Aint no Rest for the Wicked - Philip Wardlow

Perishable - A poem

2015-02-05T05:49:00.000-08:00

Perishable~

My finger, one finger
traces down her temple
over her sweet cheeked smile
eyes lighted
just for me
just for me...
So many emotions
behind that smile for me
I must take each of them that
I discover and put them in their own mason jar
and screw the lid down tight
for safe keeping.
To preserve
what surely will be lost.
For you see, we are all delicate
things.
Perishable.
This environment is not kind
to such fragile creatures.
But I wonder.
What is ever meant to last?
I reach for one of the mason jars
and take it down off upon the shelf,
unscrew its top, and tip
its' contents into my waiting mouth.
I smile and reach for another.

by Philip Wardlow 2015

Krampus Comes - A Dark Christmas Poem

2014-12-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

Be ye, young or old,
as a child of nine or ninety-nine
We all look to the magical time
when ol' St. Nick comes a calling,
that jolly grey bearded man with a smile for all.
Traveling down the road in his horse drawn sled
from late dusk to early dawn.
The good ones know they'll be visited by him,
adorned and wreathed with gifts from
head to toe.
They will sleep a peaceful slumber, full
of dreams of the bright morning to come
and the presents they so richly deserve
from a year of being so very very good.
I am afraid some may not be so inclined
at this joyous holiday time to partake of
all this festive cheer.
For you see, there are some children who lay deep in their
covers under the shadow of night as it plays
through their cold window pane,
waiting for him to come,
St. Nicks dark brother, the Other,
called Krampus to some.
This dark horned, hairy tailed, cloven hooved creature
knows your heart of hearts
and all the naughty things you've done.
And he is not forgiving like
good ol' St. Nick.
With bundled birch sticks in hand
he will greet you with a sharped tooth grin
right before he lays into your
skin,
To beat you about the legs and arms,
a sweet painful present for all your
year's sins and wicked charms.
Then if you have been especially bad
and you know who you are.
He will take down his big black
ruck sack from upon his back
Open it up, grab you up
and stuff you in.
Then quick out the bedroom window
he flies to disappear down the dark road
with you never to be seen
by your family
ever again.

by Philip Wardlow 2014

My Third Eye - A Poem

2014-08-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

My Third Eye -

It's been plucked.
Right out of my head.
There it is, pinched between
that raven's beak.
It has been reclaimed it seems
since I never chose to use it.
An eye always closed.
grows dark and distant.
Best to give it to someone else.
Yet, I feel the pain of its
loss already
My mind, my spirit, my heart
has already dimmed.
I want it back.
I have learned my lesson.
I promise.
I will use it, give it back...
give it back,
please give it back.
I will use it
just give it back.

by Philip Wardlow 2014

Superman - Man of Steel - my disappointment

2013-06-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

I went in with anticipation....I went in with hope for a great story.

Yes, I know the origin of Superman and say what you will of origin stories being told over and over, I wanted to see it. Kids don't read comics anymore. A new generation is born every eight to ten years...you DO need origin movies whether we like it or not....for the youngins. So had I my bag of popcorn and large Pepsi...and mini peppermint patties. I was outfitted with all the proper accoutrements for movie watching....phone off...I am not a dick....not any even a vibration from me....I was dedicated. I was in. Superman had returned....and it was about damn time. Well, until the movie really started.... First, I was assaulted via my eardrums....the movie was loud...I mean very loud...all the time....I mean constantly...it never let up....turn the volume down movie theatre...I don't care how the movie came in.

Okay, so it was loud. Spoiler alert coming - I didn't mind the little ten minute prequel story to Superman's parents...I actually enjoyed that...loudness aside. It was new, it was refreshing for me...I was engaged...okay fast forward to the babe "Kalel" leaving the planet Krypton and arriving on Earth via interstellar rocket ship...quick cut to him full-grown as an adult out in the world moving from job to job as his secret of who he might be is threatened by his own actions. Whether acting through loss of self-control or acts of heroism...he must move on down the road. (kind of like the Hulk)

During this road journey as an adult, we get to see through flashbacks,his childhood (which I hated ..I thought his story should have been linear from start to finish because they did a crappy job of the flashbacks) We learn his origin and his relationship with his parents Ma and Pa Kent....whatever. This is where the story starts to go south for me...Superman's Earthly father Jonathan Kent played by Kevin Costner was flat as a board can be called flat. This flatness started with Jonathan Kent and carried over to the rest of the movie and characters. Case in point . When Young Clark Kent asks his father if he should have just let the kids die on the school bus just to save his identity, Jonathon Kent's great fatherly advice is "Yeah, I guess maybe you should have." and " Your just too important" . This is the constant refrain through the whole movie including the phrase by Jorel, Superman's biological father "The world may is not ready" Thanks dads....fountains of wisdom you both are.

The only saving grace is the character General Zod, played by the actor Michael Shannon.

He is the only who remotely had any lines that didn't come off the assembly line of dialogue and cliché things to say every five minutes or so. The whole movie read like a 1940s comic book of clichés and plot holes and continuity.., and just plan not making sense... Yes the action was good...but they relied way too much on things exploding and super human fantastical fights scenes to bring them through. And what the hell was up with Lois Lane appearing everywhere in every scene? The girl got around. Was she the Flash in disguise?

SO if you like mindless violence go see it.. At the core, this movie lacked heart. The characters seemed to be stand-ins waiting for the real actors or feelings to come through which never really did for me. I have heard this movie has gotten some favorable reviews and received well by audiences.. What that says about our expectations and our culture I don't know. I do know my son, who is a teenager, thought it lacked any really character development as did my wife. They were flat, my son said. Yes, that sums it up. They were flat...you didn't care if they lived or died. from Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Martha Kent, to Perry White. I was rooting for General Zod towards the end. He at least had a good back story and emoted what he was really feeling for me...everyone else seemed to be on a Xanax merry go around waiting to get off. I give it a grade of a straight C.

DC Comics has failed me in this latest installment from their world. I WANTED to like it...I am not being a hard ass. I am not mentioning a lot of things which annoyed me...one I will say, is product placement...it was so obvious at times that it took you out of the story and wanted you to go to IHOP for pancakes. Mmmmm pancakes......Okay I'm done. Save the movie as a rental .

Don't waste your money or your eardrums on it. Rest in Peace Superman. I hope not to see you anytime soon.

So Happy I'm Sad via the Kloipy Project

2013-06-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

A fellow blogger who runs the blog, "Kloipy Speaks" whom I follow and who incidentally follows me recently asked fellow bloggers and passerby to his sight to name two things which make them happy while at the same time makes them sad. He called it The Kloipy Projects: So Happy I’m Sad. Go check him out and see what he's about if you would like. (but not before you finish this damn blogpost...me first)

He got me to thinking -

Hmmm, I wondered....what the hell possibly makes me sad and happy. Is it eating a bowl of ice cream and then suddenly that bowl of ice cream is empty? No, that does not make me happy and sad. Just happy and wanting more. So happy and pathetic was not the question.
So I thunk and thunk and thunk (picture Pooh bear tapping paw to head)

Eureka...!

Via the ice-cream skewed analogy above. I discovered that most things which make a person sad and happy are things that were good in the past but came to an end or morphed into something other than the original happenstance or experience. So really for me, it results in nostalgia for something. So here are my two happy/sad moments which I always continue to have...I will also preface that the happy outweighs the sad by a factor of ten for me.

Experience #1:
When I first walk into a comic book shop and get a whiff of the old musty smell which inhabits the nooks and cranies surrounding every corner. It fills my senses and induces a slight euphoria in my being and makes me at one with the world for a moment. Yeah, heavy stuff I know. But that's what I feel. It feels so good to be in a comic book store...the synapses in my brain fire and bring about all my childhood memories growing up, delving and diving into a fantastic world of make believe and mayhem. It takes me back...then I'm sad just a little because I'm not that same person...I've grown up. I have a family, responsibilities, obligations...I can't be carefree anymore...I have to engage in this thing called life.

