https://toaster.wtf/ Recent content on toasterlizard Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us toasterlizard@gmail.com (Benjamin Arthaud) toasterlizard@gmail.com (Benjamin Arthaud) Wed, 25 Apr 2018 01:29:03 +0200 https://toaster.wtf/about/ Wed, 25 Apr 2018 01:29:03 +0200 toasterlizard@gmail.com (Benjamin Arthaud) https://toaster.wtf/about/ https://toaster.wtf/2016/02/remembering-life/ Sun, 21 Feb 2016 01:41:16 +0500 toasterlizard@gmail.com (Benjamin Arthaud) https://toaster.wtf/2016/02/remembering-life/ Friday night, there were a couple poetry anthologies sitting by my coffee table that she’d been wanting to borrow for a while. So of course, my mother and I end up talking about Whitman, Dickinson, and Frost. About how we both prefer Faulkner to Hemingway, even though A Farewell to Arms had such a profound impact on me, re-reading it after ~7 years in the Army. We talked about how even though she was alive during the beat generation, it made sense to her that Burroughs and Kerouac had a greater impact on my life than hers. https://toaster.wtf/2014/12/hole/ Thu, 18 Dec 2014 04:34:57 +0500 toasterlizard@gmail.com (Benjamin Arthaud) https://toaster.wtf/2014/12/hole/ The further we fell in the holes we’d dug for ourselves, the less the depth seemed to matter. Ten feet? Twenty? Fifty? It doesn’t make the light above seem that much smaller. Always reachable, we tell ourselves. Always reachable, if we really wanted. After all, we were the ones digging. Our choices – ours alone. How easy it is to keep digging. So what, if we hit rock bottom? Such an easy thing to swap the shovel for the pickaxe; dig further. https://toaster.wtf/2013/09/pond/ Thu, 19 Sep 2013 03:55:52 -0500 toasterlizard@gmail.com (Benjamin Arthaud) https://toaster.wtf/2013/09/pond/ Take a breath. Pause. The buzz of worries and concerns fades. Watch the stars twinkle and dance with their tracers across the sky. Feel the world spinning beneath your feet; slight hum as souls cry out in love, but also pain. Hear your own pulse as a “thrum.. thrum..” in your ears, gently reminding that time still passes. Soft murmur of the breeze; the quiet susurration of socks on carpet. https://toaster.wtf/2013/08/pennies/ Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:01:54 +0500 toasterlizard@gmail.com (Benjamin Arthaud) https://toaster.wtf/2013/08/pennies/ I am not faultless. If I knew how to recite an “Our Father,” I could pave a road with those words to unfurl for a marathon runner. Sometimes we use bodies and pretend they’re marionettes. Automatons. You whisper into someone’s ear so they will place their hand on your chest, or that when they cradle you into the ebb of sleep they will purposely attempt to match their breathing to your own tempo. https://toaster.wtf/2013/01/into-the-fire/ Thu, 10 Jan 2013 03:51:24 -0500 toasterlizard@gmail.com (Benjamin Arthaud) https://toaster.wtf/2013/01/into-the-fire/ Some things etched by blood and fire; iron, heat, the grit of sand - somehow ever-present in your teeth - the smell of cordite. The rumble of the truck. The shock of the main charge. Lead truck tossed in the air, all five tons landing twisted; some child’s discarded bit of play dough. Waiting for a secondary; doesn’t come. Giving the order to dismount. First rocket cutting you off, drowning you out, hitting the truck, rocking it hard.