella!

That's great news, congrats! I'd be happy if that many people read my work...but I don't follow through enough. Below is a long poem in progress. I started it a few months ago and wrote what's there in a couple sittings. I figured I'd work on it more than I have, but this is often how I am, I tend to work in bursts, and sometimes I don't finish things.

-------------------------

through the mind of time

1.

walking in the rain
looking at wet trees falling
water on stone
colored by sun
and moods from dreams
a moment standing still
a drop of water suspended
in the air
space-time curved and spiraling

we can’t remember the days
lost never to be saved
the same memories turned like a key
to unlock a dimly lit room
gray outline of a pane window
to someplace new and enveloped

in blurred light and movement
outside the ashen clouds and fog
morphing and swirling like liquid
the candle wax of time
the sun’s burning wick dying

I am standing at the edge
of a chasm vast and enigmatic
its soul like the blank face
of a clock timeless and forgotten
you are standing at the edge

of the future past present
years changed unspoken
inside the abyss of an eye
beside the prism broken
of recollection awaiting

the time place feeling that never
was or will be the phantom
limbs mind body pain
enduring whispers from voices
invisible and inimitable curses

seeing through this fractured
I cannot escape its distortions
reflective we peer across
the landscape of our origin

the days when I could hold a vortex
mountains oceans planets ephemeral
like pages written in dead
languages by immortals observing

the paradoxes of nature
echoed improvisations forever held in stasis
the meditations of a black hole

why we avoid looking within ourselves
pulled by mirrors and reflections
away from our own atmosphere

the mist is heavy and the air is thin here
where I walk the rim of an endless eclipse
see the cycles and chaos
of life energy light disintegrate

and begin in an evening of glances
and embraces during an era
when the dimensions of our emotions
coalesced like silhouettes
beneath vaulted chambers

2.

I can see now that you have lost
everything you were within the lies
wrought from life’s empty promises

yet in this inferno of deception and torn out pages
of your idea about what would have been
you are reborn like a necromancer’s puppet

gifted the second chance to walk the earth
with the wisdom that a deadened soul
provides the body it inhabits

a soul deadened but not dead
a spirit dimmed but still alight
with a flame that burns bright

they say hell is fire
and you were born of suffering