Experience #2:
My wife over the years - and I have known her many years - has made mixed tapes and mix CDs for me as I did for her. Its one of those romantic gestures you make when your in love. Its a tribute to your relationship and your acknowledgment of how much they mean to you. Every once in a while, I will pop one in and listen to it...
I am of course happy because the world seemed a simpler place. A fresh world of new possibilities and burgeoning experiences to be shared with a new love. Fresh raw primal passions (sexual) to envelope yourself in. Then I am sad a little, because some endearments can get lost or morphed from what they once were...not in a bad way just different....and some things you realize can never be the same but you find in that difference a new richness grows. There in its place is something more special that can only happen with time tested events and the chaos that life brings.

So there you have it...I hope you enjoyed my little trip into my brain....make sure to scrape your shoes on the mat before you leave. I don't think you would want to be walking around with my thoughts on the bottom of your shoes mucking about in your world.
Feel free to share your own thoughts on what makes your sad and happy at the same time. I would love to hear them. Cheers.

Santo Mon - A Poem

2013-06-23T10:52:00.001-07:00

I was invited by the blog site Project Agent Orange after making comments on some of his blogs to submit an original piece for his site. Check out my first stab at poetry written specifically for a political/environmental cause....written with my own flair of course :) Hope you enjoy -

Santo Mon

by Philip Wardlow Posted on June 23, 2013 by mhbrownstein

Monsanto.
Yeah Mon…You know the one.
Mon
san
to.

Remember it.
Founded in 1901 by
a rich family full of ambition.

Your grandmother’s mother washed
her linens with one of their first brands
and hung them to dry in the warm
afternoon sun.
ALL, the detergent of the ages.

Other products flew off the shelf.
Who do you think made Coca Cola taste so
sweet?
Saccharin, supplied by the Santo Mon.
Here, have a drink.

It set them up real good for what was to come.
If your head was aching, grab some Aspirin.
Pop a little salicylic acid to turn that frown
upside down.

Why stop there Mon, because chemicals were their
specialty ya know;
DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange by the barrel load.

Ya see, the US government had this little war in Vietnam,
They had this idea that they could keep down the Vietcong
simply by killing off all the foliage mon.

All it did was deprive the good citizens of growing food,
causing them to flee to the city
where they crammed into
the slums by the millions.

The Santo Mon knew the dangers of what he sold, it was all in the notes as the studies showed; what it did to animals surely it could do to us,
cuz we be but animals as well bro.

Those wonderful products broke the bodies of the natives living there
and the vets who came back.

Woe be war, but woe be more the chains you still wear, for it never be over for some.
Misshapen babes born to proud
Papas and Mamas who are already themselves half in the grave.

Kiss your wife dear soldier and hug her tight, for something burns inside you and it ain’t
never coming out.

It’s gonna strike
When?
Who knows.
Today,
Tomorrow.

But you will be the fool
to feel Santo cares about your
welfare.

Don’t hold your breath if you don’t want to turn blue.
Men in suits;
lawsuits been settled they say,
reparations be done.
Some say it would have been better
to have pissed into the wind to get what
the victims won.

Go about your way,
we be the New Monsanto
all improved.
Our business is growth and nature.
We want to show you the way.

The New Santo Mon only engineers seeds nowadays.
Oh, you haven’t heard that story either?
Well sit down my friend I’ve got a lot
more unpleasant things to say.

by Philip Wardlow

Tardar Sauce - "the Grumpy Cat" my contribution...

2013-06-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Dust to Dust – A poem

2012-12-31T12:16:00.000-08:00

Dust to Dust

A scream escapes me as my body goes to the nether
Disintegrating into grains of dust to fall up into the desolate and
be carried away down a flowing river of no direction.
My mind, my soul, and my will follow into the oblivion after;
each seperate from one another to divide themselves
into a thousand times a thousand
pieces…
My will holds tight to once piece of each as I flow
for I will not let them go
their seperate ways
I will not lose me.
For I am me.
I am me
forever.
by Philip Wardlow 2012

Her Body - A Poem

2012-11-12T09:24:00.001-08:00

Her Body

I noticed her body after her beguiling faced walked in.

It spoke and sang to me with a swaying of heavy hip action.

If only I could dial back my desire then the stars would align,

but the god given geometry wrapping around that frame

would make a chaste man wonder why he went insane

as he saw curves creating arcs upon arcs

intertwining to manifest into shapes

only nature could conceive.

In the lovely female form

there’s a weakness

in me because as she

walks across the room

I continue to gaze while my

rapture increases knowing her body is

hidden beneath thin layers that only deepen

the mystery of a softness that is surely there.

What if I were to simply let my hands wonder

where they wish to go, to peek lightly with

fingertips in a caress down her naked back

with all intent to travel on if my bold

desires permitted such an act.

I know my place, but she

will learn my charms,

she will see my face,

and look deep into

my eyes and

wonder if

tonight I

am her

fate.

By Philip Wardlow

Raven's Journey - A Poem

2012-11-09T06:55:00.000-08:00

Raven's Journey

We cut the night air with wings of black,
we cut the life strings at twilight's blessing.
My brethern and I see far and wide,
for we are many.
There is no escape,
no hole can hide you,
nor disguise
mask a spirit
so foul.
We bring you home to purgatory to sit and
roost in a black shed of despair,
to dwell upon a life where dark leanings
led you to dissolution of a soul that
sought heights they were never meant to fly.
So contemplate, ponder,
wander this dim world between
darkness and light,
and perhaps we shall
return.

By Philip Wardlow

Witch Hunt - A Gruesome Halloween Story

2012-11-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

I entered a Halloween Writing Contest over at the Carnage Conservatory called the Crimson Skull Halloween Contest. Needless to say I did not win...I may end up as a runner-up but those results have not been posted just yet. Go over there to check out the winning story. Read my own right here that I submitted and let me know what you think. I will reserve my comments as to what I think of the winning story so as to not show any bias either way.

I would love to know which one you liked better...yeah I'm needy that way...so if you have the time please please read this little Horror Story below. The Contest rules limited us to 4,000 words max so it is not a masterpiece but I am fairly proud of it. I usually don't write stories such as this but I did this contest to try and challenge myself as writer...Enjoy it!

Witch Hunt

By Philip Wardlow

5:20 pm Oct 31^st:

The old man slowly climbed down off the backhoe he was on. The ground was slightly sloped and with the grass still wet from a mid-day rain, he slipped. If not for the headstone sticking out of the ground nearby to catch him he would have surely went down flat on his fat ass for sure. Not that his fat ass was that far from the ground to begin with standing only five foot-three inches tall. He had lived with being short for almost eighty years but still, he had hated it his whole life.
Besides his height, Mitch hated a lot of things too long to list. He hated people who looked you in the eye and smiled when they secretly wanted to say “fuck you”. “Well fuck you too.” he would yell at them. This usually left them wondering what they had done wrong to incur such wrath as he walked away grumbling to himself.

What he hated most of all was being out here in this god forsaken cemetery on Halloween where it was cold, damp and windy as hell, digging a fucking hole in the ground. The sun had just set and the last of the warmth he had gotten from it had long left his bones. But what could he do, he thought. She had him by the balls and she wasn’t letting go. A year ago to the day he knew he would be here tonight digging her ass up. He remembered the feeling of the curse settling on him like a damn heavy itchy woolen blanket as soon as she was placed into the ground at the funeral. Fucking bitch.
Mitch reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his flashlight and showed it on the dirt encrusted wooden box he had just unearthed.

“Just after sunset and not a moment before”, that was one of the rules she had told him long ago, almost beating into him at the time. It hadn’t been easy but he had pulled the damn coffin out of the ground. Even with the back hoe it felt like pulling a damn tick out of your belly button.
He untied all the lifting straps on the coffin attached to the back-hoe and flung them off to the ground. He worked fast as he waddled his way around the coffin with crowbar in hand wrenching open all the clasps along the side of the coffin holding the lid shut tight. Mitch threw out multiple expletives at the last clasp on the lid that was being a bitch and not wanting to break. With a snap and a final almost shouted “fuck” to the nighttime air the clasp gave way. He stepped back and wiped the sweat from his forehead breathing heavily with a hand on the coffin to support himself.

“Scritch…Scritch.” The vibration of her nails raking the coffin from the inside ran up his arm that still rested on the lid. Mitch shivered at what was coming.

