dieplzomg: the written works of Damon Beres

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

deviantART

I have moved my base of writing operations to deviantART. Interested? http://dieplzomg.deviantart.com/ for all of your Damon needs. I'll keep the pieces I have here already, since I'm lazy, but for those of you who are curious, I'm moving for a couple of reasons:

1) deviantART provides what seems to be some good copyright protection, which is seemingly absent from Blogger.

2) While I don't like the general populace at deviantART, the website DOES provide a more proactive environment for artists and writers, so it makes sense to put stuff there.

Hope to see you all there.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Kage Noir Pilot

The skies lactated torrents. It hardly phased the pale blue buzz of the neon metropolis below. Nontheless, when it rained, Kojiro always used it as an excuse to stop off at Mune Mune's on the way home.

He sat down at the bar seat. Customers of all shapes and sizes today, he remarked to himself, and all the private rooms were full. The bartender approached. Today's stock was fresh, he proclaimed, harvested off the subways earlier in the morning. Kojiro was solemn and cold towards the exposition, and ordered right away.

"Two breasts and a vagina," he murmered. "34Ds."

The bartender procured the three hunks of flesh, wrapped thinly in cellophane, and dropped them on the table in front of Kojiro, who paid the 34,000 yen earnestly.

"The private rooms are full, you know," the bartender said.

Kojiro nodded and unwrapped the breasts, kneading them with his two calloused hands. To lengthen the ecstacy, he lit a cigarette and puffed deeply.

It grew late and he put the remainder of his fag out on the left nipple, which was decidedly less eager than the right. The vagina he decided to save for later, after the wife was asleep.

The rain had stopped, the lights were pale.


This is Kage Noir.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

A Wetness

Kurt noticed the musty smell moments after the dampness hit. He turned to look at the full bottle of tolterodine tablets atop his file cabinet and sighed. Ms. Anna Lisa Schmidt – no, Dr. Anna Lisa Schmidt – prescribed them only a week ago and even now the regimen was broken. The woman couldn’t know much about the male urinary system, Kurt thought, and to him the pills seemed superfluous.

Now he had wet his seersucker, all because Becky took too long in the bathroom. She knew he had a prostatectomy – she knew it – and she still wasted time. The musty smell was taking its toll on Kurt’s mind, its pungency growing stronger as it seeped into his dank flesh and the rug beneath him. “Fucking damn it,” he slithered to himself.

Barb had to have the reports in half an hour. That stupid bitch insisted on having them before Monday, even if Kurt had to work from home to get them done. He yelled for Becky to get out of the bathroom and then for Allison, his bride, to come upstairs. The latter request was responded to first and met with surprise.

“Dr. Schmidt told you to take those pills, Kurt, she told you.” Boy, he wanted to backhand her right then, but he settled on barking for her to “get a damn mop or something.” After making a grand show to himself of stamping down the hall, he hammered on the bathroom door and screamed to Becky.

“This is my house, young lady, and you will respect that when I need to use the God damn toilet!” Becky groaned audibly and threw the door open, her face ripe with make-up. At first she looked ready to burst from anger, but her attention was quickly drawn to Kurt’s damp pants. Her face contorted into one of hideous pity, one that cut him down and stamped on his heart. He pushed her aside and locked the door.

Later that night he rested on his side, gazing into the open closet. Kurt saw into its darkest corner, where the basket laid for special nights. The “Magnums” seemed worth far less now, for lack of mood, the crushing events of the day prior, and most of all for inability: the operation had its side-effects.

Allison held him from behind and, because she knew he was still mad, whispered “She said that might happen, honey. It’s not that big of a deal.” There was no response from Kurt, and she had to appreciate how hard this was for him. She would have to take care of him, she thought. Make sure he took his pills. Help clean up any accidents.

A wetness formed between them later that night, and Kurt seemed to drown.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Wherin Eudora Welty is Ripped Upon:

Eudora Welty’s A Sweet Devouring, a personal dissertation on reading, is both loquacious and unnecessary. As a short story, it commits the cardinal sin of being boring, and as an informative essay it fails to present us with anything remotely interesting. Concurrently, it does not successfully convey any vital message. Welty’s described literary gluttony serves only to make her discourse obese with conceited babble that the reader must suffer through to its worthless end.

