The Last Seat(Short and True Story-pg.1)

Prologue: I never wanted to write this story, but very strange circumstances contributed to my conscience to release in eerie detail the unraveling of this grim and true story. This isn't a work of fiction! (This will be in daily portions.) 


                                                                  The Last Seat



     Upon my arrival at St. Thomas School, I was a timid kid and rarely seen dullard who often peed himself at the sight of danger. I believed in God and was beaten almost daily by nuns in wicked habits who expounded their Catholicism rules and left unholy rue in their wake. My quietness was seen as a weakness to their malicious intent to make an example out of me, for they weren't shy to expose me as their pet of humility. I went to bed crying many nights dreading school and became aloof and withdrawn, and yet my mother always seems to make things better and secured me that I was loved. I had two other brothers, one older and one younger, and two sisters, two older and two younger, they were loving and supportive. My mother was a devoted Catholic, we never missed mass on Sundays, and Lent and Advent were colossal events for us. She told me to endure the strict providences of the church and school because it will lead me to true love and reassurance of an afterlife. She was the greatest. 
     I was a very shy kid, my shadow was even scared of other shadows, but I loved the great outdoors, and our school had over 500 roaming acres and a rolling river, and I would many times run to the river and back on lunch break, no easy task, it's almost a mile away. I thought I was the fasted kid in school until I met Rusty Bradley, a kid so cool and athletic. But, he too was aloof and kept his distance from everyone. We played basketball at recess, and Rusty had a sweet shot, and a mastered guard and his defense were impeccable. He rarely bragged, and we grew together at St. Thomas School. My visits now looking back to that lovely schoolyard still resonates with echoing sounds of laughter and screaming of joy. Erudition from a nun in an all black and white habit would terrify any kid, I still remember the rule beatings of knuckles, hardly a death sentence, but it was pure terror back then. 

                                                                        1

Who Is This Master Of Mice?

Who is this god who rules our fate, and
who spares no man and no living thing? 
We are mere mortar to his pestle, there
are no ledgers to keep his omni-genocide;
he has scored atrocities bigger than any
tyrant, king, or despot, he loves mind
torture like some mad sadist, we are but 
mice to his yielding power, we are impotent 
to his horrid killings, one-by-one we all 
fall to his sword, he strikes without any 
warning, he loathes us mortals like an 
ant despises water.
How many more worlds does he own?
He wants penance served like a warrant
to ransom, he's never held in contempt,
he wants adulation and endless gratitude, 
he reprieves no one who does not kneel 
before him, he holds a check upon our
daily lives and there's no escape this
charade of cat and mouse, for we are not
qualified or required to be judges, for there
are no laws to judge this god of his crimes;
wherein death suffering only begins. 

- John Hardesty 

Cannibalism(Haiku)

A Tantalus tale-
gods don't dine upon mortals
they just rip hearts out. 

* At the House of Atreus, was a king named Lydia, for whom had a child named Tantalus, who brought upon himself the most despicable punishment by a most despicable deed, but he was
Zeus' favorite mortal, and had privileges few mortals had, and his most privilege was an
honored mortal to eat at the table of the Gods, but Tantalus despised them all, so he plotted
a plan; he killed and boiled his son, Pelops, and then served him up to the banquet of the Gods,
but you can't fool Olympians, they knew immediately, backed away from the table, and their
anger grew and turned upon Tantalus, they couldn't kill Zeus' favorite mortal but declared 
Tantalus an arch-sinner, and placed him by a gleaming pool in Hades, and whenever Tantalus 
became thirsty, he would bend to drink from the stream, but only have the fresh water to recede, and above him hanged fresh dates and golden apples, and figs, but each time he tried to
reach for one, they would shrivel and die upon the vine or stem. Thus, giving us the word: Tantalizing. 

Rara Avis(Haiku)

A visit and tweets
from my dearest feathered friends-
God bless this forum.

- John Hardesty 

Obstinate

Sometimes one must remove the mountain before one sees the light.

- John Hardesty 

Implication of Guilt

The vacuity of despair
hangs on by the slightest of hairs,
where love once entangled
now, grief wrangles
upon this propped-up pylon
of uncertainty, we all die upon,
where Judas' heart raped thy sacred bond
for whom pillage and loot then abscond
from your life without recourse 
or an answer or remorse-
brutality's saber so unkind
it cuts the slice that always reminds
that you were loved by someone
but, now is overrun
by guilt and iniquity 
and an overdrawn draft of pity.

- John Hardesty 

This Side Of Hell

The delicate hush of loneliness 
lives among the most fragile, weary, and
forgotten,
she's the godmother of hopelessness
whose dawn shines brighter than Aurora, 
to be rude to her is a tragedy, 
she smiles while depriving you of
love and joy, her keepsakes are but 
your emanations of torture, 
her scourge wounds deep within and
exalts every weakness, harrowing the 
misery she keeps, there's no counterforce
to her wrath, she'll duplicate every memory
and forgotten elucidated pleasure, an emblem
of profound despair, the decadence of relived death;
to rectify this decomposed transcendency is to
hem in the past of forsaken portals and lives
harmed in contempt and dereliction; 
ergo, may you endure and walk beside the ghosts
for whom entangled and intermingled the windows of
the distant past, you owe no one an apology or 
any explanation, life's filled with snares of
disappointments, to bite your leg off to escape, now
that's the sign and mark of a hero, but you thought
best to live on this side of Hell instead. 

- John Hardesty