“Hold your fucking panties, I’m coming…you think this is easy.” You’re already dead what do you know about pain any fucking more, he thought to himself. Taking a deep breath in, Mitch fitted the crowbar in between the lid and the main bed of the coffin and pushed down on it to pry it up.
He pushed and pushed until he thought he would burst a vein in his neck. Slowly it gave way, inch by slow fucking inch the lid began to release its clammy hold. He was getting too old for this shit. The lid suddenly shot upwards as he received help from the occupant inside. He fell backwards and this time there was no headstone to stop his fat ass from falling. He rolled like a bulbous white onion with legs and arms on the cold wet ground as he tried to get back to his feet.

Mitch had managed to prop himself onto his hands and knees at the same time he saw a face suddenly appear from over the edge of the coffin to look at him with one milky grey eye hanging in a droopy redlined socket. The other eye was just a dead blank hollow hole starting at him. Her face was less of a face and more of grotesque piece of art. The closest description he could muster into his head would be if you were to tear someone’s face off and put it into a blender and turn it to whip and then take it out and try to stick it back onto the same skull. The skin hung in splotchy blood congealed threads of goopy flesh in various states of decay all over her face. This wasn’t her best day you might say.

Like a snail she oozed and crawled her way out of the coffin over to him, leaving a trail of human mucus that dripped and leaked from various parts of her body. Long black thin hairs sprouted and clung to a mostly bald head which was covered by a thin layer of mottled skin with her skull showing through in parts. Her one “good” eye in her head never stopped staring at him as she crawled towards him. How could she put herself through this every time? Apparently the benefits outweighed the one year of hell of being buried underground to fulfill the course of the spell. Mitch knew he had longer to go this night. The horror had just begun.

Soon she was face to face with him as he knelt there. She reached up and violently grabbed his head with her hands digging her nails deep into his scalp. Blood poured down the sides of his head.

“Fuck!” he yelled and closed his eyes.
She pulled herself in closer and he could feel the sandpaper touch of her dried dead tongue start to lick the blood from the wounds she had inflicted upon his bald head. She ran her mouth all over around his ears and down his neck. She didn’t miss a drop as her tongue darted in out of his ear to lap up the blood that had collected there. His skin prickled at every flick of her tongue.
“Be done all fucking ready!” He yelled at her as he continued to kneel on the ground.
“Sileeence” Her voice came out like tires skidding on a pebbled road. She was already coming back, he thought.

“More, mooore, need more.” He jerked out of her grasp hearing that, recalling the last time she had said that and how she had almost killed him.
Mitch rolled himself to his feet away her from. I’m still a spry motherfucker you won’t be getting me that easily you bitch of a witch.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s waiting for you in the car. Wake up that dead brain of yours and remember that you’ve got only a short window of time here tonight…we’ve got till midnight. It’s time to go trick-or-treating.” Mitch shined his flashlight on her face. Her face looked the same except her one good eye had lost its white milky color and was now a bright sky blue. She looked at him with it with all the intensity of a rabid dog.

“Follow me to the car.” Mitch didn’t look back as he walked away from her down the hill.
The girl was tied up in his back seat like a pig to market and naked as the day she was born. He passed the smell of ammonia under her nose and she started awake. She stared at him like a scared wide-eyed little doe with duct tape over her mouth. She was a pretty young thing, not more than twenty-three or so with long brown curly hair. She always liked them to be young women, never a man, she said it sped up her revival and the blood always tasted sweeter. All he knew was that she had a nice body. If his pecker still worked, he might have had a little fun with her before bringing her out here, but business was business, and a dead dick was a dead dick, forget that Viagra shit.

He left the car’s back door open and got into the front seat of the driver’s side. He shut and locked his own door tight and waited for the bitch to crawl her ass over to the car. Mitch had installed a cage and a Plexiglas window to separate the back seat from the front so he wasn’t worried. He had learned from previous times how the witch could be when she first woke from her long dead sleep. Basically she was hungry, very fucking hungry.

6:05 pm Oct 31^st:

She didn’t take as long as he had expected. He saw her out his side mirror almost to his bumper crawling on all fours at a pretty quick clip towards the car. Mitch guessed his old blood had done the trick for her. In the rear view mirror he could see the young girl’s eyes get even bigger as she tried to yell through her duct tape and kick herself away from what she saw crawling towards her through the open door of the car. The girl was belted in tight, she wasn’t going anywhere. The car shook as the witch crawled in on top of the naked girl and went to town on her. What a waste of a perfectly good body. Oh well. Mitch quickly got out and slammed the back door shutting it on them both. He jumped back in the car as fast as his fat legs could carry him and started it up and roared through the cemetery and onto the neighborhood nearby he had picked out ahead of time.

Time to hunt, this wasn’t any old grab and go like a fat man at a buffet. The witch was very selective about who she killed for her parts. The lucky girl in the back was just a snack or better yet, an energy bar.

Mitch looked in the rearview mirror and saw the window separating him from the back seat was splattered with blood and other bits and pieces of the young girl’s body he didn’t want to think about. He could barely make out what was going on through the haze of red but the girl didn’t seem to be putting up a fight anymore, in fact she looked pretty much dead. His mistress continued to munch away. Her head was bent low into the backseat as it moved up and down as if gnawing on something. A leg bone perhaps? The long drawn out sound of slurping came from the back as if one were drinking a milkshake through a straw. The cracking of bones filled his ears while the sweet scent of marrow touched his nose as he continued to drive.

Mitch turned onto the street he had selected; a nice little suburb neighborhood packed tight with houses. Some were grand colonials with high peaked roofs; others were ranch styled units with attached garages or squat little gabled homes with actual little white picket fences decorating the front yards. The street was thick with kids running up and down it, and on occasion crossing in front of him to either side of the street with or without parents in tow to get to the next house. Massive oak trees also lined both sides of the street with their branches only half full of their fall brown foliage. The street was darker than it should have been, for the trees engulfed the meager lights upon their posts set high in the air. The porch lights on every house cast only a feeble glow into the night as they cast shadows everywhere. Perfect.

7:00 pm Oct 31^st:

Knock... Knock. “Trick or treat!” Mitch’s knees hurt something awful and his back was starting to act up. This had been the twentieth house already and the witch still hadn’t sniffed anyone out yet. Once he had to stop the witch from grabbing a little toddler dressed as a pumpkin out of his mother’s stroller and eating her like tater tot. Not that he cared about the kid in the slightest but it was best to not attract that kind of attention just yet. The witch stood in front of him, hunched over, swaying back and forth at the closed door staring dully up at it waiting for it to open. He was betting she was getting impatient as well.

The door opened to the house and a woman of about thirty-something holding a big bowl of candy in her arms and wearing a broad smile showed herself at the door. She wore a red dress lined in white at the sleeves and neck, and had fake freckles dotting her face and bright red hair in tight curls on her head; he guessed she was supposed to be Annie from that musical. Mitch fucking hated Little Orphan Annie.

“My, my, what do we have here? Don’t you look scary little girl, that’s very good makeup. Is this your grandfather with you dear?” The woman looked to him expectedly for an answer. Mitch didn’t get a chance to answer for the witch launched herself at the woman. The witch’s momentum carried both her and the bad Annie look-a-like back into her own house to fall crashing to the floor inside.
Mitch quickly crossed the threshold to the inside stepping over the bowl and candy that littered the landing and the front steps of the house. He slammed the door shut on two kids dressed as pirates who had been approaching the house. He heard the children’s excited exclamations behind the door at seeing the candy covering the front stoop. He found the lights for the front porch and flicked them off. Candy’s all gone.

Mitch turned to look at the witch’s first prize on her list. For all the gruesomeness of the scene, he found himself curious at what the witch planned on plucking out of the woman to eat. She had already punched a fist into the woman’s abdomen and was digging her way up between her ribcage with her arm. She was in up to her elbow inside Little Orphan Annie trying to reach for something…gallbladder…lung …a heart? Blood was fast pooling around them both on the wood floor. Mitch’s eyes were drinking it all in as he stood transfixed.

Mitch saw the head of the woman roll back in forth limply on the floor with every jerk the witch gave her in her frenzy to get to the magical piece of flesh inside of her. Little Orphan Annie’s eyes were wide open and glazed over with death looking at nothing around the living room of her home and leaking tears from each corner which streaked down her face. Mitch never knew a dead person could cry.

Mitch heard a strange sound come from inside the woman. Like a well rooted tree being ripped from the earth. The witch stood up and did a dance slipping in the blood a little in her tattered, moldy & blood soaked black printed dress she had been buried in. He saw in her left hand held tight was the woman’s blood soaked heart trailing veins and artery which reached to the floor pulled from the woman’s body.

