Israfel Sivad's Blog

3 AM (January, the Second)

By Israfel Sivad
from his collection, Recipe for a Future Theogony, available here.

I can’t relate to what
the troubadours have to say:

Stories of loves lost,
unrequited; dreams
of memories past.

They sing their songs
to harmonica, guitar.

Tunes that bring peace
to the mind, quiet to
the soul. I wish…

(At church last Sunday, you
prayed to Mary Magdalene,
asked forgiveness for Mother
Mary, cursed the Sun and
made love to His Father.)

You tried playing their th...

Jessica

By Israfel Sivad

from his poetry collection, Indigo Glow, available here.

By the time I got to Oklahoma,
I started thinking of you.
Not a poem in my head for days,
and now, I don’t know what to do.

I pulled over at the side of the road,
grabbed my notepad off the floor,
ran my fingers through my hair…
and set ink to line once more –

Smoking Newports cross the country,
listening to the Rolling Stones. There’s
a rock forming in my soul. It blocks
the snowy waters, turns them into rap...

Not as Crazy as They All Think I Am

By Israfel Sivad

from his short story collection, The American Apocalypse, available here.

My family thinks I’m insane. Drinking a virgin daiquiri, I’m sitting on a veranda of a villa in Costa Rica that my grandmother rented for us for a Christmas vacation. I could do with the rum, but I don’t really need it. Besides, I’m trying to make a good impression, trying to prove that I’m not as crazy as they all think I am.

The hills and mountains rise acr...

Sunday Afternoon

By Israfel Sivad

from his poetry collection, The Tree Outside My Window, available here.

Believe me when I say that
I have seen the stars of night
sparkle in the light
of a woman’s sight.

I have forgotten more visions
of mirages on sand
than grains of that same sand
ever slipped through my hands.

I have lost more lives
than have ever been stolen
from a cat on the prowl
or a family in war.

I have stared at myself
until I grew roots
and cut those roots
to move downstream

City of Fallen Angels

By Israfel Sivad
from his collection of short stories, The Cars Behind, Beside Us, available here.

L.A. is a beast, a monster. It gets stuck in your throat. It reaches sooty tendrils through your nose and mouth, trying to settle into your lungs. It’s dirty, smoggy, low, and trashy, too spread out for there to be any real center. To tell the truth, it’s hard to believe it’s called the City of Angels. It should be the City of Fallen Angels. It’s seething and churning… Ne...

Welcome to the Modern World, Charlie

By Israfel Sivad
from his short story collection, Welcome to the Modern World, Charlie

Charlie swung his door closed. A rattling crash reverberated through the house. Having made his point, he dragged his feet across his stained carpet to plop onto his bed. Lying there, rigidly still, he tightened his already taut features a little bit more. He almost screamed, but instead, biting his lip, he slammed his fist into the mattress.

The room was still for ...

The Mirror

By Israfel SIvad
from his short story collection, Notes from the Idle Mind

Don’t open your eyes. Because I want to sleep. I want to close my eyes and leave this harsh reality behind. I want the world to crumble so that something beautiful can steal a piece of my mind. If I try to forget, maybe serenity will catch me unaware, wrap me up in its embrace, and never let go.

I’m just tired.

Every night. Every night of my whole life, this melodrama plays its overtired tunes. Keep ...

Alone

By Israfel Sivad
from his collection At the Side of the Road

Sitting alone. Always to think –
I always have and always will.
Thinking of places life’s been through,
thinking of people I once knew,
and then, my thoughts will turn to You…

Header image: Hans Thoma, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

For more from At the Side of the Road, please click here.

By Israfel Sivad

In a disheveled castle-like, warehouse of a factory on the outskirts of a distant city, the creator fused soul with mechanism, thought with fusion, spark and fuse. Days and nights and days again – seven days, seven weeks, seven months, seven years, seven decades, seven centuries (if one could live so long – though, that was the point – to infinity) made no difference. Some things have to be completed.

It had been like a dream building that machine – the goal of an eternal ...

From Israfel Sivads short story collection Notes from the Idle Mind.

It began once upon a time

The young man, a boy really, was sitting on a hill looking out over his fathers fields. His neighbors reaped their crops. The wind ran her hand through his hair and cupped her palm about his face. She picked at the strands of grass sticking to his hands. She lifted his head up so that he could stare at the distant horizon of trees beyond the villages farms.

From out of that mesh of foliage, the...