Pieces of Time

By Steven Thomas Dykes

“Pieces of Time”:

“Pieces of Time” is the fourth novel by Artist Steven Thomas Dykes, and is a collection of prose, short stories, essays, theories, and poems written over 20 years of travels throughout the world.

At the age of thirty-nine, he has decided to release this novel, with two feats of purpose:

1) The eclectic/diverse styles of writing that define him as an artist
2) The maturity and transcendence his writing has traveled throughout his time on this earth.

From “A Night in Amsterdam” to “At Dublin International”, to “Voyage to San Diego”, “The Essence of Politics”, “The Importance of Diversity”, “Will Man be Content With Nature”, “Fear Vs. Ignorance”, and “Self-Manifested Gluttony”, coming through with “The Last Lesson”, “Rest In Peace”, “To Question A Man of Divine Nature”; these are all examples of short stories, prose, political essays, theological essays, prose; all are still a mainstay of his self-educated style of thematic nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669813613

Steven Thomas Dykes

Steven Thomas Dykes was born in 1982 to Larry and Dinah Dykes, in the city of Topeka, Kansas. At the tender age of 18, he self-published his first novel, "In The Town of Comfortability." In the past decade since he has been focusing on writing poetry for submission to publishers, for which he has received recognition from several companies, with awards, publisher's choices, and inductions into poetry societies. He has also been seeking self-education, for which his studies include history, psychology, philosophy, current events, poetry and classical tales of literature. Symbolism has been a mainstay in all of his writings. This is his third publication.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Steven Thomas Dykes.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/24/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

828014

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

I find in my ignorance, my wisdom….and in the knowledge of the uncertain I bask in the illumination of the solar rays blinding me to a comfort only found in those who accept the nature of divinity being that which we cannot proclaim!

"The Fault, dear Brutis,

Is not in the stars,

But in ourselves"

- William Shakespeare, Hamlet

The search of the sub-conscious mind, and that being endless, my spirit is that of a clear, country moonlit sky! So full of magnanimous glory! Listen to the wind on the midnight hour and hear the whispers which only the enlightened can comprehend!

The twenty years that have passed, it is not the days nor hours, yet the memories which I have collected amongst these Pieces of Time!

DEDICATION

T o Via - - we’ll always have Paris……

MISSION STATEMENT

M y intent is to bring about a smile. But if this incites you to vomit, that is equally as satisfactory! It is the goal of all great art to create a reaction…good, bad or indifferent…if you are evoked to thought then I have completed my mission!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

C over Art: Steven Dykes

Editor: Dinah Dykes

INTRODUCTION

"O lympian Guards who sang

Divine ideas below,

Which always find us young

And always keep us so.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poetry from The Poet: 2

PRELUDE

"T he epic day’s flight, but tonight, we decide to light the matches to watch them burn. – Steven Thomas Dykes

FISHING

By: Thomas Zumbrum

I love to go fishing

Just sitting on the bank wishing

That I could catch a big one

While sitting here in the sun

I lie there almost asleep

And with one eye, I do peep

And I see that my bobber has sunk

I grab for my pole a fish hooked in the nose

I wade in the water to get my pole

And slip and fall into a very deep hole….

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I PROSE

II SHORT STORY

III IDEOLOGY

IV THEOLOGY

V RATED X

VI. EPILOGUE

I

PROSE

n. Ordinary Language: speech or writing which is not poetry.

1. At The End Of Life’s Vacation

2. Madness

3. A Firefly

4. I Love You

5. With Love

6. At Sundown

7. Sand And Flowers

8. A New Land

9. Tombstone

10. The Myth of Santa Claus

11. This Bankrupt World

12. My Root for Artistic Insomnia

13. The Suicide of Mojo Risin’

14. The Last Triumph of the Wooden Indian

15. A Day at The Beach

AT THE END OF

LIFE’S VACATION

a. A look back on life after returning from Mexico in March of 2013…

I collect the whispers of prosperity, learning the luxury that is time; and yet I remain knowingly perplexed by the answer being a black hole amongst the atmosphere that paints the stars of yester years, knowing our memories are all we have in life! Details, what I have read in consistency, but the volume of the music in the moments of sadness is gone.