The bloodied witch tipped her head back and in one gulp consumed the entire heart along with the trails connected, slurping the last bit like strands of spaghetti noodles into her mouth. The witch fell to her knees and went into convulsions. Suddenly, her body went deathly still while the spell began to take hold. The process for healing was slow in the beginning; it took a bitch of a time for her body to take on the piece she had eaten. It was a powerful spell but still weak in many ways. The number of pieces and type were always different he remembered. Over the next couple of hours Mitch saw hair grow in full upon her head to a shiny raven black down her back. The muscles on her back and shoulders became more pronounced while her bones faded back into her body underneath new skin. Mitch could see her slowly breathing now, in and out as she kneeled upon the floor, head down with her black hair cascading over her face hiding it from him. She should be coming out of it soon. With each successive piece the process would be quicker he knew; same as it had been from the last two times.

9:13 pm Oct 31^st:

“Two pieces left.” he heard the witch say to no one as she continued to kneel on the floor in the pool of blood with her head still bent.

Mitch walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Why do you touch me you fat old slob of a man? You don’t deserve to touch me anymore.” She stood up effortlessly, knocking his hand away at the same time. She slowly removed her dress in the middle of the dead woman’s living room and stood naked before him looking at him with an evil grin. She looked at him with one good eye while the other was still a dead socket hanging now on a very young pretty face.

“What must it feel like to know you will never have this body again?” She ran both her hands down over her naked body, fondling her own breasts, and running them down to caress her nice wide hips to finish by lightly dipping a single finger between her legs into which she then brought to her mouth to playfully wrap her blood tinged pouty lips around.

If not for her missing an eye and the bloody scene he found himself surrounded in, he thought he could almost feel something in his pants start to tingle. She always knew how to push his buttons.

“Fuck you bitch….this is the last time. I’m too old for this shit anymore. I don’t want your witch whore of a body or your money anymore…I’m tired. I got you this far, now go find the rest of the damn pieces for yourself.” He looked at her defiantly gripping his flashlight tight in hand.

“Well, well when did you grow a back bone when I wasn’t looking?” She walked towards him slowly and he took a step back. Mitch couldn’t help but watch her tits as they jiggled towards him.
She grabbed him by the neck with one of her hands and slammed him against the wall. She towered over him even though she only stood about a couple inches taller.

“You were pathetic at seventeen when I found you, and you’re still just as pathetic. You didn’t have a problem fucking me back then. You made all the promises in the world to me just to crawl between my legs. When you were forty-eight and I came back, your dick practically jumped out of your pants. Now here you at eighty-three and you don’t even know you have a dick.” The witch grabbed him by the balls with her free hand and made a tight fist.

“One thing is correct. I don’t need you anymore, there are others who can help me, there are always others. Besides you would just slow me down now and times a wastin…you stay here though. I’ve got a reward for all your years of service that you don’t want to miss, and stay you will for my compulsion still holds you until midnight.” She released her grip on his throat and his balls. She walked slowly over to what looked like a closet near the front door, pulled out a small jacket, put it on and left.

11:05 pm Oct 31^st:

Mitch had fallen asleep against the wall where she had left him and would have been asleep still if not for the front door bursting inward and shattering the frame into a thousand splinters.

“Fucking piece of shit neighborhood, I only needed one more piece tonight.” The witch walked through the door dragging a little blonde girl of about eight years old by the scruff of the neck. She wasn’t wearing a costume but pink pajamas with feet.

“Had to grab this little shit out of bed. I’m glad I got a good nose now, else I never would’ve smelled her. Mitch meet Molly, Molly meet Mitch, she’s got something I want but I wanted you to partake in the festivities seeing as how this is your last hurrah with me.” She smiled at him and winked with the eye that still wasn’t there.

The little girl started bawling and the witch backhanded her in an offhanded way and she went flying across the room to land in a heap. She wasn’t crying anymore. The little girl’s neck seemed to be at an unnatural angle as she lay there.

“Shut up already!” the witch walked over and grabbed the little girl’s left leg and tore the pajamas apart at the seam to reveal her naked leg. She pulled the little girl’s foot out and bit into it, crunching down hard. The witch pulled back from the girl’s foot and Mitch saw it was minus a big toe now. The witch continued to chew it. To Mitch it sounded like she was eating an ice cube. She made a final gulping noise then convulsed a little like she had done before and then fell silent, standing up right with her head down once again. It shouldn’t be too long now since this was the last piece. So he waited like he knew he had to.

11: 55 pm Oct 31^st:

“What time is it?” her head snapped up suddenly from resting on her chest.

“11:55…you were out longer than I expected.” Mitch looked at her closely.

“Your eye..it’s still missing.” Mitch said

“I need one final piece to complete the spell and you have the piece I need.” She moved toward him.

Mitch backed up a step from her. “I thought you only did women?”

“I’ve had your piece picked out for quite some time Mitch. You will complete the spell and I will live for another thirty-three years in this body, perfect and beautiful just as before. So let me have your eye, your lovely right eye calls to me to eat it. I will be whole again. I compel you to come to me. I do not need to chase you Mitch. Come to me. Now. ” she hissed at him through bared teeth.

11:57 pm Oct 31^st:

Mitch felt her inside of him pushing him, tugging him towards her. His feet moved towards under some other power but his own.

“NO! I’m not giving you the satisfaction bitch!” Mitch punched his fingers into his right eye cavity and violently grabbed it with his fingers and yanked at his eye as hard as he could. A blinding explosion filled his brain and white hot pain stabbed the back of his head.

He fought to stay conscious as he pulled out his eye completely and stuffed into his mouth. Hit bit into it and chewed furiously. He tasted a sweet warm gelatinous liquid fill his mouth. He swallowed, feeling the bits and pieces slide down his throat. Through all the pain he looked triumphantly over to the witch with an evil smirk.

“What are you gonna do now bitch? Times up.”

11:59 pm Oct 31^st:

“Oh, did I say the right eye I meant the left.” She smiled at him.

“Shit.” Mitch simply said.

She came at him and all went dark.

The End

Halloween Special - 2-day Free Promotion on Amazon for my story "Roadkill"

2012-10-25T20:25:00.001-07:00

There are things that lurk in our world unseen, dark creatures lost in a time and a world so ancient as to be forgotten by the same humans who made dark dealings with them so very long ago.

Link to Free Download

Free From from Oct 27 -28th

Now per happenstance, on a dark shrouded road these worlds will collide briefly again....
What would you do if you hit and killed something on the road in a raging blizzard in the middle of the night and that something you killed had a companion which meant to force you to make amends for your actions?
Adrian is the thirty-something already troubled family man who suddenly finds himself in that world. Adrian soon discovers it doesn't want him. It wants the thing he holds most dear to his heart. Whom will the thing choose as the price to be paid, Adrian's lovely wife Elisa, or his young eight year old daughter Sylvia?
Following the ancient laws set forth, a balance must be kept, and Adrian the good family man, must pay the price whether he likes it or not. Will Adrian have it in him to fight to keep his family whole or will he give into his fears and past traumas that have haunted him for years and lose the ones he loves along with perhaps his own life in the process?

*************************************************************************************

If your in the mood for a good suspenseful scary read around Halloween time then check out my story for FREE this weekend on Saturday, Oct 27th and Sunday, Oct 28th.

It will be avaialble for download so don't miss out...

Also check out my excerpt from the story HERE to give you a small sample.

