In an earlier incarnation, Hayden Veil enjoyed a successful career in software engineering, writing late-night poetry in pursuit of sanity. On 2 February 2020, the world of Hayden Veil changed: Ghosts became real and with its soul laid bare there was no turning back from the perpetual path of poetry.

I left highway 99 and sped towards Billith

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I left highway 99 and sped towards Billith, Rosie’s Diner the specific target in mind.
With the sun at zenith and my nerves at nadir I slowly dragged my feet across the cobbled yard towards my single source of sustenance for the day.
‘The soup … of the day?’ the proprietor and part time chef said hesitantly, looking bewildered at me. ‘We no longer serve … soup … at this establishment.’ She wiped her beaded forehead and continued, ‘There was a surprise inspection by the Food Stuff and General Health Authority this morning. Apparently they had received a firm complaint from a customer, a boy had given a stern lecture in the composition of soups. Enough quantity of some special kind of crumbs … can’t remember what the inspector called them… ailsome, balesome … apparently needs to be present to call a soup a soup. The boy had even brought all 25 volumes of The Primordial Soup – How to Satisfy the God of the Stomach, as evidence!’
I looked across the empty booths, empty tables, empty chairs. I was the single soul in Rosie’s Diner. A single starving soul that craved soup.
‘So when will you get these “crumbs” delivered?’ I said with as patient a tone I could muster, my knees beginning to weaken.
‘Not for another week I’m afraid. But the inspector left this red emergency push button for… well… emergencies… Is this an emergency?’
‘YES!!!!! … sorry … I need to sit down. Please push press and proceed …. I just need soup right now …’ I sat and my head started spinning. What I saw next could not have been real, and I blame my interpretation of these next events on my lack of soup.
As Rosie slowly placed the red emergency push button on the counter a silence fell across the aisle; the light seemed to dim and a tangible presence could be felt. We looked at each other for what seemed an eternity before I nodded to her to go ahead. The red emergency push button did not light up. Nor did it make any sound. No words were spoken. Nothing needed to be said, we both understood the meaning of scams. But as Rosie made ready to hurl the red emergency push button out the open front door a cloud of smoke swiftly rose between us. Dissipated it left a wide-eyed boy standing in its stead.
‘HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII,’ the boy said. ‘Don’t throw that away! It can be reused you know, like hugs!’
As I drove away from Rosie’s Diner later that afternoon I felt a joy as innocent as that radiating from a newborn child. That joy lasted for days, and I often think back to that specific junction in my life when I first met Jay – a boy of eleven, the source of Innocence and Jaysome.

This is @randomlyjay fan fiction.

In Fair Olympia

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You sneezed and trees in fair Olympia
Awoke the god of gods from deepest sleep
In toppling turmoil rose and kissed your cheeks
As if a wind of change had come to greet
The dawn of dawns of Time and Sorrow gone.

Like liquid core about to crack the earth
Spew forth a golden storm of hate and hurt
Untempered torrents swept the land of Man
Like plague and famine both in search of leaves
My pen delined them all in greyest grey
But barely shivers felt or whispers heard
Among the living dead on this scorched Earth
The dawn of dawns beyond all comprehend.

Shadow Dancing

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My past has no shadows, as shadows need light to live.
Life is a dance between light and night
and the darkness of days.

My present has shadows, but no dance
of happiness or merriment
of being a worldly presence.

My future is unrefined, undefined
as the sun may never rise
above the horizon of maybes and likelihood
of a waltz.

Like Treacle

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Like treacle. Like treacle I say,
my mind gone blank;
Mindless blinkers steer me
towards the sea
slowly 
towards a sea 
of treacle, like treacle I say
my mind gone blank;
Treacle, like treacle the path 
my thoughts wander
these days
my thoughts wander
wade
through treacle
– towards no end.

Dots on the Horizon

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Dots on the horizon, like deliberately bestrewn breadcrumbs in a dusty fairytale, become my path as I hobble through the loveless land. Broken benches snickers as I sail past on windless days. I chew and chew and chew on every golden dot, seeking sustenance in place of salvation; alas, every gilded moth succumb to the snake’s salivation – an offering made of glue to the fools following the crumbs in the stories of old.

Untitled (7170)

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The longer I live the more pain at every remembrance, every recollection, and every revisitation of the forest seeded long ago. 

The longer I live the thinner my skin, translucency revealing an alien presence: someone there but not there; broken branches and crumbling bark. 

The longer I live the less words seem to matter, they shatter like aging glass mirrors meeting fists in fits of alienation; no windfall, merely trunks uprooted by the wrathful wind of ages.
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