So, I say, onward to the future! And let it stare at me with death in the eyes; for, I will not quiver about the things I cannot control! Palms facing out, and I am certain of one thing, that I want, for nothing!

Steven Thomas Dykes

MADNESS

Being a man of intellect, I question my own madness

"No great intellect has been without a

touch of madness" – Aristotle

A s a philosopher of the New Age, modern technology has forced me into a basement of seclusion, using an extensive library for my research, as well as a pen a notepad to record the depths of my mind. Finding beauty in its depravity, I think we all must negotiate with the devil in order to find any resemblance of true sanity. Even the most well-constructed human beings have thoughts of insanity, and better yet, they hide behind the fear of those thoughts in order to do what makes them seem sane to society.

Far from it, I considered myself trapped in the realm of truth, and abide only to write my infectious linguistic stylings with the honesty only one who disregards his own self in order to set a precedent for my generation and beyond. I know I can never change the past, but the ability to inspire the future is still a possibility I chance upon my fate. No financial, nor personal gain to dilute my opinion; I express madness to some, but understanding to the open soul, in truth!

I believe it was Nietzsche who said, out of chaos comes order. His philosophy and work have inspired us all one way or another, whether we can admit it or not…. knowingly or unknowingly.

What does not kill you only makes you stronger.

I am quite sure you have heard that before in times of grief.

A FIREFLY

T o this date I cannot conclude any significant change in my detachment from the experience of a broken light bulb yet catching fire without an environment of glass. So broken to the touch, my skin is a rough exterior, but my soul is as thin as a blade of grass. I watch and greet all the challenges that come forth, yet I forego the simplicity of leading a life of normality. A nine to five job, a wife and two kids, a white picket fence surrounding our acre of grass; I have come to grips with this never being an option of a starving artist. What you see is not what you get whenever I look into her eyes…Each chance at love I fall that much harder, believing that fate is destined sooner rather than later, the hurt they leave has begun decaying my heart. Piece by piece, I am losing my faith in true love at the fanciful age of 26…. And time will never slow down.

That is why I cannot conclude any significant change to my plight. But without that plight, I would not hold the freedom to express these words with sincerity. If you have never been alone, you can never define loneliness…. just as if you have never been poor, you can never define poverty…I, too, can honestly take these years as a gift from the starving artist that lives inside all of us. The only difference is that few of us neither recognize our talents nor desire to achieve the greatness they hold. To be remembered in the pages of history, part of becoming an individual, is finding what makes us happy and sharing it with someone. Well, I simply chose to share my chance at immortality with you.

Why must I decide between the two extremities of life? It must have been better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all…...a query passed through the ages as truth, but I find myself questioning the meaning of this quotation. The only conclusion brought forth to the date is that love is like catching an evening firefly; so tender to the eye, he flies with a trace of hope in finding his truth, and that being caught in a glass bottle by the hands of time which God granted us life. We fly simply to move…. we were born to die…. yet I will never stop flying.

I LOVE YOU

T he actions spent here are with the endeavor to those who came before me in proof of everything they did and everything they saw was true and right. Civilization was built on the ability to communicates one’s desires and fear. Language, therefore, is the foundation for which the human mind has evolved, and without it, we would still be as primitive as troglodytes. I find instinct is the only law the human psyche in which mankind is first manifested.

Hieroglyphics were the first example of mans’ desire to evolve through the lessons of his predecessors. Uncompromising men are easy to admire, but it is compromise that makes a society noble. Without the ability to carefully construct our deepest thoughts on spirituality, never would there be any rivers that run red. Religion is considered to be the highest structure of human stability, yet in a society it has caused wars throughout the history of the world. It makes you think that if we had never evolved psychologically, that maybe we would have focused more on the human instinct of survival, procreation, and finding a dwelling. To eat, to drink, to have shelter, to provide… These are the main things that we desire daily within our human instinct. We must deal with the basic necessities of life, yet the impoverished walk it as if on a tightrope, constantly and daily. Whereas those who are affluent are provided the luxuries that capital gain has brought them will never know the full complexities of the human soul.

It was once said that a man left alone was a man left to die. When we ignore a certain group of society, for reasons that could be defined as incomprehensible, we lose a certain part of our soul that was founded on the nature which you cannot miss what you have never had. Your sense of objective reasoning in all that makes us mankind; human integrity, can you imagine if you have everything you ever desired financially yet do not have any of the complexities which the human soul requires.