Where I stand....Taking stock of where I'm at in my writing for the year so far

2012-10-22T18:21:00.001-07:00

As the title of the blog states, I am taking stock this month. More of a critique and review of myself and the goals I put forth for myself this year in writing to see if I'm track.
Well I started this Blog back in April of this year 2012...and before that in September 0f 2011 is when I really started getting serious with my writing.
I mainly started this Blog back in April to appease various publishers who want you to have a web presence for yourself so possible fans can find you and flock to you and worship you over the worldwide web....still waiting for that to happen.
I have never been great at kissing people's asses in terms of marketing myself....I just wanna write , straight and simple. I am sincere in my writing in my blogpost and of my own opinions of those I follow so I hope that people that came to my blog saw that.
Now I have to stress I don't consider myself a blogger. I just consider this my personal website and I'm your host who wants you to know more about me and what I'm about as a writer and direct you to where you can find my latest writings whether on here, Scribd, Amazon, Smashwords, or hopefully down the line other places around the web from minor to major publishers who pick up my work.
btw... To ring in Halloween - I will be doing a another FREEBIE promotion near Halloween this month for my Horror/Dark Fantasy Novella "Roadkill" on Amazon...so look for that to happen soon!
Back when I started this website I said I would keep you abreast of my progression of becoming a Fantasy Writer/Author . So here is a run down of what I have accomplished thus far from approximately a year ago along with my future goals in writing for the coming year 2013.
What I have written thus far:

Finished Works:

1. Roadkill - Horror/Fantasy Novella 24,000 words (rejected many times by various Publishers and have went on to E-Publish it on Amazon but I am still submitting it to other publishers in the mean time.)
2. Devil in the Details - Urban Fantasy - 3,500 Words (Rejected many times by various Publishers, but still submitting, and have sent to Beta-readers for their critique)
3. Bits and Pieces - Urban Fantasy/Scienc Fiction - 8,000 Words , Entered into major contest and awaiting results. If it doesn't place then I will submit to publishers and show on here as well for your reading pleasure....:)
4. A Fire to Extinguish - Science Fiction - 8,700 Words , Entered into a major contest and awaiting results. If it doesn't place then I will submit to publishers and show on here as well for your reading pleasure....:)
5. Flight through the Forest - Heroic Flash Fantasy - 2,000 - Words, Rejected by various publishers BUT did get accepted by one non-paying publication entitled Quail-Bell Magazin online- I am still submitting to publishers aroudn the web.
6. Witch Hunt - Horror/Humor - 4,000 Words Entering into Halloween Contest at Carnage Conservatory this year.
7. Various Poetry amounting to approx 50-60 poems this year over approx 5,000 words between them all...I have turned some into publishers but as of yet none have been accepted...please check out most of my poetry here on my blog or over at Scribd the self publishing website. You can see most of my Poetry work here.

Current Projects:

1. The Thing under the Bridge - Young Adult Fantasy Novel with a goal of 85,000 Words Currently up to 5,000+words. I am finishing up some outlining and research and then will be diving back into to the writing portion to finish hopefully by End of January 2013.
2. The Grate - Dark Urban Fantasy Story - 10,000 to 17,000 Word Goal currently up 2,000 Words. This will be another Contest entry before Dec 31st, 2012, and then later with submissions to various Publishers. (and will show on here as well)
3. From a Dark Place - Dark Fantasy Story - 10,000 to 17,000 Word Goal currently up to 4,000 Words. This will be another Contest entry for March 31st, 2013 Deadline, and then later with submissions to various Publishers. (and will show on here as well)
I am always brainstorming and have many small ideas as memos in my notes future story ideas BUT first these above must be finished and fleshed out completely..
I am trying to take the advice of a professional succesful writer who said it's best to lose count of how many stories you have written then you know your working at a good pace. I know I am not there yet with that by a long shot but still I definitely want to have quality over quantity any day for my writing.

So I ask you to check out ALL my stuff that has been divulged to you thus far on here and other websites and comment if you feel like commenting on my stuff...it's always appreciated.. THANKS

...and remember my FREEBIE for "ROADKILL" will be coming out soon on Amazon for the Kindle or for free electronic download on your computer....how's that for self-marketing...:)

2012-10-10T13:50:00.001-07:00

My Climb
The cold bites into my
hands as I reach for
the rocky outcrop in
my climb to the top.
The blowing wind plays with
me as it shifts from east to west
trying to fool me into shifting
my weight to the wrong position.
The sun shadows my every
move but I give it a smile and
a scowl.
I say fuck you to the elements,
I say fuck you to the gravity
that wants to pull me back
to Mother Earth.
I may be a student to this life I lead,
but you are not my master.
No one claims me.
No one drives me but
myself up this mountain
I climb.
If I ‘m going to fall,
It’s going to be because
I chose to jump.
and fly
free.
By Philip Wardlow

Killer Pumpkins – A poem for Halloween

2012-10-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

Killer Pumpkins
Ba dump…ba dump…ba ba dump.
Bump…
Bump…
They roll.
They stroll
down the streets;
orange and angry.
Why do they roll?
Why are they not in bed,
with green leaves as blankets
To cover their orange ripply heads.
I suppose they’re pissed off
for being left behind
in the patch.
What the fuck was wrong
with them, they ask.
It’s Halloween and they’ve
waited long enough.
Knives in hand with
grins carved in,
ready to show
the little tricker-treat bastards
a real killer
pumpkin.
So they roll
and they stroll
down the street.
Ba dump.

Ain’t no rest for the wicked….really I’m not that wicked except wicked good!

2012-10-02T12:50:00.001-07:00

"Ain't no rest for the Wicked" Yes that's the title of my BLOG....I picked the title for several reasons....
One because I really liked the song of the same name by the rock band, Cage the Elephant, check out the video here if you haven't heard or seen it.

Second reason I picked " Ain't no rest for the Wicked" you might say is my anthem for my writing endeavors....cuz you see it's almost 1:00 am in the morning and I'm burning the midnite oil ( past midnight actually) to finish this damn story that I want to meet a deadline on..

I have been writing for a few hours..so I need a rest and little distraction(see my previous blog about distractions in writing) ..so here I am...I have also been checking other bloggers out on the web as well. For instance I ran across one who wrote a post about Spanking Monkeys and a Adult Dora the Explorer Movie ...a humorous blogger at Lady or Not Here I Come . Sometimes for me as a writer you need a little humor to lighten the mind up when writing on serious subjects. It frees me up to keep going when my words start to snag on a scene in a story. I need a dose of cold water down the back you might say to let the inspiration bug in.

The last reason I picked Wicked is because well ....because I'm wicked like the Devil....noooooooooooo...I don't even believe in the Devil, Lucifer,or Satan, Bezelbub, Voldemort or any of those other incarnations of an idea we seem we have to put a face and name to feel more comfortable for why we do things to ourselves and to the world around us.

No the reason I picked it is because Wicked can mean " to place or show very intense emphasis on a subject or action." Like that car was wicked cool or wicked fast...or that girls skirt she was wearing oh my.. was wicked tight..did you see her? That test was to wicked hard...I am so gonna fail it...
See? Understand? That's the kinda writer I wanna be a Wicked one.

I am going back to work now...it's been a fun break!

A Tidbit to my Novel I'm working on...and how my own characters must hate me.

2012-09-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

I am always thinking of the next best story….but that thinking distracts me from the actual story I’m working on at that time….

I so often will get from anywhere three to eight pages into a story I’m working only to find myself having to put it down (temporarily mind you) to start on whole new idea. I JUST have to start on it or else it will just leave my brain never to return…I have get into the idea for a few pages…I just have to…or else I’ll lose it…I just know it.

In the past few months, I have been working on three stories and my novel…I love all four stories equally in their own way.

Needless to say ALL four have been suffering from lack of real attention….One of my characters has been sitting in a deep dark hole and is bruised and battered and very afraid and desperate to get out of his predicament (he doesn’t know how much trouble he’s really in…..he he) Oh just you wait my dear friend . He’s been lying there for a weeks waiting for his story to go forward.

I have a cast of characters in one story in various stages of their life waiting to accomplish deeds of heroism or not so very not heroic acts…one guy has killed his wife…the other is a prisoner by small demons …and another is about to do something awful to himself at school and all their worlds are destined to collide….sounds interesting huh…I bet you wish you could read this one…me to… They’ve been in stasis for a few weeks as well.

I’ve got these other two characters and they’ve been moving….(in molasses but they have been moving, and the story is oh so close to be finished..I can’t wait to show to you it on here….but I think they all are really starting to hate me…I mean if I were them I would …..I’ve trapped them in limbo…I’ve got to get them out….I can hear them calling to me in my sleep when I dream..

Have you felt ever felt that way about your characters for not finishing their story fast enough? (or not at all!)