Welty begins A Sweet Devouring with a seemingly important, detailed description of how important reading was to her as a child, though it quickly becomes apparent that the work loses sight of its introduction. “I was then nine years old and… I was dying to hear that we were poor. I was reading a book called Five Little Peppers and my heart was set on baking a cake… in a stove with a hole in it,” Welty states, which is effective in that it establishes her deep relationship with books (clearly obsessive) and sets the audience up for a trip in an unexpected direction (that is, to find out what sort of child wishes to be poor). As the piece progresses, Welty opts not to elaborate upon the ideas of the introduction, but instead balances upon them: her descriptions pile on, adding height but not depth.

Because of this inability to find meaning within its torrent of words, Welty’s work becomes a stifling lesson in repetition. Each paragraph is laden with information pertaining to Eudora’s insatiable appetite for books, yet very little is ever said. One could draw obvious parallels between Welty’s maturity and the books she read growing up, as well as finding a glimmer of a message describing the value of a book to the enrichment of a fledgling mind, but the fatal flaw in these messages is that none of them are expanded nor do they seem to exemplify any degree of author intentionality. Readers must wade through Welty’s words, but thankfully they need not swim beyond the shallow end.

A Sweet Devouring broaches hope for deeper meaning yet never claims it. Eudora Welty’s writing is bloated and meandering, which, while no sin itself, leaves the reader wanting. While her reminiscence may sound pleasant on a basic level, it lacks substance and thus needs to audience. Indeed, it seems that Eudora can have her cake and eat it, too: no one else wants any.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

A Day of Violet Cotton Candy and Broken Trumpets

There’s a monster in my closet
And out he came to play
Yet instead of chomping teeth and
Flesh eviscerations
Was friendly fur of lucid purple woogilations
“How glorious” I thought when
Teeth of wildest immaculate ivory
Gleamed free from tickling scurry
“Emochwitem” it gurgled
as omni-color balloons spurted from its mighty monster loins
In a cross formation

“Nistelcllosey” slid its tongue, for
Angels played for us all of God’s hymns
In much too sharp tonality
As diseased geese massaged our feet
It was here I learned
Rainbows taste of caramel tar

And around and around we floated
Dining with jovial heretics
Hiding from bad mood saints
Yet

All too soon
Pop pop pop
We fell into bed
A beautiful, nightmarish dream shattered
My bed sheets clearly tattered
“Monster,” I wept.

“Mommy says I can’t see you anymore.”

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Listerine Citrus Pocket Strips

There exist in the northern regions of Africa a variety of ailments that bring upon the vilest of diarrheas in even the most trained of stomachs. These bouts are often coupled with bloody stools, intense cramps, and moistening of the epidermis. Compounding these obvious discomforts is the slow though unmistakable onset of paranoia in the victim, which incites shudders and intense pressures on the heart upon each strained spurt of the anus.

While the aforementioned diarrhea results in obvious waste of its unfortunate host, Listerine has graciously wasted no time in distilling it for use as the most active ingredient in its citrus strips.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Requiem for the Living

In pink synapse meadows
Platelets dance verdant
Through cerebrum and cerebellum
Blades of parched blood grass

A democratic decision this was not:
The man up top or perhaps
The man down beneath
(Arguably synonymous in this instance)
Erected eradicating gray garbage monoliths
Tart as demon’s hair
Sprawling, obstructing highways;
Traffic jams and road rage;
Suffocation and microwaves

Soon a resistance assembled
Against these cancerous monoliths
Ultimately tardy, though mounted nonetheless
Out of charred rubble goosebump war zones

The rebellion’s leader screeched,
“Ready the beams of chemo!
Close your eyes tight,
Sleep into the land of forgotten realities
Wake into dreamscape dystopia.”

Microscopic casualties:
Victims of
Sizzle shock
Tick tock
The monoliths bore deep into the ground in
Radioactive recession

The rebellion fired long into the night
Passing days in a blink
It was all the same
Taxidermy monotony
Their blood flowed into potholes,
Curiously mending through ripping
There is a scarred war now

In pink synapse meadows.

[Note: This poem received a regional Golden Key Award from Scholastic's Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, Inc.]