Nicholas Lotze
Response piece

Just at the end of the fall,
a forest covered in banks of snow
and the earth is dark in its serenity;
everything here a little brighter with
dusky light lying on the precipice
of the moon’s radiancy;
a snow white winter,
everything is quiet except
for the crackling and popping
of cinders glowing, fiery;
campers rise like the steam,
coalescing two temperatures separately,
and the deer scamper
away in flight alarmingly
disconnected from their plight;
hidden behind a tree,
scavenging under cover
of a perfect pitch black night,
when it’s safest to come out;
all but completely out of sight,
fear is always normal
and something to foresee;
up over the overgrowth
of ancient forest surrounded
of a fields dying grass and tundra,
through a gurgling creek,
a raging river tributary,
over then up its banks,
half across a service road;
and then life is over in
but just a second in a
fast approaching,
all encompassing bright,
white light;
none can know the hour.

Jane Hulstrunk
Inspiration piece

Sinew & Granite 
Nikolas Lotze
Response

Reflections distorted by
refraction’s kept away
and cold by granite stature
only existing in varying degrees
of a stranger’s actuality,
using moth to extinguish flame;
lest we try either way
to stand on water,
where all encompassing dark belay.

Existence is fickle
and this persisting view
exists in that we’ve settled
before we attempted a run through;
letting colours get away
with being mixed together
with minute amounts of grey,
or otherwise escape.

Dulling our senses until
we fail to see what should be seen,
it’s them that we’re stretching thin,
like exerting strength pushing back a past,
wearing down on every sinew.

In our introductions,
yesterday left unchecked
presents the next day,
already starting in a passed,
past neglect until one
of us screams we’re sick
of living this way so
we’ll not wait until fate
adds water to our dried up clay,
we’ll shape what we may,
like come whatever in this way
and in the wall we’ll carve
a recessed shape
in which we’ll place a placard that’ll say:

“Child, take every risk
and slip if you wake alone each day,
disregard any past regrets
and set aside time
to keep your candle from
burning on two ends,
even if it’s lighting your path into the fray;
get a grip when you slip,
steady your thoughts lest
they break away to fall and ricochet.”

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or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or
artist is strictly prohibited.

Pharoah Bolding
Inspiration piece

Writing on Black Lines
By Nikolas Lotze
Response

Solace by solitude except
death isn’t an expression,
filthily askew and almost seen new
under yellow lit street lamps fueled by
trading on your balance of desperation
for acts of Samaritan,
those that of good men,
whilst hooks sink deep,
wrenching thoughts violent within.

You have therefore you are,
but we lacked that motivation to stay alive;
our thoughts exhaling synonymously with
our last breath taken,
paths we used to stroll now chalk line stained,
where we used to talk
of death or how friendship
can be a root for deceit.

The last of our days fleeting
and much to our surprise,
we’re witnesses to our demise,
arriving half past late,
watching our ends extolled in foreign fate.

Standing still behind those lines,
vicariously dying or
living through our expiration date;
in warm seats with privacy allotted as,
our still hearts leap then wretch
from beneath our rotting vanity made to pay,
everything juxtaposed as a crying scene,
placed against inked black lines of non-stop violence.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.