Well I am regaining focus and I am going to finish all those damn stories by hook or by crook (I’ve always loved that phrase)

Also here and below is a small opener to my very first full length Novel entitled tentatively “The Thing Under the Bridge” that I plan on finishing by – cross your fingers - the end of January 2013. It will be a Young Adult Category Novel in the Urban Fantasy Genre

Excerpt from “The Thing Under the Bridge” Working Title -

I have always believed in magic. I don’t care what you say. You can doubt all you want. There is a hidden world which we cannot see sitting right in front of our faces, most everyone is too busy, too
blind, or too stupid to see it. I see it in the trees as the ethereal distance winds kiss the leaves as it flies through their branches. I spy it dancing in the fire amidst the embers at night; like little tiny sprites hopping from log to log amidst the flames playing a game of tag. I smell it in a wild rose in a crowded field of jostling weeds flinging its pheromones to attract the butterflies to alight on its silken petals. I hear it in the babbling brook as the water plays upon the rocks behind my home whispering to the frogs as it travels on downriver. I feel it in the rough stone I caress in the palm of my hand; an ancient power from ages past unearthed from the deep bowels of the earth from the crumbs of a mighty stone titan long dead. It is everywhere if you would only choose to see. The
magic speaks to me because I choose to listen and I almost understand what it
is saying…

Chapter 1 – Reality Sets In

I tasted the blood that trickled down to my upper lip from my nose. It had a sweet metallic taste. I liked the taste of my blood. I am not a weird person don’t get me wrong, I’m not into to that kind of stuff. I just like to sometimes pretend that I’m Conan the Barbarian and I’m backed up against the wall and that I’m fighting an angry horde of ghoulish creatures hell-bent on gutting me like a fish and eating my entrails as I watch. I have my sword hacking and slashing and limbs are flying and I’m scratched all to hell and I’m bleeding from a dozen different wounds and I’m smiling insanely because this could be my last day alive so why not go out smiling like a true warrior would upon meeting his death well met in battle. Yeah, I like to have my mind go to places like that when I would be rather be anywhere than where I am right now.

“Hold him down dammit he’s a squirmer! Fucking idiot, you see what he did to Carlos? He’s crazy man!” Carlos had it coming, I told myself as I lay on the ground struggling under two other boys who each probably outweighed me by a hundred pounds. They wouldn’t have caught me if one of the bystanders hadn’t tripped me while I was trying to get away. Trying to get away, that’s all I ever do, until now.

I am not a violent person but I will admit it felt pretty good to see the plastic lunch tray connect solidly against the side of Carlos’s head and watch him go down in a daze, not to mention the stunned looks of his buddies who were now holding me down who put him up to flipping my lunch tray to the ground as I had walked by. It was classic man, just classic.

“What the hell are you smiling about you sick bastard. I am so gonna you end, just wait. I always knew you were a weird little fucker. That’s why you don’t have any friends.”

Aah, Jake the jerk off, as I like to call him, a man, or boy better yet, of not many words. I guess his Dad couldn’t buy him vocabulary to stuff inside that brain of his. I’m thinking his Dads more the type that likely bought’em a good weight set and a big box of protein bars cuz he was crushing the hell out of my left shoulder with his knees as I lay there on the ground.

“Get the fuck off me!” I yelled at them while my face was being pressed firmly into the dirt. I might as well been yelling at the moon for all the good it did. I was a punching bag to them. A distraction out of their boring day of the life they called school. I provided a service to them I guess. They needed a reason to feel special while they were here. Everyone wants to feel special.

“Hey watch this Neil.” Jake said to the other kid that was holding me. It was amazing but Neil was actually more stupid than Jake was. I’m thinking the Smithsonian would have been really pleased to know a Neanderthal was still walking the earth. Neil had a prominent forehead, squashed face which held a dull look and knuckles that dragged the ground as he walked almost upright. He would have look great stuffed and mounted. It was a wonder he could tie his own shoes. Oh wait, was that Velcro for laces instead? I had a pretty good view at his feet at this particular time so I had a moment to check them out.

“Whut?” Said Neil responding dumbly to him bent over next to my ear. Then I heard it, the long drawing in sound of phlegm back into the throat.

It landed with a splat on the top of my forehead and traveled like a river down into my right eye blinding me and causing me to lose it entirely. I thrashed and heaved and went into what I like to call my insane berserker barbarian rage. This had little effect but it did cause Jake to fall off from kneeling on my back which eased some of the pain I was feeling. I’ll take what I can get.

I realized in that instance, that the audiences that come to fighting events come to watch entirely for selfish reasons. It is not to support the fighter; they want something out of it for all the money they plunked down. Apparently being stuck at school was the payment enough for all the other students just standing around watching my shame to unfold. They wanted to be entertained by my pain in some sick way, like the involuntary morbid thrill you get in watching a horror movie unfold knowing you feel bad for the victim, but not really because but what can you do? They convinced themselves they are just a spectator to it all, that they are allowed to be insulated from it, please don’t ask for me to lend a hand they say, your crazy. I was just another pathetic soap opera to be talked about between their friends and family, to be kept at a distance and to not bog their day down. Their hand was on the dimmer switch that controlled the light of my life into theirs and they could choose to let in however much they thought they could take. Right now all those hands on all those switches were set to full off. I think I hated them more in that instance than the ones who picked on me on a daily basis.

“Break it up! Break it up!” A loud high screeching of a woman’s voice cut through the chaos that was my crazed mind and through the crowd of onlookers as well. Mrs. Kitchen, a teacher and woman of enormous proportions waddled over her way through the ring of kids surrounding us to see what had caught everyone’s attention. I heard her gasp out aloud so theatrically when she came upon the scene that I almost laughed out loud.

Jake and Neil quickly let me go to show her they weren’t just trying to shove my head into the dirt and make me eat it. I saw the crowd starting to disperse around me, the bloodshed was over; be about your way miscreants.

I slowly got up from the ground and wiped the spit and grass clippings from my face with the sleeve of my shirt.

“Would someone like to tell me what’s going on? I found Carlos back there picking himself off the ground and now I find Calvin doing pretty the same thing over here. What’s going on?” Her voice went to a higher octave on the shrill level factor if that was possible and she put her hands on her very wide hips, tapping her foot impatiently expecting an answer. Yep, she was your typical stereotype, they do exist.

“He hit Carlos for no reason.” Neil said pointing at me like he was fingering me like some criminal in a line up. Neil just kept quiet.

“Is this true Calvin?” She asked.

“Yes and no,” I said, “Yes, I hit him, but I wouldn’t say it was for no reason. He had it coming, they like to provoke me.” I said and be damned with the consequences I was done caring anymore.

“Let’s see what Mr. Granderson has to say about all this. Let’s go.” She marched us into the schools office area where we sat and waited while all the parents were called.

More to come…

My Beautiful Dead Girl – A Poem

2012-09-13T19:04:00.001-07:00

Haunted eyes
wrapped in misery.
You are already dead,
so why should you feel pain?

Pain is your purgatory
little girl, a grand gift
from scales that can never
be balanced in your favor.

Haunted eyes they may be,
but I see defiance, strength,
lingering deep, always
ready to rise to the surface.

Never did death look so beautiful
A perfection in form chiseled
from stone beaten up and torn
down by the elements.

You wear your cloak well,
dark and tear stained, wrapped
tight around a body that
still flies free.

You are my beautiful dead girl.
with cold hands clenching tight around
a warm heart
that beats just for you.
by Philip Wardlow

Chuck Norris Jokes for my Quote of the Week - Gotta love it!

2012-09-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Here some of the TOP Chuck Norris Jokes (Facts)…Yes FACTS ….ladies and gentlemen

1. Chuck Norris once sold ebay, to ebay, on ebay.

2. Chuck Norris doesn’t dial the wrong number, you pick up the wrong phone.

3. Chuck Norris threw a grenade and killed 50 people, then it exploded.

4. Death once had a near-Chuck-Norris experience.

5. Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle.

6. Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone.

7. When Chuck was in middle school, his English teacher assigned an essay: “What is courage?” Chuck received an A+ for turning in a blank page with only his name at the top.

8. Once a cobra bit Chuck Norris’ leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.

9. Chuck Norris doesn’t play “hide-and-seek.” He plays “hide-and-pray-I-don’t-find-you.”

10. Chuck Norris can hear sign language.

11. Some kids piss their name in the snow. Chuck Norris can piss his name into concrete.

12. Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

13. Chuck Norris beat the sun in a staring contest.

14 . Chuck Norris was once charged with three attempted murders in Boulder County, but the Judge quickly dropped the charges because Chuck Norris does not “attempt” murder.