Better yet, one loses touch with your sense of plight, with your sense of objective reasoning, with all the makes mankind: Human Integrity. Imagine if you have everything you want financially, but do not have the completeness of the soul of one who hasn’t eaten in three days and is putting ink to paper in hopes of inspiring this apathetic country.

Apathy, greed, human decency; mankind has lost its soul through the birth of capitalism; the birth and evolvement of technology, and the vastly increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

I have been alone, and my stomach growls for the nourishment I need. But I do not find it in me to feed, bathe, or even clothe myself. This is what has happened to original instinct. It has evolved so far that it could only do one thing: devolve. Why should I take a shower? Why should I go to sleep? Why should I change to who I am not? For society? For family? For love? For God? For whom?

A similar situation arises without a cloud of doubt, and my shooting star falls on the other side of the valley. I won’t dare call it a mountain, Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ already mastered the tale of morality through climbing up Mount Sinai and St. Bernard’s travels to the top, experiencing the lessons of the seven terraces of purgation. The one thing I believe he wrote that few other morality tales tell is that of the hell on earth. The everyday struggle to come to terms with life’s paradoxes. The questions I have supposed and the questions that I have yet to dissect…Morality and what is treasonable act upon your soul. The difficult part is you never know if you have done the right or wrong thing until the act itself is complete. Wholeness comes only when the act has already been taught, and the reaction already is well documents; you know exactly how to avoid your natural instinct.

Avoidance is a tact once prescribed but not recommended. You can transform and reconfigure your life through time spent alone, but you will never find true happiness.

I am still the hopeless romantic of old… Shakespearian in my conquest, every love story has an ending without closure. I find myself more and more feeling guilt for my past towards women, but this was a time when I was so perplexed with the nature of love. Giving everything you have inside you to someone who gives but lies, hurts and cheats on you. Telling you that they never had a father, and that they never met a guy they could trust. I wanted to prove to her that not all is hopeless, but in the meanwhile, I lost touch of my heart and soul. She took it, and it was because I gave it to her. Nobody can take something, trust, if you don’t give it to them. Cheating on me up to eight times in the five-year span that I stayed with her, just in the hopes she would one day change. I just found out that she is getting married, and I am still all alone. Six years later…

So much to dissect, yet so little instruments to operate, and learn about what is inside the mind and not what is acted out through the body. Actions can only tell us instinct, while the sub-conscious can only be studied through the self. One can only try to find the answer to why you asked each grain of dust for as many birthdays, instead of asking for them to be years of youth. Twenty-five years old and I am still a writer. I never ask where the time has gone or tell myself I need to do something with my life. I am ready to die, and I can say that with the firm stature in knowing the difference between being ready and wanting to die. That is the diversity of my dark obsession with the inevitable. You can only count so high, you can only put a certain number of candles on your birthday cake, you can only have one first love.

Haunting my every chance, I find the most mundane reasoning for concealing out a significant other that is almost phobic. I try to look at how imperfect I am every time I look in the mirror, yet I strive for perfection with the women in my dreams. They have kept me warm; they have kept me safe, they have never left me, and they will always come back.

I Love You,

Steven Thomas Dykes

WITH LOVE

Written while lying on a beach in Cancun, Mexico)

W hat wonder I create! Majestic and uncanny, my heart is warm with only good intentions, for it is I who lives…. I that breathes this air of tranquility. My sense of the sub-conscious bears to withstand only reason, and even that has its’ landslides. So, I hold on tight to what I love! In the hands of time, let yourself smile!

From the whispers in the wind,

May I find you at peace,

With love,

Steven Thomas Dykes

AT SUNDOWN

Eat to please thyself, but dress to please other.

- Benjamin Franklin

A fter the realization of my plight, I tackled my bearings and set my sight for night clubs to attend! Finding several within a couple blocks of my hotel, I came back up to my room to find that scent that might attract one of the one hundred…thousands of beautiful girls in the City of Gold. For me, there was no doubt of its name, and now it was up to Dolce and Gabbana, spraying the scent that will stay with me, and like a wolf, I would circle my prey.

Let’s start from the bottom up; shoes talk about the man and I had a pair of black alligator skin Stacy Adams Boots. Next comes