The Terrible
Shadows
by Luis Cuauhtémoc
Berriozábal
The
realities of life are consuming,
like
terrible beasts feasting on your
soul.
They move in like shadows
like
some great oncoming storm.
Infinity
is tiresome. That is why we
do
not live forever. Time softens
wounds,
no matter how intense.
Still,
there are limits to survival.
Who
can live under stress in perpetuity?
The
terrible shadows are always near.
They
stretch out all over your body and digest it.
I
look all around me in search of hope.
I
peer at the sun as it takes
bites
of my flesh with an enormous
hunger
as I become a mortal snack.
Luis lives in Southern
California and works in Los Angeles. His poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review,
Fearless, The Journal of Heroin Love Songs, The Rye Whisky Review, Unlikely Stories,
and Yellow Mama Webzine. His books and chapbooks have been published by Deadbeat
Press, Kendra Steiner Edition, New Polish Beat, Poet's Democracy, Propaganda Press, Pygmy Forest Press, and Ten Pages Press
(e-book).
Terry Butler lives in the country, near
a small town south of San Jose, CA called Hollister. He used to write
steadily, publishing both in print and online as Terence Butler, but after some health
issues, the energy needed to write seemed to dissipate somewhat. He has been a professional
photographer and a painter/collage-assemblage maker for most of his working life, so painting
and photo art have taken the place of genre fiction as an outlet. Recently the
story “Fire Man” appeared all as a piece in his mind so he simply wrote it
down. He sent it to Cindy, and in the ensuing back and forth. They somehow
discussed using some of his visual art, too. Cindy is simply the best, and a
real stalwart in this little world. She has a big heart and a deep love for
animals, too!