15. Chuck Norris’ calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd. No one fools Chuck Norris.

17. Brett Favre can throw a football over 50 yards. Chuck Norris can throw Brett Favre even further.

18. Chuck Norris can kill your imaginary friends.

19. When Chuck Norris enters a room, he doesn’t turn the lights on, he turns the dark off.

20. When Chuck Norris gives you the finger, he’s telling you how many seconds you have left to live.

21. Chuck Norris was once on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and was the first to spin. The next 29 minutes of the show consisted of everyone standing around awkwardly, waiting for the wheel to stop.

22. A bulletproof vest wears Chuck Norris for protection.

23. Bill Gates lives in constant fear that Chuck Norris’ PC will crash.

24. Chuck Norris can unscramble an egg.

25. Chuck Norris once went to mars. Thats why there is no signs of life.

26. When Bruce Banner gets mad he turns into the Hulk. When the Hulk gets mad he turns into Chuck Norris. When Chuck Norris gets mad, run

Archive of Horror - Check out Gore Girl the Queen of Horror Reviews!

2012-09-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

With Halloween fast approaching scary movies are always a must...if you have anything like access to Netflix or like digging through $1.00 to $10.00 cheapy movies in the Bargain Bin at Walmart, Best Buy, or whatever and you run across a Horror flick, chances are Goregirl has done a review on it...check out her Horror Archives on various reviews of Horror Flicks she has done herself before you waste your money & perhaps 90 minutes of your time....

She is truly dedicated to the craft that is horror. Her direct home page is also here, so go ahead. What are you afraid of? She won't bite.

"Roadkill" for Free this weekend

2012-08-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

Roadkill Story on Amazon

FIRST thing I want to say is, I am NOT handing out any dead skunks, raccoons.possums or any other such dead creatures to you…

What I am going to make available to you for download is a great little dark story for you to cozy up to….

If you are new to my website you may not have realized that I Epublished a book to Amazon that sells for $2.99, called you guest it, “Roadkill”.

If you look to the right of this article, you will see a direct link to that story on Amazon’s website. You can also click here or above as well.

Starting TOMORROW on Friday, August 31st through Sunday Sept 2 it will be available for FREE for anyone to download.

You don’t need a kindle to download it and read it but you will probably need to download Amazon’s small Kindle app program for viewing on your PC before being able to download and read the story. Other than that it’s a piece of cake.

I personally don’t own a Kindle myself but I found you can, by using this simple downloadable software have access to free or very very cheap entertaining stories or even full lengths books through Amazon downloaded to your computer permanently.

Amazon allows writers/epublishers to schedule up to a total of five free days of free access to other Amazon users for download of their published works as part of their marketing program. I thought it would be a great idea for my followers and anybody who finds me in the blogosphere to take a look at what I’m all about as a writer and hopefully pass my name along to friends and family.

I am at work on two other stories and a novel of which I wish to complete and put out there as epublished books in addtion to turning them into publishers and contests for consideration.

So check it out… as long as nothing is glitchy over at Amazon you should be able download it tomorrow for free, and of course Saturday and Sunday.

And definitely let me know what you think of the story after you have finished reading it. It would be great if you gave me a review on Amazon as well. You can find an excerpt here to get a feel for the story to see if its something you might be interested in.

If you like urban fantasy and a touch of horror entertwined with some suspense added in then you just might like this little story.

The Dark Tree - A poem

2012-08-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

It swayed and creaked in
the wind.
The black silken crows
gave a queer semblance of
life to the tree,
Its bare branches covered
with a multitude perched like
the clinging of leaves.
It swayed and it creaked
and spoke of its sins,
Dark feathers fluttered,
as if to fool a passerby’s eye
that life still dwelt in the trees dead limbs.
None made a sound, not a caw
not a screech, no utterance did they speak;
for you see they had been given a task long ago,
to bear silent witness to the migration
of lost souls.
For no man,
should ever die alone.
So they perched and they preened
as the body swayed and creaked
on the rope below.
by Philip Wardlow

Crushed Box – A Snippet from a little boy’s life

2012-08-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

I was nine years old and my brother Sam was eight. It was a late Sunday afternoon on a warm bright blue sky day in the middle of May. We were both smiling and grinning ear to ear because we had just scored the biggest prize ever in our little lives. A gigantic box, longer in all it’s in dimensions than we were in height, it was a monster. We had just pulled it out of a CARTON ONLY dumpster behind the factory building pretty close to where we lived.

It was to be a grand addition to our makeshift fort we already had built in our backyard from the previous day. We couldn’t believe how lucky we were. We only had a block left to drag it, and it was heavy work. It wasn’t every day something like this came along so we were very determined to get it home.

As my brother and I pushed and prodded the behemoth of a box down the street my little mind was already working furiously to figure how it would be cut and worked into our current structure. I was thinking this was going to be command central for all the adventures for the days to come.

“What’s the box for Felix?” a voice in front of us asked as it approached us barring our progress down the street.

I poked my head from around the box and groaned inwardly. Three boys stood there directly in our path down the sidewalk, two of them were Anton and Anthony, eight year identical twins, led by their twelve-year-old big brother named Terence. They were our neighbors about three houses down from us.

I hated them. They took delight in making me and my brother’s life miserable at any turn they could find when they ran across us.

For example, once I had been given a watermelon by my mother’s friend who had grown it in her garden. She had lived down the street some four houses away from our own. (Yep right next to Terence’s). I was walking home with it clutching it in both arms with my little hands wrapped around it tight. My mom loved watermelon she was going to love this nice surprise. Suddenly, I was pushed hard from behind. I stumbled and fell forward watching the watermelon fly from my arms and end up in broken chunks all over the hot summer cement of the sidewalk. I didn’t look back at who had done it. I knew. I ran home crying with their laughter at my back.

Terence approached us and our box with the twins in tow. He was tall for his age and even slightly muscular. His dark skin was darker than mine by ten times as much. I always thought of my mom and how she took her coffee, black with two sugars but no cream when I looked at him. Me, I was cream poured in you might say, because I guess my mom had been white and my dad was black whereas I knew both of Terence’s parents were black. I knew that much back then I guess. My hair was jet black, slightly wavy and cut short against the side of my head while Terence’s dark black hair was braided and pulled tight against his scalp in what most black people called cornrows. The braids trailed down the side of his head and to the back until they came out from his head hanging down to his shoulders. He smiled a friendly smile as he walked over to me but I knew it was fake.

He put a hand gently on the box, and looked up at it appraising it with his eyes.

“It’s ours.” I blurted out, regretting it the moment I said it. Terence didn’t like it when you were defiant.

“It’s our now.” He simply said and came up to me and pushed me out-of-the-way where I fell to the ground hard. He nodded at his two brothers who took it as a sign to rush the box.

I got up and grabbed my brother’s hand and walked quickly away down the street. At the time, I told myself I was protecting my younger brother but inside I knew different. Fear had always been my friend. The farther I was away from them the less scared I became and the angrier I got. Then Terence yelled out to me and my brother asking if we wanted our box back.

We turned back to them thinking just for an instant that he might actually mean it. I took one hesitant step back towards them.

Then they laughed and started to destroy the box. They kicked at it, punched it, and ripped at the joints and corners with their hands, all the while laughing like it wasn’t the biggest joke in the world. Finally the box collapsed in on itself with all the beating it had undergone. Terence then climbed on top of it and began to jump up and down crushing with his feet. His brothers joined into until it was just a mangled piece of paperboard on the ground.

All the while this was happening; I stood there holding my younger brother’s hand as he began to cry next to me. A thunder began to roll in me with all the momentum of a giant wave rolling towards the shore. Gathering, gathering, collecting in strength until it would crash.

“You nigger!” I yelled with all the power my little voice could carry. I put behind the word all the hurt I felt, all the anger that had built up over the months, days and weeks of their constant bullying. I put it all into that one word and flung it like a rock straight at him. Some instinct inside told me that this one word would work and I had grabbed it and used it without thought.

“What did you call me?!” he asked. He wasn’t laughing anymore. He looked stunned.

I yelled it again and again. My mind railed the word over and over inside my head.
He didn’t make a move to chase me. He just stood there with his arms at his sides and fists clenched and then calmly but loudly yelled at me.

“Tomorrow on the way home from school, I’m gonna get you then!” was all he said. Then he and his brothers simply walked away towards home leaving the crushed box in the middle of the sidewalk.

