Ambassador

The men I was sent to, who I'm to pretend I'm a friend to, Arcadians, have become genuinely beloved.
My smile cuts further inward than my split face to a lightless place tears are spilled.
I pat Ambassador Ilthua on the back and nod as he leaves, rod in hand.
He believes a treaty will be signed between his kind and mine for fewer trade and travel restrictions.
Truly, the army is already on its' way.
I swallow and hear the stomp of rows of sandled feet clomping down the street.
300,000 footmen march through the Temal Straights with archers, riders, and chariots besides.
They will accept no surrender. They will see no Arcadian survives.
After lunch I am to be attending a meeting of dignitaries discussing nothing in particular.
I've forgotten my stomach.
In a bejeweled hall I am the only flesh and blood man living and standing surrounded by specters.

Asynchronous Clock

Steam pulses through an iron train.
Hisses and sighs set a refrain.
A lady covers her face in scorn.
Ex-miners panhandle to cover lost bets.
Bandannas haven't been enough to filter the air lately.
Pollution wounds dainty lungs like her's.
Coal coasts like pollen and deposits there.
Oil drips from the hydraulics as blood from a cut.
The conductor screams; he has lost his wits.
He saw a fright but won't say what.
Invisible horrors come from the abyss, jutting.
Dr.Jones prescribes the conductor rest with a wet washcloth.
Ladies-in-waiting titter in their posh clothes.
Who'd expect to see such a spectacle?
Two ticket-counters carry the mumbling man to bed.
It's probably opium what turned his face so red.
Ahead the rails were shelled.
The wheels rebel.
The train derails, spills, wavers, piles.
Survivors tremble immediately after.
Much later gentlemen pale and the dainty ladies-who-wait faint at the remembrance.
Sometimes, a man foresees his future.

Hobo during Prohibition

Dis here distillery will sooth ye, drain away the pain plain upon your face, have a taste. A drop of white lightnin has a mighty power to right wrongs. When my boy was runnin a truckload the police unloaded without so much as inspectin his trunk. What they didn't confiscate I drank. Hate to let good booze go. They demanded I show them all my stills, insisted I desist and cease. After they drove off I drank til I felt deceased. Alky-hall-ism's a disease we's always had in my family.
Atleast my boy went in modern days, in cleaner ways. Back in the day, a man may feel cold steel steal his breath with the seal of a sword's edge. Or at the start of things, the cops would lift large stones honed to sharpened spear tips and slip them in past your skin, bust your guts wide open buddy. Ya see, an electric chair don't sound so bad now, do it?
Alright, maybe your life's all gravy and ya don't need this tumbler like this bumbler that I am. Heh, maybe you're a tea towler and can't slam them back like I's kin. But this drink's free, all on me, cause it's shore lonesome without someone sharing this medicinal poison. They call it a sin son, "lips which touch liquor will never touch mine". Well, how in the hell would you know?

Pretentious

Howabout a riddle?
What does every man have
and every lion need?
-or-
What do you need to get
similar to what a camera makes things?
-or-
What are you already that I won't tell
you the answer until you are?

Shining Absolesence

Puckered feet-flesh. Some walks were water-worn smooth, a contact on heels relaxing as brushing dogfur. Chilly. Presumed frogs hop from shrouding grass to pass plop-indicated dives (ripples eradicated in an omnidirectional river). A sogginess catches on his left hand and he lifts it to see shredded brown...leaves? It returns to the current which bore it from a flick.
Along comes the stench of a man who hasn't washed in anything cleaner than clogged sewage debri. He hasn't come to clean up now.
"Sancho you sumbitch don't stare at the bark so. You're making lichens grow."
Our unnamed foot-dipper doesn't reply. The stinker sets down his pack and sits in Sancho's place, leaving his feet in wet-run, until he is Sancho and forgetting his dirty clothes leaves the stench.