I walked home scared. I went to sleep scared. I woke up scared. I went to school scared. I sat in class all day scared. Then the bell rang to go home.

It was about a ten to fifteen minute walk from school to my house. Terence was a middle schooled and got out earlier than me nearby in the neighborhood. I knew he would be waiting for me somewhere along the way home. If I was quick and ran nonstop all the way home, he might not even see me to catch me. So I ran.

I ran past friends in the hall not saying a word, I busted through the double doors of the school and sprinted across the street ignoring the crossing guard who yelled at me saying I was going to be in trouble tomorrow when I came back to school. I thought to myself I’m trying to stay alive today so I can come back to school tomorrow.

I didn’t look to my left I didn’t look to my right. I just ran like a bullet towards home with my target being my front door. I dodged my way around slow-moving kids in my way, at the next street I crossed against the light beating out a car turning the corner earning me a blaring horn in my ear.
Up ahead was the street next to my own. All I had to do was to cross it and then make a quick cut through the parking lot between the restaurant and the Goodwill Store and I was home free. No sign of Terence. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he never intended to show; maybe he was more talk than anything else.

I crossed the street in a run but slowed to a quick walk when I hit the sidewalk and entered the parking lot. I could see my house across the short field from the parking lot. I felt a small cocoon of safety settle over me seeing my home in sight.

Then there he was out of nowhere like he had appeared from thin air; right in from of me at the very edge of the parking lot. He ran at me. I couldn’t move. My mind screamed to run but my body didn’t want to cooperate. He grabbed the top of my shirt near my neck with both hands and shoved me heard against a parked car.

His eyes were wide and brown and they burned into me. I could almost feel the pressure from them pushing against my own.

“Why did you call me that!” he yelled at me pushing me hard again against the car.
“I don’t know I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was mad. I’m sorry.” Tears started to come into my eyes.

He held me against the car just staring into my eyes. Then I saw something different in his than what I had just before. It wasn’t anger or menace. It was pain. Pain showed in his eyes. Deeply. I felt it to my core.

“I’m sorry Terence. I never should have said it. I never will again I promise, I promise. I’m sorry.” and I meant it to.

I didn’t say it from fear. I had said it because in the end I truly was sorry. Yes he was a bully, and he treated my bad but he didn’t deserve what I had said. I felt ashamed of myself in that instant with his eyes looking back at me full of pain. I never thought he could feel pain, never thought it could touch him. No, that’s a lie, I told myself in that instant. I knew it could touch him, that’s why I had said it, but I had chosen to ignore what I had done.

I hung my head.

He let me go, hands slowly releasing me to fall down at his sides.

“See that you never do say it again.” he said and walked away.

I stood there in the parking lot for quite a while, not moving, and barely breathing with my head still hanging down staring at the ground.

I found the strength to pick my head up and realized as I made my slow walk home I didn’t know myself at all.

The End

Collecting your Thoughts….a writers advice on one GOT TO HAVE IT TOOL as you write.

2012-07-31T16:56:00.000-07:00

Tools…
You need Tools to build things, whether it’s a book case, a bed, or a barn…you need tools for the job. You can’t hit a nail with your fist. Besides hurting like hell you won’t get anywhere execpt bloody and perhaps a visit to the emergency room.
Writing is the same way; certain tools are needed. For many who write I’m sure that comes as no surprise. Stephen King says he brings his whole tool box from the garage when he writes because he’ll never know what he’ll need.
For me, words are like gold when I write. When I’m writing, I’m constantly trying to find that perfect string of words, that when put together right, form a picture of a place, character, an emotion, or an action that grabs hold of the reader’s mind and puts them there right into the story.
Going back to Stephen King, I found that he is one of the masters at doing that. He is very good at looking at something in real life and flipping it to some analogous turn of phrase that you instantly connect to in your mind. I often seek to emulate writers like him and others. I have found one TOOL (method) gets me close to that type of good writing; being observant about what I see, hear, smell,touch,taste, and then following it up by cataloging that thought down somewhere….anywhere….the memo function on my phone, a notepad, dictation to the phone, a napkin, on my hand (yes I did that once) or even literally telling your signifcant other to remember “this” until I get home so I can jot it down.
Some thoughts strike like lighting about something you experience and you DON’T want to lose it. You may not use it in the current story you are working on but you will surely have need of it in the wee hours of the night when you are searching for that one turn of phrase that will bring it all home in that one paragraph that you are having sooooo much trouble putting to bed.
Words are not cheap so don’t let the gold coins dribble through a hole in your pants pocket to be lost and forgotten. It’s great to be able to go to a cache of magical words and phrases that you have saved up and rummage through it once in awhile and say, hey that would work in this part.
So keep the gold mine open and productive. I superemely HATE it when I forget something that was the coolest thing ever thought of on the face of this Earth.
Below are few of my ”golden” words you might say about every day observations in life. Some are direct form my own brain, some may be stolen you might say from family members, friends, or even strangers that I heard making their own unique observations that didn’t even know they were being original when they said them. Don’t worry it’s okay to steal phrases from others; some of the best words and phrases come from an author’s relationships with others (not talking plagerism of course). Let me know what your thoughts on the tools you use when writing:
Black and white striped sock
looked like the ribcage of a
rat lying in the gutter.
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Her skin hung on her bones like
a thin wrinkled suit on a hanger.
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I called them bumbies, half bum,half zombie
because of their slow shuffling jerky walk
down the street in their tattered dirty clothes
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Somehow I feel I ‘m framed like a picture,
Bounded and contained, my limits are set
at four corners, my face compressed
tight against the glass.
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I feel the sharpness of your eyes cut into
me keener than any blade could cut the thinnest
hair in half.
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Btw the way did you notice how I picked a Phillips’s Screwdriver for my tool in th title pic above…get it …because my name is Philip…he he he…..oh well..anyways..that’s my attempt at very obscure very subtle stupid humor…then I again it’s not very humorous if I feel like I have to point it out to you guys…:)

Roadkill - Novella just published as an eBook on Amazon!

2012-07-24T20:08:00.003-07:00

There are things that lurk in our world unseen, dark creatures lost in a time and a world so ancient as to be forgotten by the same humans who made dark dealings with them so very long ago.
Now per happenstance, on a dark shrouded road these worlds will collide briefly again....
What would you do if you hit and killed something on the road in a raging blizzard in the middle of the night and that something you killed had a companion which meant to force you to make amends for your actions?
Adrian is the thirty-something already troubled family man who suddenly finds himself in that world. Adrian soon discovers it doesn't want him. It wants the thing he holds most dear to his heart. Whom will the thing choose as the price to be paid, Adrian's lovely wife Elisa, or his young eight year old daughter Sylvia?
Following the ancient laws set forth, a balance must be kept, and Adrian the good family man, must pay the price whether he likes it or not. Will Adrian have it in him to fight to keep his family whole or will he give into his fears and past traumas that have haunted him for years and lose the ones he loves along with perhaps his own life in the process?
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Roadkill Amazon Ebook above now published on Amazon as an Ebook for the Kindle and sells for $2.99...OR if you are an Amazon Prime Member you can borrow the book for free with no due date until you want something new to read by me or anyone else who sells in the Select Collection series which contain literally thousands of titles.
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The KDP Select Program through Amazon I think personally is a great idea...it basically sets up a fund or bank if you will to allow self publishers like myself to get exposure and perhaps little mula if the whenever the eBook gets read. Notice I said read..not bought . Sure some can buy the book but some members can just borrow it for awhile at no cost. The more my book is borrowed compared to what's in the Fund and what other member's books in the program are borrowed directly affect what I may receive as a stipend you might say at the end of that monthly period. It's possible if you have good book to get to more readers and make more money promoting it this way than simply selling it out right. It pays to give it away to some extent you might say....Speaking of giving it away, I do believe I will have five free days made available to me to offer it to anyone as an Ebook whether your a Prime member or not. I will let you know when that happens. (or you could always buy it before that...hint hint..:) ...)
As always I am submitting my work to publishers, and entering contests. I am now just trying to attack this thing I call a dream of mine on another front to get my work out there.(less to make money but that doesn't hurt either) Hopefully for those who have or might read my work and found it to your liking. Please pass my name along to your friends and family who also might be interested in a good read.
